A fan of Exploit has put together a site that compiles maps for the game. If you go there, you can see a whole bunch of user-created puzzles, complete with titles and screenshots. You can even submit your own levels!
Check it out if you have been looking for more Exploit action.
I learned an important lesson a week or so ago: don’t release games on April Fool’s Day. I thought that April 1st would be a fun day to release The Bryant Collection, with its hard-to-believe premise and odd approach. The result? I think a lot of folks saw the post, said “ha, ha!” and assumed the whole thing was a joke. The biggest reaction I got was a flame from someone who’d evidently had one too many websites change up their CSS stylesheets on him.
It’s a shame, because despite the premise and backstory, The Bryant Collection is a real game, and one that I poured a lot of effort and heart into. But I haven’t gotten a single review, game entry on an IF site, or even a comment from someone who’s played the game. The only e-mail I’ve gotten about it is from my parents.
In retrospect, I shouldn’t be surprised. Mixing truth and fiction is risky enough when it’s not on a day dedicated to lies, and the games from the Spring Thing were released at almost the exact same time. The Spring Thing is probably the second or third biggest IF event of the year, so naturally Bryant would be overshadowed by those games, especially if it’s dismissed as a joke.
This post isn’t a cry for attention or anything. I just wanted to share my reactions when a game doesn’t get very well-received, since I always post when a game gets positive reactions.
I’ve gotten some requests for a way to download the Exploit soundtrack, so I got Evan Merz, the composer, to give me some new, high-quality mp3s of all the music. You can download the soundtrack in a zip file. You can also visit Merz’s site, where he discusses computer music and has some of his other compositions available for download.
Right on the heels of my last release, here’s my April game, The Bryant Collection. This one is a bit of a cop-out; it’s not actually my game. Instead, it’s a translation of someone else’s work into interactive fiction.
An excerpt from my release post on RGIF:
A few months ago, I found an old strongbox at a garage sale. The box was full of papers written by a woman named Laura Bryant. The majority of the stuff in the box was a collection of what she called “story worlds.”
These story worlds are akin to interactive fiction or roleplaying games; they’re designed for one player and one mediator who serves as the parser or the game master. The earliest date on a story world in the box is 1964, which means these works predate Crowther and Woods’s Adventure, Dungeons & Dragons, or Wesely’s Braunstein. The Bryant Collection contains the five stories that I found the most interesting and feasible to convert to IF:
- “The End of the World” is a story about lunch.
- “Morning in the Garden” is a story about dealing with annoying people.
- “Tower of Hanoi” is a rather interesting little puzzle, but not what you think. It came with a sort of feelie in the strongbox, which is included as an IF object.
- “Going Home Again” is a story about growing up.
- “Undelivered Love Letter” is a story about airports.
Download The Bryant Collection.
For more information, including links to interpreters that will run the game, see the game page.
My game for March is out! It’s called “Sugarcore,” and it’s a game about bullets, naturally-occurring candy formations, and the hazards of gardening.
Find out where sweets really come from as you mine licorice, demolish candy orbs, and defend confections from attack! Three quirky characters guide you through 18 levels of sugary goodness.
Play “Sugarcore” on Ludus Novus
086: Seeing Red by ~Idene on deviantART
Thanks in part to a rush from Armor Games, “(I Fell in Love With) The Majesty of Colors” has been played over 1,000,000 times. I can’t resist big, round milestones, and I remain overjoyed that so many people liked my little tentacle game.
As promised, my February game is finished. It’s called Exploit, and it’s a game about computer security, terrorism, and totalitarian governments.
Information is freedom. As a hotshot computer security cracker, you will solve over 50 puzzles and fight against totalitarianism, abuses of power, and terrorism. Story Mode offers a twist-filled story of international intrigue, and Challenge Mode offers 19 more puzzles to engage the mind. When it’s all done, use the built-in puzzle editor to make and share your own creations!
Play Exploit on Kongregate.
Just a collection of some news items about “The Majesty of Colors“:
I finished my February game a while ago, and I’ve finished the sponsorship process. The game’s called Exploit, but it doesn’t look like it’ll quite be released by the end of February. However, I’ve prepared a video that shows the finished version of the game:
Casual Gameplay/Jay Is Games has released their Best of Casual Gameplay 2008 awards, and my game “(I Fell In Love With) The Majesty of Colors” won the Audience Award for the Best Interactive Art or Webtoy (Browser) category! I got 15.9% of the popular vote, beating out such awesome games as “I Wish I Were the Moon” and Coil. Those two games shared the editors’ award for the same category, which was entirely deserved.
Other games in the awards that caught my eye:
