Back in January of 2010 we ran the 100 Things theme, which was a rousing success… and yet we felt that there were still some unexplored possibilities. So of course we had to one-up that theme by doing one better (since as I understand it you should always being giving 110% or turning the volume up to 11) so we creatively settled on… 101 Things!
Given the limit of having 101 Things in the entire game what can you do?
Phew! This month looked to be extremely busy for most people and had a smaller showing than usual. Perhaps most people were doing taxes.
We had 4 games for this month:
Wheeler Dealer, by David Rzepa
Extremely addictive truck delivery game about making a selling various goods. Traveling and time burn fuel. Looking forward to updates on this one!
An interesting memorization game with gambling elements. Requires XNA.
Flying Stock Exchange, by Jonathan Giroux
A cute gliding game. Collect cash to keep your paper airplane afloat.
A trading economy game. Buy flour and bake bread to unlock the town’s various stores and keep the economy going.
Congratulations to everyone who made a game this month. As per my other post, if you have an iOS device then I have a gift code for you for our latest game, Word Mess. Send an email to our contact address and we’ll hook you up!
In addition to running EGP, we here at the Experimental Gameplay Project some times make games. For the most part they start off as little baby ideas that get made into prototypes. Most of these morph into horrible mouth-breathing abominations that we smother mercilessly in their sleep, but every now and then one shows a glimmer of promise and we decide to see it through to completion.
This is one of those times.
Word Mess is a collaboration between myself and original EGP co-founder, Shalin Shodhan, and is our take on the word game genre. Instead of trying to make words from letters in a grid, you search for words in beautifully crafted word clouds. The game is dead simple – touch words to get rid of them, find all of the words before the time is up.
As you play the difficulty gradually ramps up, with later levels introducing shuffle bombs that mess with your board in various ways. Currently we have 3 main modes: Find, Category, and Rhymes, but there are plans to add more with future updates.
You can also compete with your friends in Challenge Mode across Game Center – since this is what all the cool kids do these days, or so I’m told.
Word Mess is currently available for iOS devices and we’re selling it for the princely sum of $.99.
If you’d like to support us you can buy it: HERE
If you’d like to support us without buying it, you can also take the “Like” route on the game’s Facebook page.
Since Shalin and I both started our game development careers with EGP we’re showing some love this month by giving away 5 free copies of the game (a retail value of $4.95!). Anyone who submits a game to the ECONOMY theme will be randomly entered into the drawing.
Modern games are often based on ruthlessly calculated economies, ensnaring users with their shady psychological trickery to trigger that “just one more” feeling. The app store and facebook are bursting at the seams with their ilk – milking customers for that last dollar. But if you push aside all the tricksters and snake-oil peddlers, a game with a well designed economy is a pleasure in itself.
So what do you think game developers, anyone up for making their own ECONOMY this month?
Februaries infinite worlds seemed to be a bit daunting, but a few brave souls produced some new and infinite worlds. Exploration and escape were prominent motifs, across the world, through space, and over floating islands.
Let’s explore these 6 games:
Compete with another player to get your cupcake across the world.
Very experimental idea in which you affect the environment to help the ‘player’ get through.
Try to escape an infinitely large airfield as military choppers close in.
Infinite Floating Islands, by TCStyle
Explore an infinite network of floating islands as a monkey.
Travel through and colonize an ever expanding universe.
Escape a maze of infinite complexity before you’re destroyed.
The results are in for the winners of the 5 button competition! Drum roll, please…
Our friends at 02L > Outside Standing Level have a write up of the event, as well as a quick recap of how the votes were tallied in case you missed it.
Although I couldn’t make it, our man on the scene, Pete Angstadt, was able to check out the competition in beautiful (and very cold) Berlin, Germany:
For those who don’t know me, I’m Peter Angstadt, and I write some of the monthly round up posts (including the 5 Button Roundup). I’ve been in Dresden, Germany recently and last week decided to take the couple hour train ride to Berlin to attend the Stattbad Media 5 Button Competition. I wanted to check out the games on the actual hardware, see how the audience reacted, and help out with the event. It turned out to be a great time, and I thought I’d share some of the highlights.
The competition took place in the Stattbad Gallery, an old re-purposed swimming center. It’s a big building with a bunch of empty pools, one of which housed a crazy triangular skateboard ramp. In another pool room there was a giant screen and five big buttons set up for the competition. The O2L guys set up the whole competition, fired up each game and managed the audience voting. As the event got going the audience streamed in, filling up the area around and inside the pool. At peak time there was close to 200 people!
I hung out down in the pool near the five buttons with a bullhorn. Before each game started we encouraged new players to take a spot at a button, introduced the game, and start it up. After a bit we’d introduce a new game and round up new players. We cycled through all finalists/runners-up multiple times so as many people as possible were able to try each game.
The audience really enjoyed all of the games. Notably, they got father than I ever did in Rakete, proving themselves to be excellent at steering the rocket as a five person team. And much to my surprise, the audience was able beat Individual Medley Relay. Everyone cheered when the five person controlled swimmer completed the final lap. In another tricky game, Revolution, people glimpsed a little bit of the magic but it wasn’t until later on during another session (with a lot of coaching) that a group of 5 friends were able to complete it.
Close to midnight, after all the games were played and votes tallied, DJs set up near the big screen started dropping phat beats and such. We let the audience play what they wanted and lots of people hung around to enjoy the party late into the night. Everyone had a great time and I want to congratulate and thank all the entrants and finalists/runners-up for making the night a big success!
Congrats to all the winners from everyone at EGP!
We're a group of indie game developers, running a friendly competition every month. The rules: Make a game based on the month's theme, and don't spend more than 7 days. New games posted at the end of every month. 
