Kloonigames

TIGSource hosted another one their funky game development competitions. This time you had to create a game based on a name you got from the Video Game Name Generator. Much like in the real industry; you get a generic name and then you have build a game around it.

My entry was coded pretty much during the last day of the competition. It’s called Small-Time Scorched Earth Invasion. Basically it’s a mash up game, I mashed in Scorched Earth with Space Invaders and Missile Command. “Small-Time” in the title referes to the development model…

Sorry for messing up the game a month schedule again. I blame the deadline of the competition.

Small-Time Scorched Earth Invasion

Download

Scorched_release1.zip (6,3 MB) (Release 1)

Instructions

You play as the scorched earth tank and your job is to defend the earth from space invaders. The development progress can be best described as “Small-Time”.

Move with “A” and “D”, aim with mouse and fire with left mouse button.

Space invaders and your rockets will do damage to earth if they hit the planet. Try to survive as long as you can.

Credits

Game Design, Code & Gfx: Petri Purho ( petri.purho (at) gmail.com )

Music: Mr. Fab – Bossa Super Nova. The song is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 1.0 license. It is freely available at http://www.archive.org/details/csr020 under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 1.0 license.

Inspiration source: Experimental Gameplay Project.

Small-Time Scorched Earth Invasion uses: SDL and SDL_Mixer.

I’m on the road, but here’s some quick news about Crayon Physics Deluxe, that were just too delicious to pass.

• Cama has created an amazing fansite for Crayon Physics (Deluxe). You can download level packs for Crayon Physics and there’s a video tutorial for the horrible Crayon Physics’ level editor. Crayon Physics Unofficial Game Blog
• Chris Baker wrote a great article about Crayon Physics Deluxe for Slate. He wrote that the game looks like it was designed by a third-grater. I take that as a compliment.
• Crayon Physics Deluxe is also featured in Darren Gladstone’s PC World report about this year’s IGF winners. There’s also clips from World of Goo, Fez and Audiosurf. [Via Limevoodoo’s comment]

Game Developers Conference was lots of fun, not because Crayon Physics Deluxe won something there, but because I had a great time hanging out with friends and fellow developers. I wish I could have spend more time away from the booths, meetings and general “work” and spend more time checking out the lectures, hanging with friends and partying. Hopefully next year won’t be so hectic.

Anyway during the first days GDC I asked a bunch of friends and fellow game developers to draw crayon versions of their games. But I lost my crayons during the award show (I had to do the sign while running to the stage and I dropped my crayons and I couldn’t find them afterwards 🙁 ), so I couldn’t get these from everyone I wanted to. Which really sucks. But here’s what I got.

I apologize for my lack of photographing skills.

A real sweet crayon Jetpack Brontosaurus by Ben Ruiz of Flashbang Studios.

Cinnamon Beats as drawn by Jani Kahrama.

Crayon Clean Asia by ever awesome Cactus looks really sweet. No wonder he got nominated for Excellence in Visual Art. 500 Bananas!

Cortex Command by pixel physics wizard Daniel “Data” Tabar.

It’s easy to see why Fez won the IGF Excellence in Visual Art award… Fez as drawn by Renaud Bédard (the programmer of Fez) .

Random dude with a Fez by fez wearing Phil Fish (the artist / designer of Fez) .

An actual screenshot of Gesundheit! as drawn with crayons by Matt Hammill.

Goo as drawn by Adam “Atomic” Saltsman.

Look behind you, a Three Headed Monkey! by one of my heroes: Ron Gilbert.

The awesome Gamma256 game Mr. Heart Loves You Very Much by Zaphos (who should really put a proper website for his games who now has a real website).

Darwinian poetry game Poesysteme as drawn by Balthazar Auger.

Crayon qrp as drawn by Sean ‘th15’ Chan (of Battleships Forever fame). I think Sean should do a kindergarten crayon version of qrp.

Crayonized Starwave as drawn by the fellow experimental game designer Daniel Benmergui.

Toblo by Steve Chiavelli.

2DBoyish World of Goo drawn by the brilliant Kyle Gabler. (I love you too Kyle!)

The IGF winners World of Goo and Crayon Physics Deluxe melt together and form this ultimate unstoppable game: World of Crayon Goo Physics… Deluxe drawn by classiest dressed IGF winner Ron Carmel.

Someone drew this and didn’t even leave a business card. It’s awesome so thanks!

Apparently the GDC interviews are surfacing now. I remember vaguely talking to some people from gametrailers and now they published the interview on Gametrailers TV 😮 (The indie section starts around 7 minute mark). [Thanks to Apina for letting me know about this].

It’s quite a small clip and all I get to say about the game is “you draw stuff, they behave physically correctly and you solve puzzles”. But I’m glad they included it there anyway. There are also couple of other indie developers there; Mårten talks about Fret Nice and Darren demonstrates Iron Dukes. It’s great to see that indie games are getting some airtime, in between GTA IV and Gears of War 2.

Link to the Gametrailers TV episode

Also I was positively surprised to see Crayon Physics Deluxe talked on DL.TV. They did this small round up of couple of the IGF games and Crayon Physics Deluxe was one and the other one was the sweet 2D/3D platformer Fez. While they didn’t really have any real footage of Crayon Physics Deluxe, they talked about the game in detail and got past the “you draw stuff, they behave physically correctly and you solve puzzles” stage. Garnett Lee has some really constructive comments about the game and he “got” what it’s really all about.

The Crayon Physics Deluxe part starts around 1:30 mark.

I and bunch of other indies did these interviews with 1UP people at GDC and they posted them online now. I’m having a really hard time watching myself being interviewed. Part of it is, that I always have the hardest time watching video footage of me and the other part of it is it’s really laggish and it loads for ever.

Make sure you check out the other more articulate indies as well:

• Cactus talking about Clean Asia
• Phil Fish talking about Fez
• Dylan Fitterer talking about Audiosurf (which was originally a FPS?!)
• Mårten Brüggemann talking about Fret Nice
• Joakim Sandberg talking about Noitu Love 2

Edit: Also 1UP just posted a video of Jonathan Blow and David Hellman talking about Braid.
[via David’s blog]

2nd Edit: It’s a scientific fact now; 1UP loves indies!

• Kellee Santiago and Jenova Chen talk about their games
• Scott Sharkey’s feature about indie games and a nice list of the interviews
• Jenn Frank’s blog post about IGF people