STORY GAME Roundup

September 30th, 2011

Certainly a challenging theme: making a game is hard, and in addition telling a good story is even harder, and making a good game that tells a good story is super hard! But even so, there were a lot of really excellent game ideas this month!

Let’s see what these 18 games have to say:

Tale of Tales, by Alejandro Adrian Iglesias

Really brilliant idea, a sort of crowd sourced text adventure. You get both the fun of progressing through the story and creating parts of it yourself!

Story Hero!, by Drum

A very clever game where you can materialize words from the story into the game world to progress through. I would love to see this explored further!

The Rudest Fucking Party Guest, by Allen

Stylish game in which you explore a party and all the substories within!

Redeye, by Andrew

A spooky platformer with good atmosphere and interesting trickling of story bits for you to enjoy.

The Fifth Zombie, by Steve Gargolinski

A sort of interactive choose your own adventure about fishing, zombies, and disobeying your parents.

Trout!, by Fernando Ramallo

A very polished party game about making stories in various ways.

Invasion, by Vamsi Krishna. Veligatla

A twin stick shooter storybook mashup, the story and gameplay match and work together pretty well – sort of a playable storybook.

Memoirs, by Jeremy Kang

Play through a history book as a solider, you actions determining the story you read.

The Lonely Man, by Will

A game about a fox, a man, and the search for his wife.

Intimate Stories, by Tembac

Layout story elements on a grid and watch the action take place, has a neat journal feature for story recap.

The Jack of all Trades, by Rahil Patel

Run, jump, shoot, find what you’re good at, get better at what you’re not.

The Tragic Tale of the S.S. Orca, by Breakdance McFunkypants

A simple game that chronicles the sinking of a mighty ship with silly voice overs.

OMGMMORPGRTS, by Steve Bushman

An online multiplayer strategy game with some story elements.

Cardwood, by Vazor222

Click and read your way through a story about robots and ninjas.

Harap-Alb, by Timotei

A brief tale to begin with, and very familiar gameplay to follow, perhaps too familiar…

ThatTimeIAlmostDiedAtAConcert, by Aaron Oldenburg

A game about almost dying at a concert it seems..but I was unable to play this (no android :( ).

One Million Hero Stories, by Hardnheavy

More of a toy that generates stories based on elements you can pick.

Melville, by David Fox

Certainly a lot of story…but not sure how much game…

6 Comments | In: Theme | tags: Best of the Net, Story Game, Theme | #

STORY GAME in September 2011

September 1st, 2011

It’s almost the Fall, with the holiday season slowly lurching into view.  Soon we’ll all be gathered around a roaring fire telling tall tales, or curled up in a chair with a good book.  Or (more probably if you’re on this site) sitting firmly planted in front of our modern story teller – the computer.

So what do you say Game Developers, can you craft your own STORY GAME in September?

42 Comments | In: Theme | tags: Story Game, Theme | #

OFFSPRING in August

August 1st, 2011

While last month’s theme was about destruction, this one is about growth.  Specifically, young, new growth.  The type that keeps you up all hours of the night, listens to rap-metal, and steals your car keys. Or maybe it’s about evolution, who knows?

So how about it Game Developers, what can you do with OFFSPRING in the month of August?

30 Comments | In: Theme | tags: Offspring, Theme | #

DISINTEGRATE Roundup

July 31st, 2011

This month is a testament to the creativity of the community – there were lots of interesting interpretations of the theme and some very experimental ideas, not only did we get death by disintegration, but also melting ice blocks, fireflies following, and even a game that disintegrates its own mechanics!

My apologies for the slight delay in the round up for this month! But now, without further adieu, let’s check out these 19 games:

Closer, by Vamsi Krishna. Veligatla

Get close, but not too close to disintegrate your enemies in this simple but fun game.

znMacedonia, by Zink Interactive

Fun, polished, stylish disintegration of ships by saucer.

Icepunk, by Crodam

Guide a block of ice to the end of the level past heated obstacles before you completely melt – simple, but pretty fun!

Plastique, by Luke O’Connor

A unique physics puzzler exploring swinging and breaking ropes, easy to imagine this one working well on a touch screen.

Integamerated, by Vazor222

Interesting concept in which the game disintegrates itself if you mess up!

Critical, by Sam Garcia

Build up a base, attack your opponent, and launch a space ship to win, all while keeping your headquarters from being destroyed in this strategy game.

Ponnuki, by Arnaud de Bock

All sorts of interesting interactions to explore in this game as your try and reach the top.

Swarming Elements, by Spunkmeyer

Disintegrate spheres of different elements in this soothing, somewhat puzzley shooter.

Agent Atomic Actionfists, by Aidan Wolf

Fight terrorists, skydive, explore underwater, this challenging game has it all, disintegrating the boundaries of action games.

You are a Part of Me Now, by Joe

True to the title, collect bits that become part of you and use them to protect you!

Suboids, by Alejandro Echeverria

Subdivide, guide, and provide boids with a path around obstacles to the goals.

Planet Defense, by Ivan

Defend your ship, moon, and planet with your disintegration beam from asteriods that are occasionally on fire. Make sure not to accidentally disintegrate your own planet!

Grave Game, by Marcos

A modern, realistic physics take on a classic puzzle game.

Tetratower, by Darius

Help your wizard avoid the disintegration mist by building up a tower he can climp using tetris pieces.

Space Mass, by Darshell

Explore, grapple, and disintegrate a procedural slowly spinning world in this exploration game.

Capture the Fireflies, by Rodrigo

Collect little fire flies and lead them home across multiple levels in this elegant game.

Turtank, by Joao Amadeu Nascimento Vieira

A two player battle game in which two turtles enter, one emerges victorious and the other disintegrated!

Energize, by BlackheartIII

Use laser beams to keep particles moving to make the biggest death ray blast you can before time runs out.

One Does Not Simply Walk Into Mordor, by Dominik Reisel

The only thing disintegrating here was my patience. Spoiler alert: you can simply walk into mordor…

6 Comments | In: Theme | tags: Best of the Net, Disintegrate | #

DISINTEGRATE in July

July 1st, 2011

While last month’s theme was about combining multiple elements in new and delightful ways.  This month’s is about reducing said elements to nothing!

Your challenge for July 2011, developers, is to make a game around the theme: DISINTEGRATE.

43 Comments | In: Theme | tags: Disintegrate, Theme | #

MASHUP Roundup

June 30th, 2011

This month’s mix of mashups made for many intriguing mixtures (please excuse the shameless alliteration). All sorts of genres, ideas, and mechanics were smashed together from tower defense to tetris to action platforming. Often when this kind of combining and reworking goes on some very interesting gameplay can emerge, and that was no exception for this month’s mishmash of crazy ideas!

Let’s check out what’s brewing in these 11 games:

Squirrels With Machine Guns, by Luke O’Connor

Really fun mix of tower defense and sort of action platforming, lots of interesting design questions here that could be explored further! Also educational, what more can you ask for?

Tower of Prophet, by M.C. Spross

Interesting mix of tower defense and almost action rpg. It’s well fleshed out, fun to play, and brutally hard!

Magnet Jones, by Vic Mugen

Hunt for treasure, evade treasure stealing skulls, manipulate mystical magnets. Definitely some clever ideas at work here!

BookWormTris, by Steve Gargolinski

Bookworm meets Tetris, drop blocks and spell words. A fun and delicate balance between trying to find and spell words and lining up new blocks for new potential words.

Pacman and Zombies, by Boris Van Schooten

Interesting combo where the ghosts from Pacman are replaced by an ever growing zombie horde. Gives Pacman a whole new feel!

Coglitz, by Jonathan Giroux

Pretty cool mashup of two games, and I’m a fan of tube path connection type games. I’d like to see this refined and continued further!

Kart Demolition Arena, by Rylius

A very tough blend of death match arena and car racing, reminds me a little of a 2D Twisted Metal. I’d like to see the car aspect fleshed out a bit more!

Life, by Arnaud de Bock

A strange platformer with lots of different elements to explore, move, eat, push…

District B12A2, by Michael Ikkert

There’s so much mashing up going on here it’s off the hook, it’s a turn based boat racing fishing golf game!

Hippy Word War, by Johannes Wärn

It’s got hippies, words, and feels a little like scrabble meets a crossword puzzle.

Optic Echo, by Aaron Oldenburg

While not available to play at the time of this writing, the video sure looks cool. Navigate a world using a visual representation of sound!

5 Comments | In: Theme | tags: Best of the Net, Mashup | #