Tag Archives: my games
The Mold Fairy Released
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
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
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.
On Pixel Art and Design Decisions
I got a comment from David that I’d like to highlight and address, because I believe it highlights a misconception folks have about pixel art and the style of my games. I’ll cut the comment for length, but try to retain the intent.
I’m a visual artist, so critiquing your visuals is all I feel arrogant enough to do. They were well executed and suited their purpose in “Bars of Black and White” and in Exploit (and in the “Majesty of Colors” they were exquisite), but in “Sugarcore” and “How to Raise a Dragon” they cause the games to suffer. In “How to Raise a Dragon”, the pixels are not a bad idea, but they are also sort of sloppy looking. They are used in lieu of more detailed graphics to avoid having to draw, right? They are probably better than the alternative, but the use of pixels should not become your crutch. Instead it should be used to artistic effect.
The art style in “Dragon” was definitely chosen for artistic effect, not to avoid making art. Continue reading On Pixel Art and Design Decisions
Six Months of Games
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
How to Raise a Dragon Released!
My June game is finished. It’s called How to Raise a Dragon, and it’s a game about dragons, humans, and eating things.
The dragon: a majestic and complex beast. How is it born? How does it live and die? Magus X. R. Quilliam’s definitive work, How to Raise a Dragon, describes all that is known about these great creatures.
Play How to Raise a Dragon on Armor Games.
LORE and Belief Released
This world is not as it should be. There is no truth. Reality is what we believe it to be. If you think you can fly, then that flight is real to you. Others may see you plummet and die, but you might live on, soaring above the clouds. Anyone can dream, but it takes someone special to make those dreams real.
Here is the release of my May game: LORE, the Lightweight Omnipotent Roleplaying Engine, and its first sourcebook, Belief. Together, they form my first tabletop roleplaying game system.
LORE is an attempt to address some of the common problems with tabletop RPGs. It has an interesting dice system; a quick, easy, and original character creation system; and a system that’s lightweight, because roleplaying happens beyond the rules.
Belief is a game about changing reality, about subjective viewpoints, and about the search for a better world. It owes heavy debts to other sources, but it is its own being.
Both of these books are beta releases. They have been playtested, but not enough for me to say they’re finished. Please, read them, play them, and comment with anything you think I did especially right or that I could change for the better. I’ve provided them in bookmarked PDFs slavishly laid out for optimal printing at your local print shop, and they’re released under a Creative Commons by-nc-sa 3.0 License.
These are just the initial releases; I wanted to get them out and in people’s minds so that I could start getting feedback. Expect extras like quick reference sheets and maybe an adventure or three in the coming weeks and months.
Smiley Quest
Anna “Auntie Pixelante” Anthropy recently posted about a Megazeux game, and it reminded me of a horrible embarrassment from my past. Who wants to see the earliest currently-known games publicly released by Gregory Weir?
Continue reading Smiley Quest
Exploit Map Database
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.