Pixelmancer.io

I make games and stuff...

[pixelmancy-blog]

Crash_To_Desktop() - A Game a Week #13

Overview:

For this week, I decided to experiment with chromatic aberration as a visual feedback element (ala screen shake). Turns out, it looks really cool. Anyway, I couldn't decide whether I wanted to make a stealth game (ex Light) or action (ex Hotline Miami), so it ended up being a mix. Hack, shoot, and stealth your way to victory.

Download:

http://enathang.itch.io/crash-to-desktop

[pixelmancy-blog]

Jumpventure - A Game a Week #12

Overview:

Jumpventure is a game all about air-jumping your way past spikes. Using Q and E, hop you way to victory!

Features:

Jumping

Pixels

Death

Download:

http://enathang.itch.io/jumpventure

[pixelmancy-blog]

Iron Gaia - A Game a Week #11

Overview:

Decided to switch it up, and try my hand at a more abstract style. The result is Iron Gaia, where you wake up on an abandoned ship, and have to figure out what happened. While the game could easily be expanded to include an actual story, sfx, and hacking/combat, I think the cool visual style and attention to detail compliment the game well. Anyway, made this one quickly, onward and upward!

Download:

http://enathang.itch.io/iron-gaia

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[pixelmancy-blog]

Blobby - A Game a Week #10

Overview:

You play as Blobby, a precocious slime who has an inherent need to jump among floating islands. Blobby was a result of my need to learn Unity. As such, not exactly a mind-blowing game (is it even a game?), but certainly a good step in learning Unity. Next few games might be a bit slow, but we shall see. In the mean time, have fun!

Download:

http://enathang.itch.io/blobby

[pixelmancy-blog]

WASD - A Game a Week #9

Overview:

As a challenge, I decided to try and base a game around a new, central mechanic. The result is WASD, where, by some exotic magic, spike and arrow traps are triggered by keyboard presses. Sure, it's pretty easy, until you jump and the spike trap you forgot about is suddenly triggered.

Download:

http://enathang.itch.io/wasd

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[pixelmancy-blog]

DE4TH - A Game a Week #8

Overview:

DE4TH is an experiment on death positivity. What does that mean? Well, most video games portray death in a negative way, like an obstacle or failure. The question of this game is 'Does death always have to be a negative?' Anyway, turned into a walking simulator because of time constraints, but it's always fun to try and break convention.

Dowload:

http://itch.io/game/edit/34862

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[pixelmancy-blog]

GLI@#%^TCH - A Game a Week #7

Overview:

GLI@#%^TCH is a puzzle game about a piece of data that, one day, comes across a glitch. The glitch allows the data to pass through walls. However, when the glitch starts corrupting the system, it's up to the data to puzzle the world back together...mostly.

Download:

http://enathang.itch.io/glitch

[pixelmancy-blog]

Battle Box - A Game a Week #6

Overview:

Battle box is a Battle Network-esque prototype made in about an hour. You play as a box, trying to fight other boxes. But there’s a twist: your character is secretly...a crate.

Play:

http://enathang.itch.io/battle-box

[pixelmancy-blog]

Red Baron - A Game a Week #5

Overview:

Red Baron is a plane shooter where you play the Red Baron. Shoot, explode, and generally mayhem your way to victory. As usual, made in a week, and doubling as my A Game By Its Cover entry.

Play:

http://enathang.itch.io/red-baron

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[pixelmancy-blog]

Charon - A Game a Week #4

Overview:

Charon is a 2D puzzle platformer. The user flips between the overworld and underworld, solving platforming puzzles. However, when a temple is disturbed, the worlds are flipped. Long story short, you jump, puzzle, and platform your way to victory. 

Download:

http://gamejolt.com/games/charon/82631

Thoughts and more pictures below.

In spite of being thrown together in a couple days (making it by far my quickest project in AGAW), it has also been the most successful. On GameJolt, it currently rests at 160 views and 50 downloads, which is a stark contrast to Arcade Golf, which has a measly 46 views and 15 downloads.

I suspect there are a couple reasons for this, one simply being that Charon naturally has an interesting aesthetic. Even looking at the header image as I type this, I can’t help but want to play it, even when I know it only has three levels, all of which are boring. Arcade Golf, while pretty interesting visually (also featuring a pretty fancy screen flicker), just doesn’t seem to draw people in the way Charon does, with its Limbo meets Electronic Super Joy (where it gets its visuals). In addition, a couple small additions were made to Charon’s page, like a longer description and a header. Headers especially seem to work wonders for a game, because they are the only game asset the viewer is forced to see, while every other screenshot has to be enlarged or clicked on. 

However, there were also mistakes made in Charon. Besides being REALLY short and a puzzle game in name only, there is no link to a website or twitter or anything in the game. MAKE IT EASY FOR YOUR PLAYERS TO CONTACT YOU. From now on, every game of mine will feature my name, twitter, and website. Nine times out of ten, the game will be terrible and nobody will care. But if the game actually does well, as Charon did, hopefully it will translate into a greater online presence, if even slightly. Finally, I really regret not including any music in the game. I actually had a decent track selected, but decided to release it without because I just wanted to get it out the door. Even if you have mediocre music, put it in, and players can mute it if they want to.

Anyway, its pretty cool that people actually played one of my games. NOW, ONTO THE NEXT ONE!

[pixelmancy-blog]

Galactix - A Game a Week #3

This week is Galactix, a 2D randomly generated dungeon crawler. Players explore randomly generated ships and collect currency, which can be used to upgrade the space station. What it lacks in polish...well, it lacks in polish. Maybe give it a shot anyway, and feedback is always appreciated.

Download:

http://enathang.itch.io/galactix

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[pixelmancy-blog]

Arcade Golf - A Game a Week #2

The weekend is ending, and with it comes another game. Arcade golf is a 2D minimalist golfing game. I think it is pretty cool (competent art and good feel) but the game does not seem to be garnering that much attention. Oh well! Couldn’t quite fit in local multiplayer or gamepad support, but the actual game is finished.

Download:

http://enathang.itch.io/arcade-golf

Expand for more photos

[pixelmancy-blog]

Catacombs - A Game A Week #1

Catacombs is Legend of Zelda with machine guns. You play as a cute protagonist that was thrown into the Catacombs, and tasked with making his way to safety, using various overpowered weapons.

Play it:

http://enathang.itch.io/catacombs

Three things that worked:

 - Strong premise: Zelda with machine guns. How can that not sound cool?

 - Consistent art style: Even if the art is bad, at least it is consistent.

 - Polish: While it is missing some features (audio, UI) the inclusion of screen shake and bullet impact effects do wonders for the game.

Three things that did not work (where I shout at myself in the second person):

 - Content: Look, if you are making a game in a week, DO NOT leave content to the last minute. It is easy to think ‘Oh, I’ll just throw together three levels on Sunday, so I can spend all the time before that improving the menus or whatever.’ NO. STOP. Decent level design can (and will) make or break your game, and guess what: it takes A LOT of time. If you do not have (next to) all of your levels completed by the time you are polishing mechanics, you are doing it wrong. Much like the mechanics of the game, content/level design takes many iterations to get right. You might as well iterate on your level design while you iterate on your mechanics. If you need to spend a little time reworking the second level because changing the mechanics broke a section of it, that is fine. It is better than not having a second level, because you wanted to perfect your mechanic before you built your levels and ran out of time.

 - AI: This goes well with content/level design. One big problem with Catacombs is the AI, while pretty decently coded, does not suit the type of gameplay. Enemy design flows from the content, and can be really easy to get wrong. If you are making a puzzle game, enemies should react predictably. If you are making an action game, enemies should be obvious and relatively stupid. And if you are making a shoot ‘em up, enemies should be really gratuitous to kill. Hence Catacombs’ problem. Enemies would charge you in little groups and shoot at you. While this itself is not incredibly fun (as opposed to shooting massive groups of enemies), the enemies would always force the player out of the room that the enemies were triggered in, forcing the player to spam bullets down the hallways and hoping they killed all the enemies. Contrast this to a game like Nuclear Throne or Gungeon, where the player is desperately dodging around the room, shooting and dodging bullets in equal measure. THAT is the gameplay that Catacombs was intended to have, but did not. In short, AI might not play nice, so be sure to test early and often.

 - Forcing a specific type of gameplay: While it is incredibly valuable to be able to know what your game is going to be and focus all effort into making it do what it is going to do well, you also run the risk of the game not actually being fun. When it comes down to it, you need to take that design document, throw it into a bin, and light that bin on fire. Design documents are incredibly valuable for many things, but making a game fun is not one of them. You need to play your game, play it often, and let it become the game it naturally becomes, as opposed to forcing a preconceived idea on it. 

TL;DR: Catacombs was a great idea (strong premise), and got a lot of things right (pixelated art, screen shake, unique weapons), but wasn’t the type of game you should make in a week.  

[pixelmancy-blog]

Quick Update

Quick update here. I know this blog has been rather neglected, so here’s a quick recap of what’s been happening and plans for the future:

 - I have still been making games, but I haven’t posted any of them because, well...they suck.

 - I became more or less familiar with Unity (still prefer GM though)

 - I started GameDev Secret Santa and @VGartStyles

 - I published a game on GameJolt

Future:

 - Create an actual website and social media (and update those regularly)

Now, here comes the interesting part. I plan on making a game a week for the forseeable future. While this means that most of my released games will be crap, they will also be regular and provide some much needed experience.

I will be launching an official website in the near future for my failed prototypes and occasional gamedev wisdom. Until then, stay tuned!

[pixelmancy-blog]

#1GAM June 2014 - Letters from Whitechapel

Theme: Doctor

Overview

Letters from Whitechapel is basically The Last Door meets Professor Layton (except not nearly as polished.) Made in roughly two weeks, the game follows the famous Sherlock Holmes and his first encounter with the Whitechapel Murderer, also known as Jack the Ripper. Players will have to solve three puzzles in the first (and only) chapter, making their way to the police station, where a mysterious box waits for them. Also features music by johnfn (http://johnfn.newgrounds.com/)!

Controls

Move - WASD

Continue Dialogue - E (Advance the dialogue completely before starting the puzzle, or else you might have to redo the puzzle)

Interact with Puzzles - Left Click

Goal

Solve puzzles on your way to the police station, where Inspector Lestrade waits for you.

Download

http://www.mediafire.com/download/1im6dpbxbnietg3/Letters_From_WhitechapelGame.exe

Enjoy!

[pixelmancy-blog]

#1GAM May 2014 - Angry Bomb

Theme: Money

Overview

Angry bomb is a quick mini-game I made right after the end of school. I almost did not make a game for 1GAM because of finals, but I managed to squeeze it in. The game itself is based off the bomb 'omb mini-game in Mario. The player sorts bombs into their respective categories. If a bomb is not sorted fast enough or sorted incorrectly, the game ends.

Controls

Move Bomb - Left Click

Goal

Sort as many bombs as possible before they blow up.

Download

http://www.mediafire.com/download/44mq7jgbn48sc1o/Angry+Bomb.zip

Enjoy!

[pixelmancy-blog]

#1GAM April 2014 - Treasure Hunter

Theme: Water

Overview

Treasure Hunter is a platformer based off FEZ by Polytron. The player collects coins at the bottom of the ocean, exploring a sunken ship, an ancient temple, and a set of caves to find all of the coins. Not as epic as it probably sounds, but poses an interesting challenge to speed runners and features music by johnfn. And it was fun to make!

Controls

Move left/right - A/D

Restart - R

Toggle Full-Screen - esc

Goal

Collect all of the coins (total of 330$) before you run out of breath.

Download

http://www.mediafire.com/download/43ufis6h7m9283a/Treasure_Hunter_Game.zip

Enjoy!