Jet Set Willy Online Update

May 12, 2007 · Filed Under Development Log · 7 Comments 

Jet Set Willy Online

Fresh from a 6 page stint in Retrogamer, we’re about to drop a new update of Jet Set Willy Online. Various bugfixes and lots of new maps - Willy On The Run, The Construction Site, A-Maze-ing, Pitfall II and two I can’t remember the names of for the life of me and can’t be bothered checking right now. Also in this update is the ability to upload your own custom Willy.

Out Sunday, I believe.

Tags:

Blast Miner Review

May 10, 2007 · Filed Under Reviews · Comment 

Don’t look here, look here.

{as Gibbage is now defunct, I’ve retrieved the text and added it to this post - exciting eh?]

Blast Miner

Blast Miner isn’t a bad game, unfortunately just like the description seems to flounder to nail down what the game entails, so it follows that Blast Miner isn’t sure what type of game it actually is. Its as if someone has sat down and made a list of things that are really, really great in games right now, and next to each point they’ve drawn a little tick box in crayon and wont be satisfied until every single box is filled with ticks.

Physics? Check. Armadillo Run style stage set up? Check. Completing a level within a budget? Check. Block dropping? Check. Explosives? Check. Huge chunks of gold - check.

Game designers, when will you learn? You can’t possibly be everything to everyone without losing that something that will make your game special.

Special, like a cow at Christmas.

Thats the saddening thing about Blast Miner, each individual part of the game is highly polished and brimming with good idea’s but when viewed as a whole, they all fall short of the mark.

The graphics and presentation are fantastic, so much so that they almost disguise how awful the menu system is, the three game skins are well designed yet one is needlessly confusing replacing the symbolic blocks with chunks of colour, the physics are solid and a great idea but feel too floaty to be satisfying, and both the included game modes seem to be great idea’s in their own right let down with minor niggles.

Out of the two game modes, the puzzle mode is the more satisfying. Being able to set up the stage and let rip a huge chain of explosions propelling your blocks to the finishing line is a rewarding experience. The designs are fiendish at times, occasionally confusing, but this is a puzzle mode and you’d expect nothing less.

Its the arcade mode that really lets the side down. You never really feel like you have any control over what happens on the screen. Rotating the blocks becomes a chore due to the floaty physics, launching the gold into the machine feels more a matter of blind luck than skill no matter how large an explosion you cause and the small play area stifles any truly creative play. Even watching the online replays, you’ll still be left feeling none the wiser as to how to score big.

If you can pretend the arcade mode doesn’t exist and learn to cope with the curiously drifting physics in puzzle mode, then there’s a good chance that you’ll find a lot of love in Blast Miner. I just can’t shake the feeling that with a little bit more focus, more concentration on what the game does well and a whole lot less emphasis on just ticking the boxes of whats good and great in games - Blast Miner could have been something very special indeed.

As it stands, its a flawed gem that on one hand should be applauded for being so defiantly indie in its approach, and on the other, taken outside and given a kicking for being so defiantly indie in its approach.

A surefire case of try before you buy.

Tags: , ,

Well…

May 9, 2007 · Filed Under Development Log · 3 Comments 

…I didn’t finish on time :(

Beast Invaders 3 got wrapped about 6 this evening and in order to bang it out the door, its somewhere around a tenth of what it should have been and what I wanted it to be thanks to possibly the worst dev. time I’ve had.

Its been a bit tough finding time to code as it is, but I was pretty much on course for a nice cruise to the finish line - then my computer went bang. So, over a week of dev. time down there, but managed to pretty much pick back up from where I left off. Unfortunately, after slinging the demo out last week, I got a wonderful dose of cryptosporidiosis which not only knocked me pretty much out of the game but ensured my body wasn’t entirely keen on keeping anything down in either direction for a few days. Completely screwed my already wobbly sleep pattern too.

So instead of the best part of 2/3 weeks development time I had to bang the rest of the game into shape, I ended up with somewhere less than 48 hours and still feeling sick as a sick dog for those.  Then, to add insult to injury, bless his cotton socks, baby decided to have one of those days as I’m trying to put the finishing touches to it.

Damned if I wasn’t going to get something out there, though.

Despite all the head banging and disasters thats befallen the development time of the game, its a shell of what it should be, but at least there’s something out there for Markie to whack out for Retrovision and its probably still 400% more effort than I think most people would have gone to for him, so I’m pretty proud that at least I got something finished and done for him.

A lot of stuff didn’t make the cut sadly. All the bosses I had planned, there just wasn’t the time to code them up and get them in the game - so the assault waves that should have led to the bosses just lead straight into the next phase. The amount of different enemies and waves is a good 80% down on the amount I had planned to put in with lots of recycled sprites. The highscore code and the joystick stuff decided to kill itself too close to the deadline to fix so I just ripped it all out. There’s only 3 levels and they lack the structure and co-ordination of the first. And I’m not entirely unconvinced that there isn’t a bug-ette that creeps in midway between level 2 and 3, but I’m too tired to go and check right now.

…and I’m not even going to mention the quick hackjob of a front end…christ, its ugly.

I know I’m not exactly selling it up here, but after the past few weeks I’m kinda worn down on the whole thing and somewhere between relief that I at least got a game out for the deadline and disappointment that the game I wanted to come out from all this didn’t. It is, however, rolling back to before it all goes a bit uncoordinated - a nice solid foundation to pick up from. Which I fully intend to do.

For the rest of the week though, I’m going to chill out with some doodling, then consider the next step. G-Force needs a good seeing to and at least I know thats straightforward enough, then perhaps I might start stripping back BI3 to the bare bones, get some less lazy graphics in there and one quick theme change later and the addition of the stuff I wanted to put in… ah, just thinking about it cheers me up. Guess thats a plan.

And Friday, I think, you’ll be able to see if I’m being too hypercritical or not about BI3 for yourselves.

Tags:

New JSWO Maps due

May 4, 2007 · Filed Under Development Log · Comment 

tagmap.png

And here’s a short teaser of one of the tag maps…

Tags:

« Previous Page