May 17th, 2009
Another month, another klik. I had no plan and I was late, so I just made the first thing that came to mind, which was this thing: the ultimate twitch-reflex action, color-based game. Yes, it’s that bad. Used Construct, once again, plus LMMS and sfxr for the audio.
Download Colormatch (Windows, requires latest DirectX)
1Apr 20th, 2009
What you see above is my computer screen during the past weekend (each hour reduced to 2.5 seconds), as I make two games for two events that were held concurrently. One is a competition called Ludum Dare, on which, during the 48 hours of its duration, participants are expected to create a game by themselves and ‘from scratch’. The week prior, participants vote on a theme. ‘Advancing wall of doom’ won this time, which is not one I’m too fond of, but I did participate and make a game. Or two, in fact, because for the other event, my usual two-hour Klik of the Month, I made a game based on the same theme.
Heart is the name of my Ludum Dare entry. The game is not final, and neither is the name, so let’s say it’s the competition version’s name. It was inspired by Stephen Lavelle’s Defect. It was made for Flash, using the Flex SDK and coded in Actionscript 3. I’ll probably post more about it in the future, when I decide that the game is finished.
Hope! is what I called my Klik of the Month. It was made in Construct, so it’s Windows only. You will need the latest DirectX to run it.
4Mar 23rd, 2009
Another Klik of the Month, and another game made in two (and a half) hours. This time it’s an audio game, no graphics. To tell the truth, the idea for this game seemed much cooler in my head than the result, but what am I going to do. I might make a more involved game with the general idea for this game in the future. If you play it, please, excuse my poor diction.
Download NSBD System Console (Windows, requires latest Direct X). The password is 5467.
Also, remember how Matt made music for my past two Kliks? Well, this time he didn’t, because he made a game himself. Nice!
Dec 21st, 2008
A first: I finished my Klik of the Month Klub entry within the time limit. It is, sadly, a step down from last month’s. This time I didn’t really know what to do, until I just decided to go for this idea of exploding fireworks I had at some point. I didn’t feel particularly inspired. The result is not really a game, more like a short-lived toy. Matt helped out with the music, once again, and it really fits.
Download Explode (Windows, requires the latest DirectX).
Nov 17th, 2008
Last saturday I participated again in this month’s Klik of the Month Klub. This time I didn’t use Klik & Play to make my game, because I had heard of a different software, modelled around Clickteam’s own (creators of Klik & Play), but improved, called Construct. It’s still in beta, but it’s a very complete package nonetheless. Much like last time, I used that very day’s afternoon to learn to use the software, scribbled a few notes on the game I was going to make, and in the evening, proceeded to spend two hours figuring out how to do stuff. The resulting game is more complex than last time’s Runaway Blast, simply because Construct is so much more capable than K&P.
I am forgetting something. Before the event had started, I told my friend lofi that he should participate too. He didn’t want to, though, so I asked him to make some music for my game instead. Luckily for me, he agreed! Truly, the game has become worthy of people’s time just because of the cool music that he provided.
What you see above is how the game looks like in its second version. Download Where and play it, if you feel like it (Windows only). This is a much improved version of what I originally submitted an hour after the deadline (because I had some trouble getting other people to hear the music; other than that, I finished it only ten minutes past the deadline). Since the original suffered from some issues I didn’t have the time to fix, I spent several hours figuring out how to do so afterwards. What I didn’t have the time for, in the end, was improving the collisions, but that’s comparatively minor.
In Where, I just wanted to make some radical decisions. I basically wrote down the first few ideas I came up with, but since it was going to be a very small game, in order to make it memorable, some radical choices needed to be made. This is why I decided to obstruct the player’s view with large floating text, and use a psychedelic selection of colors. Since these contributed to a non-harmonic experience, I decided to make the gameplay conceptually frustrating as well: descending a ‘tower’ with an avatar that can’t stop jumping. The text used itself also helps to heighten these principles. And lofi’s music felt right at home when I first played it with it.
1Aug 18th, 2008
What happens if you mix a group of people, an old and crippled game-making software, and two hours on a Saturday evening? Awesomeness happens, that is what. It’s the basic premise of the Klik of the Month Klub; you grab Klik & Play, a buggy, limited and old (from 1994) software that is nevertheless endearing and fun to use (also free,) then make a game with it during those two hours. The results are often broken and nigh-unplayable, but hilarious or even enlightening.
You can’t do a lot during that short span of time, so not being overly ambitious is key. Last saturday was my first time participating in the monthly event, and I thought that I was going to have about an hour’s worth of time to work on my game, since I was supposed to go visit some photography exhibitions, which in the end didn’t happen. Given my lack of familiarity with the (at times esoteric) software, my humble aspirations were, nevertheless, extremely helpful. My design document, if we can call it that, was scribbled only a few minutes before the two hours started. Sadly, I ended up going 40 minutes over the deadline, which is not actually enforced, since it’s all just in good fun, but still. The end result is a game I called Runaway Blast; you can download the slightly polished version of the game, or, if you’re feeling adventurous, the original from the official thread of the KOTMK #14, though you’ll need some DLL files only included in the other package.
It was an exciting experience, being there in the IRC channel, everyone making terrible games together, sharing advice (or asking for it, as I was doing) and just having fun. Afterwards, everyone trying out each others games, sharing praise or anecdotes. I will certainly try to be there next time too.
So, my game. The main idea was to make it a tense pursuit, to be outnumbered and with little resources, that is, only your wits (and some timed bombs) to aid you against the brainless mass of enemies. Which is not unlike a zombie game (survival horror,) now that I think about it. The map that I drew in my sketch illustrates this, but being surrounded from every side would have made it difficult to be strategic. The resulting mechanics are not too bad; not incredibly original or engaging, but for a first attempt, and for having been made in under three hours, it’s not a half bad result. Of course, what I’m not mentioning here is that the game is broken: you can go through walls, even though you’re not meant to. The limitations in the software made this unavoidable; attempting to overcome them would have costed me too much time, and I’m certain that it would have been worthless, considering the scope of my efforts. Had all conditions met, my character would have actually followed the pointer with a specific velocity, which would have fixed the wall-crossing bug and also made the game more challenging, since you would not be able to outrun your enemies quite as easily. The game will stay as it is, though, so we will all have to learn to live with that.
