I finished the playthrough (and caught a couple of bugs). I just need to make a Mac projector version and it's good to go...

The game will be released this evening. The website is up, and I'm just doing a final playthrough.

Oh neat, I remember playing the demo of this back when it came out. It'll be neat to see the full version.

It's nice to see that your prototype is coming along so well. It must be exciting to see all your careful planning coming to life.

Oh, now you're making me want to dig up my RPG and start working on it again

Hurrah for contagious work ethic.

It worked for me.

Aaah!
I'll get the site up as soon as I can, please placate Mr. laser sheep and give him a pat for me.

I registered a domain this evening.

VVVVVV looks pretty incredible. I really respect Terry's level design, and he looks to be putting a lot of emphasis on that in VVVVVV. I'm also really looking forward to it because I'd love to see what happens when he does such a long term, polished project.

Oh, I love Another World so very much. I'm glad you're playing it, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone into game development who likes minimal or atmospheric games. It really broke new ground in terms of presentation when it came out. The amount of unique content and the way cinematic elements are tied into the gameplay are both really incredible. I'm also in love with the look of this game. The vector art was a really ballsy direction to go technically, and gives the game an incredible feel.

Regarding the title, personally I think of it as 'Another World' because the first version I played was the French version.

I feel like there's a certain shared spirit between the early days of commercial game development and small team development today. There's something very special about the sort of project that is produced by a small group or an individual. I think this style of development will always be appealing (just as larger, more resource intensive games will also always be appealing).

Runman looks really fun. There's a lot of good stuff coming out right now.

Star Guard is approximately equal parts combat and traps. There's not much focus on difficult platforming.

See, and they asked me why it was taking so long

On a brighter note my code looks much better nowadays.

Quickie update: the site is coming along- I've been making final assets, poking around looking for a domain, and making pages for various smaller projects. I'm still saying soon(tm), but I'm thinking days rather than weeks.

The level design has really improved a lot since the earlier releases. The music works pretty nicely. I would love to see this with some sound effects too.

In terms of feedback, I have only a few suggestions, all of them minor.

The first is that I suspect a lot of people will be scared off by the trick jumps and the brutality of restarting so frequently. I'm idly wondering how the game might be made less intimidating to that audience, so here's an idea (not a suggestion, just an idea- this would result in a pretty different, potentially worse game). Arrange the world in such a way that there's a large hub world which is open rather than linear, with different areas available to people of different skill levels. That way people of any skill level can still explore and enjoy the world, and once they learn the different jumps they will gain access to new areas.

My second piece of feedback is that I felt the visuals were sort of mysterious, and somehow both intimidating and tranquil. I love this about the game. I like the music well enough, but it didn't quite match the impression the visuals gave me- I was imagining something a bit more melancholy and ambient would work (but that's likely just personal taste).

Great job, thank you so much for making this. I look forward to seeing future projects from you.

Slightly off topic:

BTW, did I ever mention that Karl Sims is a major influence on my work?

Oh, really? As an adolescent I stumbled upon his work in a popular science magazine, and he has had a sort of shadow influence on me. I didn't manage to rediscover him until recently- I particularly like his work with evolved creatures.

Seedling
Star Tree (Also this will work for the highly acclaimed sequel, 'Tribes of the Star Tree')
'Abyss' and 'The Silent Void' would be great, but are a bit associated on Google.

Keep ticking

Best wishes.

The diagonal jumping is deliberate, right? If so, neat. If not- jumping while pressing forward and left or right results in longer jumps.

I just played a newer version today- it feels more complete now. I'm gradually getting used to the ij jump finally. I made it to level 3, and was very excited to arrive in a new area. I'm not sure how to progress beyond the part with a series of ij jumps followed by what looks like a long jump around a pillar.

I have a couple of thoughts:

• Sound will really help! Maybe some less standard cues would help make the jumping feel solid. For instance, perhaps it would be neat to have sound feedback for standing on solid ground versus over a drop.
• A bit of camera squish on landing might feel nice.
• What is the reason for the bunny hopping? I find it gets in the way during a few types of jumps. If this is deliberate, rather than something you plan to remove, I'd be curious to hear why you chose to leave it in.

I think it's extremely rad how I jump and miss the jump and fall all the way to the start and close the game and never play it again.

Yeah, it does take a certain acceptance of that idea... I don't know if the deliberate frustration is a positive or a negative thing, actually. My own enjoyment of the game seems to be mostly about getting better at the game, enjoying the esthetic, and exploring new areas. I wonder if it would be as fun if it were more forgiving? Maybe it would be, maybe it wouldn't.

I think Eskil is built a bit differently from many other people. He might come across as a bit unusual, but as long as he's happy I'm not going to criticize his way of doing things.

He has a lot going for him. He's boundlessly enthusiastic, very talented, and very sincerely believes in what he's doing. On top of this, he has an excellent work ethic. If I could be a bit more like him (perhaps minus the blog posts?) I would probably be a better game developer.

I think he has a pretty unique and valuable sensibility for game development, and is a valuable asset to the community.

Yeah, Starseed Yoga is the root of all evil.

How about names that relate to the Von Neumann machine (self-replicating machine) aspect of the game?

Swarm- or -swarm might work.

Oh, also maybe 'garden' would work somewhere in the title.

I think old arcade style games have a lot to offer solo and small team developers today. Games like Pac Man, for instance, tend to be very pared down- there's not much there but the guts of the game, and the inner workings are almost completely exposed to anyone playing. I find this really provokes thought about what makes games like this work.

I would definitely recommend spending some time exploring older games. Not everything is good, but there are some real gems (and not all of them are well known).

I'm the sort of person who has a small collection of well loved games that I replay frequently. Sometimes I play fairly unconsciously, without much attention to detail. Other times I go all OCD and play as a design exercise- for instance a while ago I played through Quake 1 and mapped out the levels on pieces of paper as I went.

'Vacuum Flowers' would be neat, but apparently there's already a book by that name.

Here's what the site looks like so far:


The thumbnails link to full page screenshots, and the embedded video is an embedded video.