Tag Archives: action

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.

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.

Ungrateful Birds

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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.

Turtle Lord

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You are a big turtle-y boss who has to crush the heroes who are trying to break into your castle. Crush them when they’re on the bridge, but don’t fall in, and don’t let them slay you!

Press X to jump. You can move in midair with arrow keys.

Inspired by the “You are the villain” theme of a Ludum Dare game jam and the final battle of Super Mario Bros. 3.

 

Nine stages in all!

Made for Klik of the Month Klub #69.

Caverns of Khron

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ARE YOU READY to enter the CAVERNS OF KHRON? Spikes, slugs, demons and more await you below the surface. What unknown evils will you encounter deep within? Arm yourself with sword and star and venture forth!

CAVERNS OF KHRON is an independent freeware game project by designer John D. Moore with music by WiL Whitlark (composer for Retro Affect’s Snapshot) and environment graphics by Michael Santiago. The game contains forty levels of puzzle and action platforming influenced by MS-DOS and NES games of the 1980s and 1990s. The caverns are divided into three sections with unique themes, each with its own set of environmental challenges, enemies, and bosses that reflect their environments.

In addition to the forty stages in the main game, there are two shorter campaigns (Sky Realm and Special Stages), a bonus stage, a boss rush mode, a costume select, and a level select that can be unlocked after clearing the game. The game has an extensive record-keeping system to track your best runs, optimized for speedrunning.

CAVERNS OF KHRON has its own website.

View the game’s trailer:

At the time of release, this was my largest and most polished game. Begun as a one-month “bakedown” jam game at the SelectButtonDotNet forums, the game expanded significantly, involved a musical collaboration with my longtime friend WiL Whitlark and a graphics artist, Michael Santaigo. The game is set in a fantasy world I originally created for some unfinished QBASIC games in the mid-nineties. While the basic platforming is not too gimmicky (at its core, it began as a fantasy re-working of the DOS classic Monuments of Mars with a sword), the game allowed me to work out some ideas about level design I’d been itching to try. The game file contains an NES-style manual.

While this game was in development, the engine was modified to provide the basis for The Adventures of Bulb Boy.

Shellmar’s Shellulous Journey

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Guide Shellmar the blue turtle through the perilous blue caves in search of treasure!

Shellmar has the special ability to repel bullets by holding his shell over his head. Shellmar is not very strong, though, and this soon wears him out, so he can only hold his shell over his head while standing on the ground and for only one second at a time.

CONTROLS:

Left/right: Move
Down: Cover Shellmar with shell
X: Jump

F4: Toggle fullscreen
Esc: Quit
F9: Take screenshot

Fuck the Sun

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The Sun began rapid expansion billions of years before we ever anticipated. All other life on Earth has already been destroyed as the Sun grows ever closer to the Earth. You are the sole remaining survivor. Mars’s orbit is out of wack and bits of Mercury fly about the system.

Get revenge of that fucking Sun that fucked us over by using your super mobile suit to launch lasers and missiles to destroy the Sun before it finally fucking destroys our planet.

Humanity may be gone, but you’re not gonna let the fucking Sun destroy all evidence we were ever fucking here.

Arrows move your suit. Z and X shoot.

Made for Pirate Kart V.