That's amazing. If I don't see it in some kind of game I might cry.

Also, this:

...is pretty sweet too. Finish it.

Egoboo needs coverage on TIGsource. It's kind of a shame that there's so little overlap between the "open source scene" and the "indie scene".
I really want to write something up, but I'm going to wait until the next version is released, because it's going to be a huge improvement. It should be out very soon.
However: Would it be awkward for me to write something about it, considering I'm on the devteam?
I just love the game to death (helping contribute was a natural progression of that) and am saddened by how generally neglected it is.
Not that I can't be objective or anything, of course.

On a similar note, I find it somewhat odd that Wesnoth has not been mentioned in ages, despite being on the site's list of the best independent games...
It's updated constantly and the updates often contain fairly newsworthy additions.

[Not]

I don't exactly have trouble organizing the time I devote to working on my games.

I have more trouble:


1. Not working on games.
Even though it's usually less work, life is not nearly as cool as game development.

2. Not neglecting specific projects.
A lot of the time I'll work on one thing way too much and something else won't get done. One would think that means I need to just work on one project at a time, but when that happens I lose interest. And then nothing gets done.

Right, sorry. I guess I just assumed people would look at the screenshots on the pages I linked to...
There are some in the first post now. The quality is kind of bad because the host converted them to jpegs (I normally use imageshack but I can't access it right now; it's complicated)... Oh well.

I think I'm at work

I'm a bit concerned that you are uncertain about this.

This is crazy... I haven't gotten that far yet (died on the way back from the first boss), but I'm afraid to keep playing because I don't want it to end.
It's such a shame this wasn't finished; it has so much charm to it...
Also, I can see its resemblance to Cave Story but it has enough of its own personality that that's not at all a big deal (I think someone already said something like that here, but whatever).

I was looking at this a while ago and was worried it died or something. Glad to see you're still working on it; it looks fantastic!
It looks very pretty but sounds like it should actually be fun to play, too (as opposed to just looking good and getting nothing else right).

So I recently finished two games, and I was hoping I could get some feedback.
I don't plan on really working on them again, and I realize that they're not that impressive. But I want to know what people think about them anyway. They've hardly been played at all; it's been a little disappointing.

The first game is called Deranged Tire Print Zombie Cookie Cutter. It's a mouse-controlled game where you run over zombies with a car. There are a few things to unlock (such as more car colors) and it has some statistic tracking features that are kind of neat.


The second one is called Protestant Wind. In this one you crash a ship into walls. It's very simple but I think it's pretty fun. It's also fairly stylish and is sort of a metaphor, so it kind of has more merits to it than the first game, even though not as much work went into it.


(I also have a page on YoYo Games, but it's taking ages for it to do the virus scan on Protestant Wind, so that one's not there yet. There are also some very old games there are pretty sad.)

Please let me know what you think!

[one]

Hi.
I'm new.



I've been making games ever since I was a very small child. But back then making computer games seemed like an unrealistic goal. I thought it surely required learning complicated low-level programming languages I had no hope of ever figuring out. So most of what I did came in the form of board or card games.
I couldn't help but be fascinated by computer and video games, though. So I did sketch out ideas on paper every now and then, but it seemed utterly pointless, because I figured I'd never actually be making anything "for real".
Soon I discovered the OHRRPGCE, though. (If you're not familiar with that, it's a clever little tool that lets you create classic FFesque RPGs with little programming effort.) I played around with that for quite a while, but eventually I got bored of it. That was probably due to a decline in my interest with RPGs. I used to love the genre way more than anything else (which was pretty ridiculous, really), now I just "love great games", RPG or not.
At any rate, not a terribly long time after that, I found Game Maker. It took me a long while to get the hang of it, but I loved it (and still do).
Despite my long history with games, however, I didn't get serious about them until... Oh, about a year ago, I guess. Before that it was just a hobby. I did it a lot, to be sure, but I wasn't even aware of how much time I was spending working on games, and I didn't really have the strong passion for it that I do now. (Plus, up until recently, I was an unbelievably pathetic person in general.)
So then, I suppose what I'm saying is that half the time I feel like a veteran and the other half I feel like a n00b. I haven't been able to put out very much, because I have trouble sticking to projects (though most people have trouble with that, I would assume ), but game design is something to which I have given a great deal of thought. People often point out that I "overanalyze things", but I figure there's no real harm in giving a lot of consideration to something you care about.
Anyhow, enough about the past. What am I doing now?
I work on a lot of stuff. I get way too many ideas, and a lot of them are great. But I just can't work on all of them. It's hard for me to do all of the work; I get particularly frustrated with coding stuff, despite being moderately proficient in GML (Game Maker's scripting language) now. Anyway, lately I've tried to just get some stuff finished. I figured that if I got some interesting games out on a smaller scale, it might generate enough interest in my bigger projects that I would be better motivated to continue working on them.
Very recently, then, I released a game. And then I decided I was going to throw together another one in a much shorter space of time, so I did! It took only a few days, with little work being done on each of those days (I probably could have finished it in only one day if I hadn't been doing other stuff). The first game took roughly a month to do, but oddly I think the second one might somehow be better overall... maybe because it has a lot more style (and weirdness). I really want to try harder to make my games have style, charm, character, etc. My brain is pretty bizarre, and I want my games to reflect my own personality. I used to worry about being "among the best", but I realized that's silly, especially since "best" is so hard to determine among such great diversity. All that really matters is standing out!
But yes. My games. Please see this topic.
Back to what I'm working on: Aside from those little projects, I have one big project I've been working on since December. Actually it's one of those things where I've really been working on it all my life and I hardly knew it; I'm bringing back some old concepts I've wanted to use for a long time, and putting a lot of subtle concepts that I noticed have been prominent in my life. For example, I'm using some common elements of weird nightmares I used to have (many of which were very similar and recurred frequently).
I'm hoping this kind of thing will contribute to the game's mood pretty well, but it's hard to know whether other people will react to it the same way I do.
The game is called !°μ1.53, by the way (it's pronounced "pulse"... I like wacky names). It's a platform shooter with roguelike elements. The idea predates my awareness of Spelunky considerably; when I found Spelunky (and sadly found it to be excellent), I was very irritated by the fact that it was using a lot of concepts I was going to use, and as a result I became overwhelmed with an urge to punch Derek that I have only recently gotten over. :D
Actually, at that point it wasn't even a platform shooter (that was my original idea, but for some reason I deviated from it) and it had a somewhat traditional fantasy setting. It's changed radically since then. I've kind of taken a break from working on !°μ1.53, because it got really stressful doing anything. The part I'm at right now is very tedious... I've put way too much work into the game to not finish it, but it might be a long time before you see it.
Another game I work with is Egoboo. I've been an active part of the community since... three years or so ago (about the same time I discovered the OHRRPGCE, I think). More recently I've become a part of the development team, although lately I haven't been doing a whole lot outside of maintaining the website and doing odd things here and there...
I really love Egoboo; I was looking at the topic with interviews and was very happy to see the one with Aaron and Ben Bishop (naturally I've already read it several times). It didn't used to be the greatest game, but it's really a lot better these days. It's still rough around the edges, but it's definitely one of the best free games out there.

At any rate, two more things:
I guess I haven't told you a lot about myself but it's hard to say anything. I'm 18, my name is Ness Io, and I live in the US. I'm crazy and I like games.
The free games I consider to be the best of all time are Nethack, Egoboo (like I've already mentioned), The Battle for Wesnoth, Cave Story (of course!), N, and Iji (I was so happy with that; it's nice to see something so great come about so recently). I also love Dyson and Rescue: The Beagles; they're great, too.
My favorite games that aren't free are harder to pick out... I guess they'd be Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Civilization III, Roller Coaster Tycoon, and The World Ends With You.
Sort of an odd selection there, I guess.
Anyway, I could tell you about my favorite foods or something dumb like that, but I suppose you'll just get to know me over time (though I'm still unsure how often I'll be posting here).
That brings me to my next subject: How did I get here?
I've been hovering for a while, reading the devlogs and such. It seemed like a friendly enough place, and you seem to collectively share my love for monocles, robots, etc. and also, of course, games. The only real thing stopping me from joining was my lack of interesting things to show... I guess I wanted to wait until I had made something interesting; I wanted to come here as a developer, not just a gamer... if that makes any sense. I guess it was kind of a goofy, vaguely pride-related inclination. 
Anyway, I'm hoping people here will be interested in playing my games; they haven't gotten a lot of attention so far. I was also thinking that some day I might find people to collaborate with; some of my ideas for games are big, and it'd take me ages to get them done on my own.

Anyway, I talk too much!
Hello!