Tools For Super Quick Game Development

If you want to participate in game jams, competitions like Ludum Dare and the Seven Days Roguelike Challenge or simply make games fast, here are a couple of tools I found really useful:

• FlashDevelop(IDE)
• Flixel(game engine/library) and the Flixel Power Tools
• Ogmo Editor(a tile-map level editor)
• The Gimp(I use it for pixel-graphics but it's a general purpose image editor)
• BFXR(sounds effects generator)
• Wolfram Tones inudge(music generator)

What do you use for rapid game making?

-Ido.

EDIT:

• Tip from ratking: inudge (another music generator)
• Tips from deskwater: OpenGameArt and OpenClipArt

Who Brings In The Traffic? Two Weeks And A Bit Report

Ever wondered where an indie game might get some traffic from?

Well now you know!

The first spike is from release day. In hindsight I should have probably had the demo up at that point and I am sure I've lost some sales because of it.

Hacker News and Reddit still lead the way, although getting written on in popular blogs helped with the smaller bumps later on: the first small spike is from the IndieGames blog and the seconds from Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

Smaller bloggers seemed to have little effect on visitors, even less than some forums.

Memory Leaks And Other Garbage Collection Adventures in the AVM

I've gathered some info online about flash's garbage collector and am getting ready to dive head-first into this fun and exciting world of trying to fix the various memory leaks in Cardinal Quest.

Funny, I've been coding in java for a decade and c#/python/other GC-languages for years and never had major issues with memory leaks. But the AVM's garbage collector is apparently a different beast altogether.

It seems I might have to manually release memory by assigning null to variables I don't need anymore. It's like coding in c again! :)

Wish me luck, and if you have any tips don't hesitate to mention them!

-Ido.

Interview + Video Review

TruePCGaming just posted an interview they did with me:

PC Multiplatform Dungeon Crawling Goodness: Cardinal Quest Interview

Additionally, YouBigNonce reviewed Cardinal Quest on his youtube site.

Generally a lots of interest (and sales!) spurred by the mention on IndieGame.com!

More news to be announced soon.

-Ido.

Cardinal Quest 1.0 Feedback Thread

I kind of neglected the little forum I've set up during beta testing - mostly because the emails it sends are marked as spam and I didn't want to add yet another time sink to my already quite busy day.

At any rate, due to popular demands:

Cardinal Quest 1.0 Belated Feedback Thread!

Cardinal Quest - Mobile Edition

Hi all,
please spread the word around the web:

If you know someone good who might want to help me out with the mobile versions of Cardinal Quest for a profit share, please let me know!

Thanks,
Ido.

Cardinal Quest Free Demo Now Online!

Get it while it's hot:

Play Cardinal Quest Demo.

CardinalQuest.com's First Day Online: Visitors

Still waiting for the bloggers to pick it up.

-Ido.

Cardinal Quest 1.0 Now Online!

Cardinal Quest is now finally available on www.cardinalquest.com for windows, mac & linux!

Cardinal Quest is an arcade-style dungeon-crawler inspired by 1980s classics such as Gauntlet, Red-Box D&D and Golden Axe: Choose your champion and begin your quest to slay the Evil Minotaur!

Three distinct characters await you, each providing their own unique experience:

The Fierce Fighter - who can stir himself into a berserk frenzy.
The Stealthy Thief - a mysterious assassin who dispatches his foes from the shadows.
The Mystical Wizard - able to bend the forces of the elements to his will.

Have fun,
Ido.

Cardinal Quest Will Be Released Later Today!

The time has come - if everything goes according to plan the first public release of Cardinal Quest will take place today on LittleIndie!

Stuck In Sweden With The Wrong Laptop Charger

That's what happens when I need to wake up at 3:30am to board a flight :(

Anyone in Stockholm got a sony vaio?