At a Distance

Terry Dec 7, 2011 32 Comments

At a Distance is now complete, and available to download for free, for Windows and Mac.

I’m really proud of this game. Hope you enjoy it!

Old year’s resolution

Terry Dec 4, 2011 11 Comments

I kinda fell out with my four letter word game. Very shortly after I posted about it. I think we’re reconciled now, though.

I actually stopped working on this game very shortly after that blog post. It started out as a cool concept I wanted to make playable – challenging design wise, but something that I thought had the potential to be really special. I was so, so into the idea, but then I made the stupid mistake of entering it in the IGF.

The pressure distorted the game for me. Trying to get something coherent in time for the deadline meant I started making bad decisions, and ended up with – well, something pretty traditional. A linear adventure game, with a progression of puzzles and a world that gradually opens up. Another fucking videogame. Basically exactly what I was trying to avoid. I hated it, and didn’t touch the game again until yesterday.

A couple of things happened to rekindle my interest in the project this week. The main one is that I was working on a throwaway side game, and suddenly realised that it basically was Four Letter Word. Kinda like I’d been subconsciously thinking about it all along.

Tomorrow I’m gonna start working on At a Distance again, polishing up some minor details for Wednesday’s launch. After that, I think I’ll focus on this for a while. Next year I’m planning to make a dramatic change to the way I work, so it’s good for me to get this sorta thing out of my system while I can.

(yes, that’s an actual screenshot from the game)

That’s that then

Terry Dec 1, 2011 4 Comments

Changed my mind, it’s scrapped now.

Actually, scrapped isn’t quite right. I realised this evening that the ideas in this that I actually like fit better in

than they do here. So, I’m gutting this and reimplementing those ideas in that.