2013/03/14

A Minor Flydrill Update

Not too long after my last Flydrill update, almost two years ago, I kept tweaking the game but never released anything after that.

Until now. :o


Don't get excited, it's just a tiny update. ;) I added white outlines to the enemies so you can see them better, with a slightly darker background color. I also made the giant wall thinner in the beginning. Honestly I was just tired of having to drill for ten full seconds every time I started the game. That's why I went ahead and released this update.


I guess it's spring cleaning time for me, polishing up and releasing old stuff I've had sitting around on my hard drive for the past year or two... :)

On that note, I noticed that Google Reader will be shutting down in a few months! :( As disappointing as that is, I think it's a good opportunity to revisit my content-consumption habits and perhaps let go of my daily blog reading. Looking through all my feed subscriptions, it strikes me how few blogs are still active - really there are less than a dozen that I see updates from regularly. And I've gotten to the point where none of the stuff I read is really that valuable to me - the game design articles are not blowing my mind with new insights, the productivity articles are teaching lessons that I've already learned, and really, I think I'd get a lot more out of spending that time working on actual projects or reading books or even... playing games. I mean, it's been years since I've really sat down and just played a game, for serious. I think the last one must have been Portal. Yeah. The truth is out! :o

Well, I hope you enjoy the Flydrill update! :) May there be plenty more to come, soon.

Oh, and I almost forgot - Happy Pi Day! :D

2013/03/13

Active Sketch 07 - Quilt

Not only has my new job at Linden Lab been inspiring me to post more often, I've also been doing a lot more prototyping! :)

I used the platformer engine from my Ludum Dare game Ninjural Selection to make this infinite "quilt" of platformer levels. When you go off the edge of the screen, a new level is randomly generated and placed alongside for you to fall into.


The levels are generated by randomly drawing and erasing horizontal and vertical lines of tiles, and then placing random emoticons for you to collect and avoid. But imagine what it would be like with fully featured platformer levels with roaming enemies and cool stuff to play with. Imagine that each level was created by another player - in fact, in this prototype you can already edit the platforms by holding shift and drawing with the mouse. Imagine that there were other players roaming around the quilt with you in real time, collecting coins with you or racing to find special items.

I think that could be pretty cool.

Active Sketch 06 - Runway

Almost two years ago I posted my last Active Sketch. The thing was, I had made another one around the same time that I never got around to putting online! So I decided it was time to finish it up and share it with you all.

It's a test of a one-button runner control scheme. I added new artwork, and random blocks to avoid.

Press and hold to run, let go to jump, and press again while in the air to fall faster.


Maybe not the next Canabalt, but I think it has a nice feel. :p The real challenge will be designing an environment that is fun with this control scheme - right now it's a bit too hard to avoid the blocks. I'd guess that it might actually be more fun if you were running on rooftops...