Download GrandMasterPixel (beta) from the Android Market

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Also, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU, to the people who have been play testing. I really appreciate that you’ve taken the time to try out the game, even though it is still evolving and a little unpolished at this stage. While I’ve only been given a little bit of feedback so far (nods to @kelseyhigham), I’ve seen (and judged *mwahhahaha*) the pics that a few of you have submitted when I’ve been playing the game myself. It’s been a great encouragement to keeping banging away at making GrandMasterPixel more playable as a social game. I’ve released a new version (1.0.6), and if everything is working as planned. existing users should get an update notification on their mobile device.

Next on the list is implementing ‘notifications’, so you can easily see when one of your pics has been defeated, or if you have levelled up. And then some optimization of the Arena judging interface, which I don’t think is quite snappy enough. And then more types of Rankings lists (daily, weekly, all time etc). And then … and then … and then. Lots more to do !

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It’s not quite the same as holding the game in the palm of your hand … but if you don’t want to wrestle with Eclipse and the Android SDK to setup your own development environment, or shell out for one of the snazzy new Android phones hitting the market, it’s the next best thing.

Download GrandMasterPixel + emulator [http://bit.ly/5DrYMr - 65 Mb zipped]

To run the emulator, unzip the archive, run the run_emulator.* script appropriate to your platform (eg, run_emulator.linux.sh, run_emulator.osx.sh or run_emulator.bat. You may need to make the script executable first on OS X and Linux).

If you give it a try, please give me some feedback on FriendFeed, tweet me @OMGWTFGAMES or send a good ol’ email to perry at omgwtfgames.com.

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Introducing …. (drum roll please) … GrandMasterPixel !

GrandMasterPixel is essentially a low-res pixelart competition, with light combat RPG elements.

GrandMasterPixel Arena screenshot (Android emulator)

The basic gameplay is as follows:

• Draw a pic. Make it look good. Submit the pic to the Arena – this costs ‘submission credits’.
• Judge some battles in the Arena between other artists pics by touching the one you think should win – judging one battle costs one ‘judging token’, and earns you one ‘submission credit’.
• ‘Judging credits’ recharge over time, so if you run out, just come back later.
• Pics have ‘hitpoints’. Losing a battle loses the pic hitpoints – when the pics hitpoints reach zero, that pic is dead and can no longer battle.
• Artists (that’s you) begin with only limited colors in their palette. You earn more colors based on (a) the number of pics you have submitted (‘leveling up’) and (b) how successful your pics have been in battle (eg, ‘achievements’ earned based on the number of wins before dying).

GrandMasterPixel drawing mode screenshot - me drawing an 8-bit Mario-like guy, with blue skin since that's all the colours I have at this level.

The idea behind this system is that players need to use all their creativity to make interesting pics, even with limited colors. Credits to submit new pics are only earned by judging, and judging is rate limited – this means players should be encouraged put some effort into each pic they submit, since submissions are a somewhat limited resource. In the current design, only half the colors are accessible based on number of submissions (eg, quantity) – the other half can only be earned by submitting pics that are successful in battle (‘quality’, as subjectively judged by other players).

I think some interesting dynamics may emerge here, but I’d rather not speculate too much before letting a bunch of players loose with the game.

Check it out and give me some feedback on FriendFeed, or tweet me @OMGWTFGAMES ! Download a time-limited alpha version of GrandMasterPixel for Android with this link. Or scan the QR code below with the Barcode Scanner app using your phone. In order to install it, you will need to allow applications from “Unknown sources” under the Settings->Applications menu.

There are still lots of features left to implement to make it more game-y, and a few bugs to swat, but I’ve spent a surprising amount of time developing and polishing this little game so far already, so I thought it was time to put something out there and get some feedback.

In future posts I may detail some of the lessons I’ve learned about developing Android applications, social games on Google App Engine and some general game design issues I’ve come up against in this project.

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Phobocore is a two-player hotseat game, where the aim is to capture all the planets onscreen by shooting them. It’s sort of a cross between Asteroids and Risk/Galcon, with a respectful nod to open field overhead shooters like Robotron, Bezerk or Gauntlet.

Download Phobocore (v.09 for Windows & Linux) [10.3 mb]

The experience of creating this game has been quite enlightening so far. It really got me thinking about aspects of game design I hadn’t thought deeply about. I threw around lots of ideas relating to ‘resources’ and ‘defenses’, particularly thinking about how RTSs like Starcraft require balance in play style between defense building, offensive maneuvers and resource gathering. Good players must multitask and proiritize to get the upperhand on their opponents. Key questions like “Should captured/neutral/enemy planets be solid objects or unhindering ?” occupied more than one dinner time conversation, bearing out all the ways these would changed the game. I had great fun testing the effect of different game rules, and how these changed the dynamics of the gameplay (with huge thanks to my long-suffering girlfriend for playtesting. The next best thing to writing an AI player ). If you are keen to fiddle with these game rules yourself, you can throw various flags in the phobocore.py sourcecode to test how these variations change the play style required to win.

I also spent considerable time tweaking things like fire rates and the “planets-held to ammo recharge rate” ratio to try and make the game somewhat fun. It works pretty well for players that are equally matched, but much like Galcon, once one player gets an edge, it can be hard to recover and things are over pretty quickly.

Big features I’d love to add in the future: an AI compurer player for single player mode, and maybe network play. I need to work on the collision detection, improve the graphics, add background music, and add a help screen / tutorial screen and slap on a license (probably GPL for code and Creative Commons for audiovisual assests).

Have fun & feedback is, as always, welcome !

Here’s the README.txt

┏━┓╻ ╻┏━┓┏┓ ┏━┓┏━╸┏━┓┏━┓┏━╸
┣━┛┣━┫┃ ┃┣┻┓┃ ┃┃  ┃ ┃┣┳┛┣╸
╹  ╹ ╹┗━┛┗━┛┗━┛┗━╸┗━┛╹┗╸┗━╸
Copyright Andrew Perry, 2008, 2009.

A two player hotseat game of screen domination.
It's pink vs. blue.
Boys vs. girls.

┃: GAMEPLAY :┃

Phobocore is a a simultaneous two player game. The goal is to capture
 as many planets as possible.
* You capture planets by shooting them - eventually they will turn to
  your colour.
* If you shoot a planet enough, it becomes locked to your colour -
  these planets cannot be re-captured by the enemy.
* The more planets you capture, the faster your ammo refills (orange
  bar). The more locked planets you hold, the more powerful your
  bullets become.
* You can fly through neural (white) or enemy planets. You cannot fly
  through your own planets.
* Shooting the enemy freezes them momentarily, however they also
  absorb your bullets for their own ammo store.
* Powerups occasionally appear - these give you more ammo, and can
  provide the vital edge you need to capture more planets than your
  opponent.
* The red bar goes up the more planets you lock. Once you have locked
  30 % of the planets on screen, you win.

┃: CONTROLS :┃

Player 1 (pink, left ammo bar): W,A,S,D and space
Player 2 (blue, right ammo bar): Arrow keys and right-CTRL

┃: OPTIONS :┃

Commandline options:

-f          run the game in full screen mode

┃:   TIPS   :┃

Early on, every bullet counts. Fire accurately and efficiently.

It may seem frustrating at first, since you can't shoot very fast.
Early in the game, aim to quickly but efficiently capture as many
planets as possible, and pick up powerups if you can. Don't waste
ammo locking too many planets early in the game - it's more about
quantity not quality at this stage. As you capture more planets,
your fire rate will go up.

Once you have a reasonable fire rate established, start focusing
on locking planets too. This will increase your bullet power,
meaning you can also capture/lock planets faster.

Take opportunities to steal any weak planets owned by your opponent
(the smaller ones) with a quick circular spray of bullets - this
will seriously impact on your opponents fire rate, frustrating
their efforts to capture/steal/lock more planets.

Try not to fence yourself in. Keep in mind that planets you capture
become blockades for you, but become open space for your opponent.
Rather than spraying a whole 360 degree circle of bullets to capture
all the planets in your vicinity, try doing 270 degree sweeps,
leaving yourself a exit small hole of neutral or enemy planets.

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Bad Ass Frog Escapes from LA

The Hollywood-script-worthy Backstory

The year is 2010. You are the last Frog in LA. Your name is Kurt Russell, but you are no relation to the actor, and you’ve never met him.

Controls

Arrow keys to move.
Space to restart after the game ends.

The Game

This browser does not have a Java Plug-in (or you are using a stupid browser.
Get the latest Java Plug-in here.


(if it looks broken, you are probably using Internet Explorer. Try the applet here)

Downloads

Download standalone version of Badass Frog Escapes from LA for:

• Windows
• Linux
• Mac OSX
• Mobile Phone version (MIDP 2.0, largish screen phones, 240×291) … short link: http://is.gd/aDRQ
• Source code of the Applet version, ready to be loaded into Processing
• Source code of the mobile phone version, ready to be loaded into Mobile Processing

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Download: maximalist (maximalist_0.12_miniLD5.zip, 4.6 Mb, md5: 68ada72418f029f9d7f5e81ca4792863)

(see below for the README)

Gameplay video

[youtube i8gTYMhBjv8]

You may wonder why the fullscreen resolution seems strange (800×480). Well, if you owned an Asus EeePC 4G Surf (701), you may not wonder so much.

Libraries used:

• Pygame
• Rabbyt (including the pygame_font.py font rendering code)
• My (alpha) simplemenu library

Tools used:

• The Gimp
• Sfxr (DrPetter saves the day, yet again)
• Audacity
• oggenc

I used a scanner to ‘photograph’ various items around the house (including myself) to provide source images for further manipulation.

Assests:

• “Squealer” font by Ray Larabie
• A scan of my face
• A carved wooden ‘skull’ box on my desk
• Some hand drawn sprites (exit and glowstick)
• Me screaming into the microphone

All in all, I had a fun, relaxed weekend making this game. I’ve got to remember to relax a little more during Ludum Dare competitions, it really seems to help.

The README

Installation, playing

On Windows, run maximalist.exe .

On Linux or other platforms, run:
$ python maximalist.py

Dependancies (Linux or other only):
Python (2.5 +) ( http://www.python.org .. you probably already have it)
Pygame 1.7.1 ( http://www.pygame.org )
Rabbyt 0.8.2 ( http://matthewmarshall.org/projects/rabbyt/ )

(hint for Debian/Ubuntu: $ sudo apt-get install python-pygame python-setuptools; sudo easy_install Rabbyt==0.8.2 )

Backstory

You are venturing into a dungeon or something. You think.
Actually, to be honest, you don’t know how you got here or
what you are doing here. All you do know is that there’s
something nasty lurking in the dark. The big bag of glowsticks
slung over you shoulder is your only friend.
All you want to do is Exit. And keep Exiting, until it’s safe.

Gameplay

There are 25 levels. Using a glowstick costs 5 points. Exiting a level gets you 10.
Getting your brains chomped by a nasty halves your score.
Try to get the highest score you can.

Controls

Move the mouse. Click the mouse buttons.

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simplemenu-alpha0.tar.bz2

Requires pygame and rabbyt. It’s under the MIT license. I’m regarding this as alpha, since it’s incomplete and poorly tested, (although I am using successfully it in a small game already).

simplemenu, as it’s unimaginative name suggests, is a simple set of classes to automatically lay out a vertical column of ‘buttons’ on the screen, with click and rollover effects. Like the about simplest sort of GUI you could imagine. I made it because I felt like I needed a quick and brainless way to make simple “Start”, “Options”, “Quit” menus at the title screen of games, and during a Ludum Dare 48 hour competition, you don’t want to have to mess around with the details of things like this.

There is nothing I’d call game logic in the classes. There is demo code under “if __name__ == ‘__main__’:” … again this is what I would call ‘functional documentation’, not useful game logic. It’s all still quite ugly.

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I had various dramas throughout the 48 hour competition, namely two electricity outages … this is not the code I spent most of my time on, but I’m actually happy it all worked out the way it did.

The game is written using batari Basic v1.0. I learnt a lot by reading the included sample code, and the excellent batari Basic manual. I also used the online PlayerPal 2600 Sprite Editor to draw the sprites.

Ways to play:

• All platforms: Play the game on this page (below the fold) in the embedded JStella applet
• Window, Linux, Mac: download the ROM and run it in Stella ($ sudo apt-get install stella on Debian/Ubuntu).
• Windows, (maybe Linux): Download this zip archive which contains the windows version of Stella and The Siege of von Danken Tower ROM, which is compatible with Keeyai’s Compo Game Loader
• Atari 2600 VCS: For the definitive von Danken Tower experience, you should burn it onto an EEPROM and play it on your Atari 2600 VCS (YMMV. AtariAge may help).

You can also look at the ugly source code.

The Siege of von Danken Tower

Sorry, your browser doesn’t seem to support applets.
Maybe just run the rom using Stella instead ?

(this applet seems a little flaky on some platforms. Works for me on Windows Vista in IE7. Works without Reset button in Firefox 2).

Controls: Left and right arrows, space to fire.

Gameplay

Move your character between the pile of stone blocks on the right and the foundations of the von Danken Tower on the left to build the tower. If you are holding a block, you can throw it at the chariot of the Gods. Watch out for the bolts of light the Gods may throw down at you !

Once you have built the tower, you must destroy the chariot. It will become redder with every hit, before being destroyed. Once you destroy the chariot with a completed tower, you will advance to the next level.

You can sustain only three hits by a bolt of light before dying. Your health state is indicated by your colour.

In the tradition started by Yar’s Revenge … here is the cheezy back-story.

The Story

There are two stories surrounding the famous “Siege of von Danken Tower”. One an allegory for the other.

In ancient times, a warrior named Eric was tasked by the Gods to build a great tower. They hovered above him, and quoth “Build us a mighty Tower, in the name of von Danken”. Eric, unafraid, set about the task of hualing huge stone blocks across the plain to the site where the great Tower of von Danken was to be built. Eric, worked for days, but eventually, he stopped to rest. But the Gods were impatient andmalevolent Gods, and despite the Tower being their request, they made sport of Erics’ toil. They threw bolts of light at him, and ordered him to continue building. Eric, a proud warrior, would not stand for this kind of treatment, even from the Gods. He picked up the block beside him an threw it at their flying chariot. The war had begun.

Millenia later, in modern times, a programmer recieved a message from the aether. I simply stated, “Build a video game featuring ‘The Tower’. Quickly”. He did not know who was telling him to build “The Tower”, but a story from his childhood, buried deep, arose in his mind. He decided to tell the story of the von Danken Tower, a secret family tale passed down from his great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather, and until now never widely shared. But mysterious, inter-dimensional beings were not pleased at having their role in the development of human civilisation revealed. Electrical distrubances, power failures and other strange occurances plagued the project. Would the story of the great von Danken Tower ever be told ? Would the the Tower ever be completed, or would the aliens forces reign surpreme in their information war on the human race ? It is up to you to ensure they do not !

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You can download it here [Mondrian_by_pansapiens_LD11.zip] (Windows and Linux compatible).

More details later. Right now, I have to sleeeeeeeep.

= Mondrian =
A game based on the visual art of Piet Mondrian.
Copyright Andrew Perry (pansapiens), 2008.
Licensed under the GPL version 3 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html).

Created for Ludum Dare 11 – Minimalism (18 – 20th April, 2008).

= Installation =
Unzip the package, run mondrian.exe (Windows) or mondrian.py (Linux & other platforms).

Usage: mondrian.py [options]

Options:
-h, –help show this help message and exit
-r, –random Play a randomly generated level
-e, –editor Launch in level editing mode

Dependancies (only required on Linux, or when running from source):
Python (2.5), Pygame (1.8), Rabbyt (0.8.1), PyOpenGL.

= Gameplay =

Goal: Clear the play area (aka Mondrian painting) to achieve pure white minimalism.
Click on the black beams with the mouse pointer to make then vanish.
Coloured squares expand when not in contact with a beam.
Squares of the same colour vanish when they contact.
Square of opposite colour do not vanish when they come in contact.

= Controls (game mode) =

Click with the mouse pointer.
Press ‘r‘ to restart the current level.

= Controls (level editor) =
Objects are inserted at the current position of the mouse pointer. Otherwise, gameplay is the same.

Up/down key – insert vertical beam
Left/right key – insert horizontal beam
z – insert red square
x – insert yellow square
c – insert blue square
v – insert grey square
s – save level to file “saved.pickle” in the working directory
l – load level from file “saved.pickle”
backspace, del – clear all objects from the level

= Some legalese =

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify

it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by

the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the

GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program. If not, see .

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