Remember that bad idea of a giant Tetris? This is what it looks like after two weeks.

Polygon Gmen -Transmover-. Yummy. You need a key to get out the door. You have a gun that swaps places: you swap with whatever block you shoot.

It really does feel like Portal meeting Lode Runner. I need to go to work, or else I would keep playing.

This is why game tuning matters.

Celia writes,

Gimme Indie Game: Runhello’s Jumpman – Offworld.

Threw me for a moment though, since there WAS a game called Jumpman. It’s not that one.

Those of you who have read Theory of Fun for Game Design may recall this passage:

Let’s picture a game wherein there is a gas chamber shaped like a well. You the player are dropping innocent Jews down into the gas chamber, and they come in all shapes and sizes. There are old ones and young ones, fat ones and tall ones. As they fall to the bottom, they grab onto each other and try to form human pyramids to get to the top of the well. Should they manage to get out, the game is over and you lose. But if you pack them in tightly enough, the ones on the bottom succumb to the gas and die.

I do not want to play this game. Do you? Yet it is Tetris. You could have well-proven, stellar game design mechanics applied towards a quite repugnant premise.

We don’t need to wonder anymore. A comment in the last thread by the felicitously named Raphael Aleixo (my brother’s name is Alex!) tells us that the Brazilian game design club Loodo has made it, with a slight tweak to the theme: I give you Calabouço Tétrico. Read on for my thoughts!

Read the rest of this entry »

Closure is really clever. All I will say is “light == map.”

Gabe McGrath writes,

Hi Raph,

Found your blog via Technorati, whilst searching for more “retro remakes”. I hit this page. Don’t know if you (or your readers) would be interested, but the RR site was hacked recently, so your link to the downloads *won’t* work. I have compiled all the “off site” links I could find (for each remake author) and put them on one blogpost. So there you go. Sorry if you’ve already “moved on”. (Thought it might be of interest.)

PS: Funny – I stumbled on your page, and couldn’t work out where I knew your name. Then I saw the book cover – OF COURSE! “Theory of Fun” – read about it on Boing Boing ages ago. Alas, it’s still sitting safely in my “amazon to buy list” as the Aussie dollar has tanked against yours. Hopefully it recovers soon, so I can build my game-related library. All the best

Hacked… that sucks. Hopefully they recover quickly, it’s one of my favorite indie projects.

Offworld spotted (or helped create?) this one.

Clearly, there’s a line in these. We’ve seen Quake and Pac-Man. How about Super Mario, Joust, M.U.L.E., Defender, Chu-Chu Rocket, and Command & Conquer next please?

No, not top sellers like Braid. Ordinary indies that don’t manage to hit the top of the charts or land an XBLA deal — the stuff that comes and goes on the web portals, made by a guy or gal in the evenings working on it, often churning out hidden object games or another match-3 game because they have to.

Well, Grey Alien Games, an indie developer themselves, has culled some answers from a rather noisy thread on Indiegamer.

Cliffski, of Positech Games, made $189,423 in 2008 from direct sales…

Princec of Puppygames posted his direct sales figures and they told a very different story. He has made $11993 from 1073 units sold in 2008.

Siread of New Star Games posted his Direct Sales stats of $43246 and 2545 units.

SteveZ of Blue Tea Games shared his direct sales figures for 2008 of $1299 and 72 units sold… This then prompted a surprise turnaround from SteveZ who posted his Big Fish Games royalty report from November 2008. It showed $20837 in royalties in just a single month!!

Separately, but prompted by that post, we see the CEO of Anawiki Games posting

My sales stats for 2008: $21,650.09 and 1152 units. I have released 6 games so far on PC, Mac and Linux (not all of them have Linux versions). Two of them have been released in 2008.

One takeaway here — it’s hard work, and for most, you can’t quit your day job. But there’s plenty of opportunity if you are determined and skillful.