Category Archives: News

The Mold Fairy Released

October 2, 2009Digital Games, Games Releases, Newsgame releases, mold, my gamesGregory Avery-Weir

Well, that didn’t take long. My August game, The Mold Fairy, is released. It’s a game about mold, magic, and death.

Once upon a time, there was a fairy for everything. One for frost, one for cobwebs, one for dew… and one for mold. When the fairy queen Titania decided that humans had lost their respect for mold, the mold fairy was sent down to teach them the power of the fuzzy fungi. Did the fairy brighten the humans’ lives, or curse them with poisons and spoiled food? Only you can decide.

Play The Mold Fairy on Armor Games.

This is a game in the vein of “Majesty of Colors” and How to Raise a Dragon; there are choices, and they affect outcomes. In this case, the choices are what to mold, and the outcomes run the gambit. This is my most explicit use of the “achievement” concept so far; I think it works for this sort of game.

Let me know what you think of The Mold Fairy!

Paladin 0 Released

October 2, 2009Digital Games, Games Releases, Newsgame releases, my games, paladinGregory Avery-Weir

My September game, “Paladin 0,” is released. It is a three-day prototype about virtue.

VIRTUE IS INSUFFICIENT. DESTROY EVIL. AVOID CORRUPTION.

Play “Paladin 0” on Ludus Novus.

Astute readers will notice that there appears to be a monthly game missing. My August game, The Mold Fairy, is finally complete and should come out very soon. Hey, I’m willing to bend the rules of my New Year’s resolution if you are.

“Paladin 0” is, in part, an experiment using the Flixel framework, which is a library designed to help with making pixelly games in Flash. It is very slick, as you can see from the amount I was able to achieve in just three days of work. If all goes according to plan, my October game will be a procedurally-generated Metroidvania done with Flixel.

If you like the music in the game, it’s available through Creative Commons and is part of Ozzed‘s album Lesser Than Three.

Silent Conversation Released

August 12, 2009Digital Games, Games Releases, Newsgame releases, my games, silentGregory Avery-Weir

My July game, Silent Conversation, is released. It is a game about reading.

Read carefully. Run and jump through the text of stories and poems, from the horror of Lovecraft’s “The Nameless City” to the simple beauty of Bashou’s frog haiku. Go for completion or race through the pieces you’ve mastered!

Play Silent Conversation on Armor Games.

This game grew out of an idea that I had in childhood. I was a voracious reader, and occasionally, late at night, I would see the structure of the words on the page as something physical: the end of a paragraph was a fissure in a cliff edge, and each indentation was a handhold. I could visualize a little person running along the lines, exploring every crevice of the story. This is an attempt to realize that concept.

July Game Almost Ready

August 1, 2009Digital Games, NewsGregory Avery-Weir

Just a quick update: my game for July, which I previewed a few weeks ago, is done. It’s called Silent Conversation, and it’s just waiting for final sponsor review. Expect it to be released soon; if I know the sponsor as well as I think I do, it should be out by Monday night.

Here’s another preview:

Phenomenon 32

July 20, 2009Digital Games, NewsGregory Avery-Weir

Jonas Kyratzes, creator of The Strange and Somewhat Sinister Tale of the House at Desert Bridge, has picked up a strange transmission from an extradimensional source:

Have I mentioned how much I like exploration platformers? The new game, Phenomenon 32, will be out sometime soon, it seems.

Untitled Work In Progress

July 10, 2009NewssilentGregory Avery-Weir

Six Months of Games

July 8, 2009Digital Games, Interactive Fiction, News, Roleplayingbars, belief, bryant, dragon, exploit, game a month, LORE, my games, sugarcoreGregory Avery-Weir

In January I resolved to release a game every month during 2009. There have been six months, and six games so far. I’m halfway done, and now is a good time to look back on those six games and how they turned out.
Continue reading Six Months of Games →

Interview with IndieVault.it

July 6, 2009Newsdragon, interviews, majesty, mcmillen, wipGregory Avery-Weir

Italian-language indie games site IndieVault.it just posted an interview with me! They asked a bunch of interesting questions, including one about my next game.

In case you (like me) don’t read Italian, I’ve included the original English questions and answers below. A warning, though: this is just copied from our correspondence, and hasn’t been edited by them, so any mistakes are mine and it may not match the Italian version perfectly.

Continue reading Interview with IndieVault.it →

“How to Raise a Dragon” News and Updates

July 3, 2009Digital Games, NewsGregory Avery-Weir

It’s been a little over a week since “How to Raise a Dragon” was released, and it’s been played almost 650,000 times, linked by Jay is Games, IndieGames.com, Rock, Paper, Shotgun, Play This Thing, Auntie Pixelante, Kotaku (Australia), Bytejacker, and sundry others. I’m pleased by the responses, although I’d probably be more well-received if I cut down on the lo-fi pixel art, as folks often seem to find it ugly or overplayed.

As I was going back to get the game ready to post on other portals, I put in a few updates. I made it possible to create a Fiery Watcher in-game, added Y as an alternative jump key for my QWERTZ friends, and added a new behavior that really should have been in there all along. These updates are present in the ArmorGames version. I’ve put up a copy here on Ludus Novus and one on Kongregate. Other portals will follow once I work out some difficulties with a new ad provider.

The Video Game Album

July 1, 2009Digital Games, Newsalbums, bryant, gamesetwatch, structureGregory Avery-Weir

My latest column has gone up at GameSetWatch. It’s about a rare and intriguing animal: the Video Game Album. Occasionally, several games will be released as one package. In the article, I discuss Odin Sphere, Kirby Super Star, and The Orange Box.

One work I didn’t discuss in the column, because it seemed a bit incestuous, is my recent IF piece, The Bryant Collection. Continue reading The Video Game Album →