Bimmin 2

Bimmin 2 can be played >here<

Bimmin 2 is the result of an engine upgrade and the practical use of the supporting editing tool I made Raisin. I’d more ore less overhauled every system in the engine for more optimization, modularity and performance. The result is an engine that runs smooth on mobile and tablet devices.

We wanted to give the game some kind of progressive feel which resulted in the day night and cave levels. The character switch was inspired by Marvel vs Capcom and we wanted to bring back the twitch gameplay element we loved in Bimmin but also add new abilities to change it up.

When playing the game you might be underwhelmed but the real beauty of the game was the ability to add levels in easily and allow for a progressive difficulty increase the better the player preforms. All level loading is done asynchronously which allows the player to play for an unlimited duration without ever having to wait for loading.

My next project I’m going to be making a game engine based on the Entity system frameworks you are starting to hear more about. I’m pretty excited about what I already have done.

New Tool

Today I got to the first milestone of the new editor (Raisin) I’ve been working on. Milestone 1 was to get the editable surface fully functional, dynamic layering, the tile sheet window importing local and web assets and the editor exporting the levels in xml for easy integration with the engine.

Screenshot compares the old editor with the new. Also note that Raisin is made with AIR so its installable on most devices. (I’m targeting tablets. Editing game files for live updates from anywhere)

The screenshot shows the project interface elements in place so far. An editable surface, tile selection window, and layer control tools.

More features obviously planned, this is just the first working build.

Brick Galaxy

Brick Galaxy can be played >here<

Brick Galaxy is a galactic spoof of the hit game Brick Breaker. The version that is live is the 3rd version of the game. The first 2 just weren’t right so we changed them into something different resulting in the current build.

On this version we spent a bit more time planning out the interfaces so we could add an extra bit of polish to it.

To make this game I had created an editor to let our artist build the levels in flash and then export the script to a text file so I could just get them from the drop box and put them right into the game. This rapidly increased productivity. I can’t imagine how long it would have been to program each enemy into place.

Cloud 9

Cloud 9 can be played >here<

Cloud 9 was the second title we used the Spil API in which is the reason you see the system default font. We needed to use a font which supported Russian, Chinese and Japanese characters. We were instructed by the sponsor to use the windows default font, which is the reason you see  different fonts in the game.

This is another simple mechanic game similar to Doodle Jump.

Robocity

Robocity can be played >here<

By accident I had developed a gibs system which after a brief discussion with our artist we decided it would not delay our timeline if we implemented this feature into the game. The enemies were already broken into pieces so a movie clip containing these bits would not be a step in the wrong direction. I think it added a little bit of entertainment to the game.

Robocity was a roughly 2 week project that turned into a 3 week project due to some localization issues. Its funny that this game was finished almost a full year before its publication. Some sponsors take their time I guess.

Busker Panic

Busker Panic can be player >here<

This game taught us that if we ever did a collaborative effort with anyone else that we would need to be in charge of publication and sponsorship. We foolishly agreed to let the designer, who had no experience in this field, manage that side of development. It was a disaster, the game did not sell well due to poor marketing and then we got shafted on the money due to poor management.

This game is an example of a simple mechanic that did not strike big with the target audience.

Bimmin

Bimmin can be played >here<

Bimmin is by far our greatest success. It has sold the most licenses and has been reskinned for 2 different game worlds one is part of  Rango World the other is under a private license so I can’t say its name.

Bimmin was also used in the ScholarGamers.com scholarship game challange. Students would compete at several flash games for a chance to win a scholarship. A video of the competition can be found >here< I absolutely loved watching the competitors play Bimmin and the faces they made when it got too intense.

Bimmin is an example of a simple gameplay mechanic that was a big hit with the players.