This looks really beautiful, I love minimalistic games...

- A turn based strategy game where all players set up your turns by giving orders, and then they play out for maybe thirty seconds in real-time with no input as you watch (and scream as your carefully laid plans turn to custard).

RoboStrike beat you to that...

An RTS where the only resources are Ideas and Motivation. Motivation would be scarce and Ideas would be everywhere, but ironically, people would only fight over the ideas.

I'd love to see more games where abstract concepts become concrete objects!

A game set on a chaotic battlefield... and the player doesn't have a weapon. A new breed of survival horror, possibly?

A FPS game where you have to rob a bank.  Only you don't have a gun.  All you have is a fork hidden under your jacket.

Ah, that actually gives me an idea for a game that's sort of skit-based rather than mission- or whatever based, where you are thrown into typical game scenarios but lacking a key component usually necessary to complete the task at hand. A space shmup where you have no ship and must jump from ship to ship trying to get them to destroy each other (and then climb around on the boss ship SOTC style). A stealth game where you're just a normal guy in broad daylight in a crowded street, trying to hide from everyone. A wild west game where you have no gun, just a single rubber band.

A combat flight sim where you have to make the bogeys crash into eachother, ala TaleSpin... If only I did 3D games...

A game set on a chaotic battlefield... and the player doesn't have a weapon. A new breed of survival horror, possibly?

I actually have a horrizontal space shooter like that...

A game where you play as one person's organ/limb, doing its job.

Oooh! could work with minigames like puzzle pirates!

Go straight from starting the game to playing, without a title screen/menu/etc in between. Sirlin said someone should do this but to my knowledge nobody ever has.

Whatabout Flow? Flow did that...

I was reading a book about game design (Called Inside Game Design ftw) and one guy, (the creator of Small Arms ftw) was talking about a talk annother guy was giving at a design conference about things nobody's ever done in a videogame. He didn't mention any except the one HE used (viral upgrades, the blighter) but does anyone have any ideas?

So, here's my idea:

Rather than simply knocking the Chromes around until they stop, mebbe you need to bounce them into eachother. (When a Chrome collides with your tail, it becomes energized; when an energized Chrome collides with an unenergized Chrome, the energized Chrome explodes and the unenergized Chrome becomes energized. If an energized Chrome hits the wall, it becomes unenergized.)

I don't think the simplicity is hurting you at all. I think it's more a question of the basic gameplay. If just moving around felt more fun, or if combat were a little more nuanced (not complex), it might help keep people's interest.

By the way, how exactly do the smallest dots work? I've been able to get them pretty slow, but I don't recall ever killing one. Can they be destroyed?

I'd love to see later versions of this game, your ideas are interesting.

The smallest dots are destroyable, it just takes some doing...

Nuanced eh? Nuanced...

It seems like a neat idea but I got bored pretty fast It was kind of awkward getting it to hit the trail without it touching the larger dot or the controlling dot or whatever.

Any ideas? In the first rendition I had powerups and such, but I wanted to try a minimalism like in Tetris or Invaders. (Not claiming equality at all) What could make the game more enjoyable for you?

Oh, 'The Owl and the Pussycat'. I was wondering where I'd encountered that phrase. Welcome to the forums, by the way!

Thanks! Runcible was actually one of Lear's favorite adjectives that he invented, it's used throughout his poetry...

A

A what? A dog? A cat? A spork?

Yay! Thanks!

Really nice game; It looks great, plays easy, and creatively gets around server lags and such. This just joined Skyrates and Robostrike in my list of favorite OMGs...

Sporks? He must have an incredibly tolerant digestive system.

I bet this would be fun to play with an oversized, heavy trackball (like Centipede).

He's a giant steam-powered metal snail; sporks make up the majority of his diet. (Though he prefers to call them runcible spoons)

I think that life in general would be fun to play with a giant trackball... I'll bear that in mind if I ever release it for arcades...

[Chromes.]

Chromes.

Now, a criticism: The help text? I'd rather it didn't scroll up, but appeared all at once. I, for one, read faster than it scrolls. I. Keep. Having. To. Stop.

Yeah... my origional intent was to have no instructions, just the play and quit buttons, leave the player to sink or swim... so the instructions were a bit of an afterthought.

ALSO: Not to be a pedant, but I believe it's Kraken.

ALSO ALSO: Kindly Introduce yourself. http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=45.1530

Hugs will likely be given. And please, do stick around.

ALSO ALSO ALSO: Metal Snail Workshop's Logo/Mascot is nifty.

Chromes.

A1: My spelling is not so good on made-up words...

A2: I GOT NO HUGS!!!!

A3: He says: "Sullivan Snail, Mechanized Masterpiece, at your service" Do you (F)ight (C)ast or (A)ttempt to feed sporks?

...I'm feeling obligated...
Hi I'm Robin Gibson, aka Starflier, aka the tall one with a beard. As far as game design goes, I'm a mmf user primarily, but I play around with other software; If it's on this list and it's free I've probably used it. I'd like to learn Python, someday.
I do other things too. I won't go into detail, but you can see them at my cool, cool website, available in my sig line

Chromes is all about minimalism.
It is an attempt to return to the heart of arcade gaming, then screw with some fundamentals and see what happens.
It is an interactive modern art painting with a semi-random soundtrack that you influence.
It is free of any visible score, any tangible story, anything that distracts from simply playing the game.
You can read as much or as little into the game as you wish. As far as I know, there is nothing really there…

….Just dots.

I'm looking for some feedback on this one; I like it, but I'd like to hear what other people think...
Chromes is here...