End of another year

Well it's the last few hours of 2009 and seeing as I'm a sad Indie developer I'm sat at my PC writing this blog post.

Long gone are the days of me going out on New Years Eve for a good drink or 10, starting early in the morning and finishing early the next morning. Instead I'm sat here with a nice cup of tea, the kids are in bed fast asleep and my wife's sat in bed reading a book. Talk about living it up!!

Anyway, I've been thinking about the last year in terms of game development. To be honest it's been a pretty slow and un-productive year.

It is in fact the only year in the history of Addictive 247 that I've started a number of games and haven't completed them. Super Ten Ton Ninja and Colmar (wizard game) were both scrapped.

Two positive things that I've done in 2009 - 1). Started this blog and post at regular intervals and 2). Re-designed the Addictive 247 logo and website.

I suppose the other positive thing is that I've decided to only work on games that get me excited and keep me excited. Anything else can be dropped. Harsh, yes; but it seems to be working out ok, especially with the "Penguin Game".

As for 2010 - I'm not really one for making predictions or resolutions. The main idea is obviously to release a new game. So I'll stick with that as my main "resolution", although you can't hold me to it!

Anyway, I've been sat here too long thinking and writing this post. All that's left is to say Happy New Year and see you in 2010 - have fun!!

Video at last!

Well I managed to find a decent piece of software to record some game footage. In the end I used BB Flashback Express. It's easy to use and free - just Google for it.

Anyway here's a bit of game footage. Quality is crap!



The video basically shows deploying a Gunner, Suicide and Diver penguin. It's not a real level from the game but a test area where I get to throw penguins about!

Seasons Greeting!

Well I've just put out a plate with a mince pie and a carrot on and it's nearly time for the big guy to make an appearence.

So, if you celebrate at this time of year then I wish you a Merry Christmas and a peaceful New Year.

No Video!

Well I wanted to put up a video of the game in action but I'm having a bit of trouble recording it.

I use CamStudio which has always worked really well for me in the past but as soon as I start it recording, the game runs at a snails pace. Now I know there's always going to be a bit of lag but this is really bad. Even when I play it back it's like it's playing in slow-motion.

I've played around with a lot of the settings but can't get it to speed up. Seems kind of strange since it's always worked when taking videos of my other games.

Oh well, I'll try again and if it doesn't start behaving I'll have to use another package to record video :(

Penguin Types

So far I have 6 penguin types in the game. They are: Parachutist, Suicide, Diver, Gunner, Girly Penguin (needs another name) and Cyborg!

Now this is probably enough for the game but it's great fun coming up with silly penguins, so I might extend the amount of characters you have at your disposal. Maybe have one or two unlockable penguins which get unlocked after achieving certain things.

Still haven't come up with a name for the game yet !!!!

Making Progress

Steady progress is being made on the "Penguin Game" (hate that name, hate it!, hate it!, hate it!!)

The screenie shows what the whole game area looks like, although this is just a test level for me to play about with, so it's quite empty at the moment.

You can see the "Penguin Deployment Zone" at the top of the screen. This appears once you select the penguin you want to use. You then just click in the zone where you want the penguin to appear and they fall/parachute/dive into the play area.

To the left of the screen you can see some water with fish in. However, it's covered with ice so the first thing you'd need to do is to destroy the ice. That's where the Suicide Penguin comes into play. He can blow the ice up, making way for your Diver Penguin to collect the fish.

A video would show the gameplay much, much better but I haven't got the time at the moment. Will do a short vid over the next day or so.

Hello Kitty meets Pingu !?

Had a great idea today for a girl penguin to appear in the game.

Think of Hello Kitty meets Pingu complete with hair bow and an explosive set of flowers - cool!?

Turn Based Penguins!

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is that the "Penguin Game" is kind of turn-based. In each level you have a limited amount of turns that you can use and the different penguin types use a different amount of turns.

For example, in the screenie there is a number in brackets next to each penguin type. That isn't the amount of penguins you have but the amount of turns needed to "play" that penguin.

So for example the Parachutist uses only 1 turn and the Suicide and Diver penguins both take up 2 turns each.

This means that the player has to sometimes use a bit of strategy to get the most out of their turns. Run out of turns and the level is over :(

Penguin Screenie

Well here's a screenshot to show you the progress so far on "The Penguin Game" (hate that name!!). Click to enlarge it.

You can see the Suicide Penguin stood at the bottom of the screen near some crates. He's only got 1 second left before he goes pop - awww!

I've been playing around with the display for quite a few days now. I hate doing interface stuff for the score etc. Anyway, you can see that everything sits on the right of the screen. This is where you can select which penguin you want to use etc, etc.

Still not 100% happy with it, but for now it's staying as it is so I can get on with other useful stuff. A lot of the graphics are still programmer art or just temporary so I expect the game to look a lot different eventually :)

Dive, dive, dive!

Adam just sent me through the latest penguin graphics - "Diver Penguin" . . . and they look great.

He wears a diving mask and snorkel and shakes his head at you if you fail to get him in water. If he does land in water then he flips upside down and dives down to the bottom, collecting fish as he goes - lovely!

What's in a name?

I've never had a problem with naming any of my games. The name is usually the easiest part (or one of them anyway).

Skin & Bones, Ten Ton Ninja and Addictive Football all came to me pretty much straight away and I think really fit the games that they became.

However, I'm having problems coming up with a suitable name for my Penguin game. At the moment it sits on my hard drive as "penguin". The obvious choice would maybe be "Penguins"; but that's rubbish!

I've looked all over the net for info on penguins hoping something would jump out at me; but it hasn't. How hard can it be to name a game with penguins in?

All ideas welcome! Please feel free to post them in the comments section of this post or email me at mail[AT]addictive247.co.uk

Best idea wins a penguin (no it doesn't!)

Penguin Fun!

The small screenie shows two of the penguins in the game.
One is the parachutist. He floats down gently to the ground collecting fish on the way. He's probably the least exciting of all the penguins but he does have his uses.

The other one is the Suicide Penguin!
With rockets and dynamites attached, when he lands he does a 3-2-1 countdown (like in Lemmings) before blowing to pieces. Now that might not sound very useful, but he is.

The explosions he creates can break up ice blocks and destroy other objects that are in the way. If the other objects also blow up then you get a nice chain reaction effect.

The Suicide Penguin is my favourite so far. He has some nice little touches like closing his eyes just before detonation. How sweet!

Enjoying Penguins!

No, not the chocolate biscuit kind, although I do love em!

I'm still having great fun playing around with my game engine which involves penguins. I've just added a Diver Penguin who dives down through water collecting fish and a Gunner Penguin who er . . . likes shooting stuff!

The graphics are so far all "programmer art" (or shit as I like to call them) but Adam is now on the case designing the first Parachutist Penguin. I'll post pics soon-ish.

Back!

Although I never really went away!

OK, so the Wizard game (Colmar) has been put on hold for now. This just seems to keep happening to me lately. Up until recently every project that I started was always completed no matter what. Now I've got more projects on-hold than I know what to do with.

I also think it's down to an "enjoyment" factor too. Colmar got me excited to start with but then it tailed off rather dramatically. That makes the coding side of things really difficult for me. I have to enjoy every game that I work on right through to the end, which I have done on all my completed games so far.

So I've put things that don't excite me on hold and have been playing around with a little engine which may become a game. It involves suicide penguins, parachuting penguins, sky-diving penguins, diving penguins etc etc.
So far it's going well and I'm having a lot of fun playing with the different penguin types.

Is this the next game?? . . . "I don't know", would be the honest answer. Only time will tell.

One things for sure though. If it doesn't excite me still, then it's getting binned :)

Still Alive!!

Haven't been posting lately, so for that I apologize.

Had a bit of a break from the computer for the last week or so. Motivation seems to be my biggest problem. I'm sure I'll "get over it" but for now not much work is being done on anything. The most I do is check my emails and trawl the web.

I hate not being productive but my heart just isn't in it at the moment :(

Screen Res . .

. . will be 1024x768 - that is all :)

First Level Graphics

Above is a screenshot of the graphic tiles so far for what will be the first area of the game. It isn't the actual level design but is just how my graphics artist Adam put together the tiles to show how they could be used.

I'm really pleased with how they turned out. The next thing to ponder over is the screen res though. The graphics look great at 1024x768 but they look even better at 640x480 - proper old school! I need to look into the best way to do it though.

Size is everything!

Work is continuing on the first area graphics and they're looking really nice so far.

However, our main character may be a bit big for the environment! Now that might sound silly but the tiles look so good at their current size it wouldn't work if we increased them. So, do we reduce the size of the main wizard character??

Not sure yet. All the graphics aren't done yet so once they're all in I'll be able to make a decision.

Addictive 247 Summer Sale

It's that time of year again!

We're having a Summer Sale where all our games are now at the extremely low price of only $4.95! This offer is only vaild until 30th August 2009.

Be quick and get yourself a bargain :)

Super Laser Racer

Found this over at New Star Games and have to admit that I love it! It's fast, fun and frantic!

A nice touch is that it's really easy to get into.
By that I mean no stupidly long menus that take ages to get you to the game and no bloody ship configuration allowing me to change the paint job on my ship or any of that bollocks! Click, Click and you're in.

Go Play

Bugger!

Adam's on holiday at the moment and I'm really struggling with the style I want for the first area of the game.

Just when I decide on one thing, I change my mind and go in a completely different direction. The funny thing is that I know (in my head) what the other areas will look like.

Bugger!!

Wizard Video

This is a short video showing off the main Wizard player character. Ignore the brick tiles and background, it's just a test area.

You can see him firing the 3 different types of magic as well as jumping and double-jumping.

His other special move is "stealth", which is when he pulls his hat down, over himself. When he's in this mode enemies ignore him and walk past. This means you can let enemies walk past you before unleashing your magic on them.

In the top left of the screen you can also see the simple HUD which shows the Wizards energy and the power of your magic. As you fire your wand the magic power-bar decreases.

The Work Continues

It's been slow and steady on the game-front but I am getting somewhere. The final animations for the Wizard should (fingers crossed!) be finished this Wednesday.

All the code for how he animates is done already so it's just a case of dropping the graphics in place. I'll then upload a little video to show how he moves :)

I've done a bit of work on the HUD which is quite simple but shows the Wizards health bar and Magic Power bar. As mentioned in a previous post, when the Wizard fires his wand the Magic Power bar will decrease. This seems to work well but will need some tweaking when the "real" enemies are in place.

After that we need to move onto the first set of tiles for the "Edge of the Forest" scene/level. This will be at the very start of the game and will be where our Wizard hero first sees the Castle.
This will be a very short (scrolling) level but will include a rather large monster - friend or foe?? You'll just have to wait and see !

It's a Kind of Magic

This is a little screenie showing our wizard firing his wand. I need to record a bit of video footage to really show off the animation but you can see that when he fires his wand he jumps up in the air slightly as though he's struggling to control the power that he's unleashing.

I've also been thinking about how the firing of the wand will work. For now you can just keep your finger down on fire and have a massive blast of magic (like above). This looks great but I thnk it will make the game very easy as even from the start you'll have quite a powerful weapon.

One idea is to have an energy bar that depletes when you fire. If you keep your finger on fire it may last 10 seconds before you have to let go and let it charge up again. Short bursts of magic won't affect the energy bar.

It's probably far too early to decide and I'm sure the design of the game will go through many changes, but it's good to try a few things out to see which one fits.

Animated Wizard

Above is a few animation frames from the main player wizard character. Obviously he looks wonderful when in action but you'll have to make do with this screenie for now.
Still loads of work to be done on him including his special stealth animation which I think is going to be really fun and look fantastic.

For now the working title of the game is "Colmar".
There's a good reason why it's called this but I won't go into the details for now.

Nothing too exciting!

Made some more changes to the site and are now using much better payment forms with the help of BMT Micro.

Basically everything is on the one page and if you select to pay by PayPal you only need to enter your name and email address - nice and simple!

You can also download your newly purchased game immediately after you've entered your details. Previously you had to wait for an email, but now the links are available to you on the next page - fantastic stuff!!

New site design

Late last night I uploaded the new Addictive 247 design. Check it out at www.addictive247.co.uk (obviously!)

It's looking a lot better but I still want to change a few things too. It's sort of a work-in-progress for now. If you spot any obvious mistakes or bad links then please do let me know.

Back from Holiday

Well I'm back.
Had a great week, very relaxing and nice to get a break from the computer.

I continued with the website changes last night and hope to get the new design up there this weekend. I think it's going to be a bit of a work-in-progress though as theres a lot that I do want to change which will happen over time.

Summer Holiday!

Yay! It's holiday season and we're all off to Scarborough in the morning. We've never been before but have heard really good things from friends.

For a whole 5 days I'll have no internet connection and won't be spending anytime working on the new game or making changes to the new website. In fact I'll be doing nothing connected to computers at all. Kinda scary!!

Instead I'll be eating ice-cream, swimming and making sand castles on the beach with the kids. The weather is predicted to be nice all week so can't ask for much more than that.

See you soon!

Website Changes

I'm still working on the update to the Addictive 247 website. As well as the main logo being different I'm changing pretty much all of the site to have a new layout.

The main front page is already done (but not published yet) and really makes the games stand out. I've dropped the left side bar which was pretty redundant apart from the newsletter sign up form.

Just need to work on all the other pages now!

New look Addictive 247

It's been 8 years since I setup Addictive 247 and since then our "logo" has stayed the same. I was never really very happy with it as it didn't show what we were about. However, as my graphic skills are non-existent I've never done anything about it . . . until now.

I'm proud to present the new Addictive 247 logo (fanfare!)


I'm sure you'll agree that it's a million times better than the old one. Big thanks goes to Chris (DayDream on the forums) for his excellent work in creating a fantastic logo.

The main website will be going through a bit of a make-over too. It will (of course) include the new logo and a bit of a change in design.

Ten Ton Ninja - More New Levels

I've just uploaded some new levels for Ten Ton Ninja. They can be found on the Extra Levels Page

The extra levels for the game are all free. Just download and save them to the games Custom folder. You can then access them from within the main game.

The level "Boxes" is my favourite. Loads of things going on and little Ten Ton really does take a battering!

Don't forget that if you've designed a level with the Ten Ton Ninja Level Editor (incl with the game) then please submit it to us. More details on how to do this can be found on the Playing Tips page

Bathroom Destroyed!

In completely non-game-related news the bathroom in my house has been destroyed . . . by builders. It was definately time for a change but I didn't think it would upset home-life so much. There's dust everywhere and our landing looks like a kidnappers house!

Stayed away last night as we couldn't face the mess. Back again today and you can now see my dusty fingerprints on my keyboard. Knew I should have shut the office door!

Wizards Head!

This is the face/head of our main wizard character. The one on the left is the real size and the one on the right is zoomed in.

Adam is working really hard at getting the style right. The first design was a bit too cartoony, which was mainly down to me not explaining what was required. I'm really pleased with how he's starting to look now.

Hopefully his full body and some animation will follow this weekend. There's quite a lot of animation for this character so it's going to take some time. He's also got some nifty "special moves" which I can't wait so see when fully animated.

Fun with Magic!

Here's a couple of screenies showing off the different magic designs which the main player character fires. . .


Above is the default magic which the player starts with. Not 100% sure on the particles for this one, compared with the ones below.


This is the next level of magic up from the default one. It's much more powerful and concentrated.


This is the final level of magic. It looks much better in action than this screenie shows. It's very powerful and also looks a bit like a flame-thrower :)

Ghosts N Goblins

I used to love playing this game down in my local snooker hall as a lad. It was a tough game where 10p wouldn't last very long due to the difficulty. However, the graphics and music gave you an amazing experience and you'd keep on feeding your hard earned coins into the machine.

What I'd like to do with our new game is to have a similar style to Ghost N Goblins/Ghouls N Ghosts. The graphics from the original arcade right through to the many versions on different formats were fantastic. Instead of being dark and moody they injected colour which was unusual due to the subject matter.

Our new game won't just be a run and fight style game but will have many exploring/puzzle/adventure elements but I'm hoping it gives a nod in the direction of this great game.

I'm on Fire . . .

. . . said the song.

Currently working on the firing routine for our main character. I want something quite spectacular so have gone with a bit of a particle routine to create a kind of fire effect. It's looking really nice so far but needs tweaking a bit.

It should look really good when it explodes out of the wand. Yes, a wand! The clever one's among you will now have guessed that the main player character is a wizard. More on that soon.

To avoid confusion

Just noticed that my last few posts reference Skin & Bones quite a lot. Now I don't want anyone getting confused and thinking that the new game that's in development is a sequel to Skin & Bones. It's not.

The only thing they have in common is that they're both platform games. Right, glad I got that straight :)

Engine Work Continues

Work on the platform engine is progressing nicely. I've taken the original Skin & Bones engine, stripped it down and started updating it.
The new game will have a mixture of large scrollable areas, flipped screens and static screens.

I've also done some work on the player characters special abilities. Things like double-jump, firing and some other specials that I'll mention in later posts.
Adam is also currently working on the main character graphics, which I can't wait to get into the game. It's always nice having your main character running around, instead of the temporary one that I've got at the moment.

"Game B" Engine

Well I'm currently working on the game engine for "Game B".

All I'll say for now is that it's a platformer. Oh and the graphics will be designed by the very talented Adam Lobacz who worked on Skin & Bones and Ten Ton Ninja.


I know platform games aren't for everyone but I still love 'em! I'm hoping this one will be a bit special :)

Free Game

Addictive 247 are after your help. We want you to help promote our website and if you do you get a Free Game!

It's a really simple idea. Link to the Addictive 247 Games website (www.addictive247.co.uk) in anyway and we'll let you pick any game from our website for free. Here's some ideas to get you started:

* A simple text link from your site to Addictive 247.
* Mention us on your blog.
* If you're a member of a forum, change your signature link to point to Addictive 247 for a day or two.
* Mention us on Twitter.
* Write an article or game review about one of our games.
* Link to us from any social networking site.

That's just a couple of ideas but I'm sure you could come up with something much more spectacular.

To claim your free game just email us at mail@addictive247.co.uk and give us a link to where you've put your link, and also let us know which game you would like for free. It's that simple!

This offer will end on Friday 29th May 2009.

Decision made!

Well I've finally decided to cancel the project that we were currently working on. It was going to be Super Ten Ton Ninja, the sequel to Ten Ton Ninja (obviously!)

It was a tough choice but I feel that the game wouldn't have offered anything new compared to the free version. Ok, it was going to have all new graphics, levels, enemies etc but underneath it would still be a very similar game. Also, it wouldn't have been free so it would have been extremely hard to get people to pay for it.

Anyway, I don't like starting things and then not finishing them, but hey, that's how it goes. I only spent a small amount of money on the new Ten Ton character and the games HUD, so it was the right time to cancel.


Just for fun here's a small piccie of the new Ten Ton character. He's the one on the right. The other one is his slightly thinner brother!

Also, just realised that this is my first blog post with a picture! That's sad. More piccies from now on, I promise.

Work on Game B will also be starting this week - hurray!

Stuck in the middle . . .

Decisions, decisions!!
I'm kind of stuck at the minute with which direction (game wise) to go in. In the first instance I've already started a new game, the sequel mentioned below, but I'm not sure if it's worth pursuing. I can add quite a bit more to the original idea but I'm not sure if it will sell very well or if my heart is 100% in it.

My other option is to go with Game B, which I'm rather excited about but no work has been done on it yet. I can see a lot of potential for this game, much more than Game A.

It seems like an obvious decision, however, I hate starting a game to then bin it completely. Bit more thought needed me thinks :(

We're back!

Well my dev PC is now back up and running as normal - hurray!
Turned out it was the PSU and not the motherboard. Got a new one off Ebay which came today. A quick 10 minute swap and everything seems fine again.

Time to get on with some serious game development now :)

A new game!

Currently working on a new game. Will release loads of details very soon along with some graphics.

Lets just say that it's a kind of sequel . . . and no (!) it's not the 3rd installment of the "Colin the Coin" games.

Site Down!!

Aswell as my PC giving up the ghost the Addictive 247 website is now down! What a fantastic week this has been!

The website is down due to the bandwidth being exceeded. For today we used over 286GB! Normally we'd only use between 15 - 20GB per day. Our daily limit is about 260GB so the site should be back online at about 01:00(gmt) when the daily allowance refreshes.

It seems that the massive spike in traffic/bandwidth is due to Ten Ton Ninja being featured on Jay is Games in their Weekend Download slot.

The last week or so has been nothing but problems, here's hoping that the coming weeks improve somewhat

Things not looking up!

I spoke too soon - my PCs still not working properly!

It's either the motherboard or the PSU. I've removed the internal battery and that allows me to boot the machine up . . . sometimes.

I've been using my extremely old but extremely reliable backup PC, which hails from the days of the Ark. It might be slow but it gets there in the end :)

Loss of Power!

Turn on my PC today, well attempt to, and the power button is flashing amber every second or so. PC won't boot up at all!

Checking on the web (from another PC obviously!) and it looks like it could be a number of things from a fried motherboard, busted PSU, badly seated memory or a new on-board battery is needed. Knowing my luck it will be a screwed motherboard!

Opened the PC up and the motherboard seems ok and everything is seated on the board correctly. I replace the battery (just in case) but am not sure about the PSU. With nothing to lose, apart from more time, I put everything back together again and it works!! Hurray!

It seems to be working ok for now but I've made sure all my essentials were backed up and any dev work I've done over the last day or so was definately on my external hard drive. Things could be looking up.

Retro Shoot

Discovered this game last night so no development work was done due to the fact that it's addictive as hell!

No further description needed, just play it!
Normal service will resume as soon as I've beat wave 23.

My Brute

Been playing this for about a week now - www.mybrute.com

Basically you fight your brute in an arena against other brutes. You don't control the actual fight but the outcome depends on things like your experience, strength, abilities and weapons. Great fun!!

If you want to join my clan or fight against me then go to http://mad-max247.mybrute.com

See you in the arena!

A waste of time?

The last day or so I've been tinkering with places like MySpace and Facebook to help promote our games. Not really sure if it's a good use of my time but I'm happy to give it a go. The more people that know about our games the better. I'll keep you all informed as to how it's going and also drop some links to the pages when they're done.

Games too easy??

An interesting thread is being discussed on the Indie Gamer Forums - "Are today's games too easy?"

My personal opinion is that the majority of casual games are far too easy. Players seem to be rewarded in these games for doing absolutely nothing. That's not to say that all "indie" games are easy but I definitely think that compared to the games from yesteryear (80's and 90's) they are.

For example our last game Ten Ton Ninja was designed to be a tough, almost old-school style game. Some people complained that it was too difficult, but the game received fantastic reviews from other sites, blogs and PC magazines. The game was difficult, but with a bit of practice you could master the controls and play the game as it was meant to be played.

I think the people who thought that the game was difficult were people who didn't try to understand or master the game. The people who persevered with it enjoyed the game for what it was meant to be.

First Post!

First post, blah, blah, blah. So boring! What else do you write in your first post?

This blog will follow everything to do with Addictive 247; from our old games through to anything that's in-development.

The blogs looking a bit rough at the moment but it will improve, promise.