Wildcard is a pretty fun game that I first learned about by reading this review. I checked it out and had a lot of fun with it, although I found a fatal error near the end of the game (I think it had something to do with the ultimate sword? I'm not sure) and never picked it back up, because I'm a huge wuss. ANYWAY errors aside it's a pretty fun game, if a little generic. It's an RPGMaker game, but I'm pretty sure you don't need an RTP file to play it (at least, I didn't have one when I played it) but you might need to install a font patch, else all the text looks wonky. It's not really very trainwreck-y at all, but given that it used to be hosted on Geocities I think it could fall under GT's game preservation philosophy.

OH HELL YES

Lots of good stuff in this latest update! Try it out!

1. Project support! This is an important step to keeping all of the drawings for a particular game together.
2. ANSI animation editing! You can now create a second type of drawing, called a "sprite", which is a small animation. It's still a bit rough, but it's already buckets of fun.
3. Smiley faces! Because they work with SyncTERM, and I'm long past caring whether this stuff works with clients that aren't SyncTERM.
4. Some small usability improvements in the drawing selection lobby.

Work continues!

When I last made a MarMOTS post, I was working on starting to make my scripting language do useful stuff. Well, it quickly became apparent that in order to make my scripting language do anything interesting, I had to have entities on the screen to refer to. So I've got project support working now, and am currently building an ANSI sprite animation editor! This is going to be the biggest and coolest addition to MarMOTS in almost two years. I'm hoping to get something out next week, but we'll see.

On the scripting front, I have written a simple VM for the scripts to run on, and verified that, yes, my scripts actually run and do what they're supposed to. One of the interesting features of my scripting language is that it is intended to be LIVE, all of the time. The idea is that you can edit a script that is in the middle of running and the program will actually continue to function correctly, incorporating your changes immediately. One way that I'm able to do this is by stealing the notion of failed calculations from an obscure language called Icon. (Actually, reading that now, I may want to steal more ideas from it :) Basically, if you're editing a script and have a logic bug or even a syntax error, no big deal -- it's just a failed calculation, it gets logged, and your program continues to run. No game-killing exceptions, ever. I believe that it's much better for a designer to be able to see a failure happen, and have as much information as possible about the actual problem as it occurs during play, than to be told "the computer can see this will never work! You aren't allowed to run this program."

I have ambitions.

So now that Game Maker is $40 and Construct 2 will eventually be $65, I've found myself turning back to MarMOTS and wondering what it would take to get it into shape as a game-making tool.

My first focus has been getting my scripting language / editor into shape. I lump the two together because the scripting language, while textual, is never parsed from free text; instead, the user is edits the source tree directly using a friendly structured editor, with lots of autocomplete help, and in which it is literally impossible to forget a semicolon or a closing parenthesis. For power users, it should be as fast or faster to type in programs with this editor than with a text editor, and yet newbies will still be able to discover all of their options in a nicely readable self-describing English syntax.

So over the past couple of weeks I have torn apart my previous attempt at this language and rebuilt it. I've arrived at the point where I can type in any programs I like, and add features to the language without much effort. The UI is still pretty painful to use at this point, but that's mostly because I haven't focussed on improving the interaction at all besides making sure auto-complete is usable.

I was thinking I should maybe do like a screencast or something, but the scripts don't DO anything yet. I'm thinking that the next step will be to start integrating the scripting language with ANSI layouts that I draw in MarMOTS. I'm pretty excited to start hacking on that stuff! You should be too.

Here's a game based on a concept I made for Klick of the Month #20-something, but abandoned because it took longer than 2 hours to make and I thought the time limit was more serious than it actually is. Better late than never! It's v0.9 because I am going to add some minor gameplay and graphical upgrades later.

Instructions: It's the future, and music is illegal! Use the mouse button to protect these noble artists from the law! Go for a high score!

I guess I should write something here. My name is Brad. I live in Sacramento. I have been lightly involved in game design (MUDs, specifically) for years, and now that it's relatively easy to make casual games, I will finally try. This contest seems like a great sounding board.

Games I like: Myst + Riven, Mario 3 + 64 + World, VVVVVV, Minecraft, Charles Barkley, Shut Up And Jam: Gaiden, Gameboy Tetris, Eversion, Megaman 2, NES Ninja Gaiden 1, Katamari Damacy, Daphaknee Needs To Poop, and Troubled Souls for the Mac.

I've started a tumblr devoted to posting all my released games, in as close to chronological order as I can manage. They've never all been in one place at once, and a large number of them currently can't be downloaded anywhere so this is probably long overdue. I will be posting all the games I locate regardless of how terrible/embarrassing/shameful I find them.

Since my only alternative at the moment is MediaFire, I was planning on uploading them here. The total size of all my old games is about 50 MB. Given SpindleyQ's policies on linkrot and preserving terrible games, I'm pretty sure there won't be any problem with this but I figure I might as well wait for an OK before proceeding. I wonder if there's a limit on the amount of files that can be attached to a blog post?

Thought some of the folks who visit here might be interested in a Knytt Stories level I made over the last 6 days. Download link and further information can be found at the thread on Nifflas' Support Forum.

Looks like emma entropy is up to something again.

Three things:

1: Nobody would go to this kind of effort if they didn't like what they were riffing off.

2: If you're not sure if something is offending your sensibilities or ridiculing your opposition, it's probably the one that doesn't make you angry.

3: Remember to install the fonts folder font first!

TRAGIC OFT-PROVEN APHORISM: the longer you have to wait for something, the more likely you'll be disappointed. which is why i really need to hurry this thing up.