Update to Eighth One Game a Month Game

Posted on January 20, 2016 by lace_fire

It’s been a while, but @lace_fire here again with an update to one of previous games, Snowman Day! I’ve tweaked a few of the game’s features to improve the game-play and hope I’ve been successful. Throughout the 2016 year I plan to finish the five remaining unfinished games that I submitted for #1GAM. This past weekend I attended an Indie Arcade event and was happy to verify that Blender and Unity are two software applications some indie game developers use when creating games. Though all of the games created for my year participation in #1GAM were created with Phaser, I do intend to learn Unity once I have completed these games.

My Ninth One Game a Month Game

Posted on March 29, 2015 by lace_fire

Hello from @lace_fire! For January, I chose an older #1GAM theme, “Neon”. I’ve been interested in creating sprites for a while, and thought that creating a pixelated chameleon would be a fun way to showcase the neon theme. Like “Snowman Day!”, “Neon Chameleon” will have some modifications to its game design before I can consider it complete. The graphics were implemented with Blender and GIMP. As a side-note, after nine months in a row of creating games for the #1GAM challenge, I have found that it gets more difficult to stay within the “coriest core” of game design/features and look forward to creating games within a months-long or perhaps even year-long stretch.

My Eighth One Game a Month Game

Posted on January 6, 2015 by lace_fire

Happy new year from @lace_fire! For December’s #1GAM, the theme was “Snow Day” and I decided to create a game using solely Blender graphics. What better representation of a snow day than a snowman! I wanted to include some of the Phaser mechanics, something I really haven’t done much with since I joined #1GAM. Although the game is playable, more game design and physics will be required before I can consider this game finished. A couple of things were enforced this month with regards to creating games in general: game-play should take priority over graphics, and if the game-play is enjoyable enough, the motivation to finish will be increased. Good things to keep in mind from here on out!

My Seventh One Game a Month Game

Posted on December 26, 2014 by lace_fire

Seasons greetings from @lace_fire! For November’s #1GAM, I decided to create a different take on one of my favorite simple games, Snake! For my version, I wanted to make the snake candy-based (probably due to the abundance of sweets I eat during the holiday time-frame) and had to keep the graphics relatively simple due to my learning the basics of Blender alongside the creation of my game. All graphics were created using Blender and GIMP, other than the win screen which was a mixture of Microsoft Word and Paint. The music/sound effects were composed with Musink.

Guest Post: My Sixth One Game a Month Game

Posted on November 5, 2014 by lace_fire

Hello, my sixth addition to #1GAM is now playable! #1GAM’s theme for October was, appropriately enough, “Death”. I felt that the most obvious route to take was having the Grim Reaper follow the player through a house. Unfortunately, due to time constraints, the furniture was instead rectangles of varying sizes. This was the first month I incorporated Blender at all, and the incorporation was very minimal: light effects were added to the objects. I’m hopeful that in the months hereafter I will add more and more Blender features as I become more accustomed to the software. Other than Blender, I also used Microsoft Word’s shapes feature and GIMP.

Guest Post: My Fifth One Game a Month Game

Posted on October 21, 2014 by lace_fire

Hello, that’s correct – it’s @lace_fire yet again for my fifth #1GAM! As September’s theme was Fair, I couldn’t fight the temptation to create a few mini-games that resemble those seen in a typical fair, with a Renaissance twist. I realized that although the games were simple, the theme itself was somewhat daunting (the original plan was to have 4 mini-games). As September proved to be (excuse the pun) fairly busy for me, the game has not yet been finished. I have one mini-game, music, and an attempt to add some Blender visuals left before I consider this game complete. The game as it is now is playable – check back for further updates!

Guest Post: My Fourth One Game a Month Game

Posted on September 5, 2014 by lace_fire

Greetings, @lace_fire here again with my fourth #1GAM! Due to the busyness of this month, I found that my game was reduced to a little over a week of implementation time. Nonetheless it was still pretty enjoyable and rewarding, though perhaps a little rushed. This month’s theme was “Fire”, and I decided to create a turn-based game in which the classical elements, controlled by the player, set forth to extinguish fire before it takes over all the land. Once again, GIMP was used for image manipulation and the original images were free online. Musink was used for the creation of the sound effects.

Guest Post: My Third One Game a Month Game

Posted on August 4, 2014 by lace_fire

Hello, it’s @lace_fire with my third edition to #1GAM! This month’s theme was “Flags” and the name of my game is “Collect the Flags!”. Although at first this game was intended to be a runner, I enjoyed the collision detection enough to decide that it was to be a standard platformer instead. Testing proved to be a little difficult for me, as this game definitely seems to have a higher level of difficulty than my first two editions. The images were all taken from a 1902 classic movie called “A Trip to the Moon” by George Melies. An ambitious piece of cinema for its time, it is also thankfully in the public domain.

Guest Post: My Second One Game A Month Game

Posted on July 3, 2014 by lace_fire

Hello, this is @lace_fire again and I’m hosting my second #1GAM entry here, courtesy of Lanatir. This month’s theme was “Doctor” and the name of my game is “Doctor with Heart”. I kept the graphics simple, using Microsoft Word’s shapes to create the characters and expressions. As with “Money Rush”, I tried to limit my hours to 24, but found that the graphics and sprite sheets took longer than the anticipated 8 hours to make. Hopefully as I become more accustomed to creating graphics, this aspect of the game creation will go by more quickly. I have provided a screenshot of the Tin Man stage below:

Guest Post: My First One Game A Month Game

Posted on June 5, 2014 by lace_fire

Hello, I’m @lace_fire and I’m hosting my first #1GAM here, courtesy of Lanatir. In programming my first game, I tried to limit my hours in developing the game to 16 initially. Once I took into account that I was also going to compose music and modify images, I eventually decided to change my time limitation to 24. Since weekends tend to be fairly busy for me, it was a challenge trying to balance my time in such a way that I could program as well as appreciate my free time. Overall, I found the experience to be challenging yet enjoyable and look forward to the challenge next month as well!

My first game for #OneGameAMonth is called “Money Rush” and is found under Projects. I have provided a screenshot below:

Making Versus Playing

Games with Limited Free Time