Just made these two videos. One is the timelapse video I took to show my development process and the other is to show off the gameplay for those that cant run flash (Linux) or dont want to actually play the game, just want to see what the fuss is about
The timelapse was produced using 2300 ish screenshots, one taken every 60 seconds by Chronolapse.
Okay well its not quite complete, the waves of enemies could do with some more work but I have my mum coming up from London to visit me in 30 mins so im gonna call it quits here.
So, finally it has a name, I have called it “48 Hours Later” Its not technically true as I have only had 40 hours to do it, but oh well!
Overall im pretty happy with my first Ludum Dare entry, im very tired right now and have a banging headache, but thats all part of the fun right?
So onto the game. First some shots:
Okay so if you have been following waaaay back my original intention was to make a game with the same sort of art style as World of Goo but with the game mechanics of Boom Stick. I think I have stayed pretty true to that original idea.
Basically you fight against waves of enemies that float across the screen. There are currently only 10 waves, I would have liked more and with more variety but oh well
The theme of the competition was “Enemies as Weapons”. I have incorporated that theme by having the enemies drop giblets when they die. You then have a certain amount of time to pick up those giblets and fire them back at the enemies. Enemies as weapons!
So as a disclaimer: im sure the game has many bugs and things, I have run out of time to do much in the way of testing and optimising. If you find any bugs however drop a comment I would love to hear about them as I plan to release this to a few flash portals, so would like to get those bugs fixed
Anyways enough jibber jabber. A few more shots then the game is below:
EDIT: I have now made a youtube gameplay video and timelapse of development, check em here.
Okay, im starting to get pretty tired. Its not very late (midnight) but I think the lack of sleep last night is catching up with me. Im gonna get a few hours kip now then back up early to start again I think.
As for progress. I have a basic enemy type in, it doesnt do much except bleed, and it doesnt look too good (I really cant draw!) but oh well.
As before I have done a build that you can “play”:
So the next task for me when I wake up is to add some sort of scoring mechanism and ofcourse to add the ability to use the “Enemies as Weapons”
Okay its been about 6 hours since my last update, and I have been working pretty much solid apart from an hour lunchbreak when I went for a wander into town.
Ive made quite abit of progress with the core bits of the engine including the physics particle systems and the destructible terrain.
Dont believe me? Take a look for yourself:
Theres still no game really, just a pretty tech demo. Im hoping the gameplay will come next
Im going to have abit of a break now, get some food wind down a little then its going to be a loooooong night ahead for me!
It has been months and months since Oliver and I finished (functionally) our latest flash game ‘BlastWave: Lost at Sea’. It has taken all this time to sort out sponsorship deals, with all the various portals. We have been through headache after headache but its finally almost time to release to the general public!
The following is a little promotional clip done by MiniClip.com for the game, quite cute we think. Anyways stay tuned, to play the game in the next few days!
Its just going through the final polishing and bidding stage at the moment. From the looks of the comments we are getting on FGL it should do quite well We have been asked to produce a video of the game for FGL marketing purposes so oliver whipped this little beauty out:
Every day I am seeing new game releases on the app store that have already seen a life in the flash game world. I dont know whether its the original developer that is making these iPhone ports or if the IP is being ripped off. Anyways I thought it may be a good idea to report on a few of these games ports, things I like / dislike with any changes made in the transition from flash to iPhone.
First up is one of my favorite flash games of all time MotherLoad.
I loved the simplicity and addictiveness of this game. Basically you play a miner who digs down through the earth for minerals and then has to return to the surface to sell the minerals. With the cash you earn you can buy upgrades for you mining machine which allows you to go deeper and stay down for longer.
The graphics are simplistic but functional, giving you an easy to understand indicator of where the resources are and where you are to mine.
You can quite easily play this game for hours, getting deeper and deeper.
The first thing you notice is that the graphics have been given a significant upgrade. I must admit I like the graphical additions, I think they give a needed boost of professionalism to the game especially if you are going to pay 59p to download it.
Once the pleasure of the new graphics wears off you start to notice a few issues.
Firstly the whole radar thing. In the original game you could mine down as far as you wanted and still see the minerals around you, in the iPhone version they have introduced a “fog of war” that shrouds your digger as you start to go deeper. You can buy radar upgrades that increase the distance you can see but I found this to have little effect as you get deeper (see screenshot to the right).The effect of this is that you cant see where the minerals are so you end up digging blindly into the dark.
Another issue is the control system. The game uses an on-screen joystick, im not a particularly massive fan of this method in the first place but its compounded by the fact that you have 360 degrees of freedom when underground. This is an issue as when digging you can only dig right, left, and down at 90 degree angles so having 360 degrees of freedom results in you often digging in the direction you werent intending. I would of liked to have seen the digging directions limited to 90 degree angles when the digger is on the ground.
As for replayability of the game, i dont think this game will have the same appeal as other games due to the fact that the only change the deeper you go is that you get higher quality minerals. There doesnt appear to be any other variation (i may be wrong here). In the flash version there were events like earthquakes to keep you interested, I would of liked to have seen this developed some more and improved on, perhaps some interesting creatures that you encounter. This would of also prevented the most efficient yet most boring tactic of just mining every single block in a strip fashion from left to right.
Overall the game is probably worth the 59p (cheap!) download but I think some of the game play features could of been extended and improved giving a richer more replayable experience.
Oliver and I have been working hard on the game and we are almost ready to rock.
We are wanting to go for a significantly more polished feel to this game and one of the factors that has been abit rough around the edges in the past has been the menu systems. As mentioned in a previous dev update were were looking to for something like Photon Storm’s Kyobi as a splash screen:
Also we have decided to jump on the micro-payments train and offer unlockable levels likely via the mochi-coins system:
For the price of about $1 you will get 20 more levels with new puzzle features. We are also considering implementing an achievements system with an in-game “best of the best” leader board, but we haven’t quite worked out where to put that yet
Now the game is mostly feature complete its onto the slow laborious process of trying to find sponsors for the game.
Im off to France for 10 days tomorrow however so apart from a few emails, work will have to be suspended on this project for a little while. When I return I shall be starting at my new job (more on that when im back!)
Its not technically true as I have only had 40 hours to do it, but oh well!
Michael is a Professional Flash Developer currently based in Manchester UK. His passion is all things programming, particularly Games and Particle Systems.