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?
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.
Guide a block of ice to the end of the level past heated obstacles before you completely melt – simple, but pretty fun!
A unique physics puzzler exploring swinging and breaking ropes, easy to imagine this one working well on a touch screen.
Interesting concept in which the game disintegrates itself if you mess up!
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.
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.
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!
A modern, realistic physics take on a classic puzzle game.
Help your wizard avoid the disintegration mist by building up a tower he can climp using tetris pieces.
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!
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…
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.
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!
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!
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!
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!
Game Development is often about taking disparate elements and chucking them into a blender before hitting the puree button. Sometimes the concoction is a delicious new blend of gaming excellence, and other times its contents send you running for the porcelain goddess.
Your challenge for June 2011, developers, is to make a game around the theme: MASHUP. Be it combining gaming genres, mechanics, music, horrifically mutilated mascots, or anything else you can think of we’re excited to see what you stick into this month’s game development blender.
There are too many puns to be made about checking out games for May’s theme ZOOM, but fortunately for everyone I’ve only made one and I’ve saved it for the end. The games this month featured a lot of interesting and creative interpretations on the theme, and we saw games about speed, magnification, and even games about the entirety of life!
Let’s ZOOM in for a closer look (harr harr) at these 15 games:
Chance of a Lifetime, by Steve Gargolinski
An ambitious experimental interactive experience. Don’t want to give away any spoilers, but it’s definitely something the photography enthusiasts among us can relate to!
Play through a lifetime in this story game. Great simple, yet expressive art! I’d love to see this idea fully fleshed out
A well put together puzzle game. Consistent clean asthetics, nice music and sound effects, and the game has a nice tension with the limited fuel mechanic.
Control a ball that can change size as you zoom in and out, use it to navigate some challenging levels!
Fly a rocket that can change size, and explore all that might mean in outerspace. Boy am I glad this game had checkpoints!
Secondario – Mushroom Overdose, by Alexis Andre
Very interesting idea, constantly growing! The level are challenging but very satisfying when you beat them.
Watch Out Danger Ahead, by mrshoestore
A minimalistic platformer where you guide a little orb through dangerous environments.
Reminds me a bit of F-Zero and canabalt, gets really tougher the more boosts you collect!
Drive a motorcycle across construction beams, zoom to clear gaps!
Intense Staring Simulator, by Zed
Revisit your high school experience, stare at people until they get self-conscious and leave. It’s a little depressing, but also pretty funny.
Proyecto Nutria, by Elvis Brevi
Ever wanted to be a Nutria with a lazer gun? Now you can in this two player brawl/melee platformer.
Chrysopoeia, by One Life Remains
Lots of squares falling and zooming around, becoming bigger, forming words. What you emit tends to kill you!
Extraordinarily experimental game about defining our world. Challenges even the word ‘game’!
Invisible Landscaping, by Aaron Oldenberg
Do some landscaping by sound alone in this very different experience.
Guess the trajectory of a square as it bounces around and eventually (or sometimes not!) hits a sphere. Pretty tough!
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. 
