WayPaths

Terry Sep 17, 2009 4 Comments

Nathaniel Smith has put together a really interesting remix of Pathways. I really recommend checking it out if you like the original! I don’t want to spoil anything, so I won’t say more than that.

You can download it here, and read his thoughts about it here.

Ludum Dare 14 Themes

Terry Apr 17, 2009 3 Comments

Ludum Dare 14 is this weekend, and I could not be more psyched about it! This’ll be my second Ludum Dare – my first was LD13, which had the theme “Roads”. For that, I worked on what eventually became Pathways. I also entered a mini LD earlier in the year and started what eventually became Don’t Look Back.

As happy as I am with those projects, this time I’d really love to actually finish something by the deadline! Which probably means coming up with a much more realistic plan for what I can actually do in 48 hours, instead of totally underestimating the amount of work it’ll take like I usually do. I don’t know what I’ll make yet, but it’s likely going to be very gameplay focused and not very content heavy.

(Also, Klik of the Month is tomorrow night; depending on how things are going I wanna give that a try too!)

The contest theme won’t actually be announced until the very last minute – the voting process is kinda complicated, but the jist of it is that there are multiple days of voting and one final round. So, while you can’t know for sure which theme is going to win out, you can make a pretty good educated guess by looking at which themes won in the previous rounds. Here’s the final round list of themes, sorted by score:

For the rest of the day, I’m gonna fix up my C++ and Allegro framework, and try to brainstorm a few ideas for the most likely candidates.

Pathways

Terry Feb 25, 2009 171 Comments

In the long run

Terry Feb 19, 2009 4 Comments

The release of Pathways is imminent! Sorry it’s taking so long. 🙁

Finally added that about page I’d been meaning to, though just a shell. I really want to do a total redesign of the site, but I haven’t had time!

Yes There Are Two Paths You Can Go By

Terry Feb 17, 2009 5 Comments

I was ill over the weekend. As a result, Pathways is taking a little longer than expected – though with the pace things are moving at over on FlashGameLicence, it’ll probably be released before Don’t Look Back is…

Here are a few new screens from the game:

Please don’t be away too long

Terry Feb 13, 2009 2 Comments

I’m itching to finally release Don’t Look Back after spending the last month working on it, but unfortunately I’m going to have to wait a while before I can – as an experiment, and since I’m, like, practically bankrupt, I’ve decided to try looking for a sponsorship. The game’s on Flash Game Licence, but it looks like the whole process is a lot slower than I thought it was. So I don’t quite know when I’ll be able to release it, unfortunately 🙁

In the meantime, I’ve decided to try and finish off one of the old projects I’ve got knocking around. I felt like working on Pathways, and something recently came up which gave me a good pretence to finally finish it off! I might have it out by the end of the week? Possibly? Who knows!

Currently, here’s where I am: the engine is finished, the dialogue is about 50% done, the music is finished, but I’m starting from scratch with the graphics to take a different approach with it, so all of that needs to be done. Here’s a preview of the new style I’m going for:

I’m still doing the mixed resolutions thing, but it’s a lot more subtle now, I think.

I should have a better idea by Saturday with regards to how long this one will take to finish… I’m thinking of making a short game tomorrow too though, if I do that’ll probably hold things up a bit.

year++;

Terry Jan 2, 2009 4 Comments

Ever since I started rapid prototyping, as I called it back at the end of October, I’ve let quite a few projects build up on me. One of my new years resolutions is not to start anything else until I start finishing a few first! With any luck, this should be a pretty productive month for me as a result!

(In any case, I can’t really afford to continue experimenting like this. My loan’s running out, so it looks like this venture of mine is almost out of time…)

In rough order of priority, here’s what I’m working on at the moment:

Space/Void [Collab with Cactus]

Detonate

Pathways

I’m also hoping to totally redo the graphics – it’s nice in places but I don’t like the sprites and it’s way too much work to draw the entire game like this and have it look good. Anyway, I think I can do better with a bit of work on a new style.

Judith [Collab with Increpare]

Electric Panic

Flying Cities

Tower Platformer [Collab with Dock]

In addition to that, there’s also:

Self Destruct Update

And finally, just to mention:

Buster Drake

Phew. Better get to work, then.

I worry when you’re away

Terry Dec 10, 2008 7 Comments

So, did a bit more work on Pathways today. I’ve mapped out the entire thing and I reckon there’s about 70 rooms in total, which is a *lot* of artwork. Thankfully, my approach to things should make that kinda manageable. I’m more worried about the writing, which is really crucial to making this whole thing work (and which I always get kinda self conscious about). I could do with some betatesting help on that end, if anyone’s interested…

Turns out the Pathways demo ended up in the Ludum Dare megapack, which is really annoying – but I guess I can’t do much about that 🙁 I told a couple of people before the deadline that I was thinking of not submitting it and taking time to do it properly, and they all said the same thing: submit something for the deadline: you can always go back and polish it up later. So I did and then I went and played it the next morning and was like NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO I’ve made a balls of it and now I’ve to be a total drama queen by withdrawing from the contest just because I don’t want that horribly bloated written-at-3am thing floating around out there making a mockery of a concept I’m very fond of…

😥

<⁄rant>

There’s still time to change the road you’re on

Terry Dec 8, 2008 2 Comments

Over the weekend, I put something together for Ludum Dare 13 (for the theme “Roads”). It’s called Pathways, and it’s a lot less arcady than most of the small projects I’ve made this year. I submitted a short demo to the contest, but the game isn’t finished yet. There are a lot of placeholder graphics, only about half the content I’d planned and most of the writing is rushed, overlong and generally pretty awful. The concept though: I like enough to want to see it through properly, so for the next few days I’m going to focus on finishing this. Until then, here’s a few screenshots!

Increpare also made a game for the contest, and it’s absolutely brilliant. It’s called Rara Racer – the screenshots don’t do it justice so I won’t post one; but be sure to check it out. Download here.

A little darker

Terry Dec 6, 2008 0 Comments

The theme for this weekend’s Ludum Dare, as it turns out, is Roads.

This was one of the ones I was hoping for. I’m going to give it a shot after all! 😆