NMcCoy's Games

Friday prototype (and other things): Petal Meter

Nathan McCoy — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 04:12:50 +0000

This week’s Friday Prototype turned out mostly not at all like what I expected it to be, but instead became something far trippier. Still, an interesting aesthetic effect, and I may make proper use of it at some point.

In other news, I contributed a few things to Ben Lehman’s Hourly Game Day project. I didn’t manage the full hourly pace, but it was certainly an interesting exercise.

Lastly, Andreas Illiger has credited Wavespark as an inspiration for his game Tiny Wings, which was pretty cool of him.

(Also, I realized that I never linked to my Ludum Dare 22 game, Embers, which managed to rank 11th (out of 717) in the new Mood category.)

Friday Prototype: Energy Combo

Nathan McCoy — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 05:04:01 +0000

For the first of my weekly prototype projects, I’m trying out a mechanic that draws inspiration from Kingdom Hearts, Minicraft, and Skyward Sword. Basically, there’s an energy meter that regulates your attack combo. When it empties, you perform a more powerful attack, but then can’t attack for a little bit. Large enemies require the stronger attack to be finished off, though they still take damage from the weaker attacks. I’ve found that the feel of the system changes significantly when tweaking the timing parameters for the energy meter – how quickly it refills, how long it takes after an attack before starting to fill again, and how big a chunk of it each attack takes. Depending on the parameters, it can feel like a “traditional” combo system (with the result that the energy meter feels largely superfluous), or on the other end something more akin to a rhythm game. Try it out for yourself.

Dragondot revisited!

Nathan McCoy — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 20:57:24 +0000

The updated and improved Flash version of Dragondot is now up on Newgrounds and Kongregate, and on our sponsor site Age of Games which has the exclusive Endless Survival mode! Enjoy!

A long-overdue update, and exciting news!

Nathan McCoy — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 06:35:52 +0000

So, a lot’s been keeping me busy lately – getting back into school, my computer croaking, Ludum Dare 21 (two days after my computer croaking), and getting some of my top games ported to Flash. The results of all of this:

Planetary Mission, my (not very good due to lack of computer) Ludum Dare 21 entry, made in Flixel!
Missilebreak Outvaders, a renamed Flash port of Spaceout, up on Newgrounds and doing quite well for itself!
A significantly improved and expanded Flash port of Dragondot, licensed to an actual sponsor for a tidy sum, coming soon to a variety of flash game portals near you!

what is this I don’t even

Nathan McCoy — Sat, 28 May 2011 22:02:03 +0000

Game 47: Kobold Goes Alone

Nathan McCoy — Wed, 11 May 2011 18:05:23 +0000

Sorry it took me so long to get around to posting here, but here it is now – my Ludum Dare 20 entry, Kobold Goes Alone. The theme was “It’s dangerous to go alone! Take this!” Since I’d already done a total zelda ripoff for the last Ludum Dare, I decided instead to revisit the Dragondot universe once again. And the thought of a kobold beating things up with a stick amused me greatly. Changes in this version from my LD entry include an extra hit point for the kobold, the ability to continue from the screen before you died at, and some improvements to the worg’s Fang weapon. Go alone!

It’s been quiet around here…

Nathan McCoy — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 06:16:58 +0000

…but that’s about to change. Know why?

LUDUM DARE, baby!

You stoked? I’m stoked. Got a pack of Mountain Dew, a fridge full of ~~junk~~brain food, and an itch to Make Some Game. Let’s DO this thing!

Game 46: Dessert Stressed

Nathan McCoy — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 08:18:03 +0000

Seems I’ve had polar coordinates and touchscreens on the brain recently, as well as Danc and Raph Koster’s thoughts on building fun one skill-atom at a time. So here’s a simple little arcadey game about defending ice cream from fireballs. No, I don’t get it either. But it seems to work. Try it out!

This game’s title was provided by Nathan Wilson.

Game 46 progress report

Nathan McCoy — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 04:32:14 +0000

9:30pm Got most of the core mechanics going, and have added some sounds. Need a break, so I’m putting up what I have here for now. Still no score or loss condition.

Drawn Onward

Nathan McCoy — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 18:25:41 +0000

So, I’ve got a year’s worth of game designing and prototyping under my belt at this point, and I’m getting the feeling that it’s time for me to move on to projects that are a bit more ambitious in scope. There’s a few directions I’m looking at going with this, and I’d like to hear what you all think:

Rework one or more of my existing games for a mobile platform and publish it through an app store
Create a proper PC game of a moderate scope, similar to The Polynomial, and put it up for sale
Create a PC game of an ambitious scope, with a Wolfire-style public development process, either solo or with a small team
Finish and publish a non-computer game, such as the card-based tactical game I’ve been working on
Something else I haven’t thought of yet – suggestions?

My overall mission is to create a game that is financially successful within a year; my personal deadline for picking a project and starting work on it is the end of this month.

Also, Dessert Stressed will be going up tomorrow night – need to keep my game-making skills honed.