Berlin Indie Games Jam 2010

I just came back from BIGJam 2010 yesterday in the morning - had a blast and made three small experimental "games" during the 3-hour game jams:

1. Dynamite Fish'n
2. Lord of His Domain
3. Abstract Meta Game

All in all it was a lot of fun and I have met a lot of people I haven't seen in a while, as well as some new faces.

I will definitely go again next year!

8 Games Worth Playing

These games aren't all new, but I've only gotten around to playing (or finishing) them in the past 12 months and can only recommend you check them out too, if you haven't already.

In no particular order:

1. Windosill - a quirky little puzzle/adventure game from Vectorpark.  Only has about 10-15 minutes of gameplay in it, but it's very entertaining and cost less than 3 Euros. Highly recommended, even if you're not an adventure games fan.
2. Osmos - ambient, atmospheric and fairly challenging abstract puzzle game from Hemisphere Games. Starts out easy but the difficulty ramp up fast! Surprisingly addicting, I came back to this game more often than I thought I would after getting stuck on some particularly hard level and not touching it for a couple weeks at a time.
3. Eschalon - this game actually came out in 2007, but I played it in 2009 and its sequel is due in about two weeks from Basilisk Games.  An old-school isometric RPG- similar to Baldur's Gate, Fallout, Arcanum and co but shorter and smaller in scale than the classics. A lot of fun if you're a classic RPG aficionado like myself, and there are not many good alternatives if you are looking for games in that genre today. 
4. DoomRL  - not new, but extensively updated in the past few months with a nice bunch of new master traits, special weapons, armors and items. If you are looking for a modern action-oriented roguelike I don't think you will find anything better than Kornel Kisielewicz's DoomRL.  Plus, you can't beat the price ;)
5. Small Worlds - David Shute's atmospheric "zen platformer" - short and sweet. A true work of art, and if not for its very modest length I would have considered a worthy challenger to Knytt Stories as the best game of its kind. This one is also free.
6. Minecraft - a charming voxel-based building game still under heavy development by Markus Persson, quite possibly the most talented game developer I've had the pleasure to meet. It's hard to explain what minecraft is all about, but luckily you can try it out for free in your browser. Cooperatively build elaborate structures by placing single building blocks in a persistent online world (or in my case, destroy said structures by removing blocks and get kicked off the server).
7. Machinarium - beautifully drawn point-and-click adventure game from Amanita Design. Not exactly my favorite genre, but I've still had a lot of fun with this little game.  The puzzles can get a bit frustrating at times, but if you get stuck you can get hints by playing a short horizontal shooter mini-game(!)
8. Star Guard - a highly stylized retro jump-and-run platformer by Loren Schmidt. It's not a very large game, nor is it very sophisticated, but it's pretty, very well made and tells its story in a fairly innovative way. Play it in hard mode if you want an authentic early 80's experience.

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Considerable Traffic Boost!

Thanks for all the feedback on A Most Peculiar Adventure!

Apparently it really caught people's attention with over 1,700 visits in 1 week :)

New Game: A Most Peculiar Adventure

This is my entry to this year's Seven Days Roguelike Challange:

A Most Peculiar Adventure

It was made by Charl van Deventer, Whitaker Blackall and myself in one week.

Blogger to End FTP Support

Unfortunately, it seems Blogger has chosen to end FTP uploading support by March 26, 2010.

That means I will have to stop using their services and rebuild this blog with something else (probably WordPress), as I like having all the html and css on my own server and not on someone else's (especially since they can always pull stunts like this one in the future).

The old blog posts will remain here, either as they are under some "old blog" link or migrated to WordPress (or whatever I'll end up using for the new blog)

15srl: Day 15

Done

Lots

To-do

Lots more

Time spent

Many hours

Result

I didn't manage to implement everything on my list, but the game is playable and I'm putting on a dark corner of my homepage for the brave souls who want to try it out!

I will continue working on this until everything in my design document has been implemented.

15srl: Day 14

Done

• spread items of different kinds 
• add short descriptions for all items
• add short and long descriptions of all monsters
• gain levels
• gain hp upon level up
• add long descriptions to items that don't have any yet

To-do

• better status lines
• better help
• gain 1 attribute point upon level up
• Implement more items
• press enter in examine mode to get long descriptions
• implement temporary effects
• spread monsters of different kinds in level-appropriate fashion
• add char classes

Time spent

2.1h

15srl: Day 13

Step 13 - experience.

Done

• map drawing optimization
• add symbols to items, creatures and tiles
• populate maps with items 
• add stairs
• generate new levels when going to new dungeon level
• LOS
• FOV
• mark terrain as seen, unseen or in-sight
• accumulate xp upon creature kill

To-do

• gain levels
• better AI

Time spent

3.3h

15srl: Day 12

Step 12 - levels.

Done

• Map generator
• place doors in map
• place player & monsters in map

To-do

• place items in map
• stairs

Time spent

3.6h

15srl: Day 11

Step 11 - simple game.

Done

• Implement weapon modifiers
• Implement weapon damage 
• Add all creature types
• Implement creature damage range
• Add all items
• Add classes
• Add execute special moves
• Implement game over

To-do

• Context sensitive help screen
• implement berserk
• implement shadow walk
• implement firebolt
• Add special monster moves
• Add all item effects
• Add all item descriptions & long texts
• Add all creature descriptions & long texts

Time spent

2.3h

15srl: Day 10

Step 10 - magic.

Done

• Add inventory to save/load
• Add wearables
• Add weapons
• Implement equipment
• Equipping 
• Wielding
• Add special items effects
• apply speed buffs
• apply spirit buffs

To-do

• Implement weapon damage & modifiers
• Add special moves
• Add special monster moves
• Context sensitive help screen
• optimize save files encoding

Time spent

3.7h

15srl: Day 9

Step 9 - items.

Done

• Implement items
• Auto pick up
• Item properties
• Implement inventory
• Layout tweaks
• Don't close blocked doors
• Examine mode
• Inventory mode
• Drop command
• Use command
• Killing
• Add items to save/load

To-do

• Add inventory to save/load
• Stacking in inventory
• Context sensitive help screen

Time spent

4.6h

15srl: Day 8

Step 8 - data files.

Done

• Variable size maps
• Refactor to not use "this"
• Add map size to cookie save/load
• Clear message log upon load
• Refactor abilities/stats code
• Add rest of stats and abilities
• Make message log fix-sized
• Add help screen
• Tweak layout

To-do

• Add rest of creature types

Time spent

6.2h

15srl: Day 7

Step 7 - interaction.

Done

• Design tweaks
• Fix time bug for failed moves
• Add action points to saved games
• Reading creature stats from file
• Add ticks to saved games
• Add abilities & stats to creatures (faction, vitality, attack, defense, speed, life, damage)
• Multiple creatures
• Attack
• Combat system
• Chase player AI

To-do

Time spent

3.6h

15srl: Day 6

Step 6 - it's alive! Alive!

Done

• Save to cookie bug fixing
• Load maps from cookie
• Load creatures from cookie
• Implement monsters
• Make creatures blocking
• Implement time
• Simple AI

To-do

• Add ticks and action points to saved games

Time spent

6.1h

15srl: Day 5

Step 5 - saving/loading.

Done

• Integrate json, jquery.cookie and jquery.jsoncookie.
• Settings json file
• Descriptions json file
• Key-bindings json file
• map from json file
• Save command (to cookie)
• Load command (from cookie)
• Save maps to cookie
• Save creatuers to cookie

To-do

• Load maps from cookie
• Load creatures from cookie

Time spent

7.7h

15srl: Day 4

Step 4 - the map.

Done

• Experience (design)
• Flesh out monsters (design)
• Map structure
• Display map
• Scrolling
• Turn player into a creature
• Put player in map
• Check for walls
• Look command
• Doors
• Open/close commands
• Tiles
• Descriptions for tiles
• Move descriptions to a dictionary

To-do

Time spent

5.7h

15srl: Day 3

Step 3 - it's a boy!

Done

• More game design
• Game states
• Keyboard input
• Walking @ on empty map
• Screen layout
• Message log
• Status lines
• jquery/json/cookies research

To-do

Time spent

5.1h

15srl: Day 2

Step 2 - hello world!

Done

• Set up project on BitBucket.
• Research (js, canvas, cookies, jQuery, mercurial).
• Basic html/css/js structure.
• Flesh out game design.
• Hello canvas world!
• Screen class for output.

To-do

• Preliminary technical design.

Time spent

6.6h

15srl: Day 1

Step 1 - decide to write a game.

Done

• Announce beginning.
• Set up eclipse + hg plug-in + aptana.
• Start design document.
• Start done & to-do lists.
• Set up time tracking software.
• Find appropriate IRC channels for tech support (html5, jquery).
• Preliminary game design.

To-do

• Preliminary technical design.
• Research (js, canvas, cookies, jQuery).
• Set up project on BitBucket.

Time spent

6.6h