Hey, my game had an optional single-player mode. It would have been easy to test. Admittedly, chances are nobody noticed that given it immediately got buried by other threads and only got a reply right around when voting ended.

It was pretty fun.
However, I think the powerups were way too good. The bird especially... or whatever the hell that thing was that ran around the other player's screen stealing money. If you got a couple of those off at the right time it really screwed the other player over and there was nothing we could figure out to do about it.

Finally I got a reply!

Yeah, I probably should have made a tutorial mode or something, but in all honesty I barely had time to slap some sound effects/music on and stick it online in the end. I agree with you, though, in that I'm kind of worried that the Wizard doesn't have enough "control" over the experience, so to speak. No real strategic decisions to make, just pure type-as-fast-as-you-can action, which I'm worried might be too boring.

One of the pickups (the atom-looking one) gives the Wizard a nonsense word, the other one automatically ejects the girl's letters (for if you have an unfortunate combination of letters).

Thanks for the feedback though!

That was an amusing bug. The ball kept re-appearing at the very top of the screen, where the banking paddle couldn't reach it.

That was... interesting. It seemed to devolve into bumrushing the enemy lines with a pawn and turning it into a queen and then eating their side from the inside, though.

<div style="padding: 5px; padding-bottom: 0; float: left"><img src="http://www.foxmage.com/swizardshot.png" width="300" height="200" /><p style="margin-top: 0"><a href="http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=18146.0">Spelling Wizard in Spelling Wizard Teaches How to Spell</a>, by Ryavis and Kazerad</p>
</div>



Spelling Wizard in Spelling Wizard Teaches How To Spell, by Ryavis and Kazerad

Spelling Wizard in
SPELLING WIZARD TEACHES HOW TO SPELL

chaos.foxmage.com/SpellingWizard/

Are you ready for the magical learning funsperience of your lifetime? Then it's time for you to challenge SPELLING WIZARD to a spell duel! The Spelling Wizard is here to show you the Magic of Spelling in this eduventure for 1 to 2 children ages 9 to 99! Children will take one of two exciting roles (both with their own unique playing experience) and learn exciting new vocabulary words that will guarantee a lifetime of being single.


Each player controls their character differently!

THE SPELLING WIZARD:


One player plays as the Spelling Wizard, and must type the word at the bottom of the list as fast as he or she can!
But watch out! If the other player can spell words from your words, it will hurt you!

THE GIRL:


The other player must move with the mouse and pick up letters to spell words four letters or longer! Only the Girl's shadow collects letters on touching them. If the word starts sparkling, left click with the mouse to fire it! The game will even provide a hint, showing a single letter that is guaranteed to lead to a real word. But watch out, if the word isn't a real word, you lose a life!
This player can pick up pickups, to give the Spelling Wizard a hard-to-type bullshit word or to flush his or her current word!






So yeah. This compo came at a bad time for me, so I made something simple.
It's an asymmetrical 1/2 player game, and I didn't have enough time to test it to see if it's actually balanced. So I gave some handicapping options in case one side is better than the other.
If this doesn't work it's because I have very little experience with applets, or I screwed something up due to it being freaking late. Hopefully it does work!

CREDITS:
   Michael W. Thelen, for my dictionary.
   kfh, for the in-game music.
   J. R. Hill, for the menu music.
   John Nesky, for the sound effects.
   Kazerad, for the sprites.

This game is kind of amazing. I like the whole feel of the thing.

There was one odd thing, though. I was walking around outside, and when changing maps the screen went dark for an unusual period of time. When it came back up I was back in my hut, and I had a new injury. I assume that was a bug.



By the way, is it okay with you if I make something inspired by this? I feel that I will need much more practice if I am to improve as a programmer, and I might as well get some of it by making something I am interested in.

I knew of Sexy Hiking before coming to tigsource. Admittedly, it was from all of the times me and Kazerad had searched yoyogames.com for the shittiest-sounding GM games possible.
jazzuo is kind of a maestro of tacky, low-quality GM games.

No wonder I was only able to do attacks by randomly mashing z and x!

I don't know anything about Touhou, but couldn't the insignia on the chest be important to the character?

If it isn't my bad. Just wondering.

Actually, it's supposed to be a neckerchief or something. It's not of great importance to my knowledge, though she does look a bit odd without it.

And yes, the most current version looks quite nice.

I think this game has a feel that is utterly charming.

The most memorable thing about Touhou locations are the bullet patterns used by the fairies and such. The actual locations themselves are just something going on in the background that has no direct effect on the game. And most of the locations in Touhou aren't hugely visually distinct anyway. The most unusual-looking stages I can think of offhand are also not very iconic to the series (Hokkai, for instance). I mean, think of the fighting games. If you stuck Street Fighter characters into the stages, I doubt many people would even realize the backdrops were from Touhou.
Any idea that involves characters popping up and attacking the players would be wholly inappropriate for a fighting game like Indie Brawl. It would take too much attention away from the actual fighting to be fun, and would generally be a pain to make for such a meh idea.

EDIT: And one support character is enough. Reimu hasn't even been started on yet, adding more work seems like a bad idea. =/

Just tell Derek Yu to make a wildly popular indie game starring himself.
I see no flaws with this plan.

A Liero stage would only be cool if you could dig through the dirt like in the actual Liero. And for that to not look weird you would have to add all kinds of new anims, and it would create uneven battlefields that aren't very appropriate for a game like this, and so on.

That sounds like such an incredibly bad idea that there is no way it could possibly not work.

Plus, the look of spelunky levels aren't too unique. The interesting thing about them is the design. And what makes a spelunky level fun would be very frustrating in Indie Brawl. If you took away the random enemies popping up in unexpected places, the annoying spike totems getting in your way, the tiny little slippery ice platforms over inexplicable bottomless pits... it just wouldn't be spelunky anymore!

Why does there need to be a Touhou stage? The series is known for its gameplay and its characters, not its locations.

Actually I would say that the #1 most well-known thing is the music.

But yes, it's not really that much of an appropriate use of time.

If we have to have a Touhou stage, I would say that some location in the Scarlet Devil Manor would be the best. Hakurei Shrine is iconic, but wouldn't make a particularly interesting stage. The earthquakes were part of a game's storyline, not so much the location.
Perhaps the Voile library, and have books occasionally attack? They could pop out periodically and shoot projectiles in a predictable way. It would require a lot less spritework then having a character run by, and would be more true to the stage anyway... that "Meiling always sleeps on the job and Sakuya punishes her" thing is entirely fanon, and it's not particularly tied to the library itself.

A lever that, when pulled, floods the siege workshop with magma.