Sunday, December 15, 2024, 21:17
Open Game Source: Fracturoid
Breakout/Arkanoid games are not a genre I particularly like. I was asked about putting one on an arcade machine. There are numerous clones of those games. A great resource for open source clones is osgameclones.com. The Arkanoid clones included a javascript version and a python game designed with a circular playing field. Breakout clones include LBreakoutHD which is more of an Arkanoid clone but I didn't look at those clones.
Friday, July 07, 2023, 23:50
Brick Exoframe (PuzzleQuest 2023)
Build suits of power armor with Lego bricks! Shoot limbs off opponents! Replace your limbs to get new feature! Defend humanity against the alien threat!
Brick Exoframe is a game about power armor. It is designed to be played with popular brick building toys. You can shoot off components from enemies and attach them to yourself. In addition to the rules for the game, there is simple power armor design instructions so you can build your own characters. Artwork throughout the book show customized versions of this basic design.
Brick Exoframe was designed during the PocketQuest 2023 game jam.
Thursday, March 30, 2023, 22:27
Open Game Source: Fight or Perish
Fight or Perish was a Gauntlet clone I found on osgameclones.com. I downloaded it almost two years ago but never got around to checking it out. It was created by Bill Kendrick at New Breed Software. He had a bunch of game project that I'd love to play with. His game Bobobot was the subject of the first Open Game Source article. Fight or Perish was more of a prototype than a finished game.
Tuesday, February 28, 2023, 02:22
Brick Monsters: Phantom Fungus
The latest Brick Monsters release is available from drivethrurpg.com. The phantom fungus is a fungus creature. They were created as a low level invisible creature in 3rd edition. Two builds are included as usual. The builds are very different. Even if you don't have all the pieces, the instructions might inspire you to create something with the bricks you own. The mpd file is included to allow you to conveniently order the parts using bricklink.com.
Sunday, February 12, 2023, 12:39
Open Game Source: Lady Beetle
Lady Bug released to arcades in 1981. It was a maze chase game like Pac-Man but with movable turnstiles to allow you to alter the maze. I was never much of an arcade player. I didn't see the reason to keep paying to play a game when you could get a game on a console and play forever. So I never experienced it but a remake for the Love engine caught my attention.
Bernhard Mueller used some work from Cosimo's earlier attempt to recreate the game in Love. The code was very clean and successfully recreated the arcade. I found it odd that the player gets blocked if they are slightly off when taking a turn. That was apparently in the original as well but based on videos I found either it didn't happen as often or the player was better at the game than me.
Sunday, April 17, 2022, 00:16
Postmortem: Goblins: Rise of Gurg
After my successful entry to the Seven Day Roguelike Challenge, I found out about the Dungeon Crawlers Jam. The original Bard's Tale series was a favorite of mine. I even set about recreating the Bard's Tale Construction Set in open source. The construction set wasn't very good and I slowly added features to make it more Bard's Tale like. The Bt Builder engine still lacked a complete example game so perhaps this would provide the push to create one.
Friday, March 18, 2022, 01:46
Postmortem: Shallow Stone Solar
For several years now I've wanted to try the 7 Day Roguelike Challenge. Often when it occurred to me, I already missed it. This year I committed to completing it. I even took a week off which got changed to half-days due to important meetings. Still many people complete it without taking time off I imagined.
Sunday, December 19, 2021, 01:21
Open Game Source: Anagramarama
Anagramarama was a polished jumbled letters game. While not my preference in gaming, I appreciated the quality. Unfortunately it's web site was gone. No updates had been made since 2013. There were a few forks on github but those also had little activity. The game could stand as it was but was in danger of being forgotten.
Sunday, September 19, 2021, 22:16
Open Game Source: Inertia Blast
On the Commodore 64, players enjoyed the game Thrust by Jeremy Smith. I never owned the system nor played the game. When I first installed Linux I stumbled on a remake of Thrust. It was brutally difficult but I enjoyed the game. At the time I ran it under svgalib, an old console graphic system which required root access. Recently I decided to track down this old game.
Saturday, February 13, 2021, 16:21
OBS Studio
Pinewood Derby was generally a highlight of Cub Scouts. Unfortunately the pandemic had changed everything. This year we had to do a virtual Pinewood Derby. Thankfully OBS Studio allowed us to pull it off.
