Archive for January, 2010
Updates, Videos, and a beard
Jan 18th
A few things late on a Sunday night:
1) I updated Wholesale Hero yet again, the link is the same (here). Build 286 fixes a few bugs, adds some boring features, blah blah. Here’s a breakdown:
Bug Fixes:
~ Fixed issue with shipping round not responding to clicks after second round
~ Fixed issue with saved games not opening correctly
~ Long company names now display more gracefully
New Features:
~ Added a preference option to turn off Growl
~ Added preference for news display time
Changes:
~ Disabled Sparkle to allow for easier Windows integration
~ Added date and version number to internal error reporting
Exciting, no? By disabling Sparkle it will allow me to start testing for Windows (which I am already doing right now — a few more bugs need to be worked out before I’ll make the beta public, but at that time the builds for Windows and Mac will be in sync) so the current auto-update scheme won’t work, you’ll have to download again. And a big thanks to all of you who have been playing WH and sending me feedback!
2) I have uploaded a gameplay video of my latest project (the Space Invaders project) which is now more than far enough along to spill the beans about and not have to worry about someone shitting out a flash version before I can even start coding. Basic synopsis: inverse space invaders, you play as the invaders and the computer tries to destroy you, etc. This whole concept came out of a strange, feverish dream, and after consulting with King Thor, we determined that no one had actually made a Space Invaders game from the point of view of the invaders… This was not only surprising, but lead me to start development right away. So here is the video — Right now the game is called “Increase Speed, Drop Down, Reverse Direction,” because I am, as my girlfriend so quickly pointed out, a complete dork and Futurama is still funny. So enjoy some unfiltered gameplay, complete with accidental Albert Ayler soundtrack (didn’t realize I had Screenflick’s sound recording turned on) and mid-movie tweet Growl. The algorithm isn’t perfect yet, and I’m no good at being the aliens (as a side note, this is the first level, so you can only have 2 shots on screen at any one time — I did this to make the game more difficult on early levels. For you, that is, not the computer.)
3) I’m growing a beard for a charity mustache festival and look like a homeless guy. Oh, and I’m going to GDC/IGF this year in San Francisco, without a game in the festival but with full intention of mingling with the other developer weirdos. Hopefully I’ll have shaved and gotten a haircut by then.
Concept sketches from space invaders game
Jan 7th
King Thor and I have begun work on a new game, born from a concept I dreamt up late one night (quite literally — I had a dream about it). While I won’t reveal all the details quite yet, it is a Space Invaders-like game and I’ve been making some progress on the inner workings… So here’s a quick shot of some (tiny scans) of the art I’ve shat out so far.
The invaders (and their lasers)
The defender and some explosions:
And finally, the bunker and some more explosions:
You might be asking yourself “what the hell are those oddly shaped cracked things?” Those may be the chunks taken out of the bunker… possibly. Obviously this is still in the design phase and nothing is set in stone yet, but I’m really happy with the way things have turned out thus far — stay tuned for more!
Hello 2010 (an update)
Jan 5th
So I have three things to tell everyone:
1) I updated the website with a new look and feel for 2010, with a simpler update system for me, and a better system for permalinks. I also moved all the old pages into an archive folder, because after three years of updates and old links I figured it was about time to start fresh and clean. There are some CSS 3 additions and it looks fine and dandy on Safari, Firefox and Chrome, but I’m sure the 5% of my visitors using IE will be presented with something less than spectacular (I don’t have any Windows software, so it’s hard to say what they’re doing there anyway)
2) I uploaded Wholesale Hero build 263 to the website (available here) It is mostly working and ready for the world, but it definitely needs some beta testing, so if you would be so kind as to download it and send me feedback, I would appreciate it! I’ve played it pretty extensively during the build phase, but I’m sure there are still bugs that will pop up, so any help would be great.
3) 2009 was another busy year for Mojiferous Industries, with contest entries, contest wins (Most Creative Game and a bronze for Best Sound in uDev 2008 for Simoebic Dysentery), my first utility (FontUtensil), and what seemed like a never-ending build for Wholesale Hero. Atomic Combat and Desktop Cigarette continued to be the stars of the show, with 10s and over 100 thousand downloads respectively, and more and more people [and their bizarrely named countries] logging high scores in AC. The fact the “France” was finally knocked out of the top spot in the AC Top Ten amazed me, since I have never gotten anywhere close to the over 7000 mark that “Uri” achieved just last month. No one seemed to really care about FontUtensil, although the few people that have seen it in use or used it themselves seemed to value it, but I still have yet to get any feature requests or traceable bug reports (which means I should just call it a 1.0 release, but who has time for such things?) King Thor and I also entered Simoebic Dysentery another contest, and they have yet to contact me about my ability to post the new Simoebic build to the public, or for that matter, if they even received anything beyond my entry fee. We won’t see results from our efforts for another couple of months, but hopefully the time we squeezed in between school and work was enough to make a winning game of some sort… And then there was Wholesale Hero, which started as a lark and then became my semester project and now may finally see the light of day — I slaved unusually hard upon it, making sure everything not only looked okay but also functioned well, and I think the results have paid off. I wouldn’t hesitate to call WH the most complete game I’ve released: full working update system (thanks to Sparkle), a graphical theme I actually spent time refining and tweaking until I I was happy with it AND it looked okay, the start of a truly helpful help system, more than just basic sound (although music would be keen), a gameplay concept initially stolen from Motor Pants but refined and expanded to a point where my simple matching game is much more enjoyable (and with another game type added on), and a full-featured online scoring system that is much more robust and interesting than the simple one I developed for Atomic Combat. I have high hopes for Wholesale Hero in the coming year, and you’ll have to tell me what you think!
And so 2010 is shaping up to be another banner year here at Mojiferous Industries: still no money coming in, yet more strange games (KT and I are currently working on something that could be pretty interesting) and maybe some swashbuckling adventure!
Or maybe no swashbuckling, I am getting a little too old to be running around with a sword stabbing pirates.
—Mojiferous