New blog with M-W-F update schedule!

Anybody still reading this (now defunct) blog, please direct yourself to my new blog at: http://allgamerevue.blogspot.com/

It's that time of year again....

Ludum Dare time! For those that don't know, Ludum Dare is a thrice-yearly event in which people from around the world attempt to create video games from start to finish in 72 hours centered around the theme.  The theme, which won't be announced until the start of the contest, is chosen through multiple rounds of voting, and has been narrowed down to twenty finalists. 

I thought it might be fun to go through the different proposed themes, talk about potential ideas, and cite already existing games for inspiration.  The way I see it, the challenge lies not just in following the theme, but in taking a different twist on it then everyone else.

Abandoned - This is a pretty broad theme.  It could be about an abandoned town or house, in the vein of Gone Home, or about a person or child who has been abandoned.  Definitely expect to see a lot of horror-themed games for this one.

 Alone in the World - The obvious way to go on this one would be an I Am Legend style, post-apocalyptic setting, but I think there's other options.  Maybe you're in a populated world, but you're totally unique, the only one of your kind - maybe the last of your species, or maybe the world's first fully sentient robot.

A Map Will Be Useful - I'd expect to see a lot of dungeon crawlers and Zelda-style adventures on this one; probably a fair share of Metroidvanias, too.  An interesting twist might be forcing the player to create their own map, a la Etrian Odyssey.

Attraction - Expect to see a lot of visual novels on this one, but probably some magnet-style puzzlers, as well.  Might be interesting to do a Katmari Darmacy or Bit.Trip Void style game here.

A World in the Skies - an easier theme, as it really only informs the setting, not the gameplay. Still, expect to see a lot of airship games in the style of Skies of Arcadia or Guns of Icarus.

Beyond the Wall  - Another pretty broad theme. Probably going to see a lot of RPGs on this one, as it sets up perfectly for a hero's quest style story - you're the first person in eons to venture outside your home town's walls, etc.

Build Your Way Out - Expect everyone to make Minecraft or Gary's Mod clones for this one.  It's going to be hard to come up with a game that meets the theme without going in that direction, and thus very hard to stand out from among the crowd.  Maybe a Lemmings clone?

Can’t Stop Moving - Here's a prime example of where creativity will be required to stand out.  Expect everyone to make endless runners - they're popular, easy to program, and fit the theme to a tee.  A better way to go would be to look at it metaphorically - maybe you're a guy on the run from on town to the next, being chased by an unseen enemy.

Chain Reaction - I'd expect to see a lot of match-3 puzzlers here - another genre that's easy and popular.  Probably some science games, too.  A more interesting take might be to do an Ikaruga-style shooter.

Companion - Another theme that would probably see a fair share of visual novels.  You could do a game based around controlling two characters, like Cookies & Cream or ilomilo.

Day and Night - The obvious angle would be to do a game based around a day and night cycle, like Majora's Mask or Castlevania 2.  You could also take a more yen/yang approach and do something in the vein of Ikaruga.

Death is Not the End - You could do something centered around killing yourself - see the next entry - or something like Shadowman or Two Brothers where the afterlife is a big part of the gameplay.

Destroying Yourself - There's actually been a number of puzzle games over the years - Karoshi, End of the Line, Five Minutes to Kill Yourself, Life Goes On - where the point of the game is to kill yourself.  A more creative take might be an action game where your deteriorating - you have one less ability each level, for instance.

Expanding World -  This seems like a perfect fit for randomly generated levels, where you can have a game world that expands infinitely.  Maybe something roguelike or Minecraft-like.

Growing Things - I'd say an RTS game, in the style of Pikmin, would be the obvious way to go with this theme, but RTSs are extremely difficult to program, and definitely don't lend themselves to a three day challenge.  Maybe something in the style of Tamagotchi or the Sonic Adventure Chao Gardens?  Definitely a harder theme.

Limited Capacity - I don't think you're going to see any one definite trend on this one.  Political games, police games, platforms with limited ammo/resources... there's a ton of different interpretations.

No Enemies - One of the trickiest themes on here, because it sets so many rules about the game's design.... unless you wanted to interpret it as "leave none of my enemies standing" or "killing your friends: the game".

One Rule - Sorry guys, I'm gonna be a jerk on this one, but I've got a really awesome idea for this one and it's actually the theme I'm voting for, so I'm keeping my thoughts to myself...

Power Supply - Lot of different ways you could go on this one.  A game about robots? A game about limited ammo or resources?  A game about robots with limited ammo and/or resources?  ...okay, maybe not that many different ways.

You are the Monster - You'll probably see a lot of Rampage and Destroy All Human clones with this one, maybe with some Last Of Us inspired stuff sprinkled in.  Me personally, I'd just make a full-length version of this Warioware game....

Quick Update

Writing a blog post about how you'll be doing more blog posts is kind of a cheat - and definitely one I've been guilty of before in the past.  Still, I felt it was important to postmark the date that the blog went from lame and neglected to awesome and relevant.  Keep an eye here the next few days as I overhaul everything from the theme (goodbye "Syntactic Sugar", hello... something better) to the content to a focus on quantity over quality.

...okay so that last one sounds a little counter-intuitive, so let me explain.  I've been so focused on making sure every post sounds professional and relevant, that I have very little content.  So from now on, expect more funny rants and amusing anecdotes in addition to the programming analysis.

Choose a card, any card...

Currently working on a website for a client... they asked if I could display some cards on a page that had a skill on one side, and when you hovered over with the mouse they flipped to the other side with information about that skill.  My response was, "do they need to look 3D?"  When the answer was no, I told the client I could take care of it right away.

Using JQuery:

  $("#box1").mouseenter(function(){
    var div=$("div");
    div.animate({width:'0px',left:'100',opacity:'0.4'},"slow");
    div.animate({width:'200px',left:'0',opacity:'0.8'},"slow");
  });
  $("#box1").mouseleave(function(){
    var div=$("div");
    div.animate({width:'0px',left:'100',opacity:'0.4'},"slow");
    div.animate({width:'200px',left:'0',opacity:'0.8'},"slow");
  });

The "trick" here is to move the card at the same time you shrink the width, then move it back as you expand the width.  This creates the "flipping" effect.

There's a Starman, waiting in the sky....

I've always maintained that the best-written and most-underrated DC comic is James Robinson's Starman.  For years, I've dreamed of them making a TV show where Jack Knight, donned in his leather jacket, fights evil-doers with his futuristic weaponry (and lack of superpowers) to rockin' seventies tunes.... and now Marvel's beaten them to it with some guy I've never even heard of called Star Lord?!  Com'on, DC, get your act together!

New Year, New Goals

Hey, everyone, it's January!  Time to check in on last year's resolutions, and make new ones (i.e. the same ones because you didn't keep them last year).  Last year, I resolved to make at least one blog post a week, and I mostly succeeded! ...until I started my new job September 2nd, and then haven't posted since.  But! Now that I'm settled in, and it's a new year, it's time to make some new goals:

1. Apachee Cordova
I spent most of 2013 learning to make games in JavaScript, and most of 2014 learning to make them in Python.  In both cases, I became frusterated with the limitations of where and how people could play them.  One of the main attractions of Python for me was the promise of easy portabilitly, but I soon found that Pygame - the main library people use for Python games - didn't have that same flexability.
This year, I plan to get comfertable working in the Visual Studio mainframe.  My goal is to start by creating each project in Cordova, even if I'm not planning on porting it, so that I'll always have the option later.  This way, when I change directions on a project, I won't be faced with the prospect of rewriting it from scratch - something that has happened to me more then once.

2. A New Website
I need to find a place to host my projects - not necessarily a paid domain name, because I'm too poor thrifty for that, but a permanent home where they can live.  In conjunction with that, I also want to unify my "web presence", if you can even call it that.  Currently I have this blog, a twitter, and a tumblr that I may or may not delete.  I need to do a better job of unifying them, navigationally and thematically.

3. Finishing Projects
One of the reasons I have a problem with finishing things is my level of perfectionism - nothing ever feels "good enough" to put out into the world and show off.  One of my favorite quotes is Leonardo Da Vinci's "art is never finished, only abandoned".  I have several projects in various states of done-ness that need to go up on the new (coming soon) website.
Clueball - matching game I created in 2013.  It's technically "done", in that it's playable, but it needs a little spit-polish to really feel finished.  I purposely created in in a wide-screen, in case I ever decided to port it to mobile devices, and the gameplay would be a perfect candidate to do so.  Since it's written completely in JavaScript, it should be a good candidate to cut my teeth on Cordova.
Client-requested projects - I have a couple of projects that were commissioned by clients but then fell thru that I would like to host.  One, an interactive map of the United States, works perfectly but needs to be "rebranded", or in this case have the original branding and purpose removed and turned into a more generic map info program.  The other one, a website, I have permission from the client to show off in it's completed form, but still needs a few more hours of work to be "ready for prime-time".
Wizard's Scroll - a little puzzle game that's probably 65% completed, but that I became frustrated with and abandoned.  Like Clueball, I purposely created it in an aspect ratio that would translate well to mobile devices, just in case, but it turns out the game it evolved into would be better suited for browser play.  That means that, aside from finishing a few levels, the game is in need of a major visual overhaul.  It's something that I didn't feel up to doing, until my wife got me a Wacom tablet for Christmas - now suddenly doing a ton of graphics from scratch sounds more fun than exhausting.

4. New Projects
As usual, I have way more ideas then I have time or energy to use implementing them, but I am looking forward to working on some new things.  And, as I mentioned previously, I have a brand new Wacom that's just dying to be put to use....

Obscure & Underrated #2: Todd's Adventures in Slime World (Atari Lynx)

Something you often see people complain about on the internet is that "video games are easier then they used to be".  There's a lot of differing opinions as to why this is - too many tutorials, too much dumbing down, trying too hard to appeal to a broader audience, etc.  But in my mind, it boils down to one simple fact: modern video games are about simulating what it's like to be awesome and unstoppable, whereas old-school video games are about simulating what it's like to be in incredibly dangerous situations.

Take, for example, Todd's Adventures in Slime World.

The gameplay of Slime World consists of side-scrolling platforming through a series of rooms connected by shootable doors, a la Metroid.  As the name suggests, everything in Slime World is made out of slime - Todd can scale the sticky walls, and there are waterfalls and flowing slime walls to impede your progress.  Everything in the game - from the background to the game's logo - oozes and drips and pulsates with a life of it's own.  Instead of a health bar, Todd slowly turns green every time he gets slimed by an enemy.  If you turn completely green, it's game over, but if you find a freshwater pond to wash off in, you can restore yourself to full health.

As previously mentioned, Slime World is an extremely dangerous place.  Destroying most enemies causes a spray of green slime; get covered with too much, and you're dead.  Get sprayed with red slime, and you die instantly, even if shielded.  Also fatal are the underground Red Snappers, which require looking for tell-tale clues to detect. There are limited-use tools scattered around, such as a jetpack, purifiers that turn slime pools into life-restoring water pools, and my personal favorite, a bomb that blows up everything in the room (you throw it, then quickly run back out the door and watch it detonate).  Similar to a rougelike, the game takes careful planning and deliberation, and a session can take a couple of hours to complete.  Although there aren't any randomly generated levels, Slime World makes up for it by offering seven different "adventures", each one a different game mode with it's own rules, subtleties, and unique map layout.

Slime World was made for the Atari Lynx, an oft-forgotten handheld video game system that existed around the same time as the better-selling Nintendo Game Boy and Sega Game Gear.  Besides boasting full color, the Atari Lynx's biggest selling point was it's multiplayer; Todd's Adventures in Slime World could support up to eight players at one time. (Or so they claimed; I haven't been able to verify this fact, since no one has ever had eight Atari Lynx systems at one time)

Despite it's amazing graphics and features, Todd's Adventures in Slime World didn't find much of an audience, due mostly to the rarity of Atari Lynx (they were only sold at Babbage's, a computer store you could only find in malls back in the nineties).  There are Genesis and TurboGrafx CD ports, but somehow the scaling and dripping effects of the slime actually look better in the Lynx version.  The game was clearly a labor of love, and I sincerely hope that someday the game's creator will do a Kickstarter for a Steam version - imagine eight simultaneous online players in a side-scrolling randomly generated slime-infested nightmare!  ...Ah, well, I can only dream.