No game for this month

Hello,

This month is been really crazy, me and my girlfriend spent 2 weeks in England, it was awesome. England is so much cooler (and more fun) than I thought it would be. We went up to the Giant's causeway, it was amazing, the roman baths are so cool, the national gallery is so amazing, there is so much you can do.

Meanwhile, I learned that I earned a bunch of money from school, why? Hum good question.it is a scholarship. So I decided to spend a little bit of that money on a nice reflex camera, Nikon D40x.

It made me think about artistic expression. Games, for me, are a way to express myself in an artistic way. Art could be seen as a way to express yourself, express your ideas, express your feelings, express who you are, etc. Expression is the key word here. In my last video game DeForest, I expressed the feeling I had when I saw forest vanished in order to build human constructions. I think by playing the game, you get a good idea of that feeling. Expressing something is part of what makes me want to continue in the video game industry. In a lot of my games I tried to express something.

So in the last year, I expressed myself using video games as a medium. Lately, I rediscovered self expression with an other medium, photography. Photography is a powerful medium, you can express a lot of ideas in images that you cannot express in other media. As they say, picture is worth a thousand words. So how do I make my pictures express thousands of words? What should I express, how should I express myself? So far, I am still using my camera to make "pretty" pictures, so I guess I am trying to express beauty... I am thinking about making a photo album about movement with inanimate objects.

Here is an example to express my point. The shadow and the contrast int this picture help to visualize a sort of movement from the left to the right. The curve on the stone makes our eyes roll over the picture. There is one guy standing out a little more than the others, it 's like he is going to pass them. You have the impression that you are looking at a sort of carousel.

If you would like to see some of my work you can check out my Picasa Web Album. I added a widget on the side too.

All I have been able to think about this month was photography, but I had an idea for this month's experimental gameplay project. The theme was 10 seconds, I had in mind a kid's game, you know those games where you have to put the form in their place. Like the picture on the top of this post. So it is pretty easy to do, you just click on the form and move it to the right place. So you have 10 seconds to replace the objects into their places. The challenge arises when, clouds, earthquakes, tremors (mouse shaking) and more get into the game. And we think playing baby games is to0 easy, maybe that how it is for them? What is the life of a baby really like?

Cradboard Animation for Phono Alliance

Check this out, its an animation video from Phono Alliance's artist : Jade

DeForest

Be the first one to dominate the nature of this world. Be the mankind's best architect.

PLAY HERE

DeForest is a sim city like, where you are the new Architect of the town. You have to fill up the whole map with man's constructions in less years as possible. Its pretty simple you left click to choose a construction, right click to cancel. At first, the game is pretty slow, make sure you have enough money to put 2 houses and 1 industry. Otherwise you will go in the red, when you are there, there is no coming back.

Here the constructions : House (H), Industry (I), Mall (M), Hospital (O), Mine (N), Fuel Pump (P), Tractor Industry (T) and Farm (F). Reset (R)

I made this game in a couple of days, like 5 days. It is my first game using GameMaker v 8.0. It was a real treat to use. At first I got really confused with the drag drop, but when I found I could use code inside the drag and drop, everything started to be easier. Well I recommend GameMaker to everyone that would like to make a game and have it pretty easy. I really like that I spend as much time designing as coding the game. Usually I spend a lot more time coding then designing the game.

This game is not met to be hard, but to be joyful while you are dominating the environment and putting your houses/industries down. The mechanics of the game are based on expending the human world over the fragile nature. The game represents the euphoria that human have when they start to be in control of a situation and have a lot of gain. In other words, at first the game is slow, you have to wait to earn money, but you stay patient. When you have enough industries, the flow of the game accelerates to a paste where it is hard for you to keep up with the constructions compare to the income. Then you get really into the power you have over the environment, you are in control...

For the music, I had a super idea for a song with a guitar, but I do not have any guitar with me in Paris. So I choose this song : Son House - How to Treat a Man. The effect is lovely; the music has a super effect while you are playing. The music express a sort of melancholic pain, like you really want something, but it is really hard to reach it. That is how the song speaks to me. Then I needed a vision for the graphics, I wanted something as primitive as the song is. While I was at Orsay's museum in Paris, I had the opportunity to see a couple of painting from Van Gogh, I really enjoy how his paintings are simple and complex at the same time. It's like a 10 year old's painting but not at the same time, I do not know there is something so special about his work. So I wanted something like that for my game, I think I achieved the part where it's like a 10 year old's graphics, I am still looking for complexity... Well that how I created my game, I hope you enjoy it.

J Tremblay

Live from Paris

Hello everyone,

It's been a crazy month, I just moved to Paris for the semester. I spend a lot more time in finding a place to live than I originally planned (took us 1 week and half). After that I had to start school. So I was not able to make a game for this month theme on experimental gameplay project.

I had a good idea and I will probably do it next month. It is my goal. I was thinking about a sort of mix of simcity meet a beautiful forest. The background is from my week in Toronto, I was in richmond hill. I was talking with my girlfriend's mum, she was saying how everything here and there used to be beautiful forest and now its full of townhouses. I am not use to that, where I am from the development is so little, that the forest is still everywhere. I was concern about the lost of the forest, well i like the forest. So I though that would be a good idea for a game, you start with 100 squares of forest, the goal is to fill up all the forests' square with human constructions. For now I will go play with blender/python a little.



PS life in Paris is crazy as hell, super cold and super crownded.
PSS I am from Canada, but cold is so different here.

An Apple a Day... Doctor - Explained

An Apple a Day... Doctor is an art game, well it's trying to be an art game. In other words, the game is trying to vehicle a message by his mechanics or some people might say gameplay. I wont used gameplay because of the lack of cohesion in the definition. A couple of games can be mentions as such art game (pretty classic) : Passage, Braid, Marriage, etc. These games vehicle a message from their game mechanics. And An Apple a Day tries to vehicle a message from his mechanics too.

In An Apple a Day, you play as the Doctor, you role is to be the doctor that you want. So as a player you explore the possibilities of the mechanics and you discover different meaning too your actions. A way to play An Apple a Day is to find the more "ending" possible. I would say the way to play this game is by trying to understand your action as a doctor and understanding the effect of your choices.

You can consider the game finish when you found four "ending" but I can tell you that there is still a little more to find. The game is all about choices, it is normal to feel a little confused about the actions you make at first. The actions all make sense after a few play.

You can play the Game :

HERE

READ THIS PART AFTER PLAYING

Is there any message? By looking at the game and the title you can figure out that the theme is : An apple a day keeps the doctor away. Well at first I though that will be could to avoid the doctor as an "human" and by eating apple the doctor will just go away. The idea sounds pretty straight forward, but the problem was the game will turn out into a sort of avoiding game with a theme. I wanted to play the theme, not to add a theme to some mechanics. So I turned out the game, what would happen if the player was the doctor. I first I was going to make the inverse of an avoider game, like running after everything green in the screen, but after playing I wish I were the moon Daniel Benmergui. I was looking for something smooth and relax. I took a little bit of the structure of finding different "ending" according to the choices of the player.

This allowed me to really explore the meaning of choices. If the player eat all the apples in the games, there is no way the npc could heal them self other then the doctor bringing them the hospital. So the player just fill up the hospital. If the player play again and decide to wait a little bit, the NPC will heal them self and just one will stay there, sick. So the player will go help him, because there is no way he could get an apple. In that case, the player really understood what the game is about, it is about acting when it is the right time, when people need you. So the player knows his role. After that, by exploring the rest of the possibilities, by thinking, you can understand what everything means. I am not going to spoiled the rest of the game... you will have to find yourself.

Thank you to Frank, Max and Simon for helping testing.

Number to Number Combat on Math Nook

Hello Everyone,

Great new Number to Number Combat just joined Math Nook.

Math Nook is a website full of Math Games, I hope the game will do great there. Teachers use the website as a teaching tool.

You can play Number to Number Combat here.

Number to Number Combat

Hello,

This month is been a super busy week, master study are a little more work than I thought it will be. Here my first game using flash.

PLAY HERE

The game is quite simple, by finding the right answer to the equation you hit your opponent, he does the same thing. You level up after each level. This game is made for the theme for October at experimental gameplay project. The game is not really hard, you learn the mechanics and master them in about three fights. The challenge was for me, it is my first game using flash, I was a good experience, except for the preloader. Otherwise, flash is really well made to design and change the content easily.

I hope your enjoy the game as much as I enjoyed making it.