Happy late birthday to both Tiberath and Alex, the newborn son of Yusuke13! Happy really late birthday to all of those whose blog posts I stumble on too late. ;)
With Yusuke13 deployed in Iraq with limited internet access, Stephen001 and Teka have grabbed LordAndrew to help with game listings. Be kind. Or at least civil. You'll need a friendly face when the Stop Online Piracy Act passes.
Within BYOND
Silk Games uploaded the 12th episode of the official NEStalgia podcast. PVP tournaments with the new skill trees will occur once schedules settle. Level cap increases will come after content additions. Interfaces changes, a gamepad mode, and monster companions will be available soon. Sympathy for Bethesda is already here.
Feval 2.0 is no more. Iccusion Entertainment's Aaiko has stated that the source of the multi-squirrel game of exploding nuts has been lost. The last backup was made before the addition of avatar customizations and shops. Plans to complete the game on BYOND have been shelved.
Some of the latest work on the MORPG Teridal was lost as well.
Hoping the event will be judged soon, Ganing released his 2011 Game in a Day entry Myth of the Zodiac for download. During certain in-game months, those of corresponding Zodiac turn into powerful, bloodthirsty killers. Players only know their own Zodiac. Each must use this knowledge to form alliances and destroy everyone else.
Ganing's base defense tribute to Teridal, Seika SE, received some bug fixes.
Oasiscircle used BYOND and a new programming environment to create a quick action game in his Computer Aided Design class. Bomber lets players guide a plane over factories and tanks. The factories are just bomb fodder, but tanks which make it past the bottom of the screen remove the player's health. More health can be earned by shooting power-ups and attaining scores.
Acebloke released multiple updates for his military/economic sim Wargames. New features include elephant and helicopter units, ministerial councils for advice, tundra terrain and custom subscriber themes. As I type, Acebloke is hosting the final moments of a contest to own the most land. The winner shall gain a year-long subscription to both Wargames and Wargames 2.
Vexonator provided another round of bug fixes for the tactical fantasy Surreal Dreams. Plans are underway to support multiple games per server so that players who login late will have something to do.
Brettpenzer's shifting platformer BlockWorld now features leaderboards. Speed power-ups, tools to create/distribute levels and a Retry button are on the way. The latter will cost a life in hardcore mode.
Lugia319 fixed a turn taking bug in his PVP implementation of the knight's tour, Law of the Board. I'm going to act all snooty and mention how I offer multiple libraries which avoid this sort of thing. Then I'm going to avoid thinking about how I quit my double major in physics just when it was getting to what I wanted to learn, wait for the final part of The Fabric of the Cosmos and let Lugia319 finish his research paper on MOND vs dark matter.
I skipped Vocal_nebula's offering from BYOND Football last column due to license concerns over athlete names, but it appears they're randomly generated. A new mode was displayed where players will be able to create custom teams of 30 members to compete in 7 on 7 matches.
Chris Gayle has announced progress on the colonial creature-channeling MORPG he has been developing with Zane444, Spirit Age. Monotonous map creation tasks have been shifted to code. NPCs slide past and (if necessary) jump over obstacles in 360 degree pathfinding. Meanwhile, the story implementation has been influenced by Egoraptor's take on Mega Man.
Camdev has posted design snippets and an early video preview of an RTS in progress. With both motivation issues and repeating code, he is currently seeking tips for more modular development.
Hex6 is working on a roguelike called Halcyon Rogue. A video is available for those who love ASCII. Dungeons and items are generated. AI is on the way.
Mightymo is displaying mockups of an RTS called Arctic Wars. Thus far only penguin units can be found. Of course, the Arctic is in the northern hemisphere and penguins are generally from the southern. There's only so much disbelief one can suspend in warmongering, igloo-building flippers.
Beyond BYOND
- US citizens who have yet to take action against the Stop Online Piracy Act can enter their zip codes on the Entertainment Consumers Association's site to get customizable form letters emailed to their congressmen.
- Show Me The Games is having an indie game sale! It doesn't involve bundles or innovative pricing schemes, but the motto implies that the money goes directly to the developers.
- October's "slicing" experimental game projects are available and the EGP theme for November is "upgrade". Both should have been posted in the last column, but I'm woefully behind in my reading. =(
- Likewise, the theme for the third Super Friendship Club pageant is "editor". Try making a good game and a usable level editor with easily distributable levels before November 30th.
- 8-Bit Funding owner Geoff Gibson states How To Crowdfund Your Project Properly.
- Dave Toulouse offers the numbers for the launch of his MMO Star Corsairs. The good news is that his model works. The bad news is that he didn't manage to get enough players to remain a full-time indie.
- With the motto "making games is only half the battle", WOOTcomms offers a variety of articles on indie game marketing, advertising and promotion.
- I have a folder of lectures bookmarked and it never seems to be the time to dole them out. Instead, check out the collection offered by Game Talks.
Almost everyone on my Steam friends list can be found playing Skyrim... Not that I've been playing my indie bundles when I should have been working or anything.
