Hi there, I made a new game, an one week game (or less) . It’s a game a little bit creepy and depressive, but I want you play it anyway.
http://www.tyranus.com.ar/games/BajoLaSombraDelReloj.html
I really want to hear your feelings about this game, so make a comment here or send me an email as well.
I don’t know when I started to think that tutorials are necessaries to teach to the player how to play. Maybe the current trend to use tutorials in every game: casuals and hardcores, experimentals games and clones (I really don’t know why clones have tutorials). I really don’t care understand about how used to think they are important, what I care now, is understand and explain why using the tutorial sucks. Its pretty simple.
Actually I am somehow involved in the duality “videogames-education”, and this helped me to understand some things about games itself. The player, like the students, doesn’t want to learn things they doesn’t need or doesn’t interest them.
If we take them trough a bunch of very controlled and non challenge situations, they will feel like they are working. I mean, they feel like they are doing just “things” to get at the end of the day, and reach what they really wants, whats means get fun.
So we need to stop this. A game is an entire new world and we want explore and discover things. We are lazy by nature and our brain doesn’t seem be interested in thing that aren’t important, the brain want to learn useful new things. When we create a game, we are really obligated to give this unique chance to the player.
The learning must happen through player experience with the game world. We can introduce new mechanics slowly, but this doesn’t mean we can’t challenge the player and that we can’t let them play with. The learning of game mechanics must be part of the game, and the player training must happen when player need it, this must be hidden in the game levels and as a solution of a game conflict. We can’t/mustn’t force the player to put game mechanics in his mind before he feel that the game can offer fun and something new.
I know it’s harder we don’t use tutorials, but, I think is the best way to give it the players that what they really want: his own experience trough the exploration a new and wonderful world.
This is all for now. Thanks for read!
Well, as member of the new “Super Prototyping Club” (A bunch of local indies trying to create gameplay experiments site here ) I made in this week, like my partners, a game with the theme “Story”.
“Tale of Tales” born here, and try to be a game about cooperative and interactive story telling.
The game need players to grow so, if you like to write, you shold play the game and help me to test this prototype 
The game: http://www.tyranus.com.ar/taleoftales/taleoftales.html
This is all for now, I hope you play and participate.
I have been playing Tetris the other day, and I wonder what make this game so perfect. Then in my mind I heard the voice of Raph Koaster from his book “A theory of fun” telling me “All is about pattern recognition”. Thinking about it, I notice there is something more hiden here. Something less abstract and more basic. Something from our nature.
A game is, somehow, a natural learning form. Videogames are trying to teach us something too but… What are we trying to learn from videogames? I think we are searching feel and experiment with things in relation to our more basic instincts. What are they? Hunt, gather, build, and survive. This behaviors involve a set of activities like: pattern recognition, searching and collect things, fight, explore and survive.
As a gatherer capabilities of pattern recognition and collect activities are more needed. If we think in casual games, we often think in games involved pattern recognition and collect items. Therefore, maybe I will sound sexist, but womens (70% of casual gamers) are better to distinguishing between subtle hints and details and by having a good visual memory. This features are better to gather such as supposed was the ancestral subsistence mode of Homo.
Men, in the other hand, are better to seeing in three dimension and beign able to imagine how things rotate and move trought space. So mens are able to be hunters. We want to play games with war, fight and blood where hunting abilities are more needed.
Well, I don’t know why we are talking about homo, but, I just wanted to explain another way to see games. Coming back to Tetris, I think we enjoy the game because: use all our working memory of seven element to remember the 7 tetrominoes, build and find the right place for each piece, and we glad to survive the game as we can.
This is all for now! I hope you enjoy reading and thanks for read.
It’s time to talk a little about my game. How you can guess, it is a plataformer-puzzle game with many features and crazy things. In the game you will find, for example: crocodiles, lasers, gears, acid, soldiers, rats, almost samurai mutant turttle, a superheroe, and many other unexpected things.
The final goal is simple, press that red button. You will travel trough a giant machine to find it. Many bosses, enemies and puzzles are waiting you, but you have nothing to fear, your mommy will be watching you all the time.
The music of the game will be created by Christian F. Perucchi, a genius musician and amazing guy. You can heard some of his work in his page www.forgingsounds.com
There is so much text, it is time to show some screenshots!
Just mommy.
A random level of the game.
This is all for now, but more is coming
All starts with a wonderful idea. No limits, no errors, no “Buts”, just a perfect and beatiful idea.
All goes down when we try to make it real. When the idea goes out from our minds and get in the real world. We discover the problems and the “buts” finally comes. If we want to create a game from this, we need to break it in something playable and feasible with our resources.
We, ruthlessly and voluntarily, destroy the original idea and we let the game design process begin.
I think it’s like you are choosing a tree in the wood. When you find a good one (an idea) you must to begin to cut it.
From each idea many games can come true and each choice we take is taking us to a diferent game.
The amount of decisions we take to reach a game are really big. If we take a fresh idea, an experimental idea, the amount of branch grows exponentially. There is more satisfaction, mysteries, risks and decisions here.
I think the original ideas can teach us more because we think a lot in every choice. There is more things to discover in the lonely tree. No one has made decisions in this tree and this is why we need to create it.
This is my little interpretation about games creation process, you know, felling trees and destroying ideas, typical.
I hope you have enjoyed reading this, so thanks for read!
Hi there,
This is my new try to get a nice webpage. This time, I have choice WordPress because it’s simple and powerful.
Now, I am working in two games: That red button and Ancient Powers 2. Soon I will release That Red Button and I hope you like it
Greetings!
This game was made it for the contest “Eva party Games”. This is a two players game: one player control the victim and the other player control the level.
To play it you should use Joysticks because the keyboard configuration is a little bad. Inside its a configuration file to use with this program: joy2key And emulate the keyboard with joystick.
This game was played in the EVA party, and was a nice experience see the players enjoy it and hate it.
Tools: Flixel, Flash Develop, Grapchis Gale, and sfxr for sounds
Download: Level Buster v1.0
This is a Metroidvania RPG game, with three diferents endings. English, Spanish and bad German traduction are available. I think this game have to much text.. I am sorry about that.
Controls: Arrows to move (up to jump). “X” to cast fire spell, “C” to cast cold spell and “Z” to modify power stats.
Tools: Mappy, Flixel, Flash Develop, Graphics Gale.
Minigame with a simple gameplay, infinity levels, changing rules, and mochiscores. 8 Days time of development. Made it in Jam with other awesome indies friends .
Controls: Arrows to move.
Tools: Flash Develop, Graphics Gale, Flixel.