Finally have my desktop set up in Philly. Thankfully, nothing important broke. Just 2 bookshelves and a table. We’re also missing a box, but not sure what’s in it.

Bidding should close on Ditloid in the next week.

Have a few other small games in the design phase that should start being made this month. A satire game that will be kinda similar to Take Something Literally, a 1-screen platformer, and a upgrade-distance type game.

This also means that my walkthroughs will return to their 100% quality, as opposed to the 80-85% quality (my terms) that I was getting from Whorli’s laptop.

My first game is up for bid on FlashGameLicense.com (FGL). Ditloid is a word-based logic puzzle game where you are given a number and the 1st letter of each of the words in the problem, then you have to deduce what the puzzle is. Such as 60 S in a M would be 60 seconds in a minute. The game features 100 levels spread across 3 difficulties. There are 2 forms of in-game hints, plus a walkthrough. All 100 levels are open from the start, and you can freely skip from 1 to the next. The game IS hard; it’s not something you’re going to complete in 1 sitting… it’s a game where you take a few puzzles with you, and maybe the answer to one of them pops into your head 3 hours later with a sense of “ooooh! nice.” and accomplishment.

Anyway, hopefully it sells for some good money. Krayz did a great job on the programming and dealing with my never-ending list of bugs and changes.

Since tons of people want to know about FFR… I got an email from Synth last night that he was indisposed and would hopefully have the site up by Monday. So we’ll see.

On Sunday, I woke up to a borked desktop. This sucked. I tried doing some basic troubleshooting, but it did not work… and because I’m terrible with hardware and my desktop is like my child… I didn’t want to mess with it too much. It’s under warranty, however the company is not open on Sundays (and was also closed for Memorial Day).

So I set my alarm for 8:30 this morning, so that I could call them nice and early and get my comp down to them ASAP. I called them and explained the situation. They said I could bring it in and they’d fix it. The place is in Pasadena, which is 44 miles away as per Google. It took 80 minutes, leaving at 9:15am… gotta love LA traffic. By 10:55, they diagnosed it as motherboard failure and they did not have a replacement in stock, but that new ones were already on order. So I said ok, and now have to sit and wait until they call me to say the mobos are in and that my sexiness is fixed.

I also had a lunch meeting with Troy/Maldon/Dawnerd scheduled for 12:30 in Santa Monica, which I wasn’t sure whether I’d make because of the computer. Since I was done in Pasadena by 11, I headed off to Santa Monica, which is 35 miles from Pasadena, as per Google. That took about 50 minutes; got in right around noon. My bowels were troubling me greatly, so I used the time to find a public bathroom… which is much harder to do than one would expect, as Santa Monica has tons and tons of foot traffic. I wound up meeting up with Troy at 12:40 and we grabbed Subway and chatted for about 45 minutes on the future of FFR and life in general. We’re both on the same page, and I think we have the basics of a deal worked out. This is good.

Then I needed to get back from Santa Monica to the Valley (San Fernando). Google was telling me to take the 405, which was displaying RED for traffic most of the way. I decided to take the PCH and Topanga Canyon instead, which probably took the same amount of time (40 minutes), but is peaceful, scenic, and fun to drive.

And now I am home, on Whorli’s laptop, trying to quickly download my video recording/editing software so that I can re-make a walkthrough that is stuck on my desktop and needs to be ready for a game’s release tomorrow. *sigh*.

Ever wondered what it would be like to work side-by-side with one of your favorite developers and create a game? Well, with This Is The Only Levels 2 slated for release tomorrow, these are my thoughts from the process:

Developing games, when you don’t have to do any of the grunt work, is REALLY fun. I got to come up with a ton of really fun levels and assist with the entire creative process throughout development… without having to do any of that pesky “work”, like coding or making graphics.

A lot more goes into a game than just code and art. Besides all the creative stuff, which we pretty much hammered out on the 1st day, all of this stuff needed to be done as well: UI for the menu and other off-menu screens, game save system, high scores, bonus modes, and API implementation.

It’s amazing how many bugs pop up in the oddest areas. This is something I already know, from all the testing work I do… but that is all AFTER the dev QAs his game. In a game as simple as TITOL2 (same engine as last game, just new levels), we easily found 20 bugs. From a certain level having an unexpected exploit to the save file not wiping deaths when you clear your level progress, and everything in between.

You can’t get too attached to any one idea. Given unlimited time, John could code any crazy level that I came up with… but one level we wanted to use left gravity for the level, so you’d have to jump from left to right on the edges of the platforms to reach the exit. Sadly, the engine (which John said could DEFINITELY handle left/right gravity) did not like this idea. I wasn’t given the full explanation, but it would have taken a lot of time to mess with the engine to get this 1 level to work. Better solution was just to use a different level idea that didn’t make the original cut. One other level that we liked wound up not being nearly as fun in actuality as it was in my head… so again, we tweaked it… and now it’s one of my favorite levels.

Don’t rush the process. The first TITOL took John 12 hours, start to finish. So going in to this project, I thought it would take 2 or 3 days, tops, for this one. It’ll wind up being released on the morning of the 10th day. There’s a lot more extra features in this game, and my level designs are a bit more complex than what was in the first game. Combine that with the AS2 to AS3 conversion… and a 1-day game becomes a 2-week game. At the same time, you don’t want to take TOO much time… when you think everything has been found and is ready, let it loose. I’m really nervous that we’ve overlooked something, or some major bug will pop up as soon as it’s released… but, if that happens, we’ll know about it soon enough. Not much more we can do about it now.

Altogether, this was so much fun. I hope that all of you guys wind up enjoying the game as much as I’ve enjoyed working on it. And give insane props to John… all the little things he puts into games are what makes them great, not my level designs. The UI, the elephant, the polka music, and a dozen other things that I won’t mention so that you can discover them all tomorrow.

6:00 – Wake Up
6:01 – Overwhelming desire to break iPhone and accompanying alarm
6:03 – Sit down at computer to do a quick run through morning routine
6:09 – Shower
6:32 – Dry off from quickie shower
6:35 – Set building queues in HoG and make sure DW guild is in order
6:49 – Lose track of time from trying to squeeze in just one more daily task
6:50 – Get dressed, brush teeth, etc
6:55 – Grab pop-tart and leave
7:03 – Get stuck in traffic on the 101 nearing the 405
7:04 – Start slinging obscenities at LA traffic
7:07 – Decide it’s more fun to mock Colin Cowherd than be annoyed at LA traffic
7:59 – Finally get to downtown LA and onto the 5
8:45 – Arrive outside Armor Office
8:48 – Arrive at Armor Office, having not gotten lost in the passageway to their back-of-the-building suite like last time
8:50 – Commence with the eating of the bagel
8:53 – Give the iron armor-clad sentinels guarding Dan’s corner office dirty looks
9:01 – Get shot in the chest by nerf projectile. Realization that Jared Riley is a cool dude solidified
9:02 – Relief at not being shot any lower. Or higher, I guess
9:05 – Watch John fail miserably at converting the tile engine from AS2 to AS3
9:10 – Start going over level design for TITOL2
9:12 – Relief at my design not being as crappy in John’s eyes as it is in my own
9:20 – Begin going over my stage ideas
9:22 – I am the most creative dude on the planet
9:37 – Damnit, why does nobody else appreciate my masturbation-themed stage ideas
9:38 – Contemplate explaining why we also need a “Droppin’ Loads” level
9:39 – Decide to keep that one to myself
10:02 – Watch Joey play with amorphous cats
10:08 – Transcribe stage ideas onto post-it notes
10:31 – Begin hashing out which stages we’re keeping, and a basic sphere of difficulty
10:39 – We have exactly 30 post-it notes. Cheers of joy
10:51 – Order post-it notes from 1 to 30
11:00 – Make sure that all stages are possible within the current level design
11:20 – One more check to stages and level
11:30 – Chik-Fil-A baby!
11:35 – Arrive at chik-fil-a and continue non-stop talking
11:37 – I’m supposed to order food now, but haven’t stopped talking to look at menu
11:38 – Quickly decide on the spicy chicken sandwich
11:41 – Sit down with John and Joey and notice that all 3 of us have spicy chicken. We are badasses
11:46 – Discussions include old flash rhythm games and creative level design within iPhone crush the castle. We are nerds
12:05 – Back to the office
12:07 – My ghetto laptop turns on. Great success
12:10 – Laptop won’t connect to wifi network and John mocks my AIM 5.9
12:14 – Laptop still won’t connect to wifi, even after super genius trouble shooting methods… such as punching it and calling it a little girl
12:16 – Saved by an ethernet cable
12:21 – Begin work on naming the 30 stages
12:24 – Lament again at the lack of support for my masturbation stage
12:40 – Consult wikipedia for the 6th time as part of my stage name research
12:52 – Names sent back to John
12:57 – More mocking of John, as the tile engine still rejects AS3
1:32 – Still watching John fight valiantly against the evil of AS3
1:41 – Send sarcastic IM to Greg
1:45 – Boast about my amazing game designing skills in IiN
1:57 – Talk to Dan about secret things
2:24 – Continue to mock John’s failure at fixing the engine in AS3
3:01 – John is the man. Engine fixed and is a sexy, sexy beast
3:15 – John approves of my stage name ideas. Where are my 70 virgins
3:21 – Testing in the engine begins
3:24 – Elephants waddling to polka music is the most awesome thing ever
3:55 – More tweaks to level design to make it roomier
4:07 – Verify that all stages will work in the new level design
4:37 – Joey begins tossing out possible stage designs
4:39 – Tune out Joey’s ideas, as they are overly complex and complicated
4:40 – Request once again for my masturbation stage to be considered
5:00 – More testing with elephants and spikes
5:12 – John and I team up to send Greg IMs that amuse us
5:20 – BS out a few extra content concepts so people will play the game more than once
5:35 – Leave office for brewery / restaurant with John
5:48 – Order adult beverage
5:52 – It’s happy hour! Cheap appetizers are demanded
5:57 – Dan arrives
6:12 – Burger ordered. It has bacon, cheese, and an egg on it
6:14 – Sweet potato fries are delivered. Mouth stuffing begins. People really put ranch on fries? Gross
6:23 – John informs us of being pre-approved for his house buying
6:24 – Bad joke made about pre-approval vs approval and the ridiculous terminology used today
6:45 – Burger arrives
6:47 – Burger now also has ketchup and hot sauce on it
7:01 – Alcohol is taking its effect on Dan; he informs us about the Mickey Mouse tattoo on his behind
7:02 – I ask to see said tattoo and am sadly informed that it does not actually exist
7:18 – 1/3 of burger left. It kicked my ass
7:25 – Leave restaurant. Thank Dan many times for dinner and the opportunity to help on the game
7:31 – Arrive back at the office with John to get my car
7:44 – Still talking John’s ear off in parking lot. See annoyed look in his eyes and call it a night
7:47 – Begin drive back home
7:50 – Curse LA for caring so much about the Lakers. Do they play EVERY night?
7:55 – Back on the 5, enjoying some classic rock on KLOS
8:45 – Arrive back home. Exhausted
8:46 – Affirm hatred of LA traffic for the umteenth time
8:47 – Affirm hatred of Whorli. She has all the doors locked and gave me a set of keys with no house key on it
8:48 – Bang on window to get her attention
8:50 – Kisses
8:52 – See that not one, not two… but THREE different companies sent me emails to work on games for them while I was gone. It is a blessing and a curse

There’s more from there, ending in bed around 11:30. But not important to my day with Armor. All in all, it was a really fun day. A great experience. And it’s going to be a kickass game when it’s released next week.

A few months ago, I mentioned that I was writing the script to a game and working with some friends to do the coding/art.  That project is currently on hold, but I’ll probably finish working on it at some point.  I need to figure out what I’m trying to do with the game…  otherwise it’s just going to suck.  And I won’t put my name on a project that sucks, especially when I’d be the major reason it sucked.

I’ve also been approached by a few different developers to design levels… and I shudder at this thought.  Playing and solving levels is super fun; the battle of wits between myself and the cunning developer.  Coming up with 20 or 30 creative levels to try and stump players, having a linear ramping difficulty curve, and designing levels that are all going to be unique… it’s daunting.  And that’s just the design process; then you actually have to do the grunt work of making the levels in whatever editor you’ve given to work in, which may or may not be user friendly.  It’s tedious, arduous, and is the complete opposite of fun.

However, there is one game that I had a different reaction to.  It’s a game that when I played it, I immediately started to bug the developer about wanting to assist on designing levels for a sequel.  Ma nishtana ba-mischak ha-ze mi kol ha-mischakim? (That translates to, “Why is this game different from all other games?”)  The answer is simple… it’s a game where level design is not tedious, arduous, or un-fun.  It’s a game where levels can be designed in seconds or minutes and each level has 1 specific trick to it.  The goal of level design in this game is to screw with the player in a way that the player is still enjoying himself (or herself).  And I get no greater pleasure than screwing with people…  why not take it to the grand stage?

So you must be asking what game this is.  I gave a vague hint about it the other day.  The game is This Is The Only Level, and I’ll be working in the Armor Office later this month (or early next month) on the sequel.  Expect fun and delightfully evil levels from yours truly.  :)

I’ve also been working on a big project for the past 2+ months, but I’ve been asked not to talk about it.  Expect some stuff about it once I’m cleared to discuss it or once it’s public.

Last March, I was fortunate enough to meet the entire Hero Interactive studio… Jared, Eric, and Steph. Cards were played, fun was had by all. Since then, I’ve done what I can to assist them on their games; my usual stuff… feedback, testing, walkthroughs. They seem to value my input and listen to my suggestions, which is always nice.

Today I was given the opportunity to test their long awaited BTTD. I’m not going to spoil anything or give much away… you’ll get to play it yourselves soon enough. But, what I really noticed was that I had very little to critique. It’s obvious right from the start how much work went into the game. Granted, they were able to learn from all the feedback from Pirate Defense… but actually doing it and doing it well is a feat worth praising.

What I will say is that the game is VERY hard. Like… VERY hard. At least for me. The easy levels are exactly that… easy. The medium levels aren’t hard either. But the difficulty jump on the hard levels is BAM. I spent a few hours messing around on a bunch of different hard levels, and beat exactly 1… imo, the easiest one (only hard until you figure out that specific level’s trick, something none of the other levels have). I’m hoping Jared will take some pity on me tomorrow and explain what I’m doing wrong to fail so miserably.

One note in my defense (read: an excuse)… I don’t juggle. If you watch my videos, you’ll notice every single TD video I have is no-juggle. The only times I’ve ever juggled is for The 100 on DTD and the 4-entrance spawn speed thing for DTD Pro, both of which were badge reqs that were 100% impossible to do without juggling. I will try something 100 times to try and do it without juggling (DTD Pro Scenario 23) before attempting it with juggling. I can juggle; I just abhor the micromanagement aspect of it… not to mention that I feel like I’m cheating every time I juggle.

So I don’t know how many vids you’ll be seeing from me on BTTD. I’d love to do them; I know Jared will feature them in-game and they’ll get a ton of views… I just don’t want to cop out and make juggling vids. Maybe he’ll appreciate my failures and accept my vids on easier levels… then take vids that other people make of the hardest levels with juggling and add those as well. It just really does feel like failure on my part, and that is not something I accept easily.

Most of you are now asking yourself, “Who is John Cooney?” John is more commonly known as Jmtb02 (John MounTain Bike 2002 *snicker*), and he is the Head of Game Development for Armor Games. Basically, he gets paid to go to an office and make flash games as well as oversee the progress of the rest of the in-house team. Now, why is he a machine? Since 2002, John has pumped out over 50 games. Think about that… FIFTY different games. Granted, there are a solid number of sequels, so you’re really talking 30-35 original concepts. But that is still an insane number of ideas that have not only manifested in his mind… but actually been worked on through to completion and release. So I tip my cap to this crazy machine of a developer. He also happens to be a really cool dude… just don’t IM him randomly with nothing to say, he doesn’t like that (really, we ALL dislike it… but again, topic for another day).

Also, a slightly disappointing development took place this week. John released his newest game, I Hate Traffic, to much fanfare and rejoicing. The disappointment is that I had been talking to him for a few weeks about the progress on the game… but apparently there was some miscommunication between us that led to him releasing it without giving me an opportunity to test it, give feedback, and get a walkthrough prepped. In the scope of things, no biggie, but it was a bit disappointing in that the game wound up being released with a memory leak in it that I spotted within 5 minutes of playing. John found it quickly after I described what I thought was causing it, and it was promptly fixed… but I’m sure everyone would have rather caught it before it was public.

In more Armor Games news… I’m REALLY looking forward to getting my hands on Joey’s upcoming puzzle platformer (or phuzzle, I forget which). I can just picture Joey sitting in his chair, lollipop stick embedded in his keyboard, cackling at my inevitable frustration from his devious creations.

-I’m going to try and post to this at least once a day… with random updates of the Flash world or my life.

-Been recording vids of Rudy Sudarto’s newest upcoming game, Epic Quest. It’s grindtastic… as you’d expect from Rudy. Probably will do ok; not amazing, like the EW series did.

-Still playing lots of Sacred Seasons. Am currently level 472. 2 people are a solid bit ahead of me, and then I’m shifting back and forth with 2 others for 3rd-5th. I’m over 100 levels higher than the 2nd highest person of my class, which is nice.

-I’m already looking forward to FGS… 4 months from now.

-I say that I like cake, but I actually don’t really like cake. Cake is too dry and fluffy. I have weird salivary glands or something; tons of foods taste dry to me, and I need lots of condiments or liquids with my meals. This is not to say that I don’t like cake-like products… I greatly enjoy brownies, which are richer and moister than cake. Not to mention cookie cake and ice cream cake.

-Tass

So, over the years, I’ve had an idea or two for a game. I’m not a developer. I also do not consider myself a good writer. Oh yeah, I really don’t enjoy level design that much. Because of this, I haven’t put much thought into taking any idea of mine and going forward with it. Until recently.

I was talking with Krayz, a good kid who I’ve become friendly with through Kongregate and FFR, about random game designs, and I happened to mention 1 concept 2-3 times… and he kinda went with it, saying that he could program it up. Which then put me on the spot to actually work on the hard parts… like plot and puzzles.

Since then, I’ve written the 1st half of the game, and have a good idea how it’ll play out. It won’t be very long, and it won’t be that hard. But it’ll be a little unique, and hopefully quite funny. The protagonist is a bit like Cyclops… he shoots lasers out of his eyes. You’ll have to wait a bit for more details than that. I’ll also mention that deep down, it’s a point and click adventure, and my mind hopes that it resembles Zeebarf’s games in terms of gameplay (it sure as hell won’t match in graphics though, sorry Krayz).

-Tass