Flash Game Blogs

Gaming Your Way: Ionic: Post Mortem

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 15:49:54 +0000

More looking at the past as a filler whilst we wait for the future to become the present.

Ionic, our first ( And quite possibly last ) crack at a Tower Defense game.

What went right:

Visually I think it's very strong. It's a good looking game. That was helped a lot by Lux jumping on board really late in the development and giving everything a lot more love, as well as designing the baddies.

It's not a typical tower defense, which was the objective all along. I played a lot [ Of TD's ] when developing Ionic and I was amazed by the number that allowed you to fast forward during the actual "Combat" part. That to me defeated the object totally. I'm placing my towers so I can see them shoot the crap out of the baddies, it's the money shot and that's what I want to see, the pay off for saving up for a nice new tower.
Any game which allows you to bypass that just strikes me as strange, you may as well just reduce it to a text response, "2 creeps got through, 12 were killed, next wave in 3,2,1...".

The game feels arcadey, which was the one design philosophy that ran through it's dna from the very start. I could see the appeal in TD games, but couldn't really enjoy them. The plan was to make it feel like a strategic R-Type, it needed to feel like a real battle as part of a much bigger on-going war. Every shot, every explosion counts.

Adding in the management and repair aspects, although I see those as a plus, I think we're going to touch on them again in the negative pile.

There's a lot of love in there, I really like the empty shells coming off the cannons or the blue flame in the flame thrower or the 10 or so frames of animation when the coin collecting droid is launched or the wolf growl that's mixed into the cannon shooting sample to create that guttural raw feeling.

The ADD blendmode. It's a thing of beauty and even though it has a performance cost it's worth every cycle it steals. Using pixel bender for the RGB split worked really well too, much quicker than the one in cronusX, allowing us to use it real time rather than just for transitions.
Two pluses for Adobe there then, rather me.

I got the word bitches into the end credits. Rock 'n roll baby.

What went wrong:

The asset management was done early in the development. I got it working, it felt nice, with the idea being that if people wanted more depth they could tweak things to their liking and get more out of the game.
If you just wanted a pick up and play, then you didn't need to touch it and still be able to complete the game.
With doing it early on it was counted as done and dusted. I never touched it once after that. That was quite a mistake as it transpires that just be setting one of the sliders to max straight way ( I can't recall which one, I'm guessing R&D ) you can unlock all the cool weapons really early and basically skew the difficulty level in your favour.

Bollocks.

The coin collecting droids. Although I love this feature, it was a headache to code. Every week or so I would notice that the previous fix hadn't fixed it. They were literally the worst bug throughout the entire development.
So I did what all coders should do, I put a nasty kludge in there. If a coin wasn't collected after a certain amount of time I assumed that the droid was going to ignore it, so I just killed the coin and added it to the players credits.
What a mistake. Even though it was explained in the docs, people still noticed it and wouldn't have it that they hadn't lost out. Also people assumed that if a coin went off screen by the player scrolling they would lose it as well.
Players like to see something happening to confirm it's happened, implication doesn't work well in games. Another lesson learned ( cronusX had a similar issue, with baddies teleporting in on the player. Even though a shield appeared and the player was never ever punished for that, as that would just be really poor design, because it wasn't communicated well enough people still thought they were being punished unfairly, i.e. poor design ).

The walkthrough. Our mate RobotJam warned me about doing one, saying they're a waste of time. At the time we weren't getting the interest in selling it that we expected, so producing a walkthrough was a final role of the dice, a way to give extra value to the sponsor.
Rob was totally right. A complete waste of time, and painfully boring to make.

Balancing a TD is a complete bitch. It is so so hard to do. I looked at so many TD's to see how they did it, and very very few do it well. A lot just extend the game by adding far too many levels compared to the actual content. I think we had 25 levels in this as any more would just be grinding and slow the whole progress of the game down.
I think we got the balance quite good in the end ( If you ignore the bug mentioned above ), and it's here in the negatives as it impacted badly on the development time. It's one of those things you know are going to be tricky to do well, but it's far harder when you actually try and do it.

Similar to the balance was the whole GUI. I think we did a good job, but trying to please everyone is impossible. The best example is scrolling the dreadnought. I added 3 methods, arrow keys, clicking the radar and a drag bar. In total there was 7 suggestions on how it should be done, including some borderline venomous comments about it not supported A/D, as if by omitting those I was somehow spitting in the players face.
Getting a large amount of information to the player without forcing them to sit through pages and pages of text is very difficult, and something we spent so much time on.

Crisis of confidence. This is a tricky one for a developer to admit to, you very rarely see it. I have certain comfort zones with development, some genres I can piss all over without a thought Not that I'm especially good, just some genres click better than others. Ionic was well outside my comfort zone, so I found myself taking on board what everyone said which created a lot more work, and the more I listened the more I felt I was missing the mark and going out of my way to compensate.
When you have a lot of peers you really admire giving you suggestions, and your image for the game isn't a 100% clear, then it's very difficult to just shut down and pick the most relevant ones, they all seem relevant.

The attack waves, something I should have been strong at doing, were average. By that point I was getting sick of the whole thing, so I rushed through them to get them done. They're ok, but they should have been a lot better.

We're nearly at the point where I wrap this up with a "I couldn't give a fuck if no one likes it, I still think it's the best thing I've ever done" type comment.
Firstly I want to express how much I dislike devs who feel like they have to defend their games too strongly, you create entertainment and put it out there for people to enjoy. Not everyone will, like not everyone you meet in life will like you, no matter how cheeky your grin or funny your words. It's part and parcel of putting something out for public consumption, if you want the praise you've got to silently and with dignity swallow the crap that comes with it.
All that build up is of course there to explain that I'm going to break that rule, I'm going to be a whingy little bitch. Our blog, our rules. I'll regain my dignity tomorrow.

"we can't imagine why the developers neglected to offer the [A] and [D] keys to pan from left to right—it would have made a substantial difference in accessibility".

"Substantial" ? Really ?

"this is turning into a clickfest"

Yeah, it's murder isn't it, having to click things, in a game of all places!

"flamethrower in space void?!"

Fuck off.

I thought I'd feel better for that, but I don't really.

Let's finish this off now. Never do a game with a complex GUI. Everyone has their own favourite way of interacting with things, as I've mentioned there were in total 7 ideas for something as simple as scrolling the dreadnought. Let me clarify that slightly, do it, but expect people not to be happy so have a thick skin ready.
Conveying lots and lots of information is extremely hard to do in an non-obtrusive way, it has to be filtered out gradually and you've then got to take into account a lot of people will still just ignore it. Nothing can be implied, everything has to be spelt out ( Thanks Nintendo for creating a generation of gamers who don't want to fill the gaps ).
In terms of how the games performed, it's had 944,316 plays, which is poor. It received so-so reviews most places, 3.72 on NG, which isn't great.

Overall I'm disappointed with it's performance, I really do think it's the best thing I've ever done. It has faults, in amongst the feedback which pissed me off there was some really good points which I've taken on board.
Like cronusX I can still enjoy playing it even now, it has an almost emergent game play which as a developer is great, it makes it very hard to get sick of which helps development a lot.
I think it's great, it's fun to play and I learned a lot from it. I think that's as good as it gets.

Squize.

Hero Interactive: Bi-Weekly Polls Starting Up Again

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 15:09:13 +0000

We’ll be starting up the bi-weekly polls again on this blog. But because of the gap in polls we’re posting two new polls today! Both are related to Bubble Tanks Tower Defense 1.5. Which tower helped release the pwnage onto those enemies, and which enemies kept the pwnage from being released?

Note: There is a poll within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post’s poll.

Jay is Games: Galactic Takedown

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 13:00:00 +0000

[Platform: Flash] Command an array of soldiers and turrets in pursuit of various planet-conquering objections, being careful to defend your battery, because your battery is kind of important to your spaceship. Everyone knows nothing puts a damper on a day of planetary destruction like having to root around the still burning wrecks of your enemies for some jumper cables.

Jay is Games: Link Dump Friday

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 04:00:00 +0000

On this fine Link Dump Friday, JayisGames gave to thee... one broken pony, one coaster leaping, one painful sunburn, one crazy mailbox, and endless impossible mountains to climb!... hmmm, doesn't have quite the same ring to it, does it?

Jay is Games: Babylon Sticks: It's A Rampage

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0000

I you have apes, lizards and wolves crawling up your office building, it can mean only one thing...

Jay is Games: Towards The Light

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 13:30:00 +0000

[Platform: Flash] Borrowing heavily off of MoneySeize, Towards the Light is a skill testing, spike hopping, bullet dodging platform game. What sets this platform jumper apart from the rest is the nicely implemented ghost mode that, combined with nice level design, allows the player to explore conventional platforming in new and unique ways.

SWF Stats: Super fast log processing ..... with a few buts unfortunately

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 03:23:00 +0000

My awesome new log processing software went live the other day and it's caused a little bit of disruption. A lot of things went right but some things went wrong:

What went right

A bunch of stuff went right and overall this new version of the software is a stunning success:

Logs are now processed about 30 - 40 times faster than before. The old software was getting bogged down and spending in worst cases almost an hour on a batch of files during which meant of course there were more files waiting for it when it finally finished. The new software can process a batch of files in as few as 2 or 3 minutes.
Because the new software's so fast I was able to reduce the log file size by 40% so they're completed and sent off for processing a lot sooner.
The negative bounce rate problem was fixed.
A not so obvious problem with timezones was fixed that properly aligns your stats with the timezone you select in your profile.

What went wrong

A bunch of stuff went wrong which has been a major pain in the ass to rectify:

To fix the negative bounce rates I decided to reprocess July's log files, and it took a few goes to get the software really working properly in reprocessing mode - it doubled some days and reduced some others.
A bug meant it assumed your metricid (regardless of type) was the last metricid it had encountered so people got some weird stuff in their reports.
The new software operates almost entirely in memory and I was using dates *with different times* as the key to the in-memory versions resulting in a massive 8 gigabyte swapfile from hundreds of versions of the day's data, which also messed up some stats.
Metric names weren't being unescaped resulting in duplicate metrics for 'some thing' and 'some%20thing'.

What's happening now

July is reprocessing semi-properly now, the unescaped metric names remain an issue that'll be fixed when it completes.

July 25 hasn't been processed but will hopefully be done soon. Because the timezones are correctly applied now reprocessing 'a day' means examining the log files (over 20gb/day) of the day before and after. Because there's so much data it has to be compressed which makes it slower to read.

Until it finishes this monster reprocessing job the reports are going to look messed up and some bugs are going to make some pages unavailable in the members system.

Everything should be back on track hopefully within the next 24 hours but it might be the weekend before everything's fully fixed up.

Meanwhile

The donation drive is going great! Andy Moore made a massive donation that helps a lot, so did Hero Interactive, the guys behind Tumbleball, Thomas from PsyFlash Productions and Hybrid Mind Studios. My goal is to raise a couple to a few grand so I can get the API sorted out in a few extra languages - iOS, Android, etc - which means I need some hardware.

Massive progress is being made on the next version of the website, it has forums, new blog software, support tickets, and a really cool new feature - charts that highlight the best games with ties to Flash Game License (or your site/email) to hopefully push nonexclusive sales and generally help with distribution.

Jay is Games: Pipol Smasher

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 22:30:00 +0000

[Platform: Flash] How's your road rage today? Take up the cause of cars everywhere and rampage your way (bloodlessly) through helpless ragdoll civilians in this physics puzzler from the creator of Vehicles and Werebox. Use your environment (and even your victims!) to cause enough damage to reach the next level. It's crash-tastic!

Jay is Games: Pulsate

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 18:00:00 +0000

[Platform: Flash] No puzzles, no enemies, no action... just music. This simple and relaxing little webtoy from André Michelle lets you just click to create some lovely tinkling melodies that arise from expanding and contracting shapes.

Jay is Games: Dungeon Escape! (Complete)

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 14:00:00 +0000

[Platform: Flash] Once upon a time (about seven years ago), there was a brave man who got locked up inside a dungeon. As he fought to escape the many rooms of the dungeon, he found that many more rooms were added over the course of the next few years. Originally featured here back in 2006, Studiohunty is proud to present the completed version of Dungeon Escape!

Hero Interactive: Update on Retired Wizard Defense

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 13:03:41 +0000

The game is nearing completion, but sadly it won’t be ready for release by the end of the month. Expect it soon, but not in July.

We tried discussing the prospect of pants with the goblins, but it didn’t go over too well and now they’re on strike.

Free Game News: Freeway Fury

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 05:13:31 +0000

Freeway Fury is a driving game created by Vasco Freitas where you can “unleash your fury and climb to your car’s roof for some fresh air… And hijack another ride while you’re at it! Gain nitro boost by jumping onto other cars, driving into oncoming traffic, and a variety of other crazy stunts.” Have fun!

Free Game News: Tetsuo in the Room

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 04:55:16 +0000

Tetsuo in the Room is an unusual Japanese 3D isometric Room Escape game from Factory 112 where you play a 3D stickman who finds himself locked in his bedroom. Look around closely and you’ll eventually find a way to escape from this room! Have fun!

Jay is Games: Escape from the Big Windows Room

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 04:02:36 +0000

[Platform: Flash] Escape from the Big Windows Room is definitely a great break for the mid-week, a fun pick-me-up to get you out of the doldrums. And perhaps even dream of maybe someday being able to afford to live in such a fantastic space. Hey, even in this economy, a person can dream.

Free Game News: Nemo’s Secret: The Nautilus

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 03:53:11 +0000

Go on a fun and exciting Hidden Object Adventure and find Captain Nemo’s legendary submarine, the Nautilus! Follow clues and hints left by Captain Nemo himself, as you track down his vessel, and become a part of the legend. Discover the sub and work your way through the insides to find treasures beyond your wildest dreams! Explore gorgeous [...]

Free Game News: Inside a Dead Skyscraper

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 03:39:57 +0000

Inside a Dead Skyscraper is the latest experimental game created by Paolo Pedercini, the author of Every Day the Same Dream. “What if the term “music video game” didn’t evoke images of bored college kids fiddling with pathetic plastic guitars emulating the last icons of a declining music industry? What if indie game developers allied with indie [...]

Free Game News: Cute Owl

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 03:01:24 +0000

Cute Owl is a physics-based puzzler from Pitergames where the goal is to make some noise! “Wake the Cute Owl with your trumpet so that he will roll all the way down to the cymbal…to make it down there, you’ll need to clear the way by cutting down the correct logs and nuts.” Have fun!

Jay is Games: Sanctuary 17

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 22:00:00 +0000

[Platform: Flash] Defying your Elders, you and a small group of like-minded people dare to brave what lies outside the safety of Sanctuary 17. Why are you in hiding? Why do the Elder oppose your efforts? And why do robots roam the halls, striking down anything that crosses their path? Find out in this tricky almost-roguelike from Twofold Secret.

Jay is Games: Asterisk

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 18:00:00 +0000

[Platform: Flash] Twinkle, twinkle, little star. How I wonder how I can get you without overlapping any shapes I've already made? Not much of a song, but it does make Asterisk a soothing puzzler from Vivern Games. Since there are only 20 levels, this is more of a Zen, stress-relieving coffee break game than something meaty to really get your puzzling hooks into, but sometimes that's exactly what you're looking for.

Freelance Flash Games News: Interview with Julian Scott (LongAnimals)

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 16:00:48 +0000

Julian Scott, who goes by the name LongAnimals online, is a professional flash game developer who has created such hit games as CycloManiacs and Drift Runner. In this interview, I got the chance to talk to Julian about his start in game development, his thoughts on game sponsorships, and his future plans for game development. [...]

Jay is Games: Honey Hunter

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 14:00:00 +0000

[Platform: Flash] Bees. We fear them. Ever since our teachers warned us against tampering with beehives, we've imagined horrid droning swarms armed with venomous harpoons and a zeal for stinging manflesh. But perhaps we should see the world through their tiny eyes, a world of hostile arthropods, artillery-grade raindrops, and really, really spiky plants. Honey Hunter, an outwardly cute mouse-controlled side-scrolling game, gives us a dark glimpse at the fragile lives of these misunderstood creatures.

Iain Lobb Blog: Understanding Game Time Steps - Your 3 Options

noreply@blogger.com (Iain) — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 22:25:00 +0000

I was just answering a question over at the gamedev Stack Exchange beta site and I realised I was pretty much writing a blog post about time steps for games. How you handle your time step has big implications on how your game architecture needs to be set up. There's a lot of confusion and misinformation in this space, but I think I've pretty much got my head around it. Here are your 3 options:

Option 1 - Do Nothing

Do nothing. Attempt to update and render at a certain interval, e.g. 30 times per second. If it falls behind, let it and don't worry. The game will slow down into jerky slow motion if the CPU can't keep up with your game, but there will be no jarring jumps across the screen. This option won't work at all for real-time multi-user games, but is fine for single player games and has been used successfully in many games.

Option 2 - Delta Time

Use the delta time between each update to vary the movement of objects. In Flash this is just a matter of calling getTimer() and deducting the value of the previous frame's getTimer() call. This tells you how much time has elapsed since the last frame. Now you can factor this value in to all your maths. Great in theory, especially if nothing in your game accelerates or decelerates, but just moves at a constant speed. In practice, many developers implement this badly, and it can lead to inconsistent collision detection and physics. It seems some developers think this method is easier than it is. If you want to use this option you need to step your game up considerably and bring out some big-gun maths and algorithms, for example using a Verlet physics integrator (rather than the standard Euler that most people use) and using rays for collision detection rather than simple Pythagoras distance checks. I asked a question about this on Stack Overflow a while back and got some great answers:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/153507/calculate-the-position-of-an-accelerating-body-after-a-certain-time

Option 3 - Fix Your Time Step

Use Gaffer's "fix your time step" approach. Update the game in fixed steps as in option 1, but do so multiple times per frame rendered - based on how much time has elapsed - so that the game logic keeps up with real time, while remaining in discrete steps. This way, easy to implement game logic like Euler integrators and simple collision detection still work. You also have the option of interpolating graphical animations based on delta time, but this is only for visual effects, and nothing that affects your core game logic. You can potentially get in trouble if your updates are very intensive - if the updates fall behind, you will need more and more of them to keep up, potential making your game even less responsive. I'm now going to try and explain how to implement this in Flash - concentrate!

Firstly, one implication of this approach is that you cannot rely on ENTER_FRAME to update each object. You must have a single ENTER_FRAME for the whole game that loops through each object and calls a public update() method. Each ENTER_FRAME tick you may have to call these update functions 0, 1, 2, 3 or even more times in order to get back in sync with real time. To work out how many times to update, you call getTimer() and take away the value of getTimer() from the start of the game. This tells you how much time has elapsed since the game started. Now work out how up-to-date your game logic is, by multiplying the number times you have called update (you'll need to keep track of this) by the length of 1 frame (e.g. 1/30 seconds for 30fps) - this is how much time has passed in your game world. Compare how much time has elapsed in real life to how much has elapsed in the game world. If they are different by more than 1 time step (e.g. 1/30 seconds) then call update until they are in sync to within less than 1 time step. This may seem pretty full-on, but it's really pretty simple - I will try to get a code demo up soon.

Personally, I like Option 1 - Do Nothing, when I can get away with it, and Option 3 - Fix your Time Step, when I need to sync to real time. I respect that Option 2 can be a good option when you know what you're doing, but I know my limitations well enough to stay well away from it.

Hero Interactive: Announcing Shifty!

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 20:01:54 +0000

Today we’re pleased to announce another title in joint production with YETi CGI- a wicked puzzle game called Shifty.

Players are given colored stones they need to shift around in order to group all matching colors together (adjacent, no diagonal). Your baby brother could do that, but throw in the fact that stones are limited to a handful of moves indicated above and the game gets a lot harder. Swap two stones, and the numbers for each go down by 1. Stones with 0 are un-movable and a show stopper.

Once you get all the colors grouped with matching colors (meaning all reds next to reds, and all blues next to blues) you win the level! Again, sounds simple, but as the game progresses it gets more and more challenging. Early boards will start out as 3×3 squares with two colors, and will eventually grow to a mind melting 6×6 and five colors.

The game will feature thirty levels and several unique backgrounds done by our own artist, KC. We are also planning on having a survival mode where the game generates random puzzles for you to solve. Beat each one in a matter of minutes to continue to the next and see how long you can last!

The game is looking great and although we enjoy the action and strategy genres, it’s a lot of fun getting back into the puzzle arena. Keep an eye out for this one in the late summer/early fall.

Jay is Games: Binary

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 19:00:00 +0000

[Platform: Flash] Binary is a stylish puzzle game held together by a rudimentary platformer aesthetic. Repair orbiting supercomputers by climbing into the planet's surface and solving sliding-type puzzle games. Though the entire game is only a few puzzles long, if you're not familiar with how each puzzle works, Binary can be quite a challenge to get through.

MochiLand: Recap Of Seattle Casual Connect 2010

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 17:50:13 +0000

Hi All,

The Mochi Media team had a great time in Seattle, and we hope those that were able to make it out enjoyed the conference as much as we did! There was a lot going on this year, including great session topics, lots of action on the floor, parties in museums and aquariums, and even a sumo wrestling match. I thought I would put together a quick recap of Casual Connect from my perspective to make some sense of all the madness!

Thoughts and Observations:

There is a ton of interest in mobile (no surprise there) from the industry in general, particularly with Android and iPhone. Everyone is trying to figure out their “play” in this ever-expanding and increasingly competitive space. Don’t forget we are running “Made for Mobile” Android contest, more details here!
There was quite a buzzzz going on over the Mochi Game Developer Fund. We had a lot of 1 on 1 conversations with devs about their current and future projects.
Virtual currencies as a way to monetize was a pretty hot topic, with sessions drawing large audiences. Mochi gave a presentation on this (see picture below), offering up some pretty nice data for those in attendance on some of our lessons learned in micro-transactions with MochiCoins.
Here is a comment from Josh Larson (President and COO here at Mochi; Casual Connect veteran) on the progression and continued importance of the conference: ”Casual Connect used to be about the casual downloadables business, and you can see how it’s shifted to online, social and mobile.”
We continue to see interest from publishers, both large and small, seeking casual flash games content for their users. We are working hard to bring some of these great household names into the Mochi Publisher Network…stay tuned!

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Blog.Sokay.net: Thugjacker Half: Still Kickin’!

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 16:27:20 +0000

Thugjacker Half at Agame.com

Over the weekend I noticed a sudden surge in traffic and I noticed most of it was coming from Agame.com. Turned out they had just stolen it and added it to their frontpage on Thursday and a lotta people were playing it. It’s nice to know people are still playing it after 5 years! haha. My favorite part is still reading all of the insightful comments like “cool ima pimp nigga“and “DONT STEAL HIS BIKE“. Mostly spam here, but the Newgrounds comments are still gold to me.

Thugjacker’s been our most popular game, by far. A great deal of it has to do with it being our first game, with Ricky and I spending so much time with it. The gameplay has a stickiness that keeps people coming back — I think it’s just fun to mess around and beat guys up. These days, it’s easy to be lost on Flash portals so it’s usually hit or miss if people notice the game or not. Thugjacker usually does well but LUV Tank usually gets lost. LUV Tank only really took off on Addictinggames.com for some reason, but it’s usually the game that the not-so-hardcore gamers tell me they like the most.

Yesterday I was working on the Donut game with David. We had started talking about Thugjacker and I showed him a lot of the stuff we cut out of Thugjacker Half — David wasn’t working with us on Thugjacker. There were cinemas scenes that I didn’t have time to finish and implement. A lot of the real story. It’ll all find it’s way into the game eventually. This Donut game will give another side of the story.

Jay is Games: Ka-Bloom

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 16:00:00 +0000

[Platform: Flash] Ka-Bloom is a colorful, cheery chain-building puzzler from Strongman Games, and also great training for when the floral monstrosities awaken from their millennial slumber.

Jay is Games: The Terminal

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 13:00:00 +0000

[Platform: Flash] Think you're ready to work at the lab? Think again. B.O.B, our resident A.I., has turned on HQ, and we'll need you to strap into this giant mech and hold off his minions long enough for you to destroy him in this fast-paced shooter/defense game. Rampage around an enormous city map, but don't worry; it's just a simulation... right?

FlashGameLicense Blog: FGL Website Updated

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 09:08:55 +0000

We released a major update to the website today. Here are the changes!

Major speed improvements! The website has been slowing down during peak operating times, so we’ve taken many steps to optimize it. We expect a dramatic performance improvement during peak hours.
Security improvements! This update incorporates several significant security improvements. We don’t normally mention security upgrades, but in this case, we want to let you know about it so that if there are bugs, you’ll know what’s happening. If your game is replaced with FGL_Eric’s face, that means the security system has activated. If you see this, please send us Feedback to tell us where and how you got it!
Game Cleanup: To help sponsors find fresh games, we’ve added new systems that unclutter our game catalog. We realized that over the past month, nearly 1/3rd of sponsor views were on games that were already sold, already self-published, or potentially abandoned by their developer. Developers often forget to remove their games from FGL in these cases, which makes it harder for sponsors to find fresh games. We’ve added features to rectify this:
- If you don’t log into FGL for 30 days, we’ll assume that you’ve wandered off and are no longer interested in getting your game sponsored. Your games will become hidden from sponsors until you log back into the website. (We will, of course, send you an email to let you know this has happened.) We apologize for the inconvenience, but we believe it will help keep our game inventory much cleaner.
- In addition, we now automatically search for your game on the internet. If your game is detected “in the wild”, it will be removed from the sponsorship catalog. This process is not infallible, however — sometimes a Flash game is released with the same name as an old Flash game. We have heuristics that should keep this from being a problem, but if your game becomes hidden inappropriately, just let us know and we will fix it.
Changes to Last Call: We’ve made two major changes to Last Call to make it more effective for developers, more predictable for sponsors, and nicer to our game catalog.
- When your game is placed into Last Call, we will now email it out to sponsors to let them know. (Previously, “Last Call” was only visible from the website, not the daily automated email.)
- The day after you have completed Last Call, your game will become hidden in sponsor browses and searches. Direct links to your game will still work, and sponsors who have ALREADY bid on your game will still be able to find it easily, but the website will stop promoting your game to new sponsors. We did this because once Last Call ends, you are supposed to accept a bid and end bidding. We hope this change will help promote the behavior we want.
Changes to Buy It Now: now when you get a Buy It Now bid, your game will immediately become hidden from sponsor searches.
- Many developers have opted not to honor their Buy It Now offers, which was understandably very annoying to the sponsors who made the offer, so this is an effort to rectify the problem. Developers, please only set a Buy It Now price if you intend to honor it!
- We know that sometimes a Buy It Now bid will need to be rejected because the deal fell through or the sponsor included unreasonable demands. In this case, please contact the admins and we will return your game to the sponsor viewing area.
View Locations: Developers, track your game views more accurately than ever! Now you can see WHERE your game views are coming from — whether they are from automated emails, areas of the FGL website, your personal promotion efforts, or the efforts of the FGL admin staff.
- We have attempted to back-fill view information for the past month or so. However, you will notice numerous entries labeled “miscellaneous”. In these cases, we had to guess where the view came from. In the future there should be significantly fewer guessed entries (though there will still be some “miscellaneous” links).
- Developers, by adding &from=dev to the end of your game’s URL, we will record views from that URL as a developer self-promotion. When you include your game’s URL in an email, you should include this. (We automatically add it to the end of the game’s URL when you view your own game, so normally you don’t need to remember to do this.)
New Browse Modes: Sponsors have three new ways to browse for games. As always, we are constantly trying new ways to organize games; these ideas may or may not be permanent depending on how useful they end up being.
- Highest Bids: the games that have the highest bids in the system right now
- Reliable Developers: games from developers who have very high Market Levels
- Mobile-Ready: games that are optimized for Flash on mobile phones
User-interface improvements: as usual, we have also made various miscellanous improvements, such as more usable pagination controls and a cleaner presentation on various parts of the site.

Please report any issues you find in this thread! Thanks.

Jay is Games: CGDC8 update

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 07:00:01 +0000

Just a quick reminder that there is just 1 week left to polish up your design for a browser game that incorporates the theme "SANDBOX". See the official competition announcement for details. We are expecting entries to be on the light side this time, so your chances of taking top prize is better than ever. So finish up and get those entries in!

Free Game News: PostMan

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 05:40:02 +0000

PostMan is another nice looking Japanese Room Escape game from Karabina-7, the author of Chain Tower and Dragonfly Island Escape. You play a PostMan who has to deliver a very special letter… With the help of your Tab key, find a way to reach the recepient! Have fun! PostMan walkthrough (thanks NFresh!)

Free Game News: Epic Coaster

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 05:19:43 +0000

Epic Coaster is a one button fast paced platformer created by Killian Koenig. “Try to stay alive an epic roller coaster ride by jumping from track to track. Features highly polished and addictive game play with leaderboards and 80 achievements to unlock.” Have fun!

Free Game News: The Illusionist’s Dream

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 05:14:01 +0000

The Illusionist’s Dream is a puzzle platformer that tells the story of a magical performer who was entertaining crowds with his tricks and illusions. “But when the one he loved died, he stopped performing and lost the will to live… until one night he had a dream…” Have fun!

Jay is Games: Mobile Monday

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 04:00:23 +0000

[Platform: Mobile (iPhone, iPod Touch)] A proper Victorian gentleman never swears or loses his temper. He should never fail to raise his hat to an acquaintance, and if he should bump into someone or step upon a lady's dress, a sincere "Beg your pardon" should be uttered. Also, fist bumps are appropriate only when in the company of other similarly-bodacious gentlemen.

Jay is Games: Atmosphir

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 22:00:47 +0000

[Platform: Unity] After an extensive beta period where the game moved from a download to a browser-based Unity3D experience, the 3D platform adventure game Atmosphir is open and ready for everyone! Fueled by user-created content, Atmosphir allows anyone to craft custom levels using a simple, thorough, and surprisingly fun editor.

Jay is Games: Elixir of Immortality

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 13:00:41 +0000

[Platform: Download (Windows)] Now here's something you don't see every day: an adventure/hidden object game that tries to tell a story. A real story. And succeeds. Not only does Elixir of Immortality know how to weave an intriguing plot, it knows how to do it with pictures, setting, and presentation instead of loads of words. You won't find blocks of text or terrible voice acting in this game. All that's to be had is a delicious tale of intrigue, a lot of fantastic mini-games, and scenery so packed with so much mystery you'll want to wade in and start messing around with things yourself.

Photon Storm Blog: Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-07-25

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 09:00:00 +0000

Creating chip tunes from 3D surfaces http://pixelwhore.com/wordpress/?p=119 #
several days ill, still not recovered fully.. can't get my head back into coding. not good. #
@8bitrocket have you installed WP Super Cache? (if not, you really ought to!) in reply to 8bitrocket #
Now they ship from the UK I just treated myself to 8 issues of @indiegamemag http://www.indiegamemag.com #
@terrypaton1 well I enjoyed reading the content on their site, and for $30 I can take a gamble.. am a sucker for print in reply to terrypaton1 #
@terrypaton1 that's what I did, the first 6 and the 2 most recent issues in reply to terrypaton1 #
Just updated to iOS 4.1 on my iPhone. Let's hope that makes it crash less. #
@UntoldEnt sounds like the state of most industries to me! in reply to UntoldEnt #
Strand Craft 122 – seriously sexy boat! and only a cool £17m http://www.strand-craft.com #
RT @BenOlding Mortal Kombat Fatalities in paper art http://youtu.be/xtbJQuNpmqo #
Check this video out — [Demoscene] Breakpoint 2010 – Zcareplex MK 5 by Nuance (1080P) http://youtu.be/eJuPRiqY3fM #

Jay is Games: Hidden Mysteries: Vampire Secrets

Sat, 24 Jul 2010 20:00:24 +0000

[Platform: Download (Windows)] Strange visions are making Claire doubt her sanity, and she thinks a trip to visit her aunt is just what she needs to clear her head. Unfortunately, when she arrives, she find her aunt is missing, and the woman may have been involved in much stranger things than Claire ever suspected. Although it falls short on originality, this atmospheric point-and-click/hidden-object hybrid offers up unique locations, tricky puzzles, and a lot of mystery.

Free Game News: Worm Food

Sat, 24 Jul 2010 15:43:57 +0000

In Worm Food, the latest game from Nitrome, you play as a worm, the last of his species, on his quest for vengeance against the Stone Tribe for destroying his species. Your goal is to devorate as many villagers as possible in a limited time, and destroy as much as can along the way. Use the left [...]

Free Game News: EenieBalance

Sat, 24 Jul 2010 14:56:58 +0000

EenieBalance is “deceptively simple – just keep your little red hexagon on the see-saw at all times. Of course, lots of other cute characters will try to knock you off – but don’t let them!” An easy game, only recommended for a 5 minute break. Have fun!

Jay is Games: Weekend Download

Sat, 24 Jul 2010 12:30:56 +0000

[Platform: Download (Windows)] One of the games featured on this Weekend Download is a product of the GameJolt Indie Game Demake Contest, a recently-completed competition that tasked game creators to strip their favorite indie game of anything more complex than a few elements and scale it down to a retro size. The results were excellent, and you can find dozens more to play on the contest page, including some browser games!

SWF Stats: Super fast log processing

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 23:45:00 +0000

These last few days I've been working on the latest version of my log processing software. It's fast. Really, really fast. For the first time in probably 5 or 6 months now the log processing software has to wait for log files to come in for processing!

The delay between someone doing something in your game and your reports showing that data should now be down as low as just 2 or 3 minutes.

PS. There might be bugs so if your data's messed up let me know.

Jay is Games: Golden Trails: The New Western Rush

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 20:00:13 +0000

[Platform: Download (Mac, Windows)] Golden Trails: The New Western Rush is a new hidden object game from Awem Studio. Set in the frontiers of the old American west, you fill the boots of Jack, a sheriff on a forced vacation to the "quiet" town of Sunnyvale. Trouble finds him as soon as he arrives, however, as the bank has just been robbed and everyone else seems to be in a predicament of one kind or another. Good thing Jack wasn't interested in relaxing, anyway!

Free Game News: Minoto – Beauty and the Beast

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 14:39:10 +0000

Here is your weekly Minoto’s Point’n’Click Adventure game! Today, Beauty and the Beast! If you enjoy this game, don’t forget to check out Stray Cat, Rat Ranger, Football Association 2, Lunch Time, Football Association, Lions Story, Bird Egg 2, Resident on Cloud, Evening Time, Chef VS Panda, Uncles Old Times, Bread Girl 5, Bread Girl 4 [...]

Iain Lobb Blog: A code review of PewPew by Mike Chambers

noreply@blogger.com (Iain) — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 15:37:00 +0000

A very rare event has occurred - the chance to look at, discuss and play with the full source for a Flash game! I've worked with the source to dozens of games by different developers, but I'm normally under a non-disclosure agreement so I cannot divulge the full horrors of what I found there. But Mike Chambers from Adobe has kindly released the full source to his game under MIT open source license, and I thought this could be a great spring-board to open up discussion on the architecture and best practice of making Flash games.

The source is here: http://github.com/mikechambers/pewpew/archives/master

but you also need to download is framework from here: http://github.com/mikechambers/Simple-Game-Framework/archives/master

Mike, hasn't made a game since Flash 4, so if you read this Mike, please take it in the scholarly spirit in which it is intended :)

and to everyone else, remember I am just one guy with some strong opinions, weakly held.

Ok here's my thoughts...

Repository - Mike has not included his framework in the game repository. I'd consider this a bad idea for 2 reasons.

A developer coming to the project cold cannot compile it. I believe that the repo of a project should contain everything you need to get started.
There is a strong chance that API changes could be made to the framework code that break the build of the game. You really want to use a stable version of a framework rather than having to fix errors every time an update is made to the framework. Then if you want to update to the latest version of the framework you grab the new version and fix all the problems at once. You don't want to come back to make a quick change to your game in 6 months, only to find that you can longer compile because you have changed the API of your framework.

Compiling

Mike has chosen to compile from the Flash IDE, which is fine with me and most design-driven agencies. Some developers won't like it, but who cares.
Mike has unticked the "include hidden layers" option in the Flash publish settings tab. This is one of my absolute no-nos as it means you can break the build just by hiding and unhiding layers while you're looking around the timeline. If I hadn't encountered this lunacy before, I might have spent hours figuring out why it suddenly wasn't compiling. In the end I had to revert to the original version because I couldn't remember exactly what should and shouldn't be hidden. This is what guides are for, people.
One mistake Mike's made that I see quite a lot is that he hasn't put his Main.as document class file in his package structure, it's just in the root of src with the fla. The Main class is just as much a part of the project as anything else, and should be in the package with it's friends.

Game Design

the game is a pretty basic asteroid-type shoot 'em up.
the home-made visual and audio style is acceptable in the Flash game world, although Mike could have chosen a more hand-written looking font, rather than Helvetica. There are lots of free handwriting fonts out there, and there's always Comic Sans!
the controls are optimised for a touchscreen mobile device, with a little virtual joystick in the bottom corner, so it doesn't control well on the desktop.
the joystick doesn't allow you to set speed, only direction. A simulated analogue stick would have been nicer.
There is some commented-out code for making the ship follow the mouse for browser play, but it is incomplete. Mike would have done better to have a boolean for isMouseControlled which could be switched when targeting the browser, rather than completely commenting out the code. I rarely delete or comment out working code, I'm much more likely to keep it in my class as a switched-off option.
At 480x800 it's too tall for a browser game, as you have to consider users with a minimum 1024x768 display.
The movement of the ship is not very graceful - it doesn't seem to accelerate or decelerate.
The speed of the bullets is way too slow.
The collision detection between the bullets and enemies is inconsistent, and bullets often sail under the wings of the UFOs without scoring a hit.
There are no roll-overs or even finger cursors on any buttons - again this is probably an artefact of originally being a touch-screen game.
There aren't any transitions between screens.
The enemies bounce around the screen like asteroids, but they are UFOs, which doesn't make any sense, as you would expect UFOs to know you are there and either attack or make defensive manoeuvres.

Library

Mike's library is beautifully arranged into folders with all the items named properly, and no Symbol 1's lying around. I rarely organise my libraries into folders any more - I just rely on the invaluable CS4/5 library search box.
Mike has linked library items directly to classes. This is what I often do as it is fast and makes it easy to understand what code relates to what graphics. It can have it's draw-backs though, for example if you want to runtime load assets from multiple swfs without having to republish them with every code change, and I'm coming round to the idea that it is often better to treat movieclips as "skins", with no code of there own, and have another class that controls them. It would be nice if at runtime you could tell Flash - take this movieclip and make it an instance of this class. That would be cool right, and totally feasible, Adobe engineers?

Code style

All Mike's code is beautifully organised, with well-named full-word function and variable names like isOnStage, displayTitleGraphic and onGameOver. This is painfully rare to see, so I salute you Mike!
Mike has commented to the point of obsession, which is great, but as his code is so well named and self documenting, most are unnecessary, such as:
//start the game
gameArea.start();
//added to enemies vector
enemies.push(enemy);

Throughout his code Mike has used // double slash comments on his public vars and functions, where he should have used /* slash star */ JavaDoc style comments. This would have allowed code editors like FlashDevelop to give the comment as a hint / tooltip. Really useful when working with an unfamiliar API.
There are some slightly strange things with splitting single lines of code over multiple carriage returns, with orphans tabbed weirdly across the page. This is either a Mac/PC formatting issue, or a sign of madness.

Architecture

Mike wrote in his blog that he thought he had over-engineered the game and he's not wrong. I ran a little app called cloc (count lines of code) on the folder and it told me that not including white space and comments there are 2420 lines of ActionScript. That's quite a lot when you consider that I managed to get a similar game running in 25 lines of code. Not all the code in a framework needs to be used on every project though, so it's not as bad as it sounds! If you ignore the framework it's only 1644 :) I have a feeling cloc might be over reporting because of block comments, but I might be wrong. So where is all that code going?
The GameArea class contains most the game logic, and is a fairly typical well organised game class. I has more white space and comments than it does code though, which I think makes it less readable. Overall this class is very sane though and doesn't include anything particularly wacky.
SoundManager doesn't do much - it doesn't even play sounds! Instead it returns and instance of a sound which you can then call play() on. It also contains constants for each sound class name in his library. This might sound like a good idea, but it isn't. Either use the class reference directly or just put the string in your function call. Not every string you ever type has to be put in a constant.
For entities there is an inheritance chain of MovieClip > GameObject > PewPewGameObject > Enemy > ChaserEnemy. I've used this kind of approach on many games, and it works up to a point, but it doesn't make your code very reusable, and you often have to hunt around different inheritance levels to find code. These days I use a very simple component system (nothing to do with native Flash components by the way) where functionality is broken down into modules which are owned by objects. So you would have a health component, a weapon component, a position/movement component, a sprite component etc. In Flash we lurve inheritance because it makes us feel like proper programmers, but composition is often a much better approach. This has taken me literally years to come to terms with, so I won't be surprised if lots of people disagree with me. Mike would also be in trouble if he wanted to adapt his game to use Away3D for rendering for example, as he has extended MovieClip. That said, you should always focus on the game you are making rather than worry about "what if" scenarios that will never happen.
Mike is using standard Flash events in his game. Again, I've done this many times myself, but since AS3Signals comes out I just use that - but TurboSignals is supposed to be even faster and so probably more appropriate for games. If you want real speed don't use eventing at all - give each entity a reference to your game class and call methods directly on that.
Mike has a reusable GameObjectPool class for object pooling, which is nice. However, when you ask it for e.g. a ChaserEnemy, it returns an instance of GameObject which must then be cast back to ChaserEnemy anyway, so he might as well of made an object pool that supports any class type, not just GameObjects.
Mike also has the start of some nice util classes for useful Maths functions, but they're not particularly extensive.

Conclusions

Overall PewPew has the hallmarks of a disciplined programmer with good style. Unfortunately it also has many of the limitations that 90% of Flash games suffer, which is a lack of some basic features that you would have seen in games from 20 years ago:

A health bar rather than instant death.
A scrolling world.
A solid world with walls, rooms, corridors etc, rather than just an open void.
Basic physics like momentum
Ability to pause the game
Particle effects for trails and explosions
Animated sprites

Good on Mike for releasing his code for public scrutiny - I worry that this is the extent of Adobe's knowledge of game development though. Their gamedev hub http://www.adobe.com/devnet/games/ seems to have been mostly contributed by 3rd parties, and it even includes some advice on such topics as making games with Cairngorm, which is never going to end well. Flash is badly in need of an official gaming API/framework on the scale of Flex. I don't see that happening any time soon, so until then we're all just going to keep re-solving solved problems and repeating the mistakes of the past.

Jay is Games: Dismantlement: Burger

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 14:30:00 +0000

[Platform: Flash] Dismantlement: Burger is still a fun way to waste 5 minutes and hey, maybe it'll make you think twice about reaching for a calorie, sugar, fat laden lunch. How about something a bit healthier and less bomb-filled. Like a salad. Unless they've got that planned for later down the line. Remember, Junk food bad!

Free Game News: Kaitai Dismantlement – Chapter Burger

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 14:26:56 +0000

Kaitai Dismantlement – Chapter Burger is the seventh installment in the Kaitai Dismantlement series from Gam.eBB. In this Point’n'Click puzzle game, as its name says, you will have to dismantle a hard disk. To do so, you only have a screwdriver. And your brain. And that’s it! Now the question is: why would you take apart this [...]

Free Game News: A Bonte Escape

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 05:54:30 +0000

Fans of Room Escape games, rejoice! Bart Bonte, the author of the Factory Balls puzzle series, has just released a new Escape game, A Bonte Escape. “You find yourself dropped in a strange room, but are you smart enough to get out?” Nice and easy! Have fun! A Bonte Escape video walkthrough!

Free Game News: Sift Heads World – Act 4 – Cold Memories

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 05:39:21 +0000

Vinnie, the main character of the popular stick figure Sift Heads World series created by Pyrozenis now officially teamed up with Kiro and the delicious Shorty. “Shorty is forced to go all the way to Russia where her dark past will resurface and cause more problems. As Shorty attempts to find answers in Russia things will [...]

Jay is Games: Link Dump Friday

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 04:00:00 +0000

It's Friday, and what better start could you ask for your weekend then snakes, toes, paint, and locked rooms? The only thing that might possibly make this week's Link Dump Friday assembly better is strawberry pancakes. So we sent you some! Keep an eye out for the soggy envelope; you can thank us later.

Gaming Your Way: cronusX: Post Mortem

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 21:04:49 +0000

A post mortem on cronusX is well over due. Even though the files aren't online right now ( The webhost the files were on got hacked, and it turns out their talk of backups was a big fat lie, so they just closed rather than restoring things. Nice one ) we did document every day of it's development.

I will re-upload all the files when I get chance.

What went right:

The development diary, which I've already mentioned. It's something we're definitely going to be doing again on the right project ( So many are covered by NDA's, others are quite risky and there's no need to fail in public ).
It really gave us focus and allowed for really quick and great feedback from you dear reader.

The look & feel. I'm really pleased with how the game looks. The screen shake when the asteroid hits the screen during the attract mode is pretty sweet ( And if you've got a 360 joypad plugged in you get a cheeky rubble ), the rgb split transition works nicely ( There were some comments that it took a little long, some comments I just choose to ignore ), the between level tips are a nice touch too, even though one was broken that no one noticed which got hidden with a nasty 11th hour kludge.
Olli did great work with the players ship, the asteroids and the title screen animation. Funnily enough it's the closest we've worked together on a game, and it was really smooth ( I'm sure I'm looking at that with rose tinted spectacles though, I'm pretty positive I pissed Olli off untold times ).
The curved text was a pain though, as I didn't use code to curve it, so it meant using the art package for every text amend. Painful.

Code. It's a really solid game code wise, it uses our distance based broadphase collision routine which worked perfectly for this game. Also procedurally generating the background was really cool, something I'm proud of. The data mining in there is pretty good too, with Olli doing the clever server side stuff.

The game itself. I really enjoy playing it, it's a good game, and that's the best I can ever hope for.

What went wrong:

We had this really good data mining system, and just failed to use it. I did code up some widgets but they never went anywhere.

A real waste, but there comes a point of diminishing returns.

The sponsor requirements meant that we had to rename it, which I wasn't over the moon about, and actually remove some features. This meant that the version on Candystand isn't as good as it should be, which is a real pity.
( Just for the record, Dave @CS was a joy to work with, I'm really not criticising Candystand in any way, it's just frustrating removing working features ).

We experimented adding twitter support, being all web 2.0. Total waste of time, it was badly implemented, took far too long to add and no one used it. Lesson learned there.

Old wip grab

Survival mode. Another important learning point. I thought adding a half arsed feature to increase the "value" of the game was a good idea. It turns out that players expect things to be good, rather than just tacked on, crazy talk I know. The perception isn't that it's a bit more to the game, which is how I saw it, it was treated as integral part, and seeing how it was weak we suffered because of that.
Fair enough, it's not something I can argue against.

No one liked it. Ok, a little bit exaggerated for dramatic effect, but it did fall between two stools. Old gamers were expecting Asteroids controls, and were disappointed that we'd gone "Dual stick" with it. New gamers who didn't grow up with Asteroids felt it was lacking in other ways, such as a lack of bosses ( Amongst many other things ).
Basically we hit the middle ground perfectly, which pissed off both sides ( Spoiler alert. The Ionic post mortem is going to end the same way ).

It got an ok-ish 3.80 on Newgrounds, died it's death on Kongregate ( Naturally ). I honestly don't know what it's done traffic wise, we weren't allowed our own tracking in there, the moch-ad figures say just over 385,000 impressions, so add in the skips and the site lock plays and we're looking at a piss poor million or so hits. Nothing really.
This is why the widgets never saw the light of day, there's only so much time you can throw at a project that's not going anywhere.

Before this gets too pessimistic and ends on a low, it's a game we're proud of and it's still fun to play even now. I'm more than happy to have it as part of the GYW back catalogue, it represents us well ( A technically good, pretty game that no one likes aside from us ).
If this was the last game I'd ever written I wouldn't be upset.

Squize.

Jay is Games: A Bonte Escape

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 21:00:00 +0000

[Platform: Flash] A Bonte Escape is everything you would expect from Bart Bonte, great production values, easy controls, fun puzzles, easy on the ears music, and logical solutions. This is a man who understands casual gameplay and produces some of the best examples out there.

Jay is Games: Babylon Sticks: Online Training

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 16:00:00 +0000

An education is only as what you got it from...

Jay is Games: Bungluwa

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 13:00:00 +0000

[Platform: Flash] Bungluwa, a word of obscure origins, can be loosely translated as meaning: "to make a robot jump rapidly towards the exit point while collecting light bulbs and avoiding things that make it blow up". Coincidentally enough, this also happens to be the basic premise of the game with the same name. Bungluwa tasks the player with controlling a robot called BGW 10k in a retro vertical platformer with various mechanics hindering the robot's main goal of reaching the exit.

Jay is Games: Epic War 4

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 22:00:00 +0000

[Platform: Flash] Got a hankering for tactical warfare? How about commanding an army of diverse, magical creatures and using an array of powerful spells to wreak havoc on the battlefield? That's what Epic War 4 is all about; an exciting mishmash of strategic defense and action-packed combat on--as the name implies--an epic scale.

Hero Interactive: Announcing Roaming Fortress!

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 20:33:21 +0000

I’m very pleased to announce a new game under development: Roaming Fortress!

Developed in partnership with our friends (and fellow Michiganders) over at YETi CGI, Roaming Fortress will be one of our bigger titles- featuring epic battles between your giant upgradable fortress on the back of a massive creature against hordes of oncoming enemies. Not only can you defend your fortress with Spearmen, Archers, Catapults and more as you watch the gigantic battle unfold and your orders are carried out, but you’ll be able to use your hero to fire arrows yourself into the fray and use special abilities. The game will also feature several locations to battle through and an array of really sweet enemies. Enemy units can even mount other units, for example you might come across a siege tower with a fire mage on top, pushed by a huge ogre- killing the ogre will leave the siege tower standing and mage still attacking you!

The game features some gorgeous 3d rendered art and it is really looking fantastic. We should have some screenshots in the next couple of months that I can throw up on here as well as some updated information about the game.

Expect some more kick-ass games as a result from our collaborating with YETi, they are putting out some amazing work and it means we’ve got a lot of good stuff headed your way.

Free Game News: Darkness 2 – Cliff of Eternity

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 17:41:57 +0000

Darkness 2 is a little puzzler created by Luiz Fernando where you find yourself “stuck in a dark, nightmarish place, and all you have is paint. Lots of paint. Use this paint to uncover your path to the exit of the levels, while avoiding treats…” Have fun!

Free Game News: Sanctuary 17

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 17:18:42 +0000

Sanctuary 17 is a retro arcade adventure game created by Twofold Secret. Inspired by Night Stalker, Sanctuary 17 builds on the original mechanics and adds a larger maze with special rooms, more sophisticated robot AI, several inventory items, and a storyline. Have fun!

Free Game News: The Dream Machine – Chapter 1

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 17:14:24 +0000

After a long wait, the first chapter of the Dream Machine is now online. Created by Anders Gustafsson (the author of the popular Gateway series) and Erik Zaringa, this new Point’n'Click adventure series is amazingly well done, with all the scenes made out of clay and cardboard! “You play as Victor and Alicia, a couple who’ve just [...]

Free Game News: Journalistic Stories

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 16:28:44 +0000

Help Michael Jennings, a journalist for the crime page of the City Time, investigate a convoluted case and catch a crook in Journalistic Stories. The beautiful Gloria Witkinson, a rising star in the cabaret world, had been killed, but the police are claiming it was a suicide. Now it’s up to Michael to explore a love triangle, [...]