Hi there everyone. I haven't posted as regularly as I'd like, I've been busy and stuff. Right now I'm just playing Metroid I, which is a huge pain in the ass and I might give up. I've got high jump, screw attack and the ice beam, but I just get lost too damned much. And I always think to play the game after I've turned my computer off, and I don't want to boot it up just to get a map. That game is just too hard. (I've discovered the italics button- watch out!)
But on another note, I've been doing some basic research on games and gaming. Mostly Indie Gaming. After Jack's post about Shadowgate, and his challenge to the indie gaming world, I decided to take a look to see if there were any shadow-gate style indie games. I remembered the Crimson Room, and the rest of the series: The Viridian Room and blue room and white room, etc. But, as I was researching information on these games, I got to thinking about the history of indie games... and then I fell down a rabbit hole.
It turns out there is way more going on in indie gaming than I realized. There are hundreds of creators out there, just itching to make games. I can barely even find the time and initiative to talk about making games, but over here, I found a damned list that you can post to and someone might make your game idea!! Egad! Okay, okay, breathe, breathe. I'm going to try to post a little map of the rabbit hole so far. It goes like this:
Google search. "Hello, what is this?" DIY gamer dot com? That sounds awesome. What am I looking at? Wait a second. So, what you're telling me is that you had a contest for people to create First Person Shooter games, start to finish, in seven days? Really? And they did? People can just do that? Okay, I'll play one: First Person Tutor. Haha, this game is funny. Kinda fun. Neato. There are several other games on this page that look interesting, and you can play them in-browser. I just got in this damned rabbit hole, and I have at least two hours of exploring to do on this one page. But I don't feel like stopping just yet, so I keep going.
Oh, here's an interesting new(to me) website called Glorious Train Wrecks. Isn't that a great title? It turns out they have a game making contest too. They just finished up their fifth one. They also have a list of development tools and hundreds of games submitted to them. Jeepers H Crackers, what am I supposed to do with all of this? Can someone please pay me to write about the indie game scene so I can pan for gold in all of these (probably) shitty games? I would very much like to do that. But I have no attention span, so off I go!
Oh look, DIYgamer.com has an article about Indie Games and they mention Crowd Funding. You know, Kickstarter. And, apparently a new one aimed specifically at games. Card games or video games, it doesn't matter. Here we go, 8-Bit Funding! Okay, so now there's a place to ask for money to develop your games? And there are a bunch of projects already on it. 048tyhdfs;ovndzkjs. Too many choices, too many possibilities! At this point I'm just closing my browser tabs. I've got more than ten open on this last chain, and it's time for me to focus a little more. Let's copy down these addresses into a text file and move on.
Oh, hey look, an adorable Mario Spin Off game that "compresses" all the levels into one screen a piece. Super Mario Summary doesn't truly compress the levels, but it does make one-screen levels inspired by the original Mario. Not a bad little puzzler. Kinda tough, best played with JoyToKey. Oh, wait a sec. This game was made as part of Another Damned Contest?! Wow, indie games are seriously thriving. This contest is like the twenty fourth this site has had. I had no idea it was so open ended. My head is popping. But in a good way, I think. I certainly know that if I come into a huge cash of free time, I know how I'm spending it!
Okay, so, I think it's time to get the hell out of this Rabbit hole. Oh, one quick stop by another article on DIYgamer. They're referencing a 'rouge-like spaceship simulator?' What is rouge-like? Oh, I see. Random dungeon generation, RPG elements. I've played games like these. I guess Diablo is like the most advanced/successful rouge-like. I see, the genre is based on a 1980 game called Rogue. So the popular name for the genre became "Rogue-like." Right on.
Okay, okay. I'm getting out of the rabbit hole now. I hope you've enjoyed your time, sorry if the arrangement of links is little chaotic. I guess I didn't so much make a map as scribble on some paper by torchlight. Still, there's a great big marker at DIYgamer.com they are organized and oh so full of new info for the interested. And then there are at least three links here to game creating contests, which I find very interesting.
So, I guess I'll leave you with a link to a game creator from Cameroon, Africa. I think the graphical style is great, the music is awesome, the controls not so hot, and the level design can really use some work (I can't beat the first level).
So, I guess I'll leave you with a link to a game creator from Cameroon, Africa. I think the graphical style is great, the music is awesome, the controls not so hot, and the level design can really use some work (I can't beat the first level).
So, without further ado: PHL's Air Flying Game.
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