I knew there was a good game in there somewhere…

… to bad I wasn’t the one that found it^^; There’s a new game coming out that basically realizes what my tree game should have been. It’s called Dyson and it looks gorgeous:

pretty colors~

More Pretty~

So I saw it on Steam, but it won’t be coming out for a few more months, but I think I’ll be buying it. The graphics are simple and evocative of life in general.To be able to do that in a still image is something that amazes me and I ca’t wait to get some game time on it.

But what’s this? It appears that the game is available for download on the company’s website! I’m guessing the steam release will be more fleshed out and not for free <.< So until then, download! I know I will as soon as I get back to my own computer. Here’s the link.

Enjoy your summer, even that bum that’ll be chillin’ in Florida^^ (if he and his hoodie aren’t already there)

The Young and the Cardless

So what is the very last thing that you would make a Trading Crad Game out of? Well, I think me and Tim got one of those items; ladies and gentlemen I give you Soap Opera: TCG ! It plays rather like most other card games but it deals in drama. You each get a job and try to collect as much drama as possible. I think Tim posted a more detailed listing of the cards since he had the image files and our notes, but overall it was rather funny. However, we ran into a problem with card balance. We had too few cards so the ones that were really powerful came up so often it made the game hard to play. Within 5 rounds we had 2 people in comas and one person dead! So we need a little card balance, but whose to say what will happen…

. . . as the world turns~

Just let it go…

Ever have a project that you kept alive because you wanted it to succeed even though it was becoming more and more obvious that it was a failure? Yep that one was Dendro-combat for me. I kept feeling that there would be a good game in there somewhere, but the more I played it, the more I worked on it, the more something became blindingly obvious; it simply wasn’t working. Sure you can play, sure there was competition, sure there was a message, but even I found myself looking for other games to play even as I was in the middle of playing. I don’t know, maybe it would play better as a flash game or maybe it would be better if it was more shiney and visually engaging.

I think I’m going to have to hang this one in the rafters for now, maybe it’s just not its time.

Code 2

So I had an idea for a computer game a while back. Maybe it was because I was playing a LOT of Raiden 3 at the time, but I was trying to think how could I make an actively co-op bullet hell game. One that requires you to work with someone as a team.  The result was Code 2. The concept is rather simply. The game is most easily played by two people, though one very determined person could play it by themselves. You control a square and a triangle, where one is a bit further up the screen than the other. Squares and triangles fall down from the top of the screen. If you’re the square, you get points for hitting the squares and get damage from the triangles, triangels are visa versa. Here’s the thing, your HP is combined between the two of you. If you press the space bar the shape that’s infront will switch. Occationally you will need to be defended by or defend for your partner.

Simple concept and rather simple to play, but it was a beast to make. I had to get the milisecond timing of certain beats in the song (Zombie Nation btw) to make it go to the  music which took such an UNGODLY amount of time,  I only was able to make part of the song.^^ still people liked it and it was rather frantic fun and fun to watch people work with each other^^. Might have to work on that one some more…

Texas Burn ‘em

So I was playing around with a deck of cards and a thought occured to me. I hate Texas Hold ‘em. Never was really quite sure why, but it just never sat well with me. I always preferred 5 card draw. So I started thinking about who I like one and hate the other and I think I got it. Draw had a feeling of choice while hold ‘em always rather felt like I’m along for the ride. With hold ‘em all you have to do is be reasonably good with statistics and stick to a plan while with draw on the other hand, there is an element of luck and unpredictablility to it. So I decided to modify Texas Hold ‘em a little to something I find more fun:

Texas Burn ‘em

playable with as many people as you want, but ideally starting with between 4-6 players.

each player is dealt three cards.

a round of betting happens afterwards.

This is where it gets a little more different. Each player must burn off one card from their hand to a community pool. If there are more than 3 cards in the community play, dealer will shuffle those cards and flop 3 of them. There must be at least 5 community cards, though there may be more. For instance, if there were 4 players, three of the cards would be flopped, one would act as a turn card and then the dealer will draw one card from the deck to by the river. If there were 6 players, three cards would be flopped and then one card at a time will be flipped with a round of betting in between.

a round of betting ensues.

one more card is flipped

round of betting. this pattern continues until all the community cards are in play.

one last round of betting and then you flip and make the best 5 card hand you can make.

I came up with this because it adds active strategy to the game, making it a bit more unpredictable and exciting. So far all of the feed back I’ve gotten has been extremely positive. It plays well and even those people that lost found it entertaining and more enjoyable than Texas Hold’em. Now all I need is to get a casino on board with me^^

The Tree Game

Ah yes, my tree game. I’ve been working on this bugger for about 3 weeks. I knew that there was a good game somewhere in the concept but I wasn’t able to pin it down. However, I think I finally got it resembling something fun.

The tree game a.k.a. Dendro-Combat, a.k.a. shrub fight

Rules:

* 2 players

*game is played with leaves and branches.

*Played with three leaf types:

          - Green = player adds them to branch nodes to progress the game. Point value is assessed by the amount of green leaves on a tree at the end of the game.

          - Yellow = player can play the leaf against their opponent. Their opponent must then roll a d-4 to see how many leaves their tree loses. However these leaves must all come from the same ranch node.

          - Red = Must be played immediately when drawn. You roll a d-4 to see how many leaves you loses, but they all must come from the same branch node.  However if you drew more than 1 card when you got the red leaf, the remaining leaves are added to your hand instead of being discarded. 

* when a branch node collects at least three leaves, three leaves can be removed and replaced with a new forked branch.

* When a player gets 3 leaves on a level 4 branch, the game is over.

* When the game is over, the players tally up their remaining leaves and multiply them by which level of branch they’re on. Ex: if  you have 2 leaves on the lowest fork, 1 on the second level and 4 on the third level, you have 2 x 1 + 1 x 2 + 4 x 3 =16 points. Winner is the one with the most points at the end of the game. 

* any red leaves or yellow leaves played are removed from play until the end of the season, at which point they are returned to the bag.

 

Gameplay:

*Roll a d-4 to see who goes first (Highest number goes)

*First player rolls the die again to see how many leaves they can draw and then draw them from the bag-o-leaves.

*The first palyer can at that point choose the card they will keep and discard the rest of the draw back into the bag. However if they draw a red leaf, they must play it immediately, but they get to keep the rest of their hand.

*If the player has at least 3 leaves on a branch node, than the player can cash in 3 leaves to make a branch. The leaves return to the bag.

playing catch up

I have a few games that I designed but neglected to post. I’ll use this opportunity to play a little catch up.

first was Pict-a-Etch-a-sketch-a-charad-tionary.
I know, it’s a bit of a mouth full, but it was a rather simple concept. You play pictionary but instead of just drawing you roll a die the to determine if you must draw, use an etch a sketch, or pantomime your word. None of us had an etch a sketch so we needed to use one on the computer, but if anything that may have made it easier (concidering the time that we did use a real etch a sketch everything looked like the flight pattern of a drunk butterfly) Overall though, the game proved to be rather fun if not a little clunky. Still, could have been worse.

Word Association Extreme

I was playing with the idea that if people were forced to respond in a very short time period, a bit more of their subconscious would pop up similar to a dream state. This is perfect because the challenge was titled, “I have a dream,” so it worked out rather well. THe game is played with three people, 2 players and one ref. The first player says a word (we usually started with dream) and the second player has 1 second to respond with another word then the first player, etc. The ref is there to decide if the player has gone over the time period. It played rather fun, but I think I was the only one that enjoyed it of the people that played. I’m guessing it’s mainly because a game based on part of a psych eval might be a little off putting to some.

Dendro-combat

This one failed miserably, as a matter of fact it didn’t even make it to class. It was supposed to be a game that was environmentally conscious. I hit a wall for ideas and ended up with a concept of trees fighting each other to grow larger. This was done by each player having a tree trunk and a shared bagg of leaves. The leaves were colored either green, red or yellow. Green leaves allowed you to add that leaf to your tree, red killed one leaf and yellow kills one of your opponent’s leaves. I think there might be a salvageable game somewhere in there, but right now I can’t find it.

There we go, I might end up updating this post but I think that put a dent into my unlisted games section

Audiosurf…

…for those that wonder what a videogame about acid tripping would be like. Well, maybe that’s not as accurate a discription as it could be. Really though, the game is extremely fun and runs on a rather simple concept. You input any mp3 on your computer and it instantly makes  a track for a space ship to fly down collecting colored squares, the more intense the music the more points you get. It’s a little hard to explain without sounding like a mad man, but trust me this game is good! The song can now emerse your eyes on top of your ears, creating an amazing experience that opens up your music library to entirely new understanding. My only real gripe is that it can’t function with DRM music (a la iTunes), still, if you’re hardcore enough you can rip them over, it’s just a hastle that seems a little unneeded.

Oh, and if you really want a trip, play Tiesto’s – Hes a Pirate remix. Amazing fun….and I have the record^^

Woo update!

Sorry it’s been a while since my last update on here, life’s been busy^^; Anyway let’s get to it shall we?

 

First let me talk about our latest challenge. The challenge was to use one of our previous games and create a game that will have a play field that changes in realtime. I decided to add a new element to Circuit Wars mainly because I think it was my most successful game. What we added was a pattern of orange boxes that acted as bonuses. If you get one, you get a fifty fifty chance to either add a 2×2 black square to the field or remove a 2×2 square from the field. The orange boxes were arranged in an “X” (I’ll post pictures later) and I think overall they improved gameplay quite a bit. The contest between the two players becomes more dynamic. The people that I had test it gave a lot of positive feedback which I was pleased with. Overall I think the concept was quite successful.

Box Game Challenge…

Using my best Jezza voice,” We have… a challenge!” The result of which had me giggling within about 5 minutes, the time it took me to think up the game. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you:

Brew-skeeBall!

I know, I know corny title, but it’s a corny game. My brain combined beer pong and skeeball and the result, if I do say so myself was pure magic. I’ll post images a bit later but I felt it prudent to chronicle this marvelous idea as it develops further. Currently the rules are:

• The box is converted to “ramp mode” with at least 3 feet of table extra on both sides. Three cups (or more  if desired) are arranged a 2-3 feet away from the high end of the ramp.
• You must roll the ball from the flat part (it has to travel at least 1 foot on the flat table) off the ramp and ideally into the cups. 
• When the ball lands in a cup, the cup is taken away. The player with the most cups after all of the cups are gone is the winner.
• Players can add rules as long as this basic set is adhered to.

 

 

3 cup match:

       X                                                                        X

X          X                       X      X      X                      X

                                                                                  X

 

you get the idea

Though this is a rather simple game, the reaction I had from the people that gave it a quick try was rather encouraging. True, I’d prefer a ping pong ball for the game  (we tested using a 20 sided dice) it was incredibly fun.

 

Possible cup orientations, with “X” representing a cup: