Hey there! I'm the creator of this fine title. :-) Thanks for discussing it. I'm not sure if TIGSource lets you spoiler-tag anything, but if so, I'd be curious to know how you ended the game.

Cheers,
B.

The Atari joysticks are wonderful; you quickly remember both how magical yet terrible these things were.

If you get one and give DR a try, let me know what you think.

[Drunken Rampage]

Hello all! If you don't remember me, I'm the fellow who created The Ascent and SNOW, which I posted on TIGsource in 2009 and 2008 respectively.

I've been busy the past few months with all manner of nonsense, but the most delicious nonsense has been the completion of two new indie games.

The first, Drunken Rampage, was unveiled and released at one of this spring's Hand Eye Society socials here in Toronto. This simple party/drinking game is meant to liven up a party and engage both casual onlookers and social gamers. It requires an Atari controller to play properly, and so far has been a big hit amongst beer-wielding crowds. As Dave Chappelle's Sam Adams would say, "It'll get you drunk!"



» View a presentation of the game, and download it here


The second game, Missing, was recently completed for TO JAM #5 (Toronto's annual weekend-long game-making jam-fest). In this small, lovely title, you search for your missing alien mates amongst ruins; find all fifteen before the sun rises to succeed. It's simple, cute, and plays equally well with a keyboard, gamepad or (my personal favourite) an Atari USB controller.



» Download the game here

As always, feedback and comments are appreciated.

Cheers,
B.

Hi everyone:

I've been here for a bit, but I haven't been posting much lately. I figured I should properly introduce myself and be, you know, polite.

I'm Benjamin Rivers, Toronto-based web consultant, teacher, illustrator, etc. I draw comics such as SNOW, and whenever I can do so, I pretend to be a game designer/artist. I'm a member of the Hand Eye Society here in Toronto and I was also Art Director and contributing illustrator at The Gamer's Quarter magazine.

My last game was The Ascent (thread here, website here). I'm working on a new game entitled Drunken Rampage (teaser site here), but I need a programmer for this. (If you're interested, check out my posting about this and give me a shout.)

I'm very much interested in games that push story and context as main elements of their experience (Judith is a good example). I love how fantastically talented the indie scene is (Star Guard, etc.), and I think there's still a lot of room for neat, new ideas. Hopefully I can contribute to this along with all of you.

Thanks, Ixis. I'm working on figuring this out now. My apologies for not being able to run the game.

Aw, come on, that's like dropping a load of big hints and then acting all innocent. The game is practically begging to be interpreted metaphorically. And you did it like that on purpose! Don't be coy...

Nice work for three days, by the way, especially all the art.

Thanks for the kudos.

I can assure you though, the game mechanics themselves aren't really metaphoric, and there is no insincerity implied in my assertion of this fact. What you're reading is your interpretation, and not at all what the game is actually about.

Why are you going up? Because the theme of this year's TO Jam was "scale," and the first concept that stuck in my head was that of climbing a tree. Why are you a little girl? Because this character design just kind of popped onto a piece of paper and I liked it. She had to be small, to represent scale. She had to wear a scarf to demonstrate wind and movement. (There is another, secret version of this game that includes other kids as well.)

The setting? The story? All reverse-engineered from the mechanics (which I should note changed 100% about 36 hours into the Jam weekend) and the character design to give the context I thought the game needed.

Which brings me to the other design goal of the game: to prove a theory of mine, that a simple game, given the right context and personality, can be inherently more interesting and meaningful to a player than its mechanics or genre may suggest. In this case, I wanted to take the most basic of gaming tropes—jumping up—and give you a reason to care about the game (with its personality, visuals, story) so that it becomes more than the sum of its parts.

Originally in the game, you climbed mossy patches and jumped on clouds and whatnot. Programming limitations and an overall design that wasn't satisfying caused me to change this up completely.

I know the game is flawed, and right now the mechanics are being improved, thanks in no small part to generous supporters here at TIGsource. I understand and appreciate the feedback about the story. It's good for me to hear, because believe or not, many people who played this game previously "got it" right away; hearing more comments to the contrary means I probably still have some work to do. I agree with comments that the ending doesn't quite fulfill the "build up," as it were. I'm looking into a solution for v2.5 (or whatever it happens to be).

But I am completely honest when I say that not only do I not wear ironic clothes or drink Pabst Blue Ribbon to be cool, but The Ascent is not an "art game," at least not in the way that the term is being used here. I'm an illustrator and designer; I work by solving problems. The Ascent was a collection of problems that I attempted to solve, as opposed to a mythical opus I needed to express.

I mean, I didn't even use the word "juxtaposition" once in introducing the game. I've got the notebook pages to prove it! :-)

Interesting!

I assure you, though the game is deliberately vague, a lot of that is of necessity. Only having three days to make a game (while sick, I should add) means you have to choose your battles.

I should say, though, that while you may think a lot of the game's elements are decidedly and almost comically "art game" in nature, I have made no statement as to any metaphor or intent. That, so far, has been entirely the construct of the player.

Even if you don't like the game much, I appreciate you sharing your thoughts. This is the rewarding part for me.

Thanks very much for everyone's kind words. I have indeed spoken to ChevyRay about getting some help to improve the game mechanics. Thanks to everyone who struggled through and found the game enjoyable nonetheless.

To those of you asking about story clarification; I don't want to sound like a douchebag, but I'd rather hear what people's interpretations are than say my own outright. I made the game a bit vague on purpose for just this effect; I find it's more satisfying if, as a player, you get to invest a bit of yourself into the narrative.

Finally, with luck I hope to have any errors smoothed out as well. I haven't experienced anything myself, so this is all very useful. Can those of you who got errors briefly let me know (either here or via PM) what kind of system you ran the game on? Might help me notice a pattern or situation that's causing problems.

Thanks everyone! (I hope you dug the voice acting too.)

Hi all:

My previous game posting was the adventure game SNOW (post here). At this year's TO JAM event, I created a new title, The Ascent.



It's a depressing yet cute platforming game — very short, mind you, because it was originally constructed in three days — with a heavy emphasis on illustration and atmosphere.

The 1.0 release of this was on my site a while ago, but I wanted to wait for the 2.0 version before mentioning it here. The original was deemed too hard by a lot of players (which came as a shock to me); this new release features improved mechanics, a full soundtrack, and voice acting! (Oh, and maybe a secret.)

Please keep in mind that I'm no expert with Game Maker; I'm still learning a lot so there are bound to be some areas that need polish. I'd love to hear your feedback, if any of you are more experienced with Game Maker, I'd be grateful to ask some questions.

You can:
» View my games page
» Download the game directly (7.7MB Zip)

The game supports WinXP/Vista, and is, of course, best played with a gamepad.

This is really stellar work, Terry and Stephen. A really great use of narrative-as-gameplay. I was surprised to find myself so emotionally engaged in this. The sound of the prisoner made me tense and genuinely frightened — Silent-Hill-scared, of giant textures! — and when I ran into the husband, I actually let out a little shocked gasp.

I only wish that all of the sequences would have been player-controlled (such as digging the grave and stabbing the prisoner); there were some illusion-of-choice scenarios (as when Judith can only say "Yes" to asking her husband about his final room), and I think this worked well. I know it's linear, but the act of making the choice, even if it is the only option, means something. I wish I could have stabbed the prisoner, because I genuinely would have felt terrible about it.

I'm really impressed with this. Toronto's Hand Eye Society is meeting tomorrow, and I definitely want to see who else has played this.

For the record, I played this with Xpadder and a wireless controller, which I think really added to the experience.

Thanks, Sergio. I'm going to have to check the EXE I uploaded, because some of the bugs that are being described shouldn't be there. I may have replaced the download with an inferior version by accident.

I'll have a look at the file this week and get rid of these mistakes. Thanks for the eagle eyes.

Lynx: thanks for the note about the ESC key. I'll add that to my "to fix" list. Regarding the resolution: it is actually meant to be chunky, though I believe it's running at 640x480 with double-wide pixels on certain things for that hyuuuge effect.

I appreciate the comment about The Beach at the End of Forever, Fuzz. That was one of our first projects at the Artsy Games Incubator. It is a modification of an existing Scratch game (in this case, a version of one-side Pong). As it existed, it was Arkanoid without the bricks; with my mods, I was hoping it would become a very depressing and thoughtful little experience.

Hi all. I'm a new poster here, though I've been trying to keep up with the community for some time. I'm an illustrator and web designer from Toronto, Canada, and have been making independent games for a year or so. I'm a member of the Hand Eye Society here in Toronto, along with some game developers you've actually heard about. I was also the art director for a time over at The Gamer's Quarter.

My first title, such as it is, was The Office Party in 2008's TO Jam here in Toronto. Then, at Jim Munroe's Artsy Game Incubator last fall I created Snow.



Snow is a point-and-click adventure game about a young woman named Dana going to work here on Queen Street West in Toronto. It's based on a graphic novel I began late last summer, but it's not a big, heavy-handed adventure game or anything like that. Rather, it's a sort of time capsule of this particular area of Toronto in a particular time; namely, winter 2008. Destructoid just ran an article on the game today, and I really think they captured what it's all about.

The game is technically a beta (there are still a few bugs) but it's a complete experience as-is. The game can be downloaded from my website and run on any Windows XP or Vista machine.

I'd love to hear people's opinions on the game, so if you have the 15 minutes you'll need to complete it once (there are different ways to play the game), post away and let me know what you think.