Journal
I want to spread the word about my games - I want people to play and enjoy them. I’d love to make loads of money out of them but at the moment that’s unlikely, so just getting people to download the demo version is good enough.
I also like feedback. Most of the feedback I’ve had for my games has been from other game developers so getting the opinions of gamers - my actual audience - would be great.
Combining these two things, the desire to get people playing my games, and the quest for usable feedback, I have decided to start the ‘Free Video Games for Bloggers’ intiative.
Free Video Games for Bloggers
The idea is that people download a game from Binary Sun, and post a review on their blog. As a thank you I will give the reviewer a full …
An interesting article about in game interfaces and how they’re slowly dieing out.
First, it’s important to answer the question, “What is a HUD?” A HUD is simply a collection of persistent on screen elements whose purpose is to indicate player status. HUD elements can be used to show, among many other things, how much health the player has, in which direction the player is heading, or where the player ranks in a race. This makes the HUD an invaluable method of conveying information to the player during a game. It is an accepted shorthand, a direct pipeline from the developer to the end-user. So what would make console developers suddenly rethink the necessity of such a seemingly essential and time-honored technique as the HUD?
I’m a massive advocate of keeping in games interfaces, generally referred to as hud’s (heads up display), to a minimum. Even removing them if possible. I …
In my last post I mentioned me having my own opinions on the whole “video games are murder simulators” debate. Well I thought I’d run through them briefly - and also point you to a new video game made specifically for this issue.
My Thoughts
In my mind it’s simple. Violent people will seek out violent media. If video games weren’t around then movies and books, which have both suffered in a similar way, would be getting the same attention.
That’s not to say that video games don’t influence people at all though. I’m not standing up for games or saying that they are perfect and everybody should be able to play anything. The question we should be asking is how minors get the games in the first place.
This has been said on many blogs the world over, but parents are generally ignorant about the content within games. I have worked in …
A new study of 100 university undergraduates in Toronto has found that video gamers consistently outperform their non-playing peers in a series of tricky mental tests. If they also happened to be bilingual, they were unbeatable.
Barely a day goes by when video games, generally Grand Theft Auto, are blamed for something evil. But that doesn’t mean they are bad. I have my own views on the whole “video games are murder simulators” debate, and maybe I’ll write them up one day. For now though - I’ll focus on the positive.
Researchers in Toronto have found that people who played video games are able to concentrate better, and excel at multi tasking.
Prof. Bialystok suspects video gamers, like bilinguals, have a practised ability to block out information that is irrelevant to the task at hand.
You can read more in the article on the Globe and Mail website.
Something I have wanted to do with Binary Sun for a while now is get some online games. The obvious solution would be to add some games made in Flash, but I don’t like to do things the easy way.
So Bubble Blitz, a downloadable Exe game, is now playable in a browser - assuming of course you use Windows (a Mac version would be lovely though - I’m looking into sorting that out).
igLoader
To get the game into a browser I am using a system developed by Tim over at Indiepath. It’s called igLoader, and will let you play an exe based game in any major Windows browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Opera).
The idea behind using a system like this is to remove confusion for games players. The online game is essentially the same as the downloadable demo and, after installation of the plugin, any game using igLoader …
I’m a huge fan of Prince of Persia, Sands of Time. It was a visual feast using glowing pastels colours to bring the magic of an Arabian adventure to life. There was a story that was told mainly through the gameplay and, for once, it was a story that didn’t suck (something Ubi Soft seem quite good at). The gameplay, with the possible exception of the combat, was perfect. You, as the Prince from the title, have to traverse a series of rooms/ environments. If it was set in a normal building this would be easy, walk across the room and open the door, but in Persia they use more than just stairs to get around. You had to climb, and swing, and jump, and (rather impressively) run on walls to get to your target. Last section in particular was stunning, climbing up the outside of a castle to …
Binary Moon
Bubble Bomb
Rocket Boards
Bubble Blitz
Gun Wing