Hi! This is my page for any games I make. Many of the games I've done are made in Java, because it was easier to make prototypes to try out new game ideas, but I'm working with C++ at the moment. Most of these are ideas I tried, but wasn't sure if/how I should develop them any further.
This page is.. not very high tech, deliberately. No scripting or server-side logic, it's just a page with info and links. Use itch.io where applicable, or twitter for any comments.
This is a game heavily inspired by Dunjunz for the BBC Micro, it's a game I've made various incarnations of over the years, and it's usually one I like to tinker with when trying out a new game dev platform. It's simple enough, collect treasure and reach the exit, getting past locked doors, trolls and the occasional puzzle. I'm hoping to slowly expand on it and improve the sound and graphics when I find time.
An early version used 16x16 tiles, but this is now on 64x64, and I haven't really improved on many of the tiles other than to scale them up. Also, the mobs and avatar don't fill a tile, but the hitbox does, so it feels a little janky at times, mobs hit much earlier than it feels like they should, for example. It's a work in progress.
There's actually only one image used that is a spritesheet, and it uses css to create elements that have that image as a background, scaled and positioned so that only the one specific tile is visible, rather than having it try to load potentially hundreds of images.
This is my first attempt at a game using the MonoGame framework. It was intended as a simple game to try out the framework. You fly a bomber up a river, bombing targets on the way, and trying not get shot down.
Progress on day 1 (in order): Controllable avatar, a crude scrolling river with banks, droppable bombs with impact craters, shadows, randomly spawning targets, hitting the targets awards points, and score/distance travelled on the screen.
I'm probably going to continue developing this one for a while- On the to-do list: Bridges to destroy, moving vehicles/ships to hit, more tiles (roads, trees, etc), enemy planes, some sort of fuel mechanic, maybe boss encounters.
I have to admit, I'm liking the MonoGame framework, it was really easy to get this up & running in a single day, and I can use my favorite language, C#, which always helps.
The itch.io page currently has the result of one weeks work, and is a complete, playable game.
'Agartadasm' is an acronym. It's 'A Game About Running Through A Dark And Scary Maze'.
It's a 2d top-down game where the objective is simply to get to an exit, there's no combat involved. It's partially inspired by the 'weeping angels' from Dr Who, who cannot move if you can see them. The map contains 'safe areas' at the start and exit, and others inbetween. While the player is not in a safe area, the screen goes dark and any mobs on the map can move. You have to plan your route while in a safe area, and then run for it. It uses visual clues for sounds, otherwise you're staring at a black screen for most of the game! You'll see the sound of footsteps, and a visual indication of vaguely where the sounds of mobs are coming from.
Later levels will involve more complex challenges, such as needing to get to one safe area to open a doorway, or close one to trap a mob, then progressing to the exit, that sort of thing.
It's my first real attempt at making a game in C++, using SDL2.
The screenshot shows the player bottom left having just taken a few steps down, and a mob above right following, somewhere around that area; it's supposed to be vague and faint, but I haven't put randomness in yet. The placeholder graphics are shockingly bad, but I shelved the project before I got round to updating it.
A clone of the classic space invaders game in Java.
This was an attempt to recreate some of the classic games from my BBC Micro days back in the 80's- there were a number of room-based platformers with puzzles, like Citadel, Citadel 2, Palace of Magic, and a few others I think. I designed it so that it would use an image to define the map, so I could create completely new games just by using a different image.
This was actually my first effort for One game a month, but I didn't have nearly enough time to work on it, and I'm not really happy with it.
You have to control a ship through a cave system, trying not to crash or get shot, and rescuing people as you go. It's quite difficult to control, as you have to keep pointing up to thrust, or you'll fall and hit the ground.
I decided not to continue with the one game a month challenge, as my circumstances at the time meant I couldn't afford to devote enough time to make it worthwhile, and I didn't want to make something that I really wanted to develop further, but couldn't because the month was over, so this ended up being my only submission.
This is essentially just a 'snake' clone, with a few power-ups, and some mini-achievements.
There was a protest a while back where lots of people were making games with 'Candy' in the title. I made this one, but ultimately renamed it. It's a good example of just how bad I am at graphics.
This was the beginnings of an updated clone of Starship Command for the BBC Micro, but I lost interest in it fairly quickly, I just couldn't see how I could expand on it without significantly changing the whole idea of the game.
I haven't got a screenshot for this one, as I haven't put any graphics in it yet! Built as a test of some procedural map generation techniques, you basically have to find four parts of an elemental key/talisman/trophy/whatever, then find the exit.
As you pick up each one, elementals start spawning of that type, each with different abilities. If you take it to the appropriate 'boss' elemental somewhere in the map, they're appeased and stop spawning, and you get a power-up, but this isn't essential to win.
These are not submissions for Ludum Dare; A while back I decided to set myself a challenge to make one game a week inspired by each of the ludum dare themes. Life got in the way and it quickly became obvious I wasn't going to be able to keep it up, but these games are the few I did manage to get done.
A simple tower defence game. Not overly proud of it, I pretty much gave up on the graphics. I never gave it an actual name.
For this one I made a game called 'Vermin Bomb'. The idea is simple enough- kill as many vermin as possible by constructing a trap, then blowing it up.
The 'vermin' are extremely jittery, even moving the mouse in their vicinity scares them. The challenge is to construct walls to contain them, traps to blow them up, then placing bait to draw them in, while being very careful to avoid scaring them away. The sound of a fuse REALLY scares them, so you need to make sure they're shut in before fuses trigger.. not easy when the sound of building walls also scares them, and they can run through half constructed walls!
I like the idea of this, it might have a similar appeal to games like lemmings or worms.
This game involves completing a challenge by programming bots, then letting them carry out their programming to complete an objective. Specifically, shutting down some nuclear reactors.
It seemed like a good idea, but in testing it turned out to be quite a boring game; there's no feedback at all on how well you're doing while you're programming the bots, and once you set them running, you either win or lose, all you can do is watch. I toyed with the idea of having it more interactive, so that it was a series of small challenges, but it got to the point you might as well just control them manually, totally defeating the point of the core mechanic.
This one's scrapped.
I was starting to run short of time to work on these, and it shows here. This is just a fairly poor copy of a game I once saw on Facebook; principle's simple enough, clicking on a 'cell' grows it until it bursts, then it spreads 'spores' which hit neighboring cells and potentially cause a chain reaction.
In this game, you have to drag a spark along a random wire, dodging bouncing water bubbles as you go. If you let go, drag too far from the wire, or get hit by a bubble, you have to start again. I kind of used this one to experiment with a particle effect idea I was working on, there's no images used at all, except for the text on the intro screen. Simple enough concept, and it's actually kind of fun, but it gets too hard too quickly, so there's not much gameplay in it. Might work as a fun mini-game in something larger, but not really worthwhile on it's own.