Tag Archives: game maker studio

Salt Lake Stories

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The game includes four short games that feature historical characters and locations:

  • Rocky Mountain Times Newspaper Maker, a puzzle game featuring Shiro Iida, publisher and editor of the Rakki Jiho, taking place in Salt Lake’s Nihonjin Machi (Japantown).
  • Hotel Newhouse, a single-stage, vertical-scrolling platformer in which you ascend the steel frame of the unfinished Hotel Newhouse, once a renowned Salt Lake landmark, featuring Samuel Newhouse and his Newhouse and Boston Buildings. 
  • Free Library Book Sort, a falling-book puzzle game with four stages featuring city librarian Joanna H. Sprague, taking place at the beautiful Free Public Library at 15 S. State Street in Salt Lake City.
  • Anderson’s Tower, an eight-stage puzzle platformer taking place in the Avenues neighborhood, inside Anderson’s Tower, which once presided over the Salt Lake Valley, and featuring the man who built it, Brigham Young’s former personal accountant Robert R. Anderson. 

This game was originally developed for an exhibition at the Salt Lake City Public Library, where it was on display alongside archive materials that inspired it throughout November 2021.

Fairy Penguin Parade

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The fairy penguin (also known as the little penguin) is the world’s smallest penguin.

Every night, in many places along the coast of Southern Australia, penguin colonies return en masse from their daily hunting expeditions, under the cover of dusk, to their onshore burrows.

On Phillip Island, this is known as the “penguin parade.”

Guide a penguin home to its burrow as night sets in.

Hold Z to run. When you arrive at the burrows, press C to complete the evening’s journey.

Press F4 to toggle fullscreen.

Press Escape to quit.

Made for the Australian Bushfire Charity Jam, and for its first month available exclusively through the Australian Bushfire Charity Jam Bundle, all proceeds of which go to charities offering aide to people and animals impacted by the 2019-2020 Australian bushfires.

Flickering Chambers

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The candles in the Twelve Chambers must be lit by a wickster. Once a wickster lights themself ablaze, they will only have five seconds to light every candle in the room. Plan carefully. Press X to jump. Press Z to ignite. Press K to restart a chamber.

Features “Snowfall” and “It’s Here” by Joseph Gilbert/Kistol.

Released during the final hour of the final day of the final year of the 2010s.

Orbital Paladin Melchior Y

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It is the year 231 of the Frontier Era.

A nine-year war continues to rage between two mighty powers in the Earth sphere, conducted largely by heavily armed mechanized suits in space battles.

Eighteen-year-old Wick Palmer joins the small crew of the spaceship Nauvoo to take control of the Orbital Federated States’ most advanced mech. Guarding a remote point in the solar system, the quiet the team has enjoyed cannot hold for long.

Guide Wick as he forges relationships with his teammates, fights off enemies, and questions his place in a war that never ends in this visual novel/shooting action space opera game.

Made for the Emotional (Digital) Mecha Jam.

Music credits:

  • Traditional and classical music arranged by Mick Jones, in addition to original compositions, all released by the artist into the public domain
  • Multiple battle tracks and the title theme are by Jonathan So (CC0)
  • “Introduction Remake+” by Spring (CC-BY-4.0)
  • “Contemplation” by Joth (CC0)
  • “Fallen Hero” by Machine (CC-BY-4.0)
  • Chill lofi music by omfgdude (CC0)
  • “My Friends Will Cry” by Christovix Games, as heard in Chapter Five’s combat sequence

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.

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.

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.