Pigs Can Fly Sequel

At the start of this new year, I knew that I wanted to make a physics-puzzle game. I created some prototypes, but ultimately I chose to create a sequel for Pigs Can Fly instead. Already I have created 20 levels, so I am confident that 30 more will be finished soon. There is a great chance that everything will be finished and released by the end of February! The original was an exclusively sponsored Flash version that got over 15 million plays, so I am confident that this one will do well.

For this project, experience has taught me to design almost everything before working on the art. Here is a screenshot of one of the latest levels...

As you can see, there are are now six colors/cursors to use. The square boxes can be destroyed simply by clicking on them with its corresponding cursor based on color, and the green circles constantly spin in a particular direction. Of course none of this this is represented, but these new features will be clear and obvious once I spend a couple days on an art pass. In other levels I have introduced "dead regions" where cursors cannot interact with anything and it has opened up many level design possibilities.

It may not seem like it, but designing levels for these 2D games actually is very time consuming. It takes a lot of trial and error, and I have come up with the best levels by randomly placing objects until I see something that can be refined. It is similar to the challenges that writers and painters face when it comes to creating great composition. Fortunately it is a skill that can be improved through many hours of effort.

The bunny defense game will be continued immediately after finishing this sequel. All the features are finished, so it just needs some careful balancing and additional audio.

For what it's worth, here is an in-game screenshot of one of the prototypes from earlier this month. It functions just like Crayon Physics, but features chalk and strings.

And here is a different prototype that involved bouncing droplets into a flower vase using platforms, balloons, and umbrellas. Actually it played well, so I may come back to it.

Happy New Year!

Happy new year everyone! I'd like to start this year by saying that the current Easter-themed game for Flash, iOS, and Android is in its beta stage. Though experience has taught me not to rush things.. I will need about one week in the coming months to balance and finish loose ends before I request play-testing. That way I can experience the project as an almost new experience and see flaws more easily. In the meantime, here are the opening comic panels for playing the story mode:

There are seven weapons and half a dozen specialty items. Along with three boss fights and many different enemies to be faced in four scenarios. There is an endless mode that unlocks everything so the player can compete for high-scores in a survival based showdown. The only real outstanding issue is adjusting the balance. Licensed audio and music, art, and feature implementation is all finished.

Yes, there is a cute bunny companion who can be hired to help protect the magical eggs.

Anyways, porting to iPad and Kindle Fire is fine, but may not play well on smaller devices. Memory usage is also a concern because the game now has over three hundred art assets. Most of these can be put into large sprite sheets, but then there are 70 audio files on top of it all. It is what it is.

While all of it is on the back burner, I have started a brand new project.

It was going to be a "find difference" game, where the objective is to find five differences between two similar photographs. Afterall, what could go wrong? GIMP is very capable free software to "Photoshop" many photos with the clone stamp tool, but actually the licensing of the photos themselves deterred me from continuing the project. I deem the usage of free-to-use photos in a game like this to be unwise, because either the quality is not there, or the coypright and licensing agreements are sketchy. For royalty-free photos, the cost is about two dollars for personal use, and over a hundred dollars for commercial use.. for each one! I would need at least a hundred, so investing over $10,000 in a project like is would not be a good idea at this time.

For what it's worth, this is a prototype using some watermarked placeholder art. There are no differences in the two images ;)

A Pigs Can Fly sequel was planned, but while thinking of new levels a better idea crossed my mind.

I am a fan of games like Crayon Physics and Magic Pen where you can draw lines and shapes that turn into physical objects. I have spent yesterday prototyping my own and it works very well. It is the kind of the game that is easy to understand, and easy to develop in pieces because most of the work is in creating the levels. Having the game update live with new levels created by the community is also a possibility, but we will see.

Here is a screenshot of some static blue boxes, and my own green convex boxes drawn in the game itself. They behave as physical objects as expected.

By no means will this be a clone of either game. I have some ideas that may work really well and help innovate the genre. This is going to be a great project as it will require me to focus on design and the fun factor over everything else.

Easter surprises

It is time to unveil what I have been working on in the past couple weeks! This project has undergone tremendous design changes and it has been no walk in the park. At last I have played it safe by making a game based on Defend Your Nuts. After all, defense games are still my specialty.

Below are some screenshots. Note that this is an early build:

(typo)

As you can see, you will play as a bunny rabbit with the quest of recovering large magical eggs using up to seven unique weapons and specialty items (walls, other bunnies, etc). Weapons and items are found inside the eggs themselves, which hatch successfully unless the enemies manage to destroy them beforehand.

There will be an optional gore mode, but either way this game is not for young children. I'd like to move away from violence next year.

I still plan to release this free-to-play Flash version for the web, and iOS and Android versions containing premium content. But due to the Easter theme, it will probably be released sometime in March.

In other news, The King's Path has just been announced as Ansca Mobile's App of the Week! I am flattered. Thank you! If any of you would like a free copy, then send me an email and I will give you a free promo code! In the meantime, I am working on putting together a small video to show some of the gameplay, as requested.

Game Kite

I am pleased to announce that The King's Path has been released for iPhone and iPad. Along with this announcement, I will now be doing business under the name Game Kite LLC. The name is short, simple, and meaningful to me because right before I quit my job in April to go independent full-time, my friends and I took a trip to the windy Rehoboth Beach in Delaware to visit the Dogfish Head Pub, where we the spent the next day shopping around in small stores - including a kite shop. It was perfect weather for kite flying. Additionally, we noticed a vendor that sold flying pig sculptures, and coincidentally this all happened the week after I released Pigs Can Fly. Whether or not we saw a squirrel loading up his hiding spot with acorns and bazookas is another question...

The website will evolve over time so what you see is mostly placeholder.

Although there are actually very few advantages of starting a limited liability company as an individual, I figured it would be best to start now than later. It is still just me, taxed personally, which by definition makes me the sole proprietor.

Already I have found a problem with The King's Path. The in-app purchases for the iPad HD version somehow got excluded from the app review process, but it's a minor problem because the actual game is still playable. I plan to release Android versions in January and finish up the current project in the meantime.

The King's Path

At last I can announce that I am submitting the already finished tower-defense game, titled "The King's Path" to the Apple app store today! This means it will be going through a review process for approval, so may be available in one week!

It took some time to transition from an individual membership to company status, and I was never in a rush in the first place. In fact, I am spending the day making some final touches and even polishing and balancing some of the features - which is far easier now that I have taken a break from it. I am also adding achievement support for OpenFeint, and a better ending.

I will be announcing its release soon...

What else is new? I finally got around to releasing Defend Your Nuts on Kongregate, which is currently on the front page, so that's awesome. It has been ranked well on AddictingGames, a more casual site that owns a non-exclusive license for the game. I had to go through Android's legal department to get two versions removed from their app store because the game is intended to be free for the public, not 99 cents.

Also my current Flash and soon to be ported mobile game (see previous entries) went through some very preliminary play-testing. Only three people actually tested it for me, but each person can represent tens of millions of players on the Internet. I concluded that although it is fun, it targets such a narrow audience so I am changing it again.

I am still confident that I can finish this entire project by the end of the year. Already progress is going smoothly. This time, it is a 2D game with left and right controls (no 2.5D depth) and will play as a beat 'em up defense game. Between each round, the player can buy new weapons and items from a selection of 30, and then slay enemies that come from the left and right sides of the screen.

Some weapons have special abilities, like stealing life hearts, stunning enemies temporarily, freezing them, catching them on fire, etc. Part of the inspiration comes from the dueling scene in the classic film Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, where (avoiding spoilers) one opponent has to keep getting a new weapon because they break easily. The weapons in my game will probably break by limited durability in order to force the player to conserve weapons and buy new ones. It would be uneventful if they could just rush and get the best one for the rest of the battles.

Nearing the end

The project is nearing the end! I expect to reach beta by next week, but I anticipate that there will be a tremendous need to revise features and heroes once I gather some feedback.

All the primary features are finished, including the team layout for hiring and upgrading heroes.

And I decided against some kind of treasure map or aerial view, in favor of a simple network of nodes.

Here is a screenshot of a battle taking place. As a reminder, it is a turn-based game similar to the Disciples series. There are interesting items including grave dust to summon death, a glowing orb that blinds an enemy, and a potion of invisibility that allows a hero to be invulnerable for a couple turns.

(Ignore those two buttons in the top left corner - I use them for debugging).

Already I am thinking about what to work on next.. I plan to revisit Pigs Can Fly to make a worthwhile sequel. Even better, I plan to hire contractors to help me create levels, leaving me to just polish and redo all the art. It may or may not may ship with a level editor because it all depends on how things go.

Big sale on small potions of health!

Progress has really picked up in the past couple weeks. All 18 of the warriors (including spell casters) for the three races are functional and almost all of the interface screens are finished (battle selection, shop, talents, etc).

I would say that this is shaping up to be roughly the same amount of work as the previous game, but on the contrary, is turning out to be much easier because it's the second time around and follows a similar formula.

As you can see, there are six different talents that the player can take advantage of (tokens are earned by finishing battles). Money can be earned to buy items in the shop and revive fallen warriors. Items are unlocked over time so the player is not bombarded by too much content up front. None of this is final, but should serve as an indication of how this project is turning out.