So we have our winners! After analyzing all the data from our top six contestants, we have the following winners for each category:

+++GRAND PRIZE
Zonker (61 Tiles)

• 1 I-pod Shuffle (1GB)+ $25 Itunes Gift Card
• 2 Ball Revamped Squishy Balls
• 25 stickers
• A certificate to hang on the wall, indicating your elite skills
• Something random we find in the office that will fit in the envelope

+++First Place (Runner-Up)
SP3000 (61 Tiles)

• 1 I-pod Shuffle (1GB)
• 2 Ball Revamped Squishy Balls
• 25 stickers
• A certificate to hang on the wall, indicating your elite skills
• Something random we find in the office that will fit in the envelope

+++Second and Third Place
Sogtulakk (62 Tiles) and Fermium77 (62 Tiles)

• 2 Ball Revamped Squishy Balls
• 25 Stickers

+++Fourth and Fifth Place
Tim Ward (62 Tiles) and Strop (64 Tiles)

• 1 Ball Revamped Squishy Ball
• 10 stickers

While there were other users that did get a score of 64, per the OCTourney rules the first person to send in the score won, but still congrats to Eldaerin, Nab, and Radley for their scores of 64! Winners will be contacted tomorrow so that we can figure out where you live and what we can send you.

This tournament ended up being a huge success. We were never expecting to get over 200 entries and for people to dedicate an amazing amount of time to playing this game, and we are really thankful to all the people who came out and gave it their best.

I think more tournaments like this should happen on Armor Games again. We’ll pick a different game for next time, probably we’ll continue to do puzzle games that have a sandbox style to them. Keep an eye out on the blog, we’ll keep you up to date on the new contests rolling through here and the Armor Games site.

Feel free to post any awesome level designs you guys came up with. I’m sure you have some.

Random Statistics

• Average Score: 86.45
• Total Entries: 233
• Total Tiles Submitted: 20,143
• Average Tiles Per Level: 2.88
• Emails Spammed to my Inbox: 468 (22/day avg)
• Average Number of Email Resends: 2.01
• Lowest Score Possible (Among User Submissions): 59 Tiles

Rankings

(If you didn’t give me your AG screen name I put in your email address name)

Winning Design by Zonker, score of 61 (Forgive me if I copy and pasted this wrong):

1. R88×75|
2. L480×76|U239×156|
3. L423×243|
4. R295×103|
5. L442×233|U46×301|
6. R265×148|
7. U74×363|R61×108|
8. R13×433|
9. L291×197|
10. L240×90|U205×94|
11. R128×293|U115×285|R445×184|
12. R77×408|U185×424|
13. R57×69|U263×128|
14. U484×293|R483×357|R122×120|
15. L78×242|
16. R212×387|U462×284|
17. L417×174|U433×222|
18. R189×351|U531×248|
19. U470×185|L231×121|
20. U184×411|R48×273|R301×194|
21. R112×99|U56×118|
22. U130×341|U511×341|U333×341|R16×162|
23. L467×397|U343×431|U260×261|
24. L286×450|U69×275|
25. L246×318|U451×391|U456×379|
26. R272×263|U136×375|
27. U320×380|L29×460|L406×275|
28. L451×93|U485×108|
29. L491×289|
30. L515×308|U286×293|U105×186|

Oh where has the time gone?  Just a few weeks ago I was posting the Obsessive Compulse Tournament blog post and now we are reaching the homestretch.  We currently have 200+ entries and a ton of fantastic scores.  The tournament ends tomorrow, but there is still time to enter if you haven’t gotten your game mastered!

So I am getting many scores today, but the deadline is May 7th, 11:59 PM Pacific Time… which means you have until the end of the day tomorrow (or today, if you are reading this a day late).  We will take NO late entries.  The email must be in my inbox by that time for the score to count.

We’ll judge the top entries after May 7th to determine if the scores are acceptable.  By May 14th we’ll post the final scoreboard of how everyone did, and announce the winners of the prize packs!

So get your stuff in.  If you want to check out the Obsessive Compulse Tournament, click here.  There’s still some time to enter.

Oh, and by the way… the average score in the tournament as of now is 86.89, and there are 64 entries under 80.

MS is a horrific disease that affects over 300,000 each year in the United States. I personally know 3 people who have been effected by it, so I’m doing my part to help raise money for their cause.

This year we will be riding 150-miles on our bikes to raise money and awareness for the disease. (MS Ride)

There are two ways you can help.

1.) Sponsor me as a rider and donate $10.00 or more. (Website won’t accept any amount smaller than $10, Sorry) Anyone who makes a donation will receive a 5 pack of stickers and a Ball Revamped Squishy ball. All donations are tax deductible.

Visit my personal fund raising page here. (click)
*After you donate, make sure to e-mail your address to ‘MsRide@ArmorGames.com’ and we’ll get your free SWAG dropped in the mail.

2.) Join our team and ride with us. (Team Page)
*Anyone who joins the team and rides with us will get a complimentary team jersey with your name on it.
(A $60 value for FREE)

Thanks for the support and Happy Gaming!

-Daniel

One of my favorite games to produce is finally undergoing a second round of treatment.  While the video is still a rough cut of the gameplay and graphics so far, it shows off a few of the new graphical changes to the game… there is still much more to come!  The core gameplay hasn’t changed, but there are a few new obstacles and port types to encounter.

TBA is puzzle game that relies on the player to use only one key to play… the space bar!  It’s all about timing and precision as you launch across various stages at tremendous speed.  This new version of the game is themed with different worlds, sound tracks, and host of new achievements.  The game is linear now, so the 50 levels you will face are going to be harder and harder all in a row, with some element of plot.  The levels are now expandable to any size, and feature several depths of background and foreground.  I am also aiming for about 30 achievements built into the game, so there’s a bit more to achieve than some of my other titles!

This game should be finished by the end of next week or maybe a few days afterwards.

I’m happy to announce that ‘Armor Games’ broke the 1,000 Alexa Mark this past weekend.

I know Alexa isn’t the defining standard when it comes to web stats, but they recently made changes to improve their overall ranking accuracy.

So I wanted to extend a BIG thank-you to everyone who visits Armor Games!!

-Armor Games Team

Before I get ahead of myself, I think it’s generally important to indicate that I’ve been an avid Burnout player since Burnout 2. Going into this game I felt like there was a lot to live up to. It’s not just matter of living up to its forefathers but moreso the ability to add something new to an already complex and branched formula. Luckily Burnout Paradise clears the bar with some room to spare.

Burnout Paradise is a racing, stunt-driving, free-for-all sort of game that banks on a player’s ability to deal with high-speed maneuvering coupled with traffic and obstacles. The game is made up of several different event-types that challenge the player to reach certain stunt scores or win a race in first place. Winning events advances the game into harder modes, just like any other racing game. But what is non-standard in the Burnout is the idea of boosting/taking down opponents. By taking risks in the game (such as driving down the wrong side of the road or weaving through traffic) you accumulate boost, which is a trigger-happy way to hurl yourself even faster down the road. The whole experience is exhilarating and over-the-top fun.

The game takes place in a giant city and country landscape called “Paradise City”, which has a very pleasant sandbox feel; the whole city is at your fingertips. Instead of waiting for a race to load in some random location, you drive to that location. All the events take place in the very world that you drove to, so everything becomes familiar over time. A huge plus to the game is that there is rarely a loading bar and the cityscape loads as you go. While this was a major pain for previous Burnout games, this game excels in keeping the game going at all times.

Multiplayer mode is also a great addition to the game. There are over 300 events to play with your friends, most of which are exciting and not offered in the single-player version. For example, one event-type requires you to simultaneously jump from different sides of a broken bridge and crash mid-air to win the event. I can’t imagine anything more awesome to include in a racing game.

Not to say that this Burnout experience was flawless, however. The game stripped a few mechanics from the previous games that made it somewhat frustrating to play. For example, one of my favorite now missing event-types was causing as much damage as possible to rack up dollars worth of damage.  Also, the game’s general forced viewing of the slow-motion crashing without any sort of control over the crash was annoying, especially since the previous Burnout titles had the ability to score extra Takedowns while you were crashing in “bullet time.”  Since crashing occurs a lot in Burnout and controlled crashes were nixed, I felt like I was wasting time.

The learning curve on this game was the toughest challenge of all. The game throws you on the street and expects you to have a grasp on mechanics and gameplay from the get-go. While I did have previous Burnout experience I was still caught up in trying to deal with speed and timing. I almost put down the game for good once because it was so hard to get used to the game. While racing the game gives you little time to react to the driving direction it gives you. I equate it to your GPS system screaming at you to turn right at the last minute while barreling down a city street in the far left lane.  But after you get the hang of things (which is a good 10-15 events) things start to become clear.

Overall this a great game to get, especially if you like alternative racing games such as Mario Kart but don’t like to get dragged into “true” racing games such as Gran Turismo or Forza Motorsport. It’s a tough ride at the beginning, but what you get the hang of it you’ll definitely be yearning for more. The game’s endless sandbox of jumps, billboard crashes, and fence smashing will keep you going even beyond the game events offered, dishing the game perfectionists a good challenge. Overall, Burnout Paradise is a tight package that definitely delivers.

90/100.

In case you haven’t heard of our AWESOME contest, link here.  There’s still a ton of time to enter!

Wow, so we’ve been getting a LOT of entries… nearly 120 unique people have entered since last week!  It’s been awesome to see everyone submitting the most elaborate and exciting level designs we have ever seen in Compulse, and you guys certainly seem to be getting better… some scores have improved by nearly 10-20 points in a few days.  We haven’t OFFICIALLY checked any layouts, but I have to say that these scores I am getting are mind boggling.

We have several updates for you!

1. Many of you have caught a minor glitch in the teleports.  This is caused by the little circle going into the center of the teleports changing the teleport size, meaning the ball may or may not hit it as it pings.  This glitch is most apparent in level 15 and 23, and may cause different patterns.  The chance of these patterns differentiating is about 1 in 10, but it is still significant enough to warrant a warning.  We acknowledge the problem and if your level works part of the time we will know and count it as okay… but make sure to drop us a note if you notice that one of your levels works part of the time (many of you are doing this, thanks).  This problem is only on teleport levels.
2. Yes, we know you can hack/slash/edit/modify/glitch the file.  But it’s not going to make a difference since you are submitting your level designs to us.  Please do not send us bogus scores from your awesome cheat engines.
3. Some people are emailing us 10 times a day.  Please send it once at the end of the day :(.  Once or twice a day is fine but don’t spam my inbox!
4. We cannot reveal the top scores to you.  You have to use your better judgment (and listen to your rambling co-players in the main ArmorBlog thread) about what scores are floating out there.

So thanks for playing thus far!  I’ll give you a hint as to where you may or may not be at the moment: there are 40 entries that are at or below the score of 80!  A bit vague for you in the lead, but now you know at least where you are…. a tiny bit.

Remember you got until May 7th to get your best score!  The original contest page can be found here.

WHOH THERE.  Yeah you thought we were just all about Flash games or Wii and Zebra-shaped birthday cakes or something…but I am here to talk about this extremely bizarre product we started consuming by the bagful, and sometimes the boxful.

There’s this weird product called “Crisps” we bought recently at Costco after our Admin Assistant Fil tipped us off to it’s existence.  The product is several varieties of freeze-dried fruit.  No, not dried fruit like you get in trail mix or whatever.  Freeze-dried fruit, like the novelty astronaut food you might have eaten from a museum gift shop or somewhere like that.  What they do is remove all the water from a piece of fruit so that it is only the meat of the fruit leftover.

This very stock-photoesque picture I found on the web is about what it looks like.

The fruit tastes like the normal fruit except it has a wafer-like texture and consistency when you eat it.  You can easily eat a whole bag of these things in about two handfuls which means you don’t get many.  But surprisingly the apple-version bag tells us is that there is 1.5 freeze-dried apples in each bag, meaning that days in which I eat three bags I am eating nearly 5 apples.  These things are ridiculously good.

Anyway after our trial box of these things we decided the office needed more.

I think we have about 200 of these things now, which should at least hold us over until the end of next week.  These things are delicious and yes this entire post seemed like a giant marketing ploy… but man we are addicted to these things.  Our office stocks them as snack food now so that we stop eating other things that are horrible for us.  Come work for us and you can eat them too.

We sure talk about food a lot on this blog… sigh.

What a day what a day what a day.

I’ve been busy all day finishing up the levels for the Assassin Bow Woman game, which should be ready soon, although a few snags have been hit, but this morning I decided to get the engine done for the other game I’d like out this month, a game that lends heavily from the “Match 3″ genre but then smashes it into the “Mouse Avoider” genre like there’s no tomorrow, it’s looking kind of nice, and more updates on that soon.

In slightly more infuriating news, my XBox decided to join the ranks of the other 33% failure rates of Microsoft’s PC/Console lovechild. Now I face the dilemma of Microsoft Customer Service or having a pop at repairing it myself. Time allowing, I’d prefer the latter.

And here is a pic of me, my Girlfriend Lucy, and daughter Ella showing off my Stylish Shift 2 Shirt I recieved for my 21st from my dear Mother. This is for those of you who would like to see behind the scenes for one of the Armor Staff, and chide him over how badly he needs a haircut.

I was also considering doing a proper Shift shirt design myself in high resolution, what would you guys think about something like that being available to purchase? Would you be interested? If not, suggest what *could* make you consider such a purchase.

-Tony

=====================

Tournament Updates:

May 12 - Winners Announced!

May 6 - Update #2

April 28 - Update #1

=====================

You think you are good at Compulse? Well we want to see just how good you are in the official Obsessive Compulse Tournament! Play through each level of the new tournament edition game. The players with the best score will win some awesome prizes!

Play the NEW 30 level set released today (it’s really, really hard) and try to get the lowest score possible.

Compulse is a game where you drop directional tiles on the screen to direct a ball through the level. As you advance through the game the levels get trickier and it becomes a game of using the least amount of tiles to get through each level. With the release of the Obsessive Compulse Tournament Pack, there are 30 new levels to enjoy and we’re going to give away prizes to those who are the swiftest and the strongest.

The tournament begins NOW and rolls through May 7th at 11:59 PM Pacific Standard Time!

—————–

GRAND PRIZE

• 1 I-pod Shuffle (1GB)+ $25 Itunes Gift Card
• 2 Ball Revamped Squishy Balls
• 25 stickers
• A certificate to hang on the wall, indicating your elite skills
• Something random we find in the office that will fit in the envelope

First Place (Runner-Up)

• 1 I-pod Shuffle (1GB)
• 2 Ball Revamped Squishy Balls
• 25 stickers
• A certificate to hang on the wall, indicating your elite skills
• Something random we find in the office that will fit in the envelope

Second and Third Place

• 2 Ball Revamped Squishy Balls
• 25 Stickers

Fourth and Fifth Place

• 1 Ball Revamped Squishy Ball
• 10 stickers

—————–

HOW TO ENTER

1) Go play through the entire Obsessive Compulse Tournament Pack. Make sure you beat every level.

2) Go to the main menu and click “Generate Code.” Click the text box and hit CTRL-A to select all the text, and then CTRL-C to copy it.

3) Paste the text and your Armor Games user name into an email and send to john@armorgames.com by May 7th at 11:59 PM Pacific Standard Time. DO NOT PASTE IT INTO THIS BLOG POST.

PROTIP: You can enter as many times as you want but your best score will be the only score that counts. Please indicate if you are updating a score in your follow-up email. Please do not email me every day.

So there are some cool things we’ll be giving away, but of course you got to follow the rules:

—————–

Official Rules

1. You must play using the “Obsessive Compulse” game found on armorgames.com, unmodified and in it’s current working condition.

2. Your score will be posted to the Armor Blog (armorblog.com) a few days after the contest is over, so that you can see how you did.

3. Any indication of cheating will be detected. Don’t do it. We have ways of finding out. We reserve the right to take away a prize in the case that cheating has a occurred (ask us if you are unsure what cheating is). We can verify your level designs via your code!

4. The player with the lowest score with all levels completed will be the winner. In the case of a tie between multiple players the player who submitted their final best score first will be considered the winner.

5. We will test your levels to ensure that they are actually legitimate.

6. If you are outside the United States we will send you the cash equivalent.

7. When copying your code make sure you select all and copy the entire code. If we do not receive an entire code we will email you back asking for one. A complete code is necessary to be officially entered (you can tell it’s the whole code because it begins with “<BEGIN CODE>” and ends with “<END CODE>”. Do not send us the codes generated on individual levels… send us the codes generated on the main menu screen!

8. If there is an issue with the game file we may update it. Be aware that changes to the game file will be logged here. These changes will most likely not effect your current progress.
9. If you have any questions feel free to ask in this thread or email me at John@armorgames.com!

—————–

So like I said, contest ends May 7th at 11:59 PM PST. Go at it!