ArcherFire, closing a cycle

Back on 2002, I made a shooter game in QBasic. It was awesome, and boring.

Back in 2002
Back in 2002

On 2012, thinking on doing a different kind of game than the usual roguelike / turn based / complex thing, (and since I had a Flash programmer available) I thought on rebooting it.

It was to be a short, less than one month project, but it was not. I ended up pooling a lot of resources and time into its development, having it as the spearhead of my efforts to enter the modern social gaming arena.

v0.13
v0.13

Lots of things happened, and situation is very different today, I no longer have the resources at hand I once had, but I still can’t let all this work be wasted.

So, it’s time to close a cycle.

I am going to finish this game, I am going to blow all the unneeded unfinished stuff, and turn it into a simpler, more enjoyable experience.

I’m starting with this feedback I got from the nice FGL guys. If you have any comments that could help me on this, you are welcome!

Hmmm, this one has SOOO much stuff going for it. I love the look and the wingman concept. The art is cool and the music is 8bit dopeness. I did feel the enemies were paced oddly. Many times their shots traveled at nearly the same speed they did which made it odd to see. Not that is was bad, just odd. Many of the grey boss ships were like that. Firing shuriken like shots in a line in front of them. Seriously though – this game has a ton of potential and the goodness only highlights little things that seems less polished. There seemed to be missing music on the death screen and other screens (maybe it was just my browser). You should be super proud overall though – great stuff and best of luck. Your game is a huge effort and looks good!

 

That is pretty awesome. I was a bit overwhelmed by the options, and I tried to collect the purple death orbs, but I can see if I was a real gamer this would be a hit!

 

The gameplay itself seems fun, for the very limited time I was able to play anyway. The only comment I have about the gameplay is that I really want the missles that the enemies shoot to be able to be destroyed by me shooting at them. Also, I really love the whole screen shaking when the ship gets hit, but it goes on for about twice as long as it needs to. The first half of the effect is cool, but the second half of it is just annoying and distracting. So making that shorter should help a lot. Other than that though it seems pretty fun! 🙂

Unfortunately, I feel as though it takes too long to get to the actual gameplay once the game is started. It took me about a minute, and in that time most players are going to get bored, especially because it’s all sorta overwheling since we don’t know how good the game is when we’re making all of these hard decisions. It felt like I was just guessing through what I would want my ship and pilot to be because I didn’t know what the gameplay was like. It would be cool to have a test level where players could go and play through and then change their ship or pilot during the level to see what one they would like.

 

-Main menu should have music.
-There are no instructions on shooting.
-Mute should not restart audio.
-A way to return to the main menu needed.
-Music and sfx are loud.
-Mute should mute sfx too.

Since the idea is to NOT add new things, I’m putting myself a time limit of 1 week to have this done.

Px2+Troria, advancements on combat+design, last stretch for oryx challenge

Did my best trying to finish “something” on time for the challenge, but although the engine is in a pretty good shape, I’d still have to generate decent / balanced content and test thoroughly to produce a quality product.

I’d like to thank Oryx however, for giving me a reason to resurrect the project and give it a fresh air, I’ll definitively finish this once I get some spare time (and I believe I’ll finally have some spare time soon :))

Here are the advancements:

The first, test map

Battle Setup
Battle Setup
Round Results
Round Results
A more advanced map of Troria
A more advanced map of Troria
Skills
Skills

New Project: Troria, and the revival of Pixal

For the Oryx Ultimate Roguelike Challenge, I’ve decided to revive the pixal project, remaking the engine from the ground up.

I’ll elaborate more on the Pixal aspect soon, but for the moment here’s the advancement on the Troria Project:

Troria will be a mobile game you can play from your browser; explore the world of Troria becoming stronger and wiser while battling fierce enemies and roaming a huge world, all from your phone or your computer.

Moving between locations and exploring takes real world time, so get ready for an expansive experience, your characters will live their quest while you do your everyday things.

I’ve spent most of the time redesigning the pixal engine into something simpler, modern, more fun and accessible. Also with a more robust and scalable architecture. The engine already loads the scenario from a JSON file and provides persistence for the player data.

So far, I’ve managed to establish the backend to support the following operations:

  • Signup
  • Login
  • Character Creation
  • Movement
  • Exploration

Screen Shot 2013-12-01 at 11.45.38 PM px2 Screen Shot 2013-12-01 at 11.51.41 PM 1385838160258 Screen Shot 2013-12-01 at 11.56.50 PM

July 2012 – New products!

misilleta.com

A social game in which people can share their floral arrangements, based on a tradition of the people of Medellín, Colombia. Take a look!

Virtual Games: Weightlifting

A social game in which you must be quicker than your friends for typing key sequences, in order to lift the highest weight Take a look!

Neo ArcherFire

A fun progressive space shooter, compete for the highest score! Take a look!

Pixal v0.19 released!

Hello people! Long time since you last heard about Pixal, right?

Well, lately we started working back on it! there has been a lot of changes deep inside, but the most important is we are looking forward to actually finish the game for the pleasure of all world 🙂

Since last version, a new Capability has been added (Using forum buildings), and there have been important fixes and changes on the battle model (items now wear with time so you actually have to replace them). The world browser has also been optimized and autoupdates so the whole thing is semi-semi-real time (at least you can see expeditions moving around you).

Remember, this release is still beta quality! we are looking for playtesters so if you are interested in contributing you are very welcome!

Next versions will feature the whole world, and enhancements over the contruction facet.

So, without further ado, take a look!

A separate dimension, currently inhabited by EIA’s gamedev research group
Pixal forums, integrated with uStream, allow to share a presentation while the group chats about it
Equipment is damaged on each fight, reducing its effectivity

Artist needed for Bird Mansion

We are looking for an artist to remake the room illustrations for our “Bird Mansion” game.

Bird Mansion is a simple point and click adventure game, similar to Shadowgate or Deja Vu. It’s set on a terrorific theme, on a true H.P. Lovecraft style.

This is a freeware game we are only seeking to complete in order to add it to our portfolio. This is also an oportunity for you to showcase your work, we will add a link to your homepage from the title screen.

The game is currently available at http://slashie.net/pixal/birdMansion/ . The original art set is a bit abstract and we are looking for something more figurative, yet dark and creepy. It’s also incomplete due to unavailability from its artist.

Following are the required assets:

  • 800×600 illustrations
    • 38 for the game rooms. Descriptions are already on place.
    • 3 for the game intro
    • 3 for the game ending
    • 1 for the title screen
  • Illustrations for 35 items
If you are interested please send your portfolio and your proposal to slash@slashware.net
Following some screenshots:

Bird Mansion Reborn

Back in 2008, I made this game for TIGSource’s CPB Compo. It was so unpopular and irrelevant that, in anger, I tried to delete it from the face of earth.

Today I brought it back,  after all the game is *finished* (at least in the programming side), and a finished game is something worth showing, even if the game is not wildly popular.

Bird Mansion is a room-based adventure game, similar to Shadow Gate or Deja Vu albeit much simpler, you can access it online (No need to download anything). It features creepy art and a complete quest. Check it out at http://slashie.net/pixal/birdMansion/

 

I think the game would work better if it had less abstract graphics for the rooms. Any artist interested?

Screenshots: