I've recently come across two side scrolling shooters in development, both of them focused around co-op gameplay. This makes me damn happy as it is much more enjoyable to play a game together with a friend than it is to play it on your own or head to head against a buddy.
The two games in question are Fallen Frontier by Moonshot Games:
And Shoot Many Robots by Demiurge Studios:
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Ranger
Ranger is a nice little top down shooter where you take the role of a space pilot hired to rescue prisoners on alien planets. You start inside your ship where you can pick up some medikits and weapons and off you go out into the hostile alien world.
The game features destructible terrain, line of sight/field of view and a nice array of weapons ranging from a combat knife to tasers, uzis and grenades. When you least expect it an enemy may jump out from behind a tree and blast you. You need to be on your toes at all times! Line of sights plays a big part in ranger since the line of sight goes both ways: you cannot see enemies that aren't within line of sight and enemies can't see you. Use this to your advantage by sneaking up behind an unaware enemy and quickly finish him using your knife or a well placed shotgun shot. The enemy AI could have been made a bit smarter but it isn't trivial and at times it can become rather hectic when you get blasted with enemy fire while trying to out-manouver enemy troops.
The game was developed by a guy called Robbert Prins using Blitz 3D. The game is freeware and can be downloaded here:
http://www.foppygames.nl/
The game features destructible terrain, line of sight/field of view and a nice array of weapons ranging from a combat knife to tasers, uzis and grenades. When you least expect it an enemy may jump out from behind a tree and blast you. You need to be on your toes at all times! Line of sights plays a big part in ranger since the line of sight goes both ways: you cannot see enemies that aren't within line of sight and enemies can't see you. Use this to your advantage by sneaking up behind an unaware enemy and quickly finish him using your knife or a well placed shotgun shot. The enemy AI could have been made a bit smarter but it isn't trivial and at times it can become rather hectic when you get blasted with enemy fire while trying to out-manouver enemy troops.
The game was developed by a guy called Robbert Prins using Blitz 3D. The game is freeware and can be downloaded here:
http://www.foppygames.nl/
Hawken forum opened - give me the game now!
All I say is: Big Mechas with even bigger guns! How can that not be a win? It sure is in my book and that's why I was superexcited when I came across Adhesive Games big robot fighter FPS Hawken. Let me start off by showing some in-game videos and you can judge for yourself if this is cool or if it's super-cool:
I'm really in love with the graphical style of the game. The city in which the battles take place look really stunning and the mechas and everything else really blend in and give it a really unique look. The game is based on the Unreal Engine. What is even more impressive is the size of the team working on Hawken. The current team size is nine people (yes 9!), the team is not affiliated with a big studio and it's been in development for less than a year and it can still boast the kind of results seen in the above videos.
Follow the development at the official site, at their blog or on their forum:
http://www.hawkengame.com
I'm really in love with the graphical style of the game. The city in which the battles take place look really stunning and the mechas and everything else really blend in and give it a really unique look. The game is based on the Unreal Engine. What is even more impressive is the size of the team working on Hawken. The current team size is nine people (yes 9!), the team is not affiliated with a big studio and it's been in development for less than a year and it can still boast the kind of results seen in the above videos.
Follow the development at the official site, at their blog or on their forum:
http://www.hawkengame.com
Jhink-toy
Jhink-toy is a nice little puzzlegame where you slide columns of colored circles up and down to align rows of circles of the same color to clear them off the gamefield. The game features 15 levels of increasing difficulty. None of the levels are actually hard in the sense that you can't solve them, but you get scored based on the number and size of combinations you clear in a single go.
The game is developed in Flash by OUEO factory. Play the game here:
http://oueo.ateamworks.com/jhink-toy/
The game is developed in Flash by OUEO factory. Play the game here:
http://oueo.ateamworks.com/jhink-toy/
rComplex - a Canabalt wannabe
rComplex is a Canabalt kinda game. You control a running character that need to dodge obstacles by either sliding under them or jumping over them. There is a twist though, you are also chased by some kind of evil looking tentacle/squid monster. As it gets closer you can use your trusty shotgun to fend off the tentacles and give you some distance. The graphics is pretty nice, but personally I prefer the graphics and gameplay of Canabalt.
The developers wrote the game in Python (using pygame) over the course of a week and they are now looking at getting funding to create a proper game out of it. If you want to support them you can back the project at Kickstarter.
The developers wrote the game in Python (using pygame) over the course of a week and they are now looking at getting funding to create a proper game out of it. If you want to support them you can back the project at Kickstarter.
Steamlands
I completely fell in love with this little steampunk tank fighting game. In Steamlands you're the operator of a steamengine and you fight other steamengines for fame and fortune. The graphics are really cute 2D pixel graphics with a lot of detail.
Your tank is made up of different "lego" blocks that you can move around to change it's looks and it's ability to withstand damage and deal damage to other steamengines. The whole thing is centered around the actually engine. You need to make sure to put your cannons close enough to your engine so that the steampower can reach the cannons and get them shooting. You also need to plan where and how you arrange your blocks of armor so that you protect your control room and your engine. If you take damage you can send out your steamengine operator with his little spanner to repair your tank. As you progress through the game you get more and more blocks to construct your steamengine and you face bigger and bigger opponents.
Check out this video to get a better understanding of how the game works:
The game is developed in Flash by Nitrome. Try it out at their site:
http://www.nitrome.com/games/steamlands/
Your tank is made up of different "lego" blocks that you can move around to change it's looks and it's ability to withstand damage and deal damage to other steamengines. The whole thing is centered around the actually engine. You need to make sure to put your cannons close enough to your engine so that the steampower can reach the cannons and get them shooting. You also need to plan where and how you arrange your blocks of armor so that you protect your control room and your engine. If you take damage you can send out your steamengine operator with his little spanner to repair your tank. As you progress through the game you get more and more blocks to construct your steamengine and you face bigger and bigger opponents.
Check out this video to get a better understanding of how the game works:
The game is developed in Flash by Nitrome. Try it out at their site:
http://www.nitrome.com/games/steamlands/
Game reviews
I sometimes end up waiting for a build or some other process to finish at work before I can move on to the next step of a task. These little breaks are the perfect times to try out new games, most often little Indie productions. Some of my colleagues pointed out that I should blog about the games I try, and now I will!
So, if you're only here for posts related to Dweller then you may wanna change your subscription to filter out anything not tagged with 'dweller', like this:
http://peeksandpokes.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default/-/dweller
Anyway, I hope all of you stay on and read what I have to say about the games I test. I'll start of with a couple of retrospective posts highlighting recent games I've tested.
So, if you're only here for posts related to Dweller then you may wanna change your subscription to filter out anything not tagged with 'dweller', like this:
http://peeksandpokes.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default/-/dweller
Anyway, I hope all of you stay on and read what I have to say about the games I test. I'll start of with a couple of retrospective posts highlighting recent games I've tested.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Oh my, I messed up...
The 1.7.5 release of Dweller was far from perfect and I introduced a bug that caused crashes on several handsets... Luckily it was a quick fix and a new version is now available on the market. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Dweller 1.7.5 - now with your map pieces!
Just a quick announcement that version 1.7.5 of Dweller was released today. The new version has reduced stair spawn rate somewhat, but more importantly it also includes the user generated map pieces posted here on the blog. Thanks a lot for the contributions. Keep the maps coming!
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Design your own Dweller map piece!
Do you want to leave a permanent mark in the dungeons of Dweller? If you do I invite you to create your own custom map piece to be used by the map generator. The map pieces have a size in multiples of 7x7 cells and they are described using a simple text format where each character represents a graphical tile in the game. The template for the normal dungeon looks like this:
An example of a map piece and it's text version:
Remember that you can have map pieces in any multiple of 7x7, for instance 14x14, 14x7, 21x7, 21x14 and so on. Exits need to be in the middle of the edges of each 7x7 map piece, this means that a 14x14 piece can have two exits on each edge. An exit is either a door, floor or pushable stone.
Post your map pieces here and they will be reviewed and hopefully included in the next release!
An example of a map piece and it's text version:
#######
#.+....
#.#....
..+....
#.#....
#.+....
#######
Remember that you can have map pieces in any multiple of 7x7, for instance 14x14, 14x7, 21x7, 21x14 and so on. Exits need to be in the middle of the edges of each 7x7 map piece, this means that a 14x14 piece can have two exits on each edge. An exit is either a door, floor or pushable stone.
Post your map pieces here and they will be reviewed and hopefully included in the next release!
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