Older games
Info & downloads for some of my older games
This page was last updated on 22nd June, 2022
Please note that I have removed the info for games that I finished and were released on Itch since this page was originally written in 2018. You can find complete versions of Envahi, Rockman, Bah, Humbug and Boulderdash on my Itch.io page
Paradroid
Paradroid is a game Aaron and I worked on around the start of 2017. Most of the game was finished now, and it’s just droids AI, transfer game and a few other bits that needed finishing, along with some general tweaking. Real life, as always, prevented us working full time on the game, which was why it took so long to get done. Please note that the screenshots are a bit old so it will likely look different at release. Please note that we held off finishing the game as we had concerns about ownership in the end. Maybe one day we’ll come back to finish it.
There is a lot more information about the development of the #ParadroidRemake on Aaron’s blog.
iDef
iDef was Dexterity Designs first game which Aaron created over a couple of years as his first attempt programming for Ios devices. I came on board when the game was 95% complete and we formed our company to market and sell it. As far as development goes, I worked on a few aspects of design, all the writing, and selecting the right music for the game to licence. Naturally I helped with the final bug testing and bringing in beta testers to ensure the game went out bug free. Apart from a very minor patch just after we uploaded the main game, it never needed a further update.
Unfortunately, after we stopped working on mobile platforms, our Apple licence expired, which means that iDef is no longer available on the app store. Additionally, the game made extensive use of Cocos2D game libraries when coded, and this no longer exists in the format of that time, so it would be very impractical to build the project again, if we ever returned to mobile. So, if you have the game on your phone/iPad already then don’t delete it as you will never be able to get it back.
We didn’t have a huge success with this game despite some very good reviews, mostly because we got it up there long after the mobile market had saturated so not many people were ever aware of it. Before we decided to leave the mobile/tablet market for the indefinite future we did make the game free of charge, so hopefully a lot more people got the chance to play it before the download dissapeared.
It’s not all doom and gloom, however. Aaron recently finished a new version of iDef as a side project from our Paradroid remake, and that’s available for OSX and Windows via itchIO. A link to download it is on this blogs main page.
Gravity Force
Gravity force was created for a programming exersize by a friend who regularly does game jams, and also writes a mini-game every month to keep himself on his toes. These games don’t need to be huge games with lots of content but rather functional, and engaging, if limited games. It was suggested that I do a small game each month for a year to get my programming skills a bit better, and also gain some focus for bigger projects. Over my programming years I have too many unfinished games at various levels of completion so this approach would help my focus somewhat.
I made up a list of the 12 games I was going to do over the course of a year, which also included scaling down a few of the games I’d already started on to give them some closure so I could concentrate on other projects.
I only did the first months game from scratch in the end as I started working with Aaron shortly after. Infection was the second project on the list and I did close that off too, albeit a bit rushed, and was already 80% ready so it didn’t really count.
So here it is, and you can have either a Mac or Windows version. No explanation of the gameplay is needed as it’s a very simple shooter that you’ll soon pick up. I’ve not published the source code but I will do at a later date, as the game was written in Blitzmax a couple of years back, and I’ve long since moved on to other development systems.
The OSX version has a couple of minor cosmetic bugs fixed after the original game was released for Windows. I do now have a Windows laptop so plan to update the PC build soon to reflect those bug fixes. Additionally, I had planned to make a remake of the game in Game Maker studio 2 as my first test game, and did start on it. Aaron tempted me with Boulderdash, however, so that got put on the shelf but I may resurrect that instead of rebuilding the blitzmax version at some point in the future.
Infection
Infection was developed as an almost complete game before Gravity Force, but I had stalled on it up to that point, so I scaled back additional ideas and features to get it to a reasonable state to give away. I can’t say that I’m over-happy with it as it is now, but it works, the game-play is basically there, although very shallow, and it’s an interesting idea. Not to mention that it’s actually quite good fun playing it as it’s one of the few games I’ve actually played where I enjoy trying to beat my high scores. I’ve played very few games where this actually interested me over the years, mostly because they may have other objectives and not be the total focus of the game. Here you are aiming to kill as many germs each screen as possible but you only get one shot, so you’re pretty helpless watching the game play out after you’ve taken it. Get less than 80% of the screen cleared and that’s the end.
Try it and see for yourself. I liked the idea so much that I actually have an almost complete IOS/OSX version written in Swift 2 that is technically much improved on this game, but just doesn’t feel as good, so I didn’t release it. Aaron and I have often talked about expanding on the basic idea as part of a bigger game but mostly that’s still at the design stage for a future project.
Sorry, there is currently no compiled windows build at present as I don’t use Blitz any more.
Most of my other completed games that I consider could be releasable currently have temporary assets in them or are written in languages I no longer use and would take a lot of effort to get playable builds. I do hope to expand upon this page at a later date as well as work further on the big list I’ve put into a spreadsheet of all the games I can ever remember working on and what happened to them. It’s amazing all the stuff you forget about over the years.