Author Archives: JDM

Liz & Laz: The Control Cubes

Posted on by

 

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

Posted on by

“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

Posted on by

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

Posted on by

 

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.

Developing with Glorious Trainwrecks

Posted on by

This essay was originally written for the “Glorious Trainwrecks X Babycastles” zine for the Spring 2018 exhibition of the same name at Babycastles in New York.

The “development” in game development emphasizes process. You write a novel. You compose a song. You develop a game. The term conjures up an extensive and lengthy process of experimentation, revision, rearrangement, expansion, and polish. The project folders–tangible and digital–of any number of game makers would attest to this process, full of in-development projects that failed to come together, exceeded manageable scope, or could not sustain the interest of the game’s author or team, none of which will ever see the light of day.

Jeremey “SpindleyQ” Penner’s original introduction to Glorious Trainwrecks states “this site is about nothing, if it is not about getting off your ass and creating.” The site’s (roughly) two-hour Klik of the Month Klub events aren’t game jams. They’re not don’t-sleep, days-long frenzies of activity with teams. They’re non-competitive. They liberate the game maker from the desert of half-thoughts and projects stuck in developmoent limbo by asking them to just have a thought and complete it.

To complete it and release it to a diverse community of interested individuals, no matter the thought’s genre or its execution. The games that others at Glorious Trainwrecks have made have entertained me, inspired me (both inside and outside of my game-making), made me rethink things, and fostered a strong sense of community. And the community’s always growing and evolving. It develops with new participants, new games, and new thoughts. A creative process with lots to show for it.

CYANiDE

Posted on by

    

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

Dr. Creepinscare’s Pumpkin Patch Match

Posted on by

  

Beloved spooky character Dr. Creepinscare is here with a special Halloween challenge just for you! Arrange the similarly-carved pumpkins into patterns as they fall to earn points and take on Dr. Creepinscare’s own high score! Get help from his pet kitty cat and disappear skulls for a big bonus!

Make 2×2, 3×2, or 3×3 (with something else in the middle) pumpkin patch shapes. The bigger shapes earn you more points!

This game features a voice performance by Boris, a most excellent cat.

I like to imagine this as a forgotten licensed game for an obscure children’s TV property.

Explobers

Posted on by

 

Explobers pushes your planning, puzzle and platforming skills to the limit for a challenging but rewarding experience. —MMOaholic

Explobers is a unique puzzle platformer that requires you to use multiple player characters to solve difficult challenges by using their powers (and lives) to destroy terrain and build blocks in order to navigate through over eighty tricky stages.

The game begins in the familiar CGA palette of classic PCs. As you progress, new graphic modes become available and you may find some secrets!

Explobers will be featured as a part of the upcoming 2018 Smithsonian American Art Museum Arcade in Washington DC on July 22, 2018.

Explobers has a trailer. It also has an official website.

I worked on this game through most of 2017. Please purchase it at itch.io or GameJolt.

As of 2020, the game is also available for Android-based handheld game consoles (such as the Retroid Pocket 2) as Explobers GO and for Android phones as Explobers Pocket. These can be downloaded from the game’s page on itch.

The game is fully playable in Japanese. 日本語でも遊べる！

Ungrateful Birds

Posted on by

     

Someone has kidnapped the birds and put them in cages in the forest! Please save them! However, these birds WILL NOT BE GRATEFUL.

  • Jump with X!
  • Pick up stones with Z!
  • Throw stones with Z!
  • Throw stones to break cages to set birds free!
  • Dodge the birds’ stones!

Contains NINE BIRD-PACKED LEVELS and THREE DIFFERENT BIRDS. Get close to the cages to find out what kind of bird is inside!

Written about by Joel Couture at IndieGames.com.

Made for Glorious Trainwrecks’s Tenth Anniversary Klik of the Month Klub #104.