Month: April 2008

Frayed Knights Pilot is now out!

Jay Barnson, the man who inspired me to write an RPG in 40 hours with this article, has a new RPG of his own out! It’s called Frayed Knights and it combines Wizardry 8-style gameplay with as much snarky humor as you could want.

Get the “pilot episode” here. The price of admission is that you must fill out a short survey about the game so he can make it and later episodes better.


The Post Which Has No Content But Makes Grandiose Promises About Future Content

Posting’s been kind of light recently…I haven’t had that much to talk about. Mostly because the gaming scene is very console-heavy right now and I don’t own any of the current generation of consoles so…I haven’t played anything new in a while.

But I have been working on Planitia and I hopefully will have a new version for you guys to try out real soon. What’s the holdup? Well…

Okay, so I’ve got all the god powers implemented in a very basic fashion. But I haven’t yet upgraded the AI to be able to deal with them yet, so it’s now trivial to beat the computer. But I do need to get started tweaking and balancing the god powers. What to do?

The answer? Well…add multiplayer.

‘Sright. I’ve been working hard on the multiplayer version of Planitia and I’m hoping to have it ready to test by the end of May at the latest. If I can get enough people interested, it should be pretty easy to get the god powers balanced. I’ll then write an AI for the single-player version that can deal with the player’s power set.

But that’s not the only thing I want to do. I also want to start doing at least one ten-minute video a month – either a video blog, a spotlight on an existing game, or something more involved like a Let’s Play. In fact, there are two games I’m seriously thinking of Let’s Playing – System Shock 2 and Starflight.

So there you have it! I’ve got absolutely nothing for you, but I might in the future! Isn’t that great?!


Name That Game 42!

And now we’re on a completely different kind of roll – that of British-made games where you build rooms of specific types and have little people live and work in them, whom you must keep happy. I wonder why the British seem to love games like that so much. I wonder if this means I’m secretly British, since I love games like that too.

Huh...it STILL looks like a sci-fi Dungeon Keeper.

Name and developer please! Your prize will be as much Phlebotinum as you can carry!


Searches

And in this post, Viridian steals yet another shtick.

One thing that Sol likes to do every once in a while is go through his referring searches and post humorous and/or strange ones and respond to them. I think I’ll do the same!

anthony salter+viridian games

Yep! This is the site you want. This is the search that produces the most hits on my site. It’s a bit of egoboo to see it, honestly.

+populous +beginning +level +format

Oddly enough, Populous: The Beginning still has a dedicated multiplayer fanbase. Unfortunately, I’m not one of them, so I can’t help you here.

powermonger source code

Dear Lord, I wish. I can only imagine the things we could do with the older Bullfrog games if the sources were open.

front mission ost

Oooh, somebody’s got good taste in music. Look here.

dreamfall 2

Not yet, but it wouldn’t surprise me.

crazybump crack

Um, NO.

games that havent been freken filtered

Ummm…what?

sorry ff was stupid action of mine yes, i had also known that itself may ff mind, sorry what ff stupid action by me

What the hell page of mine did THIS hit?

noctropolis boobs

Dear God. Someone is actually trying to find the boobs of Noctropolis. Well, I wish them luck. I have seen the boobs of Noctropolis, and let me tell you, I wish I hadn’t.

syndicate wars for mac

Unfortunately there never was a Mac version of Syndicate Wars. There was a PlayStation version, however.

“dungeon keeper” clone

Yes, please!

“dungeon keeper” resolution

Press Alt-R to switch between low and high resolutions.

“hold! what you are doing is wrong! why do you do this thing?”

Ah, Star Control 2. You’re not just a great game, you’re literature.

3d rpg games where you have babies and get married

Frankly, I don’t know of one where you actually have babies. Sega’s Phantasy Star series had a feature where you would play with one group for a while and then that group would stop adventuring and pair off, and then you would start the plot again later as their children. But that wasn’t a 3D RPG. And it’s possible that I took this search far too seriously.

barbarian warriors in search of wisdom demo blog

Barbarian Warriors in Search of Wisdom is actually a band, not a game. Though that would have been the coolest name for a game ever.

atanua torrent

Again, NO. And besides, you don’t need a torrent. It’s free for non-commercial use, just download a trial version from the official site.

create lot in sims castaway

Unfortunately, you can’t. There were just too many problems getting all our new systems and objects working with terrain we couldn’t control. You can do anything you want to the existing lots in the free play community, but you cannot create new lots. Sorry.

do anyone still play dk2 multiplayer

Unfortunately, since I can’t patch the game and play it on XP, I don’t play it multiplayer any more.

dungeon crawl speed run

I’d certainly like to see that! But I’m pretty sure you got my infamous Game Voyeur post instead.

dungeon keeper ii stuttering sound

As I mentioned, this comes from patching the game when you’re running on Windows 2000 or XP. Doing so actually introduces a speech stuttering and crash bug.

games were you bread and mace fight

Hmmm…you could make bread in Ultima VII and that game had maces, so that’s obviously the game you were looking for!

good ways to level up in oblivion
i don’t understand the leveling system in oblivion
oblivion how to raise levels quickly

You would not believe the number of hits I’ve gotten from people trying to figure out Oblivion’s levelling system. What it boils down to is this: make sure you gain at least ten stat points every time you level. You can gain up to fifteen, but it’s not necessary to do so (unless you’re a perfectionist like someone I know). You should also try to gain as much Endurance as you can every level, hopefully the full five points. The best way to gain Endurance is to improve your Armory skill, and the best way to do that is buy a whole bunch of repair hammers and repair every piece of armor you come across. Every time you loot a body, repair all the armor you get even if you’re not going to sell it.

he toutched my ass

I can’t believe someone actually searched on this phrase. That person got this page, of course.

how can i generate a real lightning bolt from the sky

Stand in a rainstorm and point a long pole straight up in the air. (Note: do not stand in a rainstorm and point a long pole straight up in the air.)

how do i watch warcraft 3 audio replay?

That’s a darn good question – it can be a bit tricky. Typically the page you download one from will tell you to “pause at” a certain time. So load the replay into Warcraft III and then pause it at that time. (You can just double-click a replay from anywhere on your hard drive and Warcraft III will load and run it. I love that feature.)

Now with Warcraft III paused, alt-tab away and start the MP3 that came with the replay. Switch back to Warcraft III once it’s started and wait for the host to tell you to unpause. The replay and the audio should then be synched.

how does the rock paper scissor setup work in age of empires 3

I hope that lead you to this post; it explains things in nauseating detail.

how to become a game programmer

A writer writes. A painter paints. A game programmer programs games. Start as small as you feel you need to in order to be comfortable, but always be learning. Always be expanding. And post all your stuff on the intertubes so I can try it out! Oh, and this is probably the post you were looking for.

how to change village color on age of mythology

You can’t. It’s so annoying. You’re assigned a color based on the order in which you joined the multiplayer game.

how to get starflight 2 to work on new computers
make starflight 2 play slower for faster computer

One word: DOSBox. Oh, and nice taste in games, by the way.

how to get the bars up over enemies in wow

Hit CTRL-V. Hit it again to turn them off.

information and basic facts on the ankh

Um…all I have are game references, and you’re probably looking for something more historical. Try Wikipedia.

is mgam a good company?

I never had any complaints. Indeed, sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I stayed. I left several years ago, though.

kangaroo and x-tracking

Uh…have I ever used the word “kangaroo” on this blog? Ever? I mean, before now?

legacy of the ancients remake

YES PLZ.

magic carpet remake

Look, people, you’re starting to make me drool.

name the screen shot games
name these games contest

Yep! This is where you want to be. Oooh, that reminds me, need to come up with one for tomorrow.

ready food pouch for school children

I have no idea how this lead to my site. And “food pouch”? Don’t you mean “lunch box”?

what do game programmers do all day

This is actually pretty accurate:

villager games to download
“populous” clone
after you build your village you can raise an army
any games that you can create your own village
build an army and village game
build a base and a army then destroy the computer`s base type games
games with god powers
games were you build a army and destroy your enemy
games where you build your own village and army.
god games that you create your village to play now
powermonger clone

Keep your shirts on, people.


Remember, Folks…

StarCraft is serious business.

My favorite bit is when they are flashing up all the cool, sheksay pics of the contestants and one of them is…pushing up his glasses.

Of course, I’ve been following this competition with interest, and because I am a colossal geek, it’s been real interest, not point-and-laugh interest. One thing I like about these tournaments is that the contestants have to play on new, custom-created maps that they’ve never seen before.

If you want to watch the entire competition, just search YouTube for EVER OSL 2008.


Ludum Dare 11 Time Lapse!

Here’s a time lapse of my desktop as I competed in Ludum Dare 11.

I know, the screenshots got cropped. The program I was using to grab them wasn’t grabbing the whole screen. Sorry about that.

And yes, there’s a whole lot of downtime in there. I’m married and I have three kids. My wife made a pithy comment about my participation, which you can see in the video.

You can download a higher-quality version here.


Ludum Dare 11: SUCCESSFUL!

I am so weary now. But it’s the weariness of VICTOLY!

The final glorious result.

I lost about four hours this afternoon because of family obligations; I kind of assumed that it was over for me after that. But when I managed to get back to my computer I hunkered down and finished what I started, adding very few new features – and it seems to have turned out okay.

Download it here. Game and source are included.


Ludum Dare, 8 hours to go

Did Viridian bite off more than he can chew again? OF COURSE HE DID!

Frankly, I don’t know if I’ll be able to finish. Using treasures in rooms requires a tag system and I don’t know if I can finish one and get all the tags on the map and debug them in eight hours. At the very least, I should have a complete game where you run around killing monsters and getting treasures…but I wanted so much more.


Ludum Dare, end of Day 1

Despite many distractions, I now have a castle map that you can walk around in. Monsters spawn and will chase you (but don’t hurt you yet). You can outrun monsters and they’ll lose aggro.

Can't catch me!

Now I need treasures and puzzles. Puzzles will require a tag system and frankly that scares me. I now have 22:30 left…can I finish in time?! Tune in for the exciting conclusion! (Excitement not guaranteed.)


So Let Me Build A Bridge…

…For I cannot build a castle…

Oh, wait – YES I CAN!

He's happy 'cause he's in a castle.

(Yes, I know those aren’t the right lyrics. But that’s how most people hear it.)