OMGWTFGAMES!!1! » links

Link grab bag – Serious games and serious research about unserious games

perry — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 05:44:20 +0000

Two links I found interesting:

Playing Counter Strike and Call of Duty 4 can improve visual perception of contrast

ABC Australia is funding the production of Serious Games

And a random extra; there have been a number of hyped-up articles about small-time developers making it big with iPhone games recently. A few of the Ludum Dare regulars have been among them. Here’s another one of those stories, closer to home – local Melbourne developer Firemint has apparently had some success with Flight Control. Good for them ! I have no real numbers, but I’d say for every successful iPhone game, there are one hundred or more that never make enough money to break even (assuming the developers makes games for paid work, with real costs, taking wages etc). It’s no doubt a tough market to crack – glad to see some Aussies getting a piece of the action.

No related posts.

The Making of Astrorope: C# ported to Android Java SDK ported to iPhone

perry — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 02:40:57 +0000

Here’s an interesting breakdown by indie developer Niklas Wahrman about the development process for his game Astrorope.

It’s a bit like a “Swedish” tunnel running game crossed with CluClu Land. What’s most interesting to me is how the game was effectively ported between languages and platforms twice before the final product emerged … first written in C#, then ported to the Android Java SDK, before finally jumping on the iPhone bandwagon. I also like the discussion about keeping productive through ‘ritual’ … get up early, drink water, eat healthy, execrise, don’t overwork and take a break if you become unproductive. Good Ludum Dare advice .

GrandMasterPixel now available for testing in the Android emulator

You Have To Burn The Rope

perry — Sun, 18 May 2008 01:46:56 +0000

I just discovered “You Have To Burn The Rope” by Kian and Mazapan.se (via scriptedfun). It’s an amusing Flash game, well worth giving 5 mins of your time.

No related posts.

Flex for Flash games coming of age

perry — Thu, 15 May 2008 22:21:38 +0000

Around six to twelve months ago I did some research into using the Adobe Flex framework to create Flash games. I found an amazing port of Doom using the Flex SDK, but at that stage, there was no source code on offer, so I couldn’t learn much from it (except maybe that Flex was capable of some pretty impressive Flash games). Ultimately, I decided not to work with Flex for two key reasons:

There didn’t seem to be many games written with Flex at that stage, and very little in the way of how-tos and tutorials. All the tutorials I found from Adobe and others were geared toward ‘business applications’ and the like.
The Flex compiler only generates Flash 9, and I wanted to make Flash games for the Wii Opera browser, which only supports Flash 7.

Well, the Wii stil doesn’t support Flash 9 (my guess is it never will), but things are changing on the availability of game-making resources for Flex.

Chuck Arellano over at scripted fun has ported his Herder game for Pygame to Flex, and is having some success.

Meanwhile, Andy ‘pinacolada’ Fischer over at gamedev.net has written an introductory tutorial covering the Flex SDK for coding Flash games.

I suspect that there has been a blossoming of Flex game creation content occurring while I wasn’t watching … it could be worth revisiting.

(Image via Wikipedia)

No related posts.

8-bit : the film

perry — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 04:09:10 +0000

I went to the Australian Premier (and I expect only screening) of the film 8-bit last night at ACMI last night. It’s essentially a film about the intersection of 8-bit 80 culture video games and art, with a distinct focus in chiptune performers in New York city and various parts of Europe.

I was great … a wicked chiptune soundtrack, lots of video of guys playing Gameboys as synthesizers live, nostalgic “Cracked by … ” title screens from the old BBS cracking days, and some smart (and some wanky) digital art. I stayed around for the Q & A with the Director (who incidently doesn’t own any videogame consoles, or a TV). Oh, and I can’t forget to mention the thumping 8-bit sample infused intro music performed live by DJ Trip (that wasn’t part of the actual film, just a special live set for the ACMI screening).

Well worth a look if you get the chance … the film doesn’t have distribution yet, so I’m not sure where you can actually see it (it took ~ 2 years to make it to Australia, but still seems to be touring various video game and film festivals). Maybe check the screenings page at the official 8-bit site. There was also some pre-screening coverage at Kotaku which has some more info about the film.

No related posts.