I’m a few days late mentioning this here but look at that!! My previous best category rating, I believe, was about 49th in humour for Jack. So imagine my shock upon seeing this result on Tuesday! It was enough to get Harold is an Executioner a spot on Indie Statik’s round-up too! As a long time would-be contender (see: this entire blog) I am absolutely delighted to break into the top end of the voting. The game also placed 8th for my use of the theme “You are the villain” (and optionally, goats).

The weird thing is I don’t even feel like this is the best thing I’ve done, but I suppose as an experience it is more focused in its intent and delivery. It actually gets a message across to people (even if it is pretty straight-forward). I have upset people greatly with my miserable interactive tale, and have reaped my reward.

It feels like the perfect start to 2013: a year that I am promising myself will be a very important year for me and my work. So without pause for breath the next thing to note is my participation in the surprisingly popular One Game A Month movement, which I fully intend to keep up with. I’m off to India for a little jolly shortly, so my January game will be simple and finished right at the end of the month. In which case, I better go get some work done!

Not long ago I was quite determined I would not be able to make a game this past weekend but somehow I worked around two pub visits and a meal outing to finish up something I’ve descriptively called Harold is an Executioner.

The theme this time around was “You Are the Villain”, which pretty much sealed the deal on me entering. I am sometimes guilty of whinging about uninspired Ludum Dare themes but this is a great one! So I crafted this game telling the tale of an unlikely executioner doing his job to put food on the table as the horror of what he does every day washes over him.

It’s got to be the darkest thing I’ve ever produced and was almost at times a little uncomfortable to put together. But none of this is supposed to be gratuitous and I’m hopeful that shows. Sometimes life sucks. Harold’s life sucks. This game is not “fun”. Here’s hoping the “mood” category helps me in the voting!

And as per tradition, a time-lapse appears!

And if I’ve not spoiled your mood too much, do have a good Christmas and New Year! I will return soon, possibly with something relating to this phrase: “One Game A Month”…

Hello again! I’m afraid I haven’t touched Project Prophecy since the last Ludum Dare compo but I have continued to tinker around with Flash things. This weekend was Mini-Ludum Dare #37: I hadn’t especially planned to enter but the theme called out to me. Not making a game; or more accurately, making a not-game. A chance to forget reward mechanics and arbitrary challenges in favour of crafting a specific and personal experience for the player (if we still call him or her that) to take in.

It is literally full of stars

As you may not be aware I have always held something of a fascination with space and the universe: I actually studied a masters degree in Physics with Astrophysics while I still decided what to do with my life. And while I’ve long forgotten most of the hard maths I tried to absorb those years ago, this vague fascination formed the basis of the game I made this weekend. In it you are presented a fairly accurately mapped section of the Northern Hemisphere sky (thanks to this neat site) where you can pick out constellations amongst the stars. There is a little incidental dialogue from the out-of-shot stargazing couple to accompany your little exploration. I’m quite pleased with it really, I hope it can prove a pleasant distraction!

Play “Stargazing” here

Evolution! The theme seemed destined to forever look on from the ranks of Ludum Dare’s final voting round only to see another take the honour; but this time somehow Evolution pushed past “Parallel Worlds” by the smallest of margins to finally get its weekend in the Sun. Surely after noticing this theme time and time again I would be full of ideas to crack on with. Well… not quite. I couldn’t really get past the whole “evolve your character to be gradually better” idea that I ended up rolling with. Turns out this was actually a really difficult theme to properly dig into.

So, my entry then is an arcadey little top-down shooter. I figured something really managed and mechanically straightforward was a good idea, and in a sense it probably was. I think the 2 main reasons I ended up a bit disappointed with this are as follows:

1. I struggled on Saturday. I had a few drinks Friday night but it wasn’t that, I just got distracted easier than usual, for which I could blame a number of things not least the fact I’m moving into a new flat imminently and have a lot of stuff to arrange. But yeah, excuses excuses.
2. I didn’t love the idea. I don’t think it’s enough to just have a small, focused idea. Not if you want to make something of real value. Everything was a bit mechanical with this and my motivation suffered for it. Next time I’ll try to take this on board and go for something I can imbue with a little more passion.

So there it is – mixed feelings but as ever with these things, I reckon I’m better for it. Back to Project Prophecy! (I really need a better name for that at some point…) Oh and here’s the timelapse from my time doing LD 24:

Play “Mutation Flight” here

Unbelievably the Ludum Dare 48-hour games competition has been knocking around for all of ten years now, though I’ve only been involved for the last couple of those. The near-exponential growth of games continues: 1000 entries was inevitably broken in the competition itself and the total finished just over 1400 including the Jam. Incredible. At this rate by LD 30 there’ll be more entries than stars in the sky.

Anyway! This time I went wild and made… a pixel-arted platformer! So cliché, I know, but it’s actually the first game of this kind I’ve personally put out there. The theme “Tiny World” once again didn’t fill me with delight, but here’s what I came up with: giants are threatening the Tiny Kingdom beneath them and you, as Jack, must defeat them! Obviously this is deriving from Jack the Giant Killer/Jack and the Beanstalk etc. It has a silly sense of humour, no less than 3 pieces of music I somehow found time to compose and can be finished in less than a minute.

Play “Jack”

And of course here is the timelapse. Ooh look, Windows 7!

I think it’s a great idea: everyone spends a weekend (or whatever) banging out a stream of miniature slices of gaming; rough, bug-riddled fragments of joy. Unfortunately, the weekend in question happened to fall shortly before my imminent adventure to Seoul. Net result: way too distracted, and honestly my heart just wasn’t really in it this time.

Nevertheless, I forced my way through three of these “games” before finally giving up. They live on my PC/Mac game page in one handy collection with a silly name belying the rather plain contents.

The games then:

• Flip On – An ode to a primitive 90s puzzle toy
• Balance – Balance blocks on a precarious beam (thanks Unity rigid bodies!)
• Goals, I Do Adore – A challenge to “score goals” with the kind of controls and physics likely to make you a little bit angry

I set out to make these in Unity, and stuck to it. But absolutely, for games intended to take at most two hours, I wouldn’t do the same again. I just want something to put pixels on a screen in that time.

Download Paul’s Premier Pirate Kart Krap Kollection over here

After a busy Christmas and New Year of doing things entirely apart from game development, I decided to throw myself into another 48-hour Ludum Dare effort. This was Mini LD #31, and I saw it as an opportunity to redeem myself for what I saw as a somewhat disappointing entry into the main competition last month. This time I would make something more ambitious…

The result is a Unity game titled Three Colours: DEATH (thanks to a friend for the excellent suggestion), but this time delievering a full 3D experience (In 48 hours! Unity really is something). I called it a “first-person survival puzzle game” on submission at the Ludum Dare site.

The concept is that the world is made of three colours (red, blue, green) and that the player can acquire the ability to phase through one or more of these colours – walls, enemies, the lot. It is also purposefully creepy, complete with a whispered rhyming narrative from yours truly. Maybe the weirdest thing I’ve released, but I think one of the most worthwhile.

Download Three Colours: DEATH on my new PC/Mac game page!

P.S. The tower can be climbed! There is an “end” (of sorts) at the top.