Oh, wow.  This is the closest that one o' these has ever been to me.

I'm sure I could get the time off of work, but what exactly goes on at these things?  And is it worth going, particularly for the really shy-type?

Heh, cute!

Man... here I was thinkin' that the Comicompo Curse couldn't possibly affect me... I'm not in school, I don't have to worry about finals, and I don't have any major responsibilities or deadlines coming up...

And then my computer takes a nose dive, and now I can't even boot it.

Thanks, Comicompo Curse.  I think I'd rather have the finals.

Aw, but I've already been bumped from the penultimate page to the preantepenultimate page (a much lower-pressure page, at least).  If you add another snake, I won't have a word for what page I'll be at.

Are you nuts?

It's Braid.

Today I recorded myself singing lyrics (which I had written some time back) to the song from the Waluigi's Island map of Mario Party 3.  In a Waluigi voice.

It... it just had to be done.

I'm so sorry.

Is that Treasure Treasure?
Are you remaking Treasure Treasure?
Is there gonna be more Treasure Treasure?

Heh, that game did come to mind when I was first working on this, actually, so it might have ended up as a slight subconscious influence.
Even if there's no jumping on flying darts and daggers involved.

Okay, I'm calling Illuminator "done".
There's one bug that's been happening to one friend of mine (that I hope won't happen with anyone else), so I'll keep looking into that...  But otherwise it's done enough.



ILLUMINATOR

As always, C is flashlight; leave it off and it will overcharge, which you can use to can kill ghouls.
X is action: pick up/plug in items, open/close doors.
Esc is pause.

Kill enough ghouls to weaken the stitches on the tear in space, so that you can follow the ghouls through the houses and rescue your sister.

Aw... I was eying Dam Busters.
Ah well.

And expect Illuminator to be finished later today, once I work out a few more bugs.

Rocket Jockey and Illuminator both made it on indiegames.com/blog today. How many does that make now?

Say wha?  But I'm not finished yet!

I give up.  Cheetahmen is not working out for me at all.  I'm sorry for using up the space for so long.

Aw, sorry to hear that; I was looking forward to it.
I wonder who's gonna take it now, this crown jewel of the Action 52 cartridge?

Hey, don't worry about it.  I'm just glad to see that you're enjoying the game, even if it's long after people have stopped playing it.

The gossip houses were another of the shops that never got implemented.  It was supposed to be that you could record your own little message for the old lady to say, but alas... time did not permit.

There's no way to tell a dungeon's number from the inside (or outside, for that matter), sorry.  All you can do is go to a nearby info shop and see if the bird is pointing in the correct direction.  This doesn't really help when the dungeons are clumped together, though.

Typically, the further a dungeon is from the center of the map (where you start the game), the higher level the dungeon is.

Heh, the strange shop signs are due to some sort of bug, but I actually have no idea how it's happening.  I think it has to do with a screen accidentally being remade?
There were some bugs regarding strife levels, too, so that kinda thing happens sometimes.  However, if you're in world 1, then you're gonna see a lot of weird strife numbers, as I changed the strife calculations a bit between worlds 1 and 2.

Hi!

Sorry about the shops; I never got around to implementing several of them, including the potion shop and the casino there.  So... they'll never be open.

The map that the bird shows you is a sort of detailed overview of the surrounding area.  You can't take it with you, but you DO have your own automap.  If you didn't change the keys, then it'll be the tab button, and you'll be able to scroll around it until you can find the dungeon entrance (which will be a down arrow).

The only way to get new gear (weapons, shields, items, etc.) is by beating the dungeon bosses.  This can be tricky, though.

Supoib!
It's good fun, and the music fits nicely.

For things to change, I'd kinda like it if, during the time-freeze aiming bits, holding a single direction would continue to rotate around in a circle.  Like, holding right from the top would continue going past the right and down to the bottom, until you let go of the direction.
I can see this as presenting a lot more confusion upon releasing the direction, though, where pressing it again would go opposite, so... maybe the way you have it is best.

The only other (really minor) gripe I had was that in the little showdown cinematics, the characters faces felt really weird being so far off to the sides.  Like they were ready to fall out of the frame.  I'd say move 'em in a little more, if you can.

But, again, really minor.

But that's all.  I loved everything else about it.

Don't forget to make it so that you can quit from the main menu with ESC!

Anyway, Rocket Jockey was quite fun, and felt really great!  The colors you used, and the music, and the whole feel of cruising through the asteroids (with the foreground stuff and all) really came together well.

[Storm Over the Desert]

Storm Over the Desert

Very fun!  After getting used to controlling all the tanks at once (which took a bit of practice), I found that you actually had quite a bit of maneuverability.  I managed to get to the second wall without loosing a tank my second time through (as my first time was rudely interrupted).  And yes, the part after that is delicious.

Kudos!


Silver Sword

The changing elements is an interesting idea, though frustrating at times.  I think you could do more to exaggerate the changes, both visually and sound-wise (like having a different non-critical hit noise for each element).  I didn't like how helpless I seemed when trying to get to the right distance with most enemies.  Since the player already locks direction if you hold the attack button, I think you'd do well to use that second button to add some sort of dodge/move maneuver, like a roll; it wouldn't be too game-breaking to allow such a kindness to the player.

As it is, the game is VERY difficult.  I was able to get through the whole thing, but only just barely in a lot of cases.  The caterpede just seemed too ruthless, and I was only able to beat Hogan by hiding somewhere where he couldn't move, and picking him off with -1s.  Difficulty may be what you're shooting for, but don't get carried away; you may find the difficulty just right, but those not so close to the project will have a much tougher time.

And the save points are clever.


Lollipops

Enjoyable, I guess.  I'm afraid I don't have a whole lot to say about it, but it seems to be going in the right direction.

What exactly do the Christmas lights do?

They're like the windows and clock and so on: they let you see ghouls that walk in front of them. Standing in the middle of a long string of christmas lights can be an effective tactic, though it's not as safe as hiding in a closet.

Heh, spot-on.  But if you keep hiding in closets, I'm gonna come up with enemies that will find you in there.

It's Illuminator time again!

http://www.l-ames.com/logan/illum-3.zip

Same as last time:  C is flashlight (leave it off to overcharge it to kill ghouls), X is action (to pick up/use items, and open/close doors).

Most of the game is there.  Sounds, enemies, levels, tiles, and all that rot.  It still needs some polish, and things like a menu and a story and a boss to frame it all.  But essentially you're this kid who's chasing after these ghouls to rescue his kidnapped sister.  The ghouls travel from house to house by tearing through the fabric of space, but they stitch it up afterward.  So you have to find the hole in space in each level, and kill enough of the ghouls that the stitches come undone.

There's eight levels here.  I'm not sure if I want to force the players to take 'em all at once, or what, but if you want to skip through levels, you can use the numbers 1-8 in-game to skip levels if you're into that sort of thing.  For now.

If anybody has any good ideas for more ghouls, or extra things that can be plugged into the wall, I'm open to ideas.

I guess I'm due for an update on Illuminator.

Progress has been steady, though a little slower than I'd like.  I implemented something that makes the lighting and shadows run a LOT faster, so I'm pretty pleased with how the game speed has improved on my own pitiful computer.  The main character is now animated, and a number of different enemy types have been implemented.  I could probably call it enough at this point.  We'll see.  I got a sweet remix of the game's theme courtesy of TEM, and have been implementing sound effects.  I've also been working on levels, but still need some means to tie them together.

I don't really want to post a new build right now, 'cause the sounds and the levels are in sort of a messy "in-progress" state, partway between existing and all working together.  So I hope this simple update will suffice.

Maybe if the difference between a normal-flicked object and a charge-flicked object were more drastic?  Like, normal would bounce off of any enemy/wall it hits, going off at angles as it does, and charged would plow through enemies in a glowy, fiery ball, exploding on contact with the first wall it touches.

And then you could have situations were you need to ricochet an enemy around, where the charged flick won't cut it.

And I also vote for the flick reach to be extended (like, the finger going to a near-90-degree angle), at least for the charged flick.

Anyway, cool stuff.