This month's
One Game a Month submission was created during the
Ludum Dare jam, and I teamed up with
Paul again who whipped up some fantastic graphics. Other Space was created in 72 hours.
At first, we struggled to match the game idea we had to the theme ("Minimalism"), but thanks to a huge lightbulb moment, we had our game on track by the end of day one.
I'll post a timelapse of the Jam here once I have one.
I'm not going to give away too much about the game, check out the video and screenshots. It's a short but (in my opinion) beautiful experience that I'm extremely proud of.
I have to say, I'm loving taking part in game jams. I'm not too sure I could do a solo one, but the two of us working together on something as awesome as Other Space and having fun while doing it is something I'm sure I'll be doing more of in future.
Tools Used
- Monogame / XNA
- Visual Studio 2012
- Photoshop CS6
- Fireworks CS6
- Audition CS6
- Spine
- Texture Packer
Clockwatching
72 hours. And it seemed
way shorter than that!
Special Thanks
- James and Matt for coming round to support us for a couple of hours.
- Everyone that tweeted, 'booked, and joined us in Twitch chat.
Downloads
Windows. If it doesn't run, you may need to install OpenAL.
And Linux. This has been tested on Linux Mint 14 (Cinnamon), you may need to install libSDL-mixer (sudo apt install libsdl-mixer1.2). If still no joy, run from a terminal (mono OtherSpace.exe) and copy/paste the output into a comment below.
- Other Space - Linux .tar.gz
March has come and gone, and with it - a new game!
This month's
One Game a Month submission took me way out of my comfort zone and into three dimensions. It's not often I make 3D games as I don't really have a head for maths, but I forced myself to give it a go and I'm really glad I did.
The idea to make a "Pseudo-3D" racing game started a year or more ago when I was linked to
Lou's Pseudo 3d Page. As a childhood fan of racers like Outrun and Lotus Turbo Challenge, I really fancied the idea of making a game in the same style.
However, the one game I really wanted to emulate above all was
Power Drift, my favourite of all the not-quite-3D racing games. I intend to write a blog post that goes into detail on the engine I came up with, but the gist of it is that I ended up ditching the idea of emulating the sprite-based pseudo-3D in favour of an actual 3D engine that emulated the look of pseudo-3D (which was trying to emulate real 3D).
The gameplay took a bit of a backseat this month. I'm not particularly happy with the handling of the car or the AI of the rival cars, they're functional rather than fun. This month it was all about challenging myself to work in 3D, and making an attempt to emulate the graphical style of Power Drift.
I'm really happy with the way it turned out, and I feel more confident that I could use stylized 3D graphics in future games.
Next month, I'm hoping to finally release Dreamland as my 1GAM submission. There's also Ludum Dare on the last weekend of April, and I'm due to take part in the 72-hour Jam contest. The product of the jam will most likely be the basis for May's 1GAM submission.
Tools Used
- Monogame / XNA
- Visual Studio 2012
- Photoshop CS6
- Audition CS6
- Blender
Clockwatching
Super Turbo Racer '89 was created in six weeks, beginning with a prototype on the 13th February (during development of GravWalker). I took it easy for the middle two weeks of March, though. I'd estimate there's around 70 hours' work here.
Special Thanks
- Ken Snyder for letting me licence a few of his great demoscene-style tracker tunes.
Downloads
Windows version is ready. If it doesn't run, you may need to install OpenAL.
- Super Turbo Racer '89 - Windows .zip
And Linux. This has been tested on Linux Mint 14 (Cinnamon), you may need to install libSDL-mixer (sudo apt install libsdl-mixer1.2). If still no joy, run from a terminal (mono SuperTurboRacer89.exe) and copy/paste the output into a comment below.
- Super Turbo Racer '89 - Linux .tar.gz
I'm powering into February with GravWalker, a gravity-defying shoot-em-up that takes inspiration from the Amiga game
Walker. It was one of my favourite games on my favourite platform and I think I've done well by it.
I've also used the idea of a 360-degree rotating tilemap to create what I believe is a pretty fun and unique game. Download and play or just watch the video and I think you'll agree!
For this month's game I've pushed myself to do as much of the graphics as possible by myself. I want to get better at creating 2D art and although I realise I will never be as good as I
need to be, I at least want to get to a level slightly above "programmer art". For GravWalker, I drew and animated the majority of the game sprites myself. I made judicious use of particles to add to the eye candy - and to mask some of the flaws in my art!
You may notice that I'm releasing this in the middle of February. Why am I releasing now instead of using the remaining week-and-a-bit to add more to the game? Well firstly, GravWalker is a complete one-level prototype that has a beginning, a middle and an end. To create more levels and expand the ideas into a full game would take me well beyond the end of February.
Secondly, I wanted to get ahead of time in the One Game a Month challenge because my March game is taking me outside of my 2D comfort zone and into the realm of 3D. Keep an eye on my Twitter to see more of that over the coming weeks. Now I have a whole six weeks for the next project which gives me a good safety buffer.
Tools Used
- Monogame / XNA
- Visual Studio 2012
- Photoshop CS6
- Audition CS6
- Tiled
- Spriter
Clockwatching
GravWalker was created in 30 days, beginning with an exploratory prototype on the 17th January. I would say an average of 20 hours per week was dedicated to the game once the initial prototype was running.
Special Thanks
- Paul Yendley for the awesome game background
- deviantArt user ~gregah for the helicopter sprite that I used for inspiration for drawing the other vehicles.
Downloads
As always, the Windows version is ready to go. If it doesn't run, you may need to install OpenAL.
And a
test Linux download.
- GravWalker - Linux .tar.gz
Disclaimer: I am not a Linux user. I have cobbled together a package that runs on a FRESH Linux Mint 14 without installing any other dependencies. YMMV. Use the .sh script to run the game. If it doesn't work, try it from a terminal: "mono GravWalker.Mono.Linux.exe". Running from a terminal will give you a an error dump that you can copy and paste into a comment below.
Please send me a tweet @garethiw if you manage to run the Linux version successfully!
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