Category Archives: Game

Monster Hug

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Monsters are rampaging underground! Where heroes have failed in their efforts to respond with violence, someone speaks up: “What if we try hugging the monsters?”

Monster Hug features five unique monsters, each of which has a unique personality and set of behaviors–and each is a unique threat! Figure out when you can get in close and give each monster a hug! An adorable little platformer.

Inspired by a suggestion by Eli Z. McCormick.

Uses the font Magic Forest by anna anthropy and music by pauliuw and Juhani Junkala, under Creative Commons licenses.

Nibblin’

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You’re Norvell the Nibbler and you’re here to prove how good you are at nibblin’!

When a nibbler eats a nibblet, they get longer. That’s what nibblin’ is! Slither and nibble your way through twenty stages. Encounter tricky course designs, chat with experienced nibblers, and even face off against them on the field!

My first ZZT game since 2006 and my first non-jam ZZT game since 2002.

I started this game some time between 1999 and 2003. Then it got transferred from hard drive to hard drive with the rest of my old ZZT files. Earlier this year, I thought it might be interesting to go back and figure out how to finish it. I had the basic engine made but didn’t really have any firm aspirations for it besides being a relatively smooth (for ZZT) Snake clone. I came up with a cute little frame story and a few objects/obstacles/NPCs to make the game more interesting. Twenty stages!

Invasion Versus

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A frantic two-player arcade-style game where Earth faces off against waves of invading aliens.

In the game’s two-player Versus Mode, choose to be the Earth team, fending off the invasion by blasting aliens out of the sky, or the Invaders’ team, slowly descending to Earth’s surface, dodging bullets, and picking off Earth’s defenses.

The game also has a score-attack Arcade Mode for solo players and a local high score leaderboard.

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I began this game in the spring of 2016 and finally returned to finish it up this month.

Aaargh! Condor

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An unofficial remake of the amazingly-title 1983 Commodore 64 classic AAARGH! CONDOR, my 2018 update seeks to capture the frantic and frenzied spirit of the original game by Alan G. Osborne.

With three heroes, try to save as many would-be sacrifices to the titular giant bird by hurling a spear into its chest. As the game progresses, you’ll face more enemies and obstacles, all seeming to get in the way of your heroic feats.

I strongly recommend you also play the original Commodore 64 game and read about it in this article on the Obscuritory by Phil Shadsy, which introduced me to the game.

My AAARGH! CONDOR remake uses the font Crypt of Tomorrow by anna anthropy.

Temple of the Wumpus

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You have arrived at the Temple of the Wumpus, a holy shrine said to house the incorporeal body of the divinity known as the Wumpus.  Pilgrims come to this massive temple in order to pray in the presence of the Wumpus’s incorporeal body.

Explore over 100 rooms filled with hints, lore, and secrets. Kneel in prayer and see if you can find the slow-moving, divine Wumpus.

This game is a reinterpretation of Gregory Yob’s 1973 BASIC classic Hunt the Wumpus. It was made for the month-long 2018 Wumpus Jam (which I also hosted at itch).

Temple of the Wumpus was born of my desire to explore the seeking mechanics of Hunt the Wumpus, but reframed in a nonviolent way. Other than jumping, your main actions in-game consist of praying and reading scripture. It is a game in which I let my messy thoughts about religion and spirituality run wild with thousands of words of text. Rather than single-mindedly seeking the a win by finding the Wumpus, I hope players take time to explore and get to know the temple itself.

The game uses the font Magic Forest by anna anthropy. It features music by Ryan Yunck, Syncopika, and The Cynic Project(cynicmusic.com/pixelsphere.org) and contains sound effects recordings by Michael Velo, NatureNotesUK, and remaxim.

Instructions: Z: Pray, X: Jump, C: Light candle (while in prayer), Enter: Pause/select, Up arrow: Interact/talk/read, Down arrow: Advance text, Left and right arrows: Walk

Liz & Laz: The Control Cubes

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When a freak accident destabilizes the stabilizer, the control cubes go missing and Liz and Laz must work together to secure them! Laz transports into a hazardous landscape and relies on directions from Liz to keep him safe.

Taking direct control of Liz, you’ll issue controls to Laz remotely. Liz uses a life-sized game controller to tell Laz to move, jump, and shoot. She jumps on buttons to guide Laz to the control cubes.

  • twelve control cubes across twelve stages
  • Colorful, dangerous world
  • Inventive indirect control system provides unique platforming action
  • Completely reconfigurable keyboard and gamepad controls

Features music by celestialghost8, Snabisch, Juhani Junkala, and Alex McCulloch

Initially designed to be a quickly dashed-off, intentionally frustrating game, I ended up really liking what this became. Inspired by ZZT Engine games (including my own Punctuation People), Lemmings, and the games Nanairo ringo and Kaerazu no mori by Kabusoft.

After the release of this game–the 90th I’ve released–I wrote up a reflection on my blog on my past two decades of game-making and some of the influences I was mindful of when I approached this game in particular.

So I Heard You’re a Fish

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“so i heard you’re a fish”

This is my first Bitsy game. I’ve been wanting to make something in Bitsy for a while. When I came across this Sudden Death Game Jam (as a result of talking to the wonderful wengwengweng about the game 粉色鱼鱼 Find the Pink Fish), I had my one-hour game idea. I’m looking forward to coming up with bit-sized, Bitsy-sized projects in the future.

Knight Moves

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KNIGHT MOVES is a game created for Sophie Houlden’s Chess Jam on itch.io.

The game features four difficulty levels and an unlockable endless mode in which you play a knight fighting against an all-pawn computer-controlled army.

A game like this doesn’t exactly need a story, but I took the familiar conflict setting as an opportunity to contextualize the game with my first illustrated cinematics in years. And also the public debut of the dialogue/text engine that has been part of the Game Maker tool kit I developed over six years ago.

Koi Puncher MMXVIII

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After months of EXTREME, INTENSE development, the sequel to the 2012 Pirate Kart V classic is ready for you and your friends to play! It features more than you ever could have expected you wanted from a game about punching koi.

KOI PUNCHER MMXVIII has all-new maps, eight characters, and support for up to four players, both competitive and non-competitive! Further, it has exciting new challenge game modes. Play for high scores to unlock and discover new secrets!

Additionally, KOI PUNCHER MMXVIII‘s koi have a complex system of genetics, yielding hundreds of possible variations as they spawn new generations. Use your Home Pond to maintain a permanent crop of cultivated koi for breeding and punching.

Features music by nene, Marcelo Fernandez, Oddroom, Joth, pant0don, used under creative commons licenses.

The game is fully playable in both English and Japanese.

CYANiDE

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Set up stages by fixing the positions of balance levers. When you’re ready, touch the ELECTROPOST and convert yourself into an ELECTROBALL so you can safely roll to the GOAL.

Fifteen single-screen stages.

AND IT IS ALL CYAN.

Press X to jump. Press V to restart stage. Press R to return to title screen.

I began work on this game in February 2016, intending it to be just a weekend project, and showed an unfinished version at an Indie Game Play Test Night in Eugene, Oregon at Shoryuken League. I meant to release the game very shortly thereafter, but wanted to explore the elements further with a few more levels. The game was placed on hold as I got increasingly busy with school, teaching, and then went and got married. I dusted the files off in October 2017