I haven't done anything regarding the engine since the last entry, instead I've been animating a golem character. Until I pixel wolfman and vampire sprites this will be what players will control during most of the developmental stages. It's not really placeholder art, I intend to keep him in as a third character when the other two are done then I can work on a fourth character as this game will have support for four players.

All the animations aren't finished yet, I have to add two more throwing animations (and fix up the leg on the last sprite in the 'throw left and right' animation), a hurt animation, one for falling over and a victory animation. Then do everything over again thrice more.

So my comment on Pizza Time's Monster Mash ideas and my love of Earth Defense Force 2017 has led me to

EARTH DEFENSE FORCE 1817

A KNP effort. The game play lacks that certain something, but it has some elements I dig:
* Robotron style controls
* Looming Alien Ships with Shadows
* Bugs who track you down but have to move around the buildings

I think some of these elements could be used in future games.

In the unlikely chance I can't make it to the KotM I'd like this to count as my entry...

New version of Grand Theft Shmup! YAY! As this is a rapid prototype, new versions should be very rapidly released.

This game is becoming a really weird shmup. I heard that dashing doesn't give good feedback to the player, so I added a trail, and I then wanted to show enemy bullets bounching off the dashing player, so I made it so that enemy bullets colliding with the trail are replaced with player bullets going the other way. This had the side effect of meaning that whenever the player dashes, he creates a shield from enemy bullets that lasts a second.

I think it's kinda cool, but I'm not sure if I should leave it in. Any feedback from you guys?

Also, I think I should make it move obvious that you can take over the enemy ships by touching them while not dashing and that you can destroy enemy ships by dashing into them, as not many people are going to try to collide with the ships on purpose. Maybe I could add a prober help screen next version? Or a tutorial or something?

Changes to v0.03 are:
Dashing now creates a shield that defects enemy bullets.
Dashing now make a noise.
You now cannot dash the whole time.
Sub Boss appears sooner, and is harder

Credits:
PenguinSeph - Game Design, Programming (I used MMF1, but it's still kinda programming), "Art"
DrPetter of http://www.cyd.liu.se/~tompe573/hp for making sfxr
Everyone who has commented so far!

The controls are:
Arrow Keys - Move
Shift - Dash (while in dot mode) or Shoot (while in Ship mode)
Control - Jump out of ship.

DOWNLOAD IS HERE

I think this is starting to come together. Once the prototype yields a solid, playable mini-game (I'm shooting for one level) I can start production proper. I guess I'll need some decent graphics at that point.

Give the racing game the run-around and put Freestyle Box Wasteland back on the shelf, it's monster time!

Attached is a test version of the fourth idea I had that I am going to be working into an actual game, the third one was going to be a Chu Chu Rocket clone only it was going to be Cock Cock Rocker where you had to guide the rockers into the limos and turn away the screaming fans away but I only could go far as having a single rocker turn ninety degrees when hitting a wall (by, cleverly, changing the angle, which is a device that I should use in more games) as I don't think it's possible to take it further than that or at least my skill level.

See, I want to make a game that could be fun in both single and multiplayer (single player in Cock Cock Rocker would just be a puzzle mode as there is no way I would be able to do multiple AIs using such a basic Klikteam product. Maybe in Multimedia Fusion but not this) and the whole players managing a group of NPCs seemed like a good idea for fast action and laffery so I took the 'herding' mechanism of Chu Chu Rocket and changed it to something that was more direct and that evolved into what we have here. The next step will be either be making the game about herding small objects or eating the most small objects before the timer runs out.

Or maybe just giant Dracula versus giant Wolfman battling whilst small objects run away only to be crushed underfoot whilst you toss buildings and cars at each other until there's only one monster left. That's pretty rhinoceros innit.

That will be the plan for Monster Mash - Gigantic Creature Feature Throwdown.

New version of Grand Theft Shmup! YAY! As this is a rapid prototype, new versions should be veru rapidly released.

Changes to v0.02a are:
You now have a life bar. The dot can take 3 hits before being destroyed.
After taking a hit as the dot, you are invunerible to damage for a few seconds, and all onscreen bullets are destroyed.
When you jump out of a ship with Control, all on-screen bullets are destroyed.
When hijacking a ship, all bullets are destroyed.
Mid boss added. Note that he hates people getting close to him. He appears after 45 seconds.
Number keys 1 to 4 place the player inside a ship. These are debug options I've left in for fun.

The controls are:
Arrow Keys - Move
Shift - Dash (while in dot mode) or Shoot (while in Ship mode)
Control - Jump out of ship.

LINK IS HERE

I think this is starting to come together. Once the prototype yields a solid, playable mini-game (I'm shooting for one level) I can start production proper. I guess I'll need some decent graphics at that point.

Also, I personally really like the idea of allowing players to steal mid-bosses. But I'm worried that players will just mindlessly dash towards the mid-boss, so I made it so that the mid-boss has a special attack he uses when the player get's close to him. I think it may be a bit overboard however right now. Any thoughts on this?

Also, does dashing while in dot form make sense? Is it useful?

New version of Grand Theft Shmup! YAY! As this is a rapid prototype, new versions should be veru rapidly released.

Changes to v0.01a are:
Shump misspelling changed to Shmup. Thanks UncleSporky at www.platformers.net!
Score now resets to 0 after player is killed.
"Spider" enemy ship (The one that fires a bouncing shot and looks like an upside down "U") is now easier.
Touching an enemy while dashing kills it.
Pressing Control while in a ship no longer causes an overload attack, but instead just destroys the ship.

Credits:
PenguinSeph - Game Design, Programming (I used MMF1, but it's still kinda programming), "Art"
The maker of sfxr (I will find out who it is for the next version. I promise)

Link is here!

So we took the train to Winnipeg and back this Christmas, so that we could walk around with the baby and his ears wouldn't pop and because apparently sleeper class on Amtrak costs the same as flying only you get a bed and free steak dinners. The thing about train travel is that you have a lot of spare time while you wait to get to your destination (36 hours in my case). On the way there, I made some serious progress on a SECRET PROJECT which maybe will be revealed soon. On the way back, I made TRAIN QUEST IV: THE QUEST FOR TRAINS.

It's about hobos, mainly, but I think there are some interesting mechanics that turned out pretty well. I may go back and add music at some point.

After the success* of "Penguins Are Attacking Your Dude!" I thought I would get back into MMF "programming" again.

After a while, I got off my arse and started doing something.

An hour or two after that, Grand Theft Shmup v0.01 was born!

The gist of it is that you are the dot, and you have to kill bad guys. You can steal enemy ships by bumping into them, and then use those ships against the enemy! Like in that popular car-jacking murder sim everyone loves. ;)

The controls are:
Arrow Keys - Move
Shift - Dash (while in dot mode) or Shoot (while in Ship mode)
Control - Overload Ship (Destroys ship to fire many bullets)

As a prototype, it exists to create the outline for a project. The prototype should show that the finished game will fill in all the requirements. As I am mainly making the game as a hobby for myself as well as maybe a talking point for any interviews and stuff, the goals are:

- Game should be at least vaguely in the Shmup genre.
- Game should be enjoyible and complelling from the first go.
- Game should be pick up and play. To be more specific, the player should be able to play the game is short bursts.
- Game should use the ship stealing mechanic to good effect, using it to give the player many options in gameplay.
- Game should be deterministic. If the player enters the same input 5 times, she should get the same result 5 times.
- Game should have a high amount of polish, and should be bug free (note that the prototype will not have this point. It's only like a really small demo to show what the finished product will be like)

Download is HERE

Please tell me what you think of it!

*=I finished it, about 5 people played it, and no one has sued me or burned down my house yet, so it was a success!

I intend to start working on another game this week. It's looking like it will be a sequel to Freestyle Box 2007 but if I change my mind it will most likely be a two player racing game like Dashin' Desperados if anyone remembers that. And you can pretty much count on it using the neo 8-bit visual style I've adopted for all my games. I'll blog it this time since I am pretty much through disguising blog posts as regular topics.

EVERYTHING COUNTS IN LARGE AMOUNTS. GLORIOUS NEW BLOODSPORT FROM LAND OF MILK AND FLYBALL, BATM@STER

honestly i don't know what the christ is going on here