TOJAM3

Well TOJAM3 was awesome. Although we didn't beat the Nordic games Jam in terms of attendance, we gave them a good run for their money. We made a huge library of awesome games to boot! Big pat on the back to my Co-organizers Jim McGinley, Emily McGinley and Rob Segal who are quite literally the blood and flesh of TOJAM3.

My experience at TOJAM3 was unfortunately deprived. While the Jam began on Friday evening and ended on Sunday night, the extent of my participation was as follows: Arrived late on Friday, stayed till around 5pm on Saturday, came back on Sunday at around 4pm.

My TOJAM3 game took a few adventurous twists and turns. It started off as a sequel to my TOJAM1 game Super Hamster Air Combat but quickly turned into a crimson earth clone with a tank. My game did have a few interesting bits; firstly it was entirely mouse controlled which made for very enjoyable redbull-in-hand testing sessions. Secondly I absolutely love the turret mounted machine gun on the tank even though it can't aim to save its own life (literally).

While the TOJAM3 arcade is coming up soon, I unfortunately won't be able to make it since I'm quite literally on the other side of the world right now. I will however try to fix my game up to be a more play-worthy game.

TOJAM Entry

It's that time of year again! The Toronto Indepentent Games Jam is going to kick ass from May 9th all the way to May 11th! 72 hours baby! Non-stop!
This year's theme is reflective of TOJAM founder, Jim McGinley's quirky sense of humor: "cheese".
I won't say what my entry is but the arsenal on the left will promise a satisfying degree of unadulterated pwnage.

Assault Team! Assemble!

Time for another update! The assault team consists of three types of soldiers, the assault rifle soldier, the shotgun soldier and the shield soldier. These guys drop into the scene in squads via zip-line and will hopefully prove a fun challenge to dispatch.


While I go slave away at figuring out how these guys will behave, you guys can enjoy these new sprites fresh out of Graphics Gale! If you have any suggestions as to how the assault team should behave, or any ideas of your own for enemies, leave a comment!

Sprite Updates!

Over the past few weeks, I've been updating sprites starting with the basic soldier sprite. Small things like gaps in the middle of the sprite began to bother me the more I looked at them. I felt they detract from the overall 'chibiness' of the sprite. The long barrel of the AK especially pissed me off.

The new sprites feature more colors and less outlines. I also added two head tilt sprites so the soldier will actaully LOOK up when he aims *gasp*!

For all the gun geeks out there, I've basically changed the soldiers rifle from an AKM with a folding stock to stock AKS -74U. The ammo boxes for the gun also have their ammo markings changed from 7.62mm to 5.45mm. The sidearm has been changed from some kind of arbitrary pistol to a USP .45 with an OD frame. The holster has also been changed from a generic design to something thats meant to imitate the BlackHawk CQC Serpa holster.

Man, I have way too much fun making this game.

Sneaking Mission progress

For the longest time, I've been working on this game with no title to fix it to. I've decided that now would be a good a time as any to pick something so I can easily make reference to it. I've always been a fan of the Metal Gear series and thought that, aside from the deliberate quirkiness of the series, the term 'sneaking mission' was unintentionally cheesy.... in a good way. So ya, for now thats what I'm calling this game.

Over the past few days, I've added some 'edge' actions that allow the player to grab on to, climb up, or climb down to the edge of platforms. In addition, players can shift from one platform edge to another nearby edge if they are close enough and on the same level.

A comparably more pointless addition is the newly added semi-lit areas. They don't effect the gameplay in any way at all but they are nice to look at.