John Cube – best puzzle indie game of 2011?

On friday, friend of mine informed me that my game is among others that were selected for the best indie puzzle game of the year 2011 at JayIsGames.

As you might know, JayIsGames is a huge site with news around the cassual games and every year, they hold “Game of the Year” nominations. This year, you can not just vote for the “Game of the year” but you can also vote for the best game in each of the categories.

I was more than happy to see John Cube on the voting list for the best indie puzzle game of the year because that means the game was really successful and I’m honored to be there among other great titles like SpaceChem or Blocks That Matters.

Will I get that “puzzle game of the year” badge? I don’t know but you can you can help me and leave a vote for the John Cube at JayIsGames. Voting will stop on 25th of January and you can vote on the game every day.

Thanks everyone for your support!

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by on January 22, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by Blodyavenger on January 22, 2012

http://www.blodyavenger.com/2012/john-cube-best-puzzle-indie-game-of-2011/

New year resolution (late one)

 Hello everyone, how were you doing?

Christmas holidays passed and so did a new year. I wished everyone for those occasions via twitter but I didn’t take time to write something more on my precious blog. I have reasons for that though….

Anyway, it’s time for classic new year resolution. To think about previous year and the future, so let’s start with the past:

Past:

Year 2011 was tough yet big one for me. I had many downfalls trough the year which took quite some life energy from me but I’ve managed to get trough somehow – it gets hard but with enough will and some surprises in life you can overcome everything. I will not go all emotional and personal, so I’ll just reveal some positive stuff that happened around my gamedev life  :D

I worked a lot on my projects and on my framework, so let’s take a look what I’ve been doing:

- I’ve released my second finished and polished game John Cube

- Some crazy idea that sounded good only in my head – project Time Sphere

- Participated in my first Ludum Dare with the project Courier of the Crypts LD

-  Started Project 210 with my friend

- Worked on a project Sky Wizzard for Slovenian first online game development jam

- Started new, shiny, bigger and even more creepy version of the Courier of the Crypts

 

- Participated in TIGS Advent Calendar with the entry Prepare for Christmas

 

- Started one-man gamedev studio Emberheart Games which will represent Courier of the Crypts.

One of the other important things I’ve done is the changed framework which is used by the new Courier of the Crypts now. With the framework I removed 40% of the code and it enables me to work faster and more efficient on my game(s). There were other projects as well but these are worth to be highlighted.

Next to that, I’ve got this big job in the game industry around the September which was a big step for me and my goals. In the early years of the primary school we had to write down what do we want to be when we grow up, and I simply wrote “Game developer”. There were laughs here and there even later but hey, I’m developing games now for a living!

That’s it for the year 2011. From the valley of death I’ve climbed to the shiny hills and let me tell you it’s a nice view from there :)

Future:

Hmm…well, there are lots of plans for the 2012, one of the biggest is surely to finish and release Courier of the Crypts for selling. Then there are other stuff as well….

  • More lurking and participating around the forums
  • Take more time for reading books
  • Party hard (means – find time for parties)
  • Learn Unity
  • Get fit (sitting at the work and sitting at home makes you go Bubba the Hut )
  • Buy sword
  • Attend GDC Europe
  • Have nice summer holidays
  • Don’t be late for work
  • Survive
If I get 60% of these covered I’ll be more than happy with year 2012. I should at lest cover the last one somehow…
Well, that’s it! I have lots of topics to write about so I should take time and write more (add this one to the year resolition – write more on your blog Blody).
Best regards!  :D
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by on January 17, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by Blodyavenger on January 17, 2012

http://www.blodyavenger.com/2012/new-year-resolution-late-one/

Automagical

Automagical is  Objective-C to C# source code translator made by my Slovenian friend Matej Jan (Retronator). He made this application to translate Monkey Labour (iOS) game for PC but it became more than that.

Perfect for:

  • Converting iOS and Mac apps to .NET Framework or Mono.
  • Porting iPhone and iPad games to Windows Phone with XNA or Silverlight.
  • Reusing your Objective-C codebase in C# projects.
  • Learning C# by example — type in Objective-C code and see the result.

If you’re interested, take your chance and get Automagical for beta-price or read more about the product at http://razum.si/automagical.

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by on December 6, 2011  •  Permalink
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Posted by Blodyavenger on December 6, 2011

http://www.blodyavenger.com/2011/automagical/

Diary: page 14 (Courier of the Crypts)

Holy cow! Almost 20 days passed since the last diary page and I’m very sorry for that, but path of life didn’t have any shortcuts so I had to took troubled way but I have two great news! First of all, I’ve finished map editor – I can finaly make and play full maps as I like, second thing this is that I’ve decided to make a simple “feature poster” to show you what am I working on at this moment. And there is something more – diary is at it’s end, next post will form the final page since I’m moving the development of my game to another page since I want to release it under “coat of arms”, not Blodyavenger games which will stay just for my small projects, competitions and general malarky about game development. So, stay tunned – more will be revealed with the last page of the diary.

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by on November 28, 2011  •  Permalink
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Posted by Blodyavenger on November 28, 2011

http://www.blodyavenger.com/2011/diary-page-14-courier-of-the-crypts/

Diary: page 13 (Courier of the Crypts)

Lately there aren’t many updates around which doesn’t mean I’m not working on the project because I do, every day I add a single brick to my castle and I can tell you it’s quite a fort already. Of course, there are other stuff as well like Project 210 that I’m working with my friend which is another great project that I have fun with and at last, there is Skyrim. Yep, I got that hell of the game and it’s deadly, I can feel how it’s sucking my game development spirit out of me, it wants me for itself. Ok, seriosuly, it’s a great game but I’m still on with CotC!

It’s one of those weekends that I go home away from my computer so I can’t do much else than some pixel art. So, I’m productive, no Skyrim, just me and Graphic Gale (only demo on this computer, so no gif animations for you). I’m working on the Marble Halls (first layer of the crypts) tiles so I can start with some serious map development soon.

brazier

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by on November 12, 2011  •  Permalink
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Posted by Blodyavenger on November 12, 2011

http://www.blodyavenger.com/2011/diary-page-13-courier-of-the-crypts/

Diary: page 12 (Courier of the Crypts)

I wanted to use the whole weekend to work on Courier of the Crypts but I was more or less idle trough the days. Of course, there was some progress. I’ve finished all enemies (programming & art wise) and it looks great. I’ll have to make slight changes but that’s left for the end.

Today I’ve stated to work on the new map editor in which all of the maps for the game will be made (developer’s version of it) and it went nice and fast. So let’s see what I’ve done:

  • painting
  • working GUI (buttons & stuff)
  • placing enemies
  • placing pickups

Map editor should be done by the end of the week but I’m going to become an uncle for the 3rd time in few days so the development may be delayed for there has to be a toast right? :)

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by on November 6, 2011  •  Permalink
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Posted by Blodyavenger on November 6, 2011

http://www.blodyavenger.com/2011/diary-page-12-courier-of-the-crypts/

Courier of the Crypts: more details about the game

Ttoday someone asked me here on my blog for more technical details about the Courier of the Crypts and that reminded me that I haven’t relesed any informations on that matter. Thanks for that Gornova :)

Development Enviroment:

Courier of the Crypts is developed in C++ using my own framework which is built around SDL and openGL. Target platform for the game is PC but my framework is more or less compatibile with other platforms as well. After releasing the game for PC I’ll try to make port for Mac as soon as possible (when I steal mac from someone that is).

Map Editor:

At this moment I only have very simple map editor that suits developing needs which will be replaced with improoved one to design full maps. For the future I want to implement map editor directly into the game so the others will be able to make their own crypts. However, I’m not sure if it’s going to be implemented in the first version of the game. Maybe I’ll rather release it after as an update (free of course). When I implement map editor, I want it to be as practical as possible which means real time editing among other stuff but that are some just rough plans because I have many other, more important things to do for the game right now.

General about the game:

I want to bring simple puzzle / exploring / action mechanics together into the game full of experience. I want to dodge numerous features and rather concentrate on fewer which can bring one hell of the puzzle combinations to the game.

For example, let’s take a look at the enemies – Every one of them will have different mechanics. Some will be afraid of light then others won’t be able to get killed but will be affected in some other way. I don’t have many of them but they can form some serious combinations together.

For the story, I have few tricks up my sleeve how to lead player trough it without getting him/her bored. With first map you’ll get right into the beginning of the story and no, it won’t be in the crypts ;) Then I want

Simply put, I want to make a remarkable game for the players so they can say 2 years later: “Oh yes, I remember that game. It had one hell of a map that I had to retry 20 times before finishing it! I hate the man that designed it…“. You know :)

The game won’t be free but it won’t be expensive neither.

That’s it roughly, more details about everything will come in the near future. Just for a note, I’ve decided to represent Courier of the Crypts and next futre games under the new banner (which is still going to be mine of course ). When I release new website, I’ll hold development blog and more information about the game there.

If you have questions or if you want to know more about some particular stuff don’t be shy to ask… oh and Courier says: “Hi!”

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by on November 4, 2011  •  Permalink
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Posted by Blodyavenger on November 4, 2011

http://www.blodyavenger.com/2011/courier-of-the-crypts-more-details-about-the-game/

Diary: page 11 (Courier of the Crypts)

Weekend and holidays passed so I’m back in the game…code, yeah, code! I’ve managed to implement rough transition (teleport?) when you’ll use ladders or fall trough a hole in the ground. I’ve decided to put that in another dev video preview next with the new tiles for the Marble Halls that I’ve made on monday.

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by on November 2, 2011  •  Permalink
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Posted by Blodyavenger on November 2, 2011

http://www.blodyavenger.com/2011/diary-page-11-courier-of-the-crypts/

Diary: page 10(Courier of the Crypts)

This weekend I went to help picking olives and except some fresh olive oil there was nothing new on the game side. Today I came home in the morning and took some time for my project – this time I was working on some new art.

Game will feature few different thematics. You could see one in all previews I was posting so far and today I started on the new one which I call Marble Halls. This thematic will meet you at the start of the game for the first few maps. There isn’t much yet but I hope you like it.

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by on October 31, 2011  •  Permalink
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Posted by Blodyavenger on October 31, 2011

http://www.blodyavenger.com/2011/diary-page-10courier-of-the-crypts/

Diary: page 9(October Challenge 2011)

Some people think screenshots are not enough and I want to honor their thoughts so I did my best to create another video preview featuring what I wrote about in the last posts: enemies, GUI & flame’o'meter.

At the same time I announce my failure at the October Challenge 2011 but it does not end here. Main idea behind the challenge is to do something, to finish a game and to earn that single buck from the thing we love – game development and I’ll finish it. No,  I won’t slow my pace!

Enjoy the preview ;)

2 Comments
by on October 27, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Games, News
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Posted by Blodyavenger on October 27, 2011

http://www.blodyavenger.com/2011/diary-page-9october-challenge-2011/

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