We’re moving hosts due to some horror stories we’ve heard and in order to save some dough.  Domain etc. will all stay the same, but there may be some hiccups over the next week.

Introduction:

Minima Bomber is a 7-day game created for August’s Experimental Gameplay project.  It’s a platformer like any Mario game but has destructible terrain like Worms.

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What Went Right?

1. Pixel Art – With the time constraint and EGP’s theme of ‘Bare Minimum’ I decided early on to keep the game resolution/world small.  Since I choose a platformer, it was crucial to have a well animated player character so I decided to delve into pixel art.  I am not an artist, but by keeping the character to only a few pixels wide and a few pixels high, I was able to create a good looking, well animated dude who became Minima Bomber.
2. Damage System – The damage system was conceived thanks to EGP’s theme and a reference on their website about nudity.  After working on the game for a couple days, I felt that there wasn’t enough unique about the gameplay so I opted to do some more pixel art animations displaying the character in different forms of undress. Having the character’s health displayed by his clothes added a nice humor element to the game.
3. Upgrades – I was able to cram 2 weapons and 4 other powerups/upgrades into the game.  Acquiring a new ability every couple of levels kept the game fresh and added to the game’s simple move from point A to point B objective.  I was especially fond of wall slide and air-run power-ups which made moving around more enjoyable.  I also found that the missile weapon upgrade worked better than the original bomb weapon.
4. High Scores – I was able to add my first global online high score system to this game and it actually worked!  More importantly, the high score list added replayability to the game since playing a 2nd time started a player with all the abilities.  High scores also added a greater penalty for death since it added to your total time.
5. Core Gameplay- The core platforming gameplay mixed with Worm’s destructible terrain was a success.  The game was fun and easy to pick up and play.
6. Level Loading System- Every level is made up of 4 files.  1 file saves the position of all the additional game objects, and there are 3 picture files that save the foreground, background, and collision mask.  This allowed me to draw all the levels in Photoshop using their tools and simply using the program’s built in layers to separate each part of a level.  Being able to create levels in this program rather than make my own level editor tool was crucial in meeting the 7 day time constraint.  16 levels wouldn’t have been possible without Photoshop.

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What Went Wrong?

1. Level Design – Because of the time constraints, the levels weren’t particularly well designed.  The beginning stages just add a new power-up nearly every level and don’t explore everything that the upgrades add.  Furthermore, I don’t think that I ever utilized the terrain destruction to it’s maximum.
2. Enemies (lack thereof) – In the end, there was a total lack of enemies and some of the hazards/enemies (the turrets) look bad and become an annoyance rather than an enjoyable challenge.  The hazards weren’t all bad though since I actually liked the spike balls.
3. Level/Background Graphics – While my art worked out with the pixel characters, it completely failed and made the levels look amateurish with a lack of variety.  The levels were in photoshop using gradient boxes and lack the detail/texture I would have liked or would have used in a full version of the game.
4. No ability to Jump to High Scores – Pretty self explanatory, but players don’t even know there’s a top-10 high score list unless they beat the 16 levels.  After you know there’s high scores, the only way to check them is to beat the game again – which is pretty annoying.
5. No music – I ran into so many problems with looping music when I tried to add it in that I just had to cut my losses.  Music would have been nice, but the ambient type soundFX work well.
6. Bugs/Cuts – There are some noticeable bugs that are in the game.  Bombs can get stuck and bounce erratically, you can only throw one bomb at a time, among other bugs and crashes.  Time just prevented me from addressing all these problems

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Conclusion:

Overall, I think that Minima Bomber turned out spectacular considering it was done in only 7 days.  One of the most common negative comments I have gotten about the game is that it is too short.  While I would have loved to make the game longer, I think that this is not a particularly bad problem to have since it means people are left wanting more and enjoy the time they spend playing it.

• The game has been downloaded and played by over 1,000 people
• Average Time to Beat the game for the Top 10 players is: 1 Minute and 25 seconds
• Top Player: Vanguard (1 Minute and 23 seconds)
• JayisGames referred over 60% of the visits
• Minima Bomber was the 2nd Most popular page on our website for August (came out Aug 26th)

I’ve done my best to collect comments from around the ‘net.  Ther’e’s not as many out there as I was hoping, but  everything is pretty positive about the game minus the few glitches and the inability to change the jump button to W.

“Minima bomber was fun, I just wish it had laster a little longer. All the upgrades were pretty cool though.”

“promising stuff. will be good with some work”

“Games with destroyable landscapes are always a favorite, and Minima Bomber is one of these games.”

“It’s a shame that it’s so short, because it’s absolutely excellent.”

A quick 2 day prototype

I was working on our next game project this weekend, when I realized that it would be really nice if all our future games had an automated updater.  This would allow us to release public betas, do cool preorder bonuses, allow players to always have the latest and greatest version, and give us a platform to make our games more episodic in nature.

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The picture above is a working prototype that I completed over the weekend that will give us a platform to update all of our games in the future.  Whether it’s a free game or a full commercial game, we want players to all be playing the newest version.  I’ve built in an ad panel for us to utilize to advertise our newest game or promotion.  Expect to see this platform in our next free game so we can give it a test run.

There's Minima front and center

Minima Bomber has made the ‘Best of the Net’ for Experimental Gameplay’s Bare Minimum theme.  Here’s what EGP said about our little 7-day game:

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“Keep your clothes on in this very fun pixel platformer. Deform the terrain with explosives, but be warned – too much damage will strip your character down to practically nothing. Someone was bound to go there eventually.”

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Play the Free Game now! I’ve already been completely blasted off the high score table.  Mad props to Vanguard and MobiusPoint who have been battling it out for first.  Vanguard has an impressive score at: 9161… that means he/she beat the 16 levels in 83.9 seconds….Wow!

Minima Bomber is a Platformer.  Keep your clothes on and keep moving to the right.

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About:

Minima Bomber was inspired by the Experimental Gameplay Project’s Bare Minimum Theme.  It was made over 7 days (with less than 8 hours a day) with a total time around 30-35 hours.  You can learn more about the game’s development process and any future progress here.

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How it Fits the Theme:

Minima Bomber fits the Bare Minimum theme in several intentional ways (and a few unintentional).  The pixel art style character was inspired by the theme and a great way to make a nicely animated player with the time available.  Of course the biggest way the game fits the theme is that the character sheds his clothes and gets down to his undies. If the player is completely ‘Bare’ – you die.  The levels were all created in Adobe Fireworks by drawing boxes and saving the different layers of the picture as backgrounds or collision masks.  This was a simple ‘Bare Minimum’ way to quickly draw & create levels. I ran out of time and left out game music and used only a handful of different soundFX to set the mood.

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MINIMA BOMBER

Download Zip (13MB)

Download w/Installer (13MB)

Installation:

Download either the Zip or Installer and unzip/install the Program into the desired folder.  Double click the .exe to start the game.

Instructions:

The goal of the game is simple: Move through the 16 Levels as fast as you can with as few deaths as possible.  Just keep running right!

Controls:

The A, S, D keys move the player around.  The mouse is used to aim.  Left click to throw a bomb/fire a missile.  Right click to switch between weapons.  If you have the upgrades: Hit S again in the air to double jump, Hold Right/Left into a wall to slide down it, Hold S in the air while running to air-run, and hold spacebar to walk.

Credits:

Everything done by: Mike Gnade

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Please share this game with your friends, leave us comments and feedback, and discuss the game below:

The final ability in the game: The Air Run

Well there’s only a few hours left in the final day of coding for the Experimental Gameplay project game.  Minima Bomber is finished.  There’s 16 levels, 6 abilities, 4 enemies/hazards, and 2 backgrounds/worlds (if you will – they are both grass themed and lame though).  The online highscore system is working and will hold and prominently display the top 10 scores.  Obviously, when you make a game in just 7 days there are a ton of regrets: features that didnt’ make the cut, graphics that could use improvement, etc.  I’ll eventually write up a post-mortem about what worked in the game and what didn’t make it etc.  The full FREE game will be available to download and play tomorrow for PC/Windows.  My best time so far has been 16 minutes (on 1st playthrough), but I didn’t post my score since I can do better.

Missiles were added yesterday; there's some spike hazards too

Another very productive day brings Minima Bomber nearly to completion.  The good news is that the final 2 upgrades were added into the game along with an originally unplanned online highscore database (not 100% done).  Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to really add or code any decent enemy AI, though I was able to add a sort of flower that shoots spread shots.  That brings the hazards to a total of 4: Spikes, Turrets, Spread flower, Spike Balls.  The game will have 2 weapons (the bomb and missile/bazzoka) and an additional 4 upgrades for your character (run, double jump, ninja wall slide, and air-dash/run).

The total number of levels is not set but will be 15+.  The basic flow of the game will be: play through once and learn as you go and earn all the abilities.  After your first play through, you’ll go to the online highscore page and get scored and can submit your score if you wish.  You’ll also have the option to play thru the levels again starting with all the abilities.  The best scores & speed runs will be achieved on the 2nd play through since the run and air run upgrades each boost your speed.

What’s Left to Do:

There’s still a few levels to be completed, but nothing major.  The bulk of the remaining work deals with scoring, penalizing for deaths, and enabling the online high score database and making it all look decent.  I still have to add in some SoundFX too….music is looking like a necessary omission.  After those last few things, I’ll package the free game and have it available on the website.  It will hit before the weekend, but no promises.

Now that's "Bare Minimum"

I worked on Minima Bomber on Friday and got a lot done. The best new feature is that your character’s damage is displayed by how much clothing he’s wearing (sort of a la Ghouls and Goblins). If you’re in your undies, it means that you’re one hit away from meeting your bloody death.

I have still not gotten around to any enemies…though there are some turrets and other hazards that have made their way into the game. I have not stuck to 1-2 enemies per level at all when it comes to the turrets and other hazards in the game. My biggest regret for this prototype is probably going to be the level design. I don’t have time (or a level editor) to redo the levels thus far and I think that I focus on upgrading the character way too quickly….oh well. The prototype will end up being about 15 levels and I’ve put in a couple stat counters for # of deaths and I’ll put in a timer. Your time and number of deaths will be displayed at the end of the game to add some replay value/challenge.

Looking ahead to day 6 & 7 I am confident that I’ll be able to finish 4+ levels and add in the game timer and a decent restart/play again function.  There will also be 2 new upgrades added to finish out the game.  1 will 100% be a new weapon…either a bazooka/RPG type thing or the easier: sticky bombs.  I also hope to add 1-3 more hazards/enemies.  I may omit music, but will need to work on SoundFX, installer, etc. on Day 7.