Posts from ‘Features’ Category
Cockpit Compo!
By: Derek Yu
On: February 20th, 2009
After a brief intermission, we is back with another competition in the hizzle f’shizzle… say hello to the TIGSource Cockpit Compo! We’ve all seen games that featured a cockpit of some kind – some of us have even played and loved a game with a cockpit in it. But let’s face it, it’s still a relatively underused concept in games.
Whether you’re in a plane, a car, a mech, or even a human being, cockpits act as a powerful HUD or second screen between you and the rest of the game. They can be props that add a sense of dynamism and realism to a game, and they can provide visual data. They can also be interactive. As usual, we’re keeping the rules pretty vague for this compo – how can you make a cockpit work for you?
The competition begins this Sunday, and ends on March 29th, a week after GDC. See the compo page for rules and examples!
Commonplace Book Compo: Results!
By: Derek Yu
On: December 24th, 2008
Finally, for my ultimate Christmas Eve post, here are the results of our creepy-crawley Commonplace Book Compo! The winner, by a sizeable margin, is Kyle Pulver’s Verge. A well-deserved win by the former Vice President of RomeoPie Software.
The top 10 games were:
1. Verge, by Kyle Pulver
2. From Primordial Egg, by Fifth
3. Eversion, by Zaratustra
4. This Cursed Rock, by deadeye
5. Lost in Eldritch, by Bob le Moche
6. My Entry, by cactus
7. Herbert West in ‘Carrion Re-animating!’, by captainbinky
8. The Clatter of the Keys, by Pishtaco
9. The Lake, by agj
10. Doorror, by Pencerkoff
Please check out the rest of the entrants, too! Congratulations to all the entrants for making this a memorable couple of months. May an Old One crawl down your chimneys and bring you each the gift of a quick death tonight. Merry Cthulhumas!
Commonplace Book Compo: Voting Begins!
By: Derek Yu
On: December 9th, 2008
The Commonplace Book Competition has ended, and voting has begun! The theme of this particular competition was Lovecraft… specifically, his Commonplace Book, a notebook filled with disjointed notes for stories that never were. Originally set for a ooohhh creepy deadline of October 31st, we pushed back the deadline to November to give our entrants more time to work on their games. Because true horror occurs every day of the year, folks.
With Lovecraft as inspiration, it’s not surprising that atmosphere played heavily into the minds of the developers who entered this particular compo. But, as usual, it’s great to see the variety of ways in which this was achieved – with graphics, gameplay, sound, story or a minimum of them! There were even a fair number of interactive fiction entries, which are always welcome – it’s still a very much under-appreciated genre (note to self: cover more IF games).
Anyway, _mirosurabu_’s video above probably sums it up better than I could! And thanks to increpare, for finalizing the list of finished entries, and azeo for creating the torrent. And thanks, of course, to all the participants, for doin’ it. Time to play and vote!
TIGCompo: Commonplace Book
By: Derek Yu
On: October 17th, 2008
A TIGSource Halloween Competition approaches!
Renowned horror novelist H.P. Lovecraft kept a notebook, called “The Commonplace Book,” in which he jotted “ideas, images, & quotations hastily jotted down for possible future use in weird fiction. …Their sources are various—dreams, things read, casual incidents, idle conceptions, & so on.” As you might expect, these notes are fragmented, cryptic, and extremely creepy.
The goal of the TIGSource Commonplace Book Competition is to design a game based on one of the ideas from this book.
Update: Deadline extended, by popular request!
TIGSource Compo Madness
By: Derek Yu
On: September 12th, 2008
Update: a torrent has been added to the competition page (thanks, MedO!), and Alex Austin’s Deity of Hostility has been added as an entry.
Well, the Bootleg Demakes Competition is over. We actually have 68 entries for this one, 8 more than the VGNG compo (and there is at least one more that needs to be added). I’m running out of superlatives for you guys. Can we invent a word that’s better than “awesomesauce?” Like, “pandapoontastical” or something?
Not only that, but chutup’s wonderful Blankpunk Writing Competition has also wrapped up. I’ve assembled all the entries here and there will be a voting thread up soon.
Anyway, you know the drill… read, play, and pick your favorites! And please provide feedback to the hardworking creators, if you can! Congratulations to everyone who made something, from both competitions! Another very successful compo run finished!
(Video Source: Daphaknee [Possibly NSFW?])
TIGCompo: Bootleg Demakes!
By: Derek Yu
On: August 1st, 2008
Demakes: remakes of games on older generation hardware. Bootleg: not infringing on anyone’s intellectual property. You have a month.
Addendum via Lorne: Stop complaining about the rules! Comp ends september, rules are in the definition of those words up there ^. Pretty much, make it lower tech then the original game and don’t directly use copyright material.
Ye Olde TIGSource (Part 6)
By: ithamore
On: July 27th, 2008
Besides another trove of indie games and news for TIGSource veterans to gentlemanly reminisce over and for the rest of us to glean more from the TIGSource of yore, this installment of YOT contains the inaugural post of the Experimental Gameplay Project. It was from back when the ever inspiring site contained only the work of the founding four graduate students who spent a semester to make more than 50 7-day, solo developed games focused on diverse themes “with the goal of discovering and rapidly prototyping as many new forms of gameplay as possible.” That they did and then some, and now it’s a growing community.
Speaking of communities, it has been mentioned before how maintaining service and support for a game can become daunting over time, and you’ve probably noticed that several of the games and sites in YOT only continue to exist in the Internet Archive (if at all). However, handing the reigns over to the players can sometimes be the answer to keeping a game alive. Dark Horizons: Lore Invasion (which seems to come in second only to Darwinia for the most YOT entries), instead of being abandoned, was release as freeware in December 2007. Also, the dedicated DHLI denizens who had already been in charge of running the community last year took over the MMO indefinitely. They don’t seem to have much control beyond creating mod patches and scheduling events, but delegating as much responsibility as possible to those who don’t want a game to die can be better than pulling the plug on it.
(Image Source: Experimental Gameplay Project)
Sunday, March 20, 2005
Interesting Idea…
…But will it fly? Game Savant is a new service that sends demos on CD to anyone who asks. The service is free, and they hope to make money through demo purchases.
(Source: IndieGamer.com)
posted by Aaron H.
Falling blocks?
Jimmy Games has announced a new freeware game called “Blox Fall” (Which, based on the name, seems like it might be a game about blocks that fall, only cooler). According to their press release, the game features 500 puzzles, which “should keep ya busy.”
(Source: IndieGamer.com)
posted by Aaron H.
Dark Horizons: Lore Invasion
IGF finalist, Dark Horizons: Lore Invasion has been fully released according to a news post on Game Tunnel. You can apparently download a demo with unlimited play time (But with a number of other restrictions) from Garage Games (Direct link). There is no solid indication as to whether the Garage Games download differs from the demo that can be downloaded from the official site.
Available for Windows, Linux, and Mac
[Update: since December 20, 2007, Dark Horizons: Lore Invasion has been released as freeware.]
posted by Aaron H.
Democracy in Beta
The game, from Positech Games, is now entering beta stage as posted on Game Tunnel.
Apparently, Democracy is a political simulation game in which you vote and then hope for the best while being bombarded with simulated 24 hour news coverage. Oh, wait, my bad, here’s the real description of the game from their press release:
Democracy puts you in the posit[i]on of President (or Prime Minister) of one of a number of preset countries (such as UK, Germany, USA, Sweden etc). Your aim is to make sure that you get re-elected every 4 years by putting in place policies to keep your population happy.
If you want to participate in the beta, Positech Games has included instructions for applying on their Game Tunnel post.
posted by Aaron H.
Saturday, March 19, 2005
Edutainment!
No, wait, come back! It’s not as bad as you think; if you live in or near Chicago check out the Musuem of Science and Industry. They’re having an interactive history of gaming exhibit called Game On. I have yet to go myself, but judging from the website it looks surprisingly competent. Expect a full report once I’ve been.
Also this:
Super cool, that.
posted by Phincus
Wandering Fighter – from MIG
The Daily Click is featuring a new game by MIG called Wandering Fighter. It’s a wonderboy clone that has great graphics and very retro / gameboy gameplay.
posted by Andrew Wooldridge
SmartFoxServer – multiuser server + flash game dev tool
SmartFoxServer is a tool to help you create simple to medium complex flash games that allow for multiple users.
From the siteage:
SmartFoxServer is a multi-platform socket server designed to integrate with Macromedia Flash MX / MX2004 and it enables developers to quickly create multiuser applications and games.
The server was created with multiplayer games in mind and it provides powerful tools for developing a wide range of turn-based and real-time games. There’s really no limit to the things that can be achieved with it.
SmartFoxServer supports both Actionscript 1.0 and 2.0 and it comes with detailed documentation, many examples with source code and an effective administration panel.
So, if you are thinking about creating an indie flash game, you may find this (at least the free version) something to try out on your development odyssey…
posted by Andrew Wooldridge
Putting Out Flames with Gasoline
…well, not really. It sounds cool for a post title, though, doesn’t it?
Iron Realms Entertainment’s Matt Mihaly had beef with some of the comments made at GDC’s game industry-bashing panel this year, including those made by Warren Spector and Greg Costikyan. Matt, a successful indie developer, is tired of hearing about people criticizing the game industry and its distribution models, especially big honchos like Spector.
Okay, first of all, I hate it when people argue like this over the Internet. You know, responding to every word as if you’re talking directly to the person you’re arguing with, and then using a bunch of sarcasm. It makes you sound like a dick. Observe:
The problem isn’t the games industry.
Yeah, whatever. Idiot!
The problem is the way some people choose to look at it.
La-la-la-la-la, I can’t HEAR you!
If your focus is purely on money, go be an investment banker.
If my focus was purely on money, then I’d be slapping hoes and wearing a fur hat!
Anyway, please, just stop the whining. Stop telling people about how horrible the games industry is. Stop telling them that they can’t succeed without radical industry changes. It’s bunk and you should know better. Are you intentionally trying to discourage people from getting into the industry? Stop telling people that life in the games industry universally sucks. Maybe it sucks for you. It doesn’t suck for me and I don’t think it sucks for a lot of people. I don’t want the next generation of talent to listen to the pessimistic, self-defeating viewpoints you’re pushing.
Okay, Matt, all kidding aside: just because you’re making money off games doesn’t mean that the game industry works. I mean, while you’re at it, why don’t you go walk down to your local street corner and tell the homeless people there that the system’s fine and that they shouldn’t whine about it? You are obviously a man who has zero empathy with his fellow human beings and that’s fine. But realize that when you tell other people to shut up about their problems because you don’t understand them, well… that just makes you a big jerk.
See? This kind of arguing is stupid.
posted by Derek Yu
Darwinia for Linux
Linux geeks rejoice! Introversion has released a Darwinia demo for Linux, as well as a patch that converts the Windows full-version of the game into a Linux-compatible one.
posted by Derek Yu
Friday, March 18, 2005
Bernard and Hank
Bernard and Hank is a fun little retro platformer where you play two hicks trying to save their farm from the clutches of the evil business tycoon, NationalLiberal. It’s a “klik” game, which means it’s made with one of Clickteam’s development tools. Other than one fatal bug (see below) and a few niggling gameplay issues, it’s quite an enjoyable romp.
Beware! If you jump a certain way onto a corner where the ground meets a wall, you can get stuck in the ground and can’t get out. This can be a real problem when you only get to save every 5 levels or so, but thankfully it’s avoidable if you know it exists. Still, it’s damn annoying and something that players shouldn’t have to think about.
posted by Derek Yu
New side scroller
Gaping Wolf Software has announced a new game based upon their Adagio series called Cloudburst. The developer says that the game was created as a test of the Torque 2D game engine, but is complete and playable. The graphics look pretty amazing.
(Source: GameDev.net)
posted by Aaron H.
Open Source MMO Toolkit from Game Gardens
1UP.com has a story about a new Massively Multiplayer game engine from developer Three Rings. You can play games there or create your own – they will even host them for you. You can also skip the story and go straight to Game Gardens. Oh – by the way – these are the folks who created Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates.
posted by Andrew Wooldridge
Thursday, March 17, 2005
Thomas Warfield: Shareware’s Rebuttal
Previously, I mentioned a post by Greg Costikyan on the need for an alternate form of distribution for indie games. In Greg’s post, he quoted Thomas Warfield, the author of the gaming blog “A Shareware Life”. Here now is Thomas’s rebuttal (of sorts) against the charge that you can’t make a good living off shareware.
posted by Derek Yu
Alien Hominid: IGF Photo Journal
Tom Fulp of Alien Hominid and Newgrounds fame, has posted a retrospective of the journey that the Alien Hominid team took through IGF this year. Looks like a fun time was had by all. Lots of pictures!
(P.S. Keita Takahashi, the creator of Katamari Damacy, looks like the coolest guy ever.)
posted by Derek Yu
A Murder of Scarecrows
This is probably one of the best flash games I’ve seen in a while. The game features artwork that could have been done by Edward Gorey, great animation, and well done sound. A perfect way to waste time.
(Source: <a href-http://unscathedcorpse.blogspot.com/>Unscathed Corpse — Not work safe)
posted by Aaron H.
Aarrrgh! Must get a Mac Mini!
Bloody hell! Every Puppytron (site’s down for a day though) you buggers buys gets me 50 pence closer to owning a lovely new Mac Mini. What do I want one of those for, eh?
Because I want to play this, dammit!
Yes, Ambrosia Software have just released Goo Ball and it just looks amazing – it would appear to be a cross between Chronic Logic’s original platformer Gish and Raptisoft’s excellent Marble Madness clone Hamsterball.
I’ve got £7.50 so far, only another £350 or so to go…
posted by Cas
DIY Updates
With a blinding burst of speed, DIY Games has added 10 new items in the last three days. Most recent is the twelfth installment of Independent Adventuring which offers brief reviews of the last month’s adventure game releases.
posted by Aaron H.
Experimental Gameplay
Experimental Gameplay is the project of four tech students at Carnegie Mellon. The goal? Create 50 to 100 games in one semester! Each game is made by one person in less than seven days, and must be created based on a single, simple concept or idea.
What’s scary is how good some of these games are, when the development time is less than a week. Though the fun factor of the games is a hit or miss affair, each one I’ve played so far has demonstrated an interesting and innovative idea. This project could represent the new way of designing games!
posted by Derek Yu
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
Mornings Wrath
Ethereal Darkness Interactive, an independent developer, has just announced that their RPG Morning’s Wrath will be entering the beta stage on March 17th.
There is currently no set release date, but this is a project that fans of the genre will probably want to keep an eye on.
(Source: Gamedev.net)
posted by Aaron H.
New (to) indie?
TellTale Games is a relatively new company that was created by a group of Lucas Arts veterans after the cancellation of “Sam & Max: Freelance Police.”
They are currently working on a project based on the comic book series Bone (Bone comic book will be a game. Developer risks all future soup lunches.) which, rumor has it, is scheduled for release later this year.
It is not clear how TellTale plans to publish Bone, but based upon their split from Lucas Arts and recent announcement of a Texas Hold’em style shareware poker game, it seems likely that the ever growing ranks of indie developers has gotten an infusion of high caliber talent.
posted by Aaron H.
GameTunnel’s Monthly Roundup
GameTunnel’s famous monthly roundup has just been posted. As usual there’s the same quick-fire look at a whole load of new games from the illustrious GameTunnel review panel. Read up on what’s hot here.
posted by Cas
Real-Life Non-Gaming Adventures: Guitar Wolf
Tonight I went to the Knitting Factory in Los Angeles with some friends to see the Japanese punk band Guitar Wolf. Straight up, they rocked my nerdy little self so hard that my glasses came out of a buttoned pocket and smashed into a million little pieces on the floor. Now I’m blind, bruised, and I have the sweat of fifty people clinging to me. But my spirit is rejuvenated.
So now TIGSource wants to know: what did you do non-gaming related this week? (Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be a regular thing or anything.)
posted by Derek Yu
Sexiest Indie Gamer Contest: ONE MORE DAY
One more day to get those contest submissions in. Apparently, there are a lot of procrastinators out there! Get ‘em in! And don’t forget to follow the rules, you bojos! NO digital altering or “photochopping” of the photos. I’ll sent a gentle reminder to those of you who did already, but I don’t want to see anymore.
What can I say? You guys are some good-looking cats.
posted by Derek Yu
Invasion Week at GarageGames
I finally figured it out. Dark Horizons: Lore Invasion is not a sequel or expansion to Dark Horizons: Lore. It IS Dark Horizons: Lore – the name has just changed during development. Actually, I’m still not sure, since GarageGames has a page set up for Dark Horizons: LORE, with a download and reviews and stuff, but has a big thing that says “Dark Horizons: Lore Invasion Coming This Friday!” on the same page. It makes it seem like an expansion or something.
Anyway, starting yesterday GG is doing a whole week of previews and behind-the-scenes action in preparation for the game’s release. DH: LI is a persistent online FPS mech game, and despite my confusion over it, it looks and sounds pretty darn awesome. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t think mechs are AWESOME.
GarageGames: change everything that says “Dark Horizons: Lore” to “Dark Horizons: Lore Invasion” on your site. Don’t mix and match the names, dammit. Also, move your news to somewhere where people can actually read it. You know I love you, but you need some tough love.
posted by Derek Yu
Ninja Cupid!
What can I say, except that Ninja Cupid is such a cute flash game! Use your ninja love weapons to create couples. I don’t get it, though – why couldn’t a punk rocker love a girl in a bunny suit?
posted by Derek Yu
Tuesday, March 15, 2005
AGS Awards 2004
Adventure Game Studio, or AGS, is a free engine that allows (sufficiently driven) people to create adventure games in the style of classic Sierra games. Every year there are a number of interesting adventure games made by fans of the genre, and some of them, like The Adventures of Fatman, even attain commercial success.
The AGS community holds annual awards for the best games of the past year, and the AGS Awards Nominees for 2004 have just been announced. Voting has begun, so this is a good time to check out the games, and see what the fuss is all about.
posted by Aaron H.
Bytten Reviews
Bytten has posted a new review of Outpost Kaloki, from developer NinjaBee.com. They (Bytten) gave the game a Silver Star Award, and the reviewer’s only complaint was that there is only one music track. Head on over to read the review, and then checkout the demo (Currently windows only, but the Ninja Bee website claims that there is a Mac version in the works.)
Bytten also has an exclusive piece online; “The IGF 2005: Do all of the finalists belong?” [which has been replaced with the Bytten Ernie Awards 2005], written by Mark Temple from Enemy Technology, creators of I of the Enemy. My initial thought based upon the title was that it would be an opinion piece about budget and team size for indie games. Far from it, the article explores just what made, and makes the Independent Games Festival, and the author’s personal experiences at this year’s IGF.
posted by Aaron H.
Motherload – from XGenStudios
Every so often I run into a game that captures my attention to the exclusion of all else. Sometimes you’ll discover something that sucks you in and when you look up, 3 hours have passed.
Motherload is such a game, at least for me. The graphics are nothing special, but the gameplay is soooooo addictive. Basically you pilot a flying drilling machine to get minerals from the surface of Mars. You use the minerals to buy upgrades to get more minerals, etc. etc. You’d think this would become boring pretty quickly, however instead as you gradually get greater capabilites, you continue to enjoy the game.
Anyway, it’s fun, addicting, and a possible source of inspiration for your own games. Caution: there’s popups on the page – but you are using Firefox, right?
posted by Andrew Wooldridge
Zombiepox – from Free Lunch Design
Free Lunch Design has several fun and interesting games. One in particular struck me as appropriate since we just had another zombie game posted. Zombiepox is a simple game where you try to convert all the zombies back into normal people, but watch out, if you get touched by a zombie you get infected yourself – with hilarious results. Be sure to try Alex the Alligator and of course if you haven’t played Icy Tower, well you just ain’t Indie :)
posted by Andrew Wooldridge
Monday, March 14, 2005
Greg Costikyan Rules
Greg Costikyan, award-winning game developer and the man who cried for a revolution at this year’s Game Developer’s Conference, now calls for an open discussion about how indie developers can free themselves from the stranglehold of our current publisher/developer business model – a model where usually it’s the developer that loses out.
If you ask me, Costik is the kind of hero that independent gaming needs. Well-versed, obviously loud about his opinions… there are so many more developers than publishers, so why haven’t the developers banded together? Well, a few have, but in small, separate groups. What Costik is talking about (and I think this is great idea) is creating a large-scale movement. The web has such an enormous potential for innovation, and yet the independent gaming industry seems stuck trying the same things. We need big change.
(Source: Boing Boing)
posted by Derek Yu
IGF Wrap-up
Game Tunnel has posted Journal Day 3 and a final wrap-up in their on-going coverage of the IGF. The wrap-up could be summarized as, “Indie games are innovative, and the developers are more accessible to players thereby creating a better experience.”
posted by Aaron H.
Groovy Zombie Flash Dance.
What do we have here then? Zombies, dancing, music and a feisty chick in a graveyard. Sounds like good wholesome fun to me. Groove of the dead is a great little flash game in the style of Space Channel 5 and other such rhythm games. Everyone follow me… left, left, right, down, up, down …
posted by DanDanger
TIGSource: Viewer Feedback
TIGSource wants to know: how we doin’? It’s been our pleasure to serve you the hottest, freshest, meanest indie gaming news these past few months, and I want to know how you feel we’ve done so far. What’s good, what’s bad. What you want to see more or less of. What do you want to see in the TIGSource of the future? Be candid, it’s the only way we can learn.
posted by Derek Yu
Screaming Duck Interviews Reflexive
Screaming Duck Software has a really great interview with Simon Hallam at Reflexive Software. Simon was the producer for Wik and the Fable of Souls, which won two awards at IGF this year. The Duck asks really good questions, which range from technical to business-oriented to creative. From the answers, it seems like Reflexive seems to have a really good handle on how the indie game business works.
posted by Derek Yu
Wired: Game Creators Going (for) Broke
I apologize for yesterday’s mental breakdown. A four-year-old could have written better news reports. To my credit, I was running on about two hours of sleep. But enough chit-chat!
Wired News has an article on independent gaming (sparked by the Independent Games Festival) called Game Creators Going (for) Broke. It’s basically about how independent game creators have to self-fund their projects, leaving them penniless. Definitely a sobering article, one that maybe goes to far to prove its point. It would have been nice to hear that at least some of them make money when all is said and done!
So, who’s making any money here?!
(Source: IndieGamer forums)
posted by Derek Yu
Sexiest Indie Gamer Contest Deadline Approaching!
The contest deadline, March 16th, is only two days away! Now’s the time to bite the bullet and enter. The prize package is still as sweet as ever!
Or you can just sit by the sidelines again, watching life pass you by because you were afraid people would laugh at that mole you have on your face that looks like Ronald Reagan (if he had a beard).
posted by Derek Yu
Sunday, March 13, 2005
TIGSource: Interview with Cornutopia
TIG’er Marc Silver recently conducted an interview with a Mark of a different name. That is, Mark Sheeky. Marc Silver interviewed Mark Sheeky, of Cornutopia and Bytten fame. Hm.
Anyway, it’s a great, informative interview, so you should check it out! Always good to get another indie’s point of view (especially one who sees from both sides of the glass), and Mark (not Marc) also tells us about his upcoming game projects, including Flatspace 2, the sequel to the critically-acclaimed prequel called… Flatspace.
Gad, I really suck at journalism. Someone take this site away from me before I hurt someone.
posted by Derek Yu
Nexagon: Deathmatch
TotalGaming.Net, an online distributor of indie games, has recently released Nexagon: Deathmatch, a 3D real-time strategy affair where you manage a team of prisoners fighting across a brutal futuristic landscape… instead of, say, a team of fluffy bunnies frolicking in a hilarious grassy world. Hey, don’t steal my game idea!
posted by Derek Yu
Frenesia
Mac Games and More has just released a new shmup for the PC and Mac, called Frenesia:
If you like intense arcade action, and you’re an excellent shmup player, Frenesia just might be for you. I’m not going to lie. You HAVE to be really good. Are you really good? Remember: THINKING you’re good is NOT the same as BEING good.
Dang, have I just been called out by a game? I couldn’t stand it – at this point I had to know whether I’ve just been thinking that I was good versus being good.
Sadly, Frenesia is all talk. Put the game in an arena with one of Kenta Cho’s FREE shmups, and only one will emerge alive. Do I need to tell you that it would be Kenta Cho’s shmup, with bloody entrails stuck in its teeth?
Frenesia is a shmup that almost no thought was given to. Besides using an awkward 8-direction control scheme that leaves you either running away from bullets or shooting (but not at the same time), Frenesia has boring enemies, weak AI, and paltry power-ups. And the game is easy: for any level, just run around the sides of the screen in circles, and you won’t get hit.
You know a game is bad when it says this on the site:
Musical Note: Like the music?? Hate the music? If you can pass Level 9, you’ll hear a different music track.
Avoid this.
posted by Derek Yu
Saturday, March 12, 2005
Ragdoll Kung Fu!
Ragdoll Kung Fu is a rather innovative fighting game that’s being developed by Mark Healey (an artist at Lionhead Studios) in his spare time. It’s ingenious, really – rather than moving around and attacking by pushing buttons, you literally grab your hero’s limbs and drag them about. It’s like controlling a marionette, except the marionette gets to kick everyone’s ass (including monkeys)!
The game’s style, naturally, is great and it looks good in motion, too. I was having a hard time getting any images or movies to work on the main site, but if you go to this fansite, you can all the media you need.
posted by Derek Yu
A strong door? The horror!
More adventure game creamy goodnesses for the readership; now with inventory. Inventory! It is the Crimson Room a well designed, but rather akwardly translated game in which you are stuck in a room. Not just anyroom. A crimson room. Oh, spooky spooky. If you liked hapland this is probably right up your alley, or sleeve or what ever things go up nowadays. If anyone finds the battery drop a comment since there’s no way I’m paying 300 yen for the shame of using a guide.
posted by Phincus
New Game: Chao World 2 – Learn to Fly!
From LIONSOFTWEB comes a gamemaker-based game that is really pretty good! Gamemaker games have a stigma of being very generic or amateurish sometimes, but you’ll find that this one is not only professionally done, but fun to play! Here’s a direct download link.
From the author:
It’s a 2D Platform game with 6 great worlds, 18 stages, bosses battle, enemies, bonus stage and much more in a wonderful 2D world with many colors, musics and challenges for everyone!
posted by Andrew Wooldridge
Slashdot Games: IGF/GDCA In-Depth
It gots pictures included! Whee! (This is the kind of great commentary you get from me when I’ve been running on two hours of sleep the whole day.)
The impression that I got from the IGF, overall, was one of real experiences for these people. Games like Gish (which got a huge reaction when it garnered the Seamus McNally Award) and Wik were obviously crafted by teams that really put themselves wholeheartedly into their work.
posted by Derek Yu
The Revolution Begins at GDC
Gamerchick Alice was at GDC and check out this article she wrote titled Burning the House Down. In it Alice reports on a heated panel at the end of the show where Warren Spector and a handful of other game industry types got to rant about the game industry. Creative stagnation, alternative distribution, and closed-minded journalism were a few of the thing that were brought up. Apparently at some point a visibly drunk Warren Spector actually called the game industry “a heaping pile of steaming monkey excrement”. (Well, maybe that last part’s not true.)
“How often DO they perform human sacrifices at Nintendo? My friends, we are FUCKED [laughter]. We are well and truly fucked. The bar in terms of graphics and glitz has been raised and raised until we can’t afford to do anything at all. 80-hour weeks until our jobs are all outsourced to Asia. But it’s ok because the HD era is here right? I say, enough. The time has come for revolution!”
(Source: Boing Boing)
posted by Derek Yu
Friday, March 11, 2005
Game Xtazy: Leaping Freddy Review
I hope David forgives me for saying this and being a big jerk, but it never seems like he can say a bad thing about a game without padding it with ten different niceties. In the case of his Leaping Freddy review, I feel like he was really reaching for some of those nice words.
Here’s my take. I’m warning you, if you’re the kind of person that gets squeamish reading harsh reviews, then please surf over to another site right now.
For starters, Leaping Freddy ain’t all bad. The graphics, for example are quite pretty. But it’s really not long into the game before you have to wonder – why was this made, exactly? To be honest, I’ve always kind of turned my nose up at games that are straight-out clones. (You may recall some of my previous comments about the ultra-popular Snood.) But as long as they innovate or try to do something better in some way – be it with graphics, story, characters, or gameplay… well, let’s just say that, with some help, I’m learning that originality is always built on existing ideas.
But back to Leaping Freddy. There will always be people who will enjoy playing platformers, but this one really doesn’t offer much more than basic platforming action. And even that’s not done right.
What’s bizarre and ultimately very unfortunate is that it seems the designer chose to implement numerous bells and whistles while compromising important fundamentals. It’s like adding frosting when you haven’t even finished baking the cake. Why, for instance, does Freddy’s walk use like a dozen frames when he doesn’t even have an animation for jumping or dying? Or why is it that he tracks water on the ground with his feet (it looks pretty cool in action) when he walks over a puddle, and yet his movement is so slow and unresponsive? It really just makes you scratch your head – more so because a lot of indie developers seem to fall prey to the same bait.
Next time, developer GameRange Studio needs to get the basics right before they think about anything else.
posted by Derek Yu
Advertising Bloggered, Now Fixed!
Argh, I stayed up late working on TIGSource advertising stuff, only to find out this morning that my php ad rotator was broken on all the archived post pages. Apparently, you can’t rename archived posts, so they hafta stay pure html.
Fortunately, all is working now as I whipped up some Javascript ad rotators instead. Sorry if you were experiencing any problems with the site as I was fixing them! If you notice any other problems with the site, let me know. I’m kind of on a maintenance kick right now.
posted by Derek Yu
More Game Tunnel IGF coverage
There are two new pieces in Game Tunnel’s on-going coverage, both of which actually cover both the GDC and IGF; Journal Day 1, and Journal Day 2.
There was also a “Reaction to the Award Winners [of the IGF]” scheduled for publication at the same time as the “Journal Day 2” entry, but it has been listed as cancelled. There is no specific indication as to why.
posted by Aaron H.
Aquabble-bble
Absolutist Games has announced a new game titled Aquabble Avalanche. The screenshots look decent, and the emphasis appears to be on enjoying the experience of playing. Quoting directly from the website:
The action is going on in the breathtaking surrondings – clear pond, reed, fish and dragonflies flying over. You can even see all the pebbles!
This game is Windows only. Absolutist Games appears to have a number of other Mac and Linux games as well.
(Source: Game Tunnel)
posted by Aaron H.
Advertise on TIGSource!
In the past two and a half months, TIGSource has grown extremely quickly. I thank you all for taking interest in this “little” site – I believe that we’ve found our own special place in the indie gaming community. Here’s to continued growth and more fun in the months to come!
Because TIGSouce has become so popular, I thought it’d be a good time to open it up to some advertising. Aside from allowing me to make a little money so that I can keep working diligently on the site, advertising allows indie developers big and small to pimp their wares. Our prices begin at $15 or $20/month for a banner or tower ad, respectively, and the costs are even lower if you buy more than one month at a time!
If you’d like to advertise your site or game on TIGSource, check out our advertising page! There’s a more detailed description of our ad system there.
posted by Derek Yu
Procedural Generation Competition: Results!
By: Derek Yu
On: June 26th, 2008
And the winner of our supremely awesometastic Procedural Generation Competition is nenad, with Rescue: The Beagles! I can say without hesitation that this game is destined to be a classic – I love traversing the three-tiered abstract landscape and mapping out the best routes. Every part of the game feels very thoughtfully put in place. (Plus, I get fuzzy feelings from rescuing those cute beagles and hearing them yip with joy.)
In a very close second place is Dyson, the stunning “life” and colonization game by Alex “haowan” May, Rudolf “Borsato” Kremers, and Brian Grainger. And in third place is Self Destruct, a fast-paced procedurally generated shoot ’em up from the indie gaming dream team of Terry Cavanagh and Annabelle Kennedy.
But as always, all of the (60!) entrants deserve a hearty round of beer and ’grats. There were so many great ideas that came out of this compo that we should have called it the “Great Idea Competition.” But then it would be so hard to distinguish from the other TIGSource competitions… seriously, you all are blowing minds!
So be sure to play every game, if you can, if only to participate in Melly’s Players Choice Awards! The fun don’t stop.
Thanks again to everyone who made a game, played a game, gave feedback, voted, provided mirrors, and/or devoted any small amount of time to making this happen. See you next compo! It will be a doozy.
PGC – Voting Has Begun!
By: Derek Yu
On: June 11th, 2008
Ladies and gentlemen, voting for the Procedural Generation Competition has begun! You can check out and download all the entries here.
There were 60 entries to this competition, which is by far the most we’ve ever had. Really, really incredible turn-out – I’m still making my way through all the games, which are about as varied as you can imagine. There’s obviously a lot you can do with this theme, and you guys didn’t disappoint!
So yeah, vote, vote! Start voting! Congratulations to all the competitors!
TIGdb: Update
By: Derek Yu
On: June 9th, 2008
I trekked over to Jeff Lindsay’s place in sunny San Jose and we
gave a little more love to The Indie Game Database.
Browsing! Jeff put in all kinds of filters that you can now use for browsing! Everything from genre to game engine can now be searched by. Do you want to find all MacOSX platform games for under $20? Now you can! Or maybe you want to look for all the Game Maker games released in 2005 with a minimum community rating of 3? Here it is!
Most of the descriptive elements on a game’s page have been converted to links that use this feature. If you’re looking at a game, just click its release date, genre, platform, or whatever to find more of the same. From there you can make your search even more specific.
You can also sort these results by name, rating, price, or date of release.
Tags. A lot of little bugs with tags have been fixed, but more importantly, you can use them in conjunction with filters. Meaning it’s really easy to look for things like “”http://db.tigsource.com/browse?genre=&platform=browser&max-price=&release=&min-rating=&developer=&publisher=&engine=&language=&tag=dinosaurs&sort_by=name&sort_dir=asc">all browser-based dinosaur games." Other fun tags to try:
– ragdolls
200+ Games! I added a bunch of games this week, from the front page, from your suggestions, and from the B-Game Competition. Check them out, rate them, tag them, enjoy them.
Now that these important browsing features have been added, the next step will be to beef up the community aspect of the site by implementing user reviews, user profiles, and very possibly also user submissions. I’m really looking forward to that.
As always, please give us your feedback and let us know how we could improve the db.
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