PC: Solipskier

I find this Flash game very addictive and very fun. Obviously, it’s pretty short, especially if you’re a bit crap at it but I find myself wanting to return every so often, trying to better my poor high score (at the moment it’s 1,937,965). Even more so than I did with Canabalt. I think this is probably because I feel Solipskier is fairer and more meaty.

PS3: Race Driver: GRID

This gritty racing game is a couple years old now; I couldn’t play it when it was released because I didn’t have a next-gen console. Anyway, I’m glad I started playing it because I love it. It straddles arcade and simulation perfectly while the damage models and AI are fantastic. When I play it I feel like I’m kicking on all cylinders, taking in the brilliant atmosphere. One of the best racing games I’ve played, for sure.

DS: More Brain Training

No, it’s not the most exciting game in the world but I’m addicted to one part of it; the sudoku puzzles. While these aren’t exactly hard to find, I really like the input system used on the DS. Pretty much all of my addiction of it stems from my sister’s addiction of it; she decided she’d overtake my percentage complete, so I had no choice but to try and catch up. She currently has 58% completed and I have 40%… She’s only winning because she has nothing better to do all day.

After finishing Don’t Touch the Spikes and playing the six other games in Stencyl’s fourth game jam, I realised I had a fairly good chance of placing in the top three. I think my entry benefited from being challenging and complete as a playable game. I waited with eager anticipation for the results to find out that I placed third, behind two very nice games. After reading much criticism about my game (particularly on Reddit), I was pleased with the result and the $25 (£15.58 according to PayPal) prize. Although it is a small amount, it is actually the first time I’ve ever gained any money from making a game, so I believe it’s a bright step forward for me, especially after failing to release any new games for seven months prior to this…

Stencyl are having another (week long) game jam starting near the climax of this month, so KniteBlargh and I are planning on entering it. With Knite’s graphical talents and ideas and therefore my ability to focus on gameplay, I think it should turn out good. Knite has already been knocking up some pretty sweet sprites ready for me to use when the game jam begins!

I signed up to join the closed beta of Stencyl quite a while ago; probably around a month. I received my invitation on the morning of the Wednesday before the last and I’ve begun to love Stencyl more and more. It really is a brilliant piece of game creation software and is strengthened (in my opinion) by the fact that it exports Flash-based games. There are a number of stand-out features which I think make Stencyl so good.

You may want to bang your head against a saucepan when I say the primary way of writing instructions in Stencyl is by dragging and dropping actions but it really is nothing like Game Maker; the system is a lot better. Stencyl utilises the innovation of the MIT Media Lab to use building blocks of actions to write instructions very similarly to how code is normally written (incidentally, arbitrary AS3 code can be used if preferred). Especially for small instructions, this produces a fluid system.

Another facet to take note of is Stencyl’s behaviours. Whether or not they stole the idea of Scirra, it is a great feature. At first I wanted to code instructions just for one  game actor (Stencyl’s equivalent of a Game Maker object) à la Game Maker. But I’ve quickly realised that these behaviours can be extremely useful since they can be attached to any actor and even actors in different games. This works with the emphasis on community collaboration, because developers can upload a behaviour to StencylForge, a place where other developers can download them to their game. This becomes very useful for common game instructions such as an actor following the mouse cursor.

The last feature I want to mention is the smooth integration of Box2D, the physics library used in many Flash physics games. Because Box2D is automatically integrated, making a ball bounce or a making a player fall safely onto a platform or even making funky death animations has never been easier.

Yes, there are some bugs and it can be annoying with it’s sluggish (but nice-looking) interface and code-heavy behaviours are a struggle to navigate but I believe developers will produce some great games with Stencyl once it’s publically released, hopefully this year. What I’m trying to say is that Stencyl is really good and you should sign up for the closed beta.

So yeah. I haven’t blogged anything for about four months. I think the best way to approach this is to shout everything that has happened since then. Here goes.

OverByte died. I wrote a review of a game on GameMaker Blog. I saw the LittleBigPlanet 2 trailer and I loved it. I played Pac-Man on Google. I named Noel Berry’s brilliant game. I earned a PSN platinum trophy. I made a tiny one-off comic strip. I was dissapointed with England’s lacklustre performance at the World Cup and the whole competition in general. I received Banov’s Dubloon Deluxe CD. I made some Let’s Play’s. I smacked my head against a door frame. I enjoyed the Tour de France. I passed my driving theory test (not the practical, yet). I dropped a packet of biscuits on my laptop keyboard. I started making a game with a cool concept. I went on a short holiday. I got accepted for the Stencyl beta. I actually finished a game. I found out that using Twitter to look at what happened in the past 4 months is really quite interesting.

There we go. I will try to blog more regularly as of now.

Easter

I spent Easter Sunday with my family at my Grandma’s with the usual superb roast dinner (and no washing up after, thanks to the dishwasher). I received 5 Easter eggs (more than I anticipated) which you can see below (yes that is my name scribbled all over them).

I’ve eaten all but the Mars. Which is pretty good seeing as Easter Sunday was six days ago.

Pokémon

I’ve been playing Pokémon SoulSilver a lot (21 hours so far). Probably more than I should. I’ve found the game genuinely enjoyable and was nicely reminded of the great time I had playing the original. What’s more, there’s still tons to do and more Pokémon to catch and I can clearly see why people have been calling this the definitive adventure of the series. I will probably be playing this for a long time, as usually happens with Pokémon games. Now, you may also have heard the news this week of Pokémon Black and White. I’m not only surprised about the name choice but the fact that this will be for the DS; I was sure it would follow the trend of one major release per major console. Highly anticipated screenshots of the new games were leaked a few hours ago but I’m not very impressed; I’m not sure the fuller 3D look will work very well. But hey, I can’t be too quick to judge.

Hell Yes It Does

Earlier this week, Joshua Pedroza released the latest video in his series, cheekily entitled ‘Does it Grill?’, where Josh watches something ‘burn’ from behind a couple of tables while wearing some shorts and sandals. While the first two episodes were boring and frankly embarrasing, this one was funny and the thing in it did actually grill (a pine tree). I recommend you watch it.

Ouch

My dad recently broke his leg by crashing and flipping a go-kart after smashing into a tyre wall. God knows how he actually broke his leg and why he was even racing a go-kart… Ironically, he was doing as much work as possible because he’s soon being made redundant but because he broke his leg, he won’t be able to do any work for six months. Nice timing.

Making a Game (Really, I am)

After realising that I hadn’t finished a game since January, I knew I needed to get to work on one. Since I’m looking to expand my knowledge of ActionScript, I thought I’d have a shot at porting another game from Game Maker, especially since I’ve spent such a long time away from FlashPunk. This time, I’ll be porting a very simple game called Tea Time. I’m hoping to improve the gameplay and the graphics to finish up with something genuinely fun. Development is going well so far.