Arowx.com - Indie Game Dev

Link: /BuildRomeInDay

Well in theory with enough people a good plan and the right machines for the job you could probably build Rome in a day as long as you had a few years to prepare for the build.

Just an update I'm getting close to a release for the beta of SaveTheSillyEarthlings, it definitely needs more depth to it but I think it's the game I just had to make.

For about 10 years now I have been fascinated by the concepts of peak oil and climate change and the potential impacts they could have on our civilisation, and this game allowed me to play with a very simple 'model' of the world focused on how we produce and consume power, in effect most of the people in the 1st world have access to amazingly cheap and to the point of being almost 'invisible' power.

But with that fascination I have also been amazed at how little in the way of preparation our governments, corporations and societies are putting in place for what could be a very bumpy ride over this century.

For instance the credit crunch which the majority of the news media seemed to point the finger at greedy banks, but as with most of the problems in society it is easy to blame something (e.g. a greedy bank) or someone, without looking at the why it happened.

You only have to look at the peaking price of oil just around the time of the credit crunch to realise that maybe those people who were defaulting on their loans were being pushed over the poverty line by the knock on effects from the price of fuel (transportation, goods, food are all effected by the price of fuel).

Anyway I think between the effects of climate change and the unknowns of what happens to a civilisation dependent on cheap fuel are something we should be talking about.

Lots of people are going on about the climate and slowly more and more people are talking about the effects of peak oil.

My game is a way you can play through to the end of the century and explore some of the potential impacts and even gives you the power to mitigate the worst effects of climate change and peak oil!

Please be patient thought it should be out soon!

Note: Support forum appears to have vanished, technical issue, but you can still e-mail me at arowx@arowx.com with any issues!

Link: /DeadlinesAreGood

I've found that during the deadline driven Ludum Dare competition I can focus on developing and working on a game, in addition the tight deadlines (48 hours) mean that you have to keep your game centered on it's core for the game to work and to make it under the wire.

So taking this into account and due to the fact that I have, let's see:

• Save The Silly Earthlings - Earth eco-management
• Brainagon - Maths puzzle
• Cupids Quota - Love'em up Game
• Qbix 2.0 - Block based puzzler
• Energy Island Conquest - Strategic shoot'em up
• A.W.O.D - Expanding hoard based turret defense style game
• Block Wars - Block based build em up

Seven games, and this excludes the just started projects and loads of other game ideas that run through my mind each day!

I've also been reading Richard Bransons - Business Stripped Bare and it seams that if you want a successful business then you need to have great ideas and this is the key bit Deliver on them!

Unfortunately I have created a facebook page and website for each of my Work in Progress projects, so it's time to start delivering...

First up is Save the Silly Earthlings (SSE) an Earth eco-management game that is now going to be released as a pre-pay Beta game on 17th May 2010.

By Pre-Pay I mean if you would like to buy the full game for less you can purchase the Beta version for a reduced price and you will be the first to receive the full version!

Well I'm off now to make sure the Beta version of SSE get's done...

Link: /LD17orDarnThosePeskyDroids

Well it was that time again, time to dust off my game development skills and try to pull a game together in less than 48 hours!

Yep, Ludum Dare Compeition #17

The good new I had just been playing with the flash game framework Flixel!

I had practiced the week before learning and making the Flixel Invaders exmaple into a full game, albeit a clone of Space Invaders!

Now a real challenge write a game on a theme...

The theme being 'Islands' ehh, you try thinking of a novel game on the theme of Islands at 3am!

Well great news sleeping on it worked and I set about developing:

Energy Islands: Conquest...

Story: 26 April 2170 - Pacific Sector HQ

Commander J. Stryker

"The droid armies have captured our power island chain and it's your job to get them back, you have one old converted carrier and a clone bank of commandos we need those offshore solar energy islands and fast, so do your worst!

... Well what are you waiting for GO!"

The development went well thanks to a good framework and keeping the concept simple and where possible generating the level procedurally!

But the crunch time came way to quickly and went, yep I missed the deadline, why?

Well being tired and as everthing was going well with less than two hours to go I tried to add a Droid Army! Like I said I was tired and it was core to my concept. All I can say is they rebelled against me and I missed the deadline!

You can play the game here: Energy Islands: Conquest [LD17]

You can see a time-lapse of the games development (only 3 mins 20 seconds not the full 48 hours) here:

Link: /InvadersFromBeyond

It's my first game using Flash, and I used the Flixel framework and Invaders and Mode examples to create a clone of Space Invaders...

I found flixel to be easy to use but as you can see from...

Invaders From Beyond

I have only had a little play about cutting and pasting the code but I was pleased with the results and it got me back to pushing pixels, as a hobbyist games programmer on sub 32bit hardware!

So the plan is now to write quick retro-style flash versions of my games put them online for free and use the stage gate approach to development (Lost Garden), develope lot's of prototype games quickly and then see what people like and develope those games futher with the hope to build up a portfolio of successful games!

Anyway please enjoy 'Invaders From Beyond!' and let me know what you think!

Link: /No4

The paper prototype of game number four in development looks like this (see above).

Slowing getting the basic of it together it's got an emergent gameplay approach based on simple basic mechanics so it will be interesting to see where this one goes and how it will evolve and develope in the hands of players!