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Archive for the ‘Video-games’ Category
Our LudumDare games
9 February 2010
I won’t extend too much in explaining what LudumDare is, because it can’t be understood without living it. Basically, it’s a on-line, worldwide competition, which objective is to create a computer game in 48 hours. The game must be original, be developed entirely by one person, and must conform to a theme, that is announced as the starting gun.
Usually there are 2 LudumDares a year, once in November and another in April. Well, Selkie and I have participated in the November one, which theme was exploration, and this is what we have done:
Daniel Rey: Jail Escape
You are a militar, prisoner behind the enemy lines. Tomorrow you will be executed because you know too much. When a guard brings you your last dinner, you knock off him and start your escape. You can’t make noise, you cant’t use the guard’s machine gun, because you are in an infested of enemies place.
- UP ARROW: Advance
- DOWN ARROW: Go back
- LEFT ARROW: Turn left
- RIGHT ARROW: Turn right
Your objective in each level is to reach the blue circle (that symbolizes a door). If a guard sees you, you loose.
There is a little glitch, if you move near a wall, you can get stuck. It’s better not to go near the walls.
If you win the game (5 levels), some stats will appear on screen. This stats are, for each level, the time (in seconds) that you spent in that level, the percentage of floor you explored, and the times a guard saw you.
Instructions to play:
If you use Windows:
Download this file, uncompress it, and double-click Jail_escape.exe: http://danielr.es/Jail_Escape_Win32.zip
If you don’t use Windows:
- Install Python 2.x (http://www.python.org/download/)
- Install Pygame (http://www.pygame.org/download.shtml)
- Install Numpy (http://sourceforge.net/projects/numpy/)
- Download the game and uncompress it (http://danielr.es/Jail_Escape.zip)
- Run with Python or double-click “Jail_Escape.py”.
Yes, there are 3 libraries to install, but it won’t take more than 10 minutes!
I included a progress log in the main folder, read it if you wanna know my experience.
Selkie: Planetary Explorer
The game’s name is Planetary Explorer, so you can understand that it’s about space travels and exploring.
It’s made with Game Maker 6.1 Pro and compatible with XP, Vista and Win7. Sadly it’s not compatible with Linux or Mac, even under Wine.
Other tools used:
- Graphics: MS Paint and Gimp
- Music: Anvil Studio
It only has one level, with two parts:
- Travelling to the planet with your ship, destroying enemies and avoiding bullets.
- Once in the planet, finding three diamonds and returning to the ship.
Hope you enjoy playing it as much as I enjoyed making it.
Click here to download the game
Source code (Game Maker required to open it)
I must emphasize the good atmosphere that prevails in the LudumDare. There is very good roll, and that point of geekiness that involves spending all the weekend sleeping just enough to stay awake, and spending most of their time to the game. I should also say that we haven’t been in the first positions, we have been in the bottom half of the classification (or so), so imagine the wonders that have done the winners!
Learn Flixel
7 February 2010
The other day I talked about a Actionscript 3 library used to create flash games, Flixel (http://www.barail.es/videojuegos/flash-games-flixel)
Today I come to give you a quick note for who are interested in learning how to create their own flash games using Flixel.
I’m creating a “course” (in spanish) called “Crea tu propio juego Flash con Flixel“!.
Every 3 weeks I’ll post a new lesson in *.pdf for you to follow. If you have any doubt, you can post it in the comments and I’ll answer it.
The list of topics is the following:
- Before we begin
- Pong
- Break Out
- Space Invaders
- Simple platforms
- Simple fighting game
- Simple aRPG
- Simple turn-based RPG
- Conclusion
Here’s the first lesson in pdf (spanish): Crea tu propio juego flash con flixel: Lección 1
To develop in Flixel you can use Flex Builder 3 or Flash Develop
The next lesson’ll be posted on 22 of february.
Facebook Games: Those addictive things that we all know
3 February 2010
All Facebook users, I’m sure that you’ve already played a facebook game.
Yes! Those colorful games in which you manage a restaurant, you have a fishbowl or you have to take care of a pet. The fact is that those games give lots of money to their creators.
Happy Aquarium, a Facebook game in which you take care of your fishes (caution: very addictive).
Lastly, a good way to earn easy money on Internet is the Flash empire. A lot of money is won creating a good and addictive game and uploading it in some portal that shares the revenue. Well, now social networks are becoming a good way to make money too!
I’m sure you know them. I’m talking about the objects, common on all facebook games, that have to be paid with real money. This money goes almost directly to the developers of the game (but a part goes to the Facebook creator). Furthermore, the developers also win money from the ads around their game.
Restaurant City: another game from Facebook in which you manage a restaurant (very addictive too).
That’s why they are interested in that we have to enter so many times! Yes. That you’ve to wait 12 hours for your fish to grow it’s NOT a casualty or a caprice. It’s because you will NOT wait 12 hours in front of the game, and what you will do is close the game and visit it again 12 hours later. And that is what developers are interested in, because the money gained by ads around the game, is increased every time someone enters the game!
What can we learn from this? Well, if you’re a facebook player you will learn that those long waits for continuing to play a game (in Vampire Wars, for example, you regain blood [necessarily to realize any action] every hour) it’s not a casualty. If you’re a facebook developer (or you want to be a facebook developer), you’ll learn that for gaining more money, you have to add into your game this long waits system, and people will enter lots of times in your game.
Vampire Wars, bite your friends or fight against unknow persons while you accomplish some missions in this also-very-addictive Facebook game.
Retro Games
30 January 2010
The information of this article and its comments, in the same way that some of Daniel Rey’s ones, can be useful only to the people who wants to work in game designing, but anyone can opine!
Readers, I’m sure that most of you have played a video game. Yes! That interactive entertainment in which you control something trying to accomplish some objective. For example, Eternal Fall is a video game. Okaay, we all know what’s a video game! You don’t have to explain it to us!
I’m sure that anyone of you have stopped to think what’s behind a video game. Well, behind a video game there’s millions of operations that your poor processor has to do at a vertiginous speeds. Well, not, I’m not going to talk about technic aspects. Let’s talk about something more oriented to game design, specifically the graphic style.
Graphics… those so overrated things in an actual game. In theory, a good history and playability would have to make a game be GOD… trillions of years ago. Now, people prefer some striking graphics than a good history with a well done playability… Well, actually this aspects are rated too, but graphics are too much overrated, and I think this is not good.
That’s why I like so much retro games.
Screenshot of Canabalt
Basically, what a retro game has, are some graphics from that prehistoric video console called NES.
Screenshot of Super Mario Bros. (NES)
Lastly, a few indie-games with a retro graphics style have been created, a good example of them is Canabalt, mentioned before. Normally, those games show us a fulminant playability, with a pixelated graphics (and beautiful for a lot of persons. I prefer pixels than polygons =D) and sometimes they present a complete history, becoming beautiful in some cases.
I believe that the designers should give more opportunities to this style, because I think it looks great. In fact, some gamers prefer retro than other styles. Let’s see if a new commercial retro game is released!
