Posts Tagged 'games'

ARGH, I mean, hello!

Published July 18, 2011 games 6 Comments
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Haha, just got a bit of a traffic spike from SomethingAwful and Reddit, based on Small Worlds, so I thought I should probably make some sort of news post in response. So, BREAKING NEWS: I’m crazy busy right now with animation work, so game-dev has fallen by the wayside a bit, but Sentinel and Two are definitely still in (gradual) development.

In smaller game news: Fireflight has failed utterly at gathering a sponsor; I wondered for a while whether I should modify it to be more sponsor-friendly (read: discrete levels and an upgrade shop,) but having ignored it for a couple of months it seems pretty obvious that the right thing to do is to just release it as is, without a sponsor: Hopefully I’ll find the time to do that this week. No promises though! I am bad at those.

On the other hand, the animation side of things is going pretty awesomely well. Remember this thing we made at rathergood last year? It turns out we’re making a full half-hour Christmas special based on it, narrated by some amazing stroke of luck by Steve Coogan. Making a half-hour animation in four months doesn’t leave much time for gamedev though, which is why this blog has gone a bit quiet recently. But: we’re set to finish the film in mid september, so I’ll definitely have some exciting news in roughly two month’s time. Argh there I go again making promises.

Right: So, without making any more rash promises, here’s my gamedev schedule – Pretty soon you’ll be able to play Fireflight. Then in September, I’ll be able to give you proper news with regards to Sentinel, Two, and a proper multi-platform, upgraded release of Rocket Storm. Then, I will become Emperor of Space.

I promise!

Ahem.

Looking better

Published August 23, 2010 games Leave a Comment
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New screens!

(click for full-size)

(click for full size)

Look at my new thing!

Published March 18, 2010 games 8 Comments
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Hello!

So I’m working on a new game! I’ve been secretly tinkering with it for a while now, but this week it’s really started to take shape. I’ve got a great feeling about this – hopefully it’ll be something special.

I mentioned a while ago that I had a couple of ideas for new games – specifically, that I had an idea that was visually quite close to Small Worlds, and another idea that had a brand new, exciting, and radically different aesthetic!

New game!

This is not that idea.

So, yes, it looks quite a lot like Small Worlds. I fully intended to put this one on the back-burner and concentrate on some of the many non-chunky-pixel game ideas I’ve had, but then I was sitting on the 9:30 from Stratford a few weeks ago staring out the window at some lovely chunky blocky office buildings and suddenly the game leapt back into the front of my mind along with a whole bunch of really interesting game mechanic ideas, and I haven’t been able to banish it since.

So I figured, what the heck.

I don’t really have a title yet – I’m calling in ‘Entanglement,’ because that’s the first thing that sprung to mind, but I don’t really like that so hopefully I’ll be able to think up something better before it’s finished. I don’t want to give too much away right now, but I can confirm that it’s an exploration-based platformer, although it has a far stronger emphasis on interaction and puzzles than Small Worlds had, and a cunning twist that for the moment must remain a tantalising secret.

I can’t give a definite release date yet – it’s still a long way from that – but I reckon it’s weeks rather than months. I’ll keep you updated!

In other news, I didn’t win a Mochi! Small Worlds was nominated in the ‘Creative’ category in the Mochi Awards at the recent Flash Game Summit, but lost out to the absolutely excellent Time Fcuk. The also excellent Windosill was the other finalist – I can very strongly recommend you give both games a try – Windosill costs money, but not very much, and there’s a demo (the link above!) so you can see how good it is for free.

Oh, I also made another sort-of-game for my cruel overlords at rathergood.com. You’ll need a microphone to play, but if you have one, I can absolutely promise that you’ll have the best experience of your life playing Mind Control.*

Please don’t judge me.

* Disclaimer: You may not have the best experience of your life.

Hear My Voice In Your Head

Published November 20, 2009 games 21 Comments
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Van Hemlock, Way Too Casual, and Armor Games. Hooray for them all!

I was recently interviewed by the Van Hemlock Podcast about Small Worlds and general indie game stuff! You can listen to the whole show here. There’s a spot of nepotism here, since the co-host Jon is my brother, but if you like to hear two siblings bickering over nothing in particular (and who doesn’t!) then it’s the thing for you!

They gave me absolutely no warning whatsoever for the interview, so I had nothing prepared, which is my excuse for sounding like a total idiot. I haven’t actually listened to it yet, but I vaguely recall rambling incoherently about nothing in particular for twenty minutes. I think I might have even mentioned the game once. Oh lordy I hope it’s not too embarrassing.

In other podcast news, the brand new Jay Is Games/Flash Game License podcast, Way Too Casual just kicked off, and in their first episode they talk about Small Worlds, and how to pronounce my surname. Hooray! I am officially the most famous man on the planet, apart from several million others.

In other news, Small Worlds has been up on Armor Games for a week or so now, and has just pipped the 250,000 plays mark! I know, it’s nothing compared to the 10 million + views that some of the games on that site get, but it’s still an unimaginably high number for me. Thanks everyone! Reading the comments thread is nerve-wracking though; it’s much like YouTube in respect to the crushing lack of restraint shown by commenters. If they don’t like your game, they sure don’t beat around the bush.

Oh hey wow

Published November 9, 2009 games 37 Comments
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I won!

Casual Gameplay Design Competition #6 results

I’m absolutely overwhelmed by how my little game has done – I didn’t expect it to do well at all, and I certainly never thought it could win the competition.  I’ve been avidly and obsessively reading every forum and comment thread in which it’s been mentioned over the last couple of weeks; if you’ve said something nice about it then I’ve probably read it and it made me happy, so thanks a lot!

Thanks so much to everyone who voted for Small Worlds, and especially the staff at jayisgames.com, who organised the competition.  It’s a great site, and it’s brought some real indie gems to my attention over the last year or so.

Anyway, I should be thinking about making another game probably.  I had a vague idea about making a user-created-content version of Small Worlds, where people could upload new worlds for each other to explore, but the technical side would need some thought.  I have an idea for something else, but it’s more pixel art – maybe I should try a completely different aesthetic next.

The Music of Small Worlds

Published November 7, 2009 games , music 8 Comments
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I’ve had a few people ask me for the music used in Small Worlds, which all comes from Kevin MacLeod’s excellent resource site, incompetech.com. Kevin is a fantastic musician who posts his work online under a very liberal creative commons license, so if you’d like .mp3s of the tracks, they can all be downloaded from there. (Follow the ‘royalty free music’ link at the top of the page.)

The five tracks used in Small Worlds are:

Aftermath
Frost Waltz
Sad Trio
Serene
To The Ends

Enjoy!

Small Worlds entered into CGDC #6!

Published October 28, 2009 games 19 Comments
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Small Worlds

My pretentious little art-game Small Worlds is finished, and has been entered into the Jay Is Games Casual Gameplay Design Competition #6! Voting is open right now – you can play and rate all the games here.

There are some really nice games in the competition aside from Small Worlds – here are my picks:

How My Grandfather Won The WarHow My Grandfather Won The War (By OneMrBean)
An absolutely beautiful side-scrolling shmup. Don’t be fooled by the relaxing aesthetic, though, it’s pretty punishing in places.
Hell TourHell Tour (by NOB Studio)
A very slickly produced strategy/rpg sort of thing.  Finishing the game isn’t difficult, but there’s a surprising amount of depth involved in trying to max out all your stats before you get there.
Full MoonFull Moon (By Bart Bonte)
A hugely likeable point-and-click puzzler with a satisfying degree of variety to all its single-screen challenges.
Fantasy of the SordThe Fantasy of the Sord (By Klint Honeychurch)
A defiantly retro metroidvania with some lovely chiptune music and an absolutely impossible final boss.

So there you go – if you have a moment, please give some of the games a play, and vote for any you think deserve to win.

Small Worlds
Rathergood games
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