I feel like John Locke from Lost in a way.  I have to keep clicking the button on the computer every four hours to postpone, and if I don’t postpone it my computer will die.  It’s true.  Let me tell you the story.

I got back from vacation on Monday, and found my computer not working.  It’s a Vista machine, and it’s under two years old.  It wouldn’t boot past the loading screen.

So I restart the computer, thinking it was just a glitch, but it fails.

I try to run in last-best configuration, it fails.

I try to run in Network-Only Safe-Mode, it fails.

I try to run in Safe-Mode, it fails.

So that is the entire list.  I unplug everything, try to recover from DVD, it all fails or glitches.  I run several checkdisks and that sort of thing, and the computer doesn’t respond.

Finally, after trying to recover from DVD for the ninth time, it works.  Randomly.  My computer glitches out, displaying random coloured RGB pixels across the entire screen making my monitor look like it had dead pixels, then it restart and started working.

I traced the problem back to an automatic update of the OS by Vista.  The way this works (which is set to be “on” by default) is that the computer gives you a few minutes to hit the “postpone” button on the automatic update or it will restart the computer and start the upgrade.  Your only options are to postpone it for a few minutes or a few hours, and there is no option above 4 hours.  So the minute I wasn’t at the computer, my computer decided to automatic upgrade without me, and managed to crash.

So after the crash I turned off Automatic Updates in the Control Panel.  However, Vista doesn’t approve. It still feels the need to bug me about updating or “I’ll do it automatically for you!” still!  I cannot seem to get rid of the option for Windows to auto-update, which means I most likely will wake up in the morning with another failed update/crash.  I’m sitting here trying to Postpone the update over and over again.

What happens when I go home and leave the update to itself again?  What happens if I turn the computer off?  Will it Automatic Update on load like it did last time?  There’s no good answer, every answer is a threat to all my lovely documents and I have no control over it.  The only way to guarantee my computer would survive the night would be to press the “Postpone” button on the computer every time it pops up, all through the night.

My computer controls my life :(.  Let’s hope for the best tomorrow.

UPDATE 2: The deadline has passed, and I’m going to have some fun going though checking out the best levels. Thanks for he great response, guys!

UPDATE: Version B2 is now Out, if you want to keep your saves from B1, make sure this new file is in the same folder as the old file. This version fixes the crashing problem discovered by Wurmy - thanks Wurmy! as well as allowing you to restart a preview without going to the editor.

Well well well, long time no speak, Armorblog readers! It’s me - remember me? Yeah I’m that guy who made that Shift game and that one with the tank that blows up when it runs out of fuel - magico tank I think it was called or something. Well anyway, you know how I love making level editors and then having people play with them? Well it’s that time again! Included in this post is the Level editor for my next original puzzle platformer - which I’ve named “The Greater Good”. And I’m after you’re levels!

“What’s in it for me?” I hear you cry, well as well as a credit in the final game due out the end of this month, I’m offering cash prizes (payed via paypal) for my top 5 favourite fan submitted level from my own hard earned Armor cash as well as Armor Games stickers for everyone who get’s a level featured in the final game!

Here’s a rundown of the prizes

$100 + Stickers for my favourite level
$50 + Stickers for my second favourite level
$25 + Stickers for third
$25 + Stickers for fourth
$25 + Stickers for fith
and stickers for everone who get’s a level included in the final game.

The only catch is the time limit! Can you get these levels done and posted on the Armor Forum at this link

http://armorgames.com/community/thread/1957841/make-levels-for-my-new-game-for-prizes

by THE 28TH OF THIS MONTH (SEPTEMBER 2008).
Winners will be announced shortly after. 

Any questions, post them on the Armor Forum thread and I’ll do my best to answer them, but most of the functions of the editor are self explanatory, or are explained in inbuilt levels as well as the Youtube lessons I have produced found at this link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klMPLSUY0ls
 

GOOD LUCK!

Here are the files
If you have the latest Flash Player, you can use the SWF version, this is a much faster download 

VERSION 2 - greater-good-lck_b1_swf1
If you are having trouble playing the swf version, here is a version with the player built in (Windows only)

VERSION 2 - greater-good-lck_b1_projector1

This blog post is a little over-due, but here are our photos from PAX 2008!

Click Here

Highlights Include
*Sightseeing with my beautiful and amazing wife!
*Getting to hang out with John (Head of Game Developer) and Carlie (Talented Community Manager)
*Seeing Tom Fulp
*Meeting Pixel Jam
*Hanging out with Jerm and Bryan (Winners of our first Gaming Competition and Creators of popular titles such as Marvin Spectrum and Transmigration)
Hopefully next year will be just as fun!

Edmund McMillen & Tyler Glaiel were kind enough to answer a few questions about their newest game Aether.

Q.) What emotions does Aether conjure up when you play it? (Seeing the game is about your childhood)

Edmund: The goal of the game was to put the player into the mind of a lonely young boy who has a hard time relating to others. While designing the game i tried to put myself back in the mind frame of me at 7-8 years old, lonely, nervous and self destructive with great fears of abandonment and alienation from others. Playing and designing the game conjures up those feelings.

Tyler: It was interesting as I was developing the game because it was pretty much about Edmund’s childhood, not mine, and I did not know all the facets of the story as I was working on the gameplay. So, I basically worked out the mechanics of the planets to convey specific emotions, not necessarily knowing which ones would be used for what part of the story. It’s tough to decide if the mood molded to the gameplay or the gameplay molded to the mood, but I think that because the line is fuzzy there, the game manages to build up mood much more than something that is 100% planned from the beginning.

Q.) What inspires your creativity? Is there any one source you tend to draw upon more than others?

Edmund: Creative and driven people inspire me. Working with Tyler was awesome because i could totally ride off his inspiration and get a ton of stuff done in a very short amount of time. People being creative and taking risks with their work always is inspiring to me, honesty in art is also very inspiring.

Tyler: Part of my inspiration comes from looking at what other games do wrong, and thinking to myself, “I could do better than that…” Maybe that’s an egotistical way to think, but it’s an interesting challenge to try and fix someone else’s errors. I also recently played Braid, and before Edmund even pitched this idea to me, I was thinking of how to make a game that has a deep story and a gameplay that fits the story (like Braid). A few weeks later I was working on this. I also took cues from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (and various other songs) for the music.

Q.) What is your favorite game that you created?

Edmund: Aether is currently my favorite game ive created, with Gish a close 2nd.

Tyler: As of now, Aether.=2 None of my other stuff really comes close (even though I do like what I did on Paths, there were some serious difficulty problems. Like technically impossible levels. My bad.).

Q.) Can we expect to see Aether on WiiWare? Seeing the game is set up perfect for the WiiMote.

Edmund: Thats the goal for next year!

Tyler: We hope so. Should be fun to juggle school (college omg) and this.
We look forward to more great games from you two and we hope to be playing Aether next year on our Wii.

Aether is a simple experimental “Art” game about childhood and escapism. Its a very honest and personal project, says Edmund; that he’s been a little worried about making public because its exposes a lot of the fears he had as a child and puts him in a vulnerable place. Edmund does feel like there are some out there that can appreciate something honest that has a lot of heart.

In the game you play as a boy who leaves the earth in search of life in outer space, someone he can relate to. in the process he discovers lost planets that need to be saved, solving puzzles on these planet bring life back to them and the galaxy expands.

The game has gone on to receive a lot of positive praise.

“Endearing”
-Kotaku

“Personal and a bit different”
-1up

“Hauntingly beautiful”
-Wired

“It’s everything you want an “art game” to be. A uniquely personal, touching game that we can’t wait for you to try.”
-Joystiq

“Gloriously imaginative”
-Jayisgames

“Beautiful”
-Rock paper shotgun

“It’s like an arty, philosophical…Bionic Commando…with gravity and physics!”
Go Nintendo

“A gentle loneliness”
-Play This Thing

“Unique”
-Mac world

“Very personal and revelatory”
-TigSource

“Heavy stuff!”
-Channel 4
It’s a MUST-PLAY for all gamers (Hardcore & Casual).  (Play it Now)

Maverick made ‘Browser Game Pick‘ over at IndieGames.com. They even posted a game play video, which is embedded below. Whoever is playing the game in the video, has some great Mouse Skills.

Maverick (John Cooney) from indiegames.com on Vimeo.

“I’ve only got one gun, that’s 6 bullets. They’re six, that’s 36 bullets. Maybe they’ve got two guns, that’s 72 bullets, maybe they’ve got rifles…”
- Maverick

Since releasing The Last Stand, I’ve had hundreds of requests from people asking for advice on how to create games. I figure it’s about time I gave something back, so here it is. I’ll be writing a series of these posts over the next weeks/months covering a fairly broad and basic approach to game design and construction.

To start off everything off at the ground floor, I figured I’d touch on modifying games, which is where I got started when I was a teenager.

Back before I knew how to program, design or use Flash, I spent most of my time modifying other peoples games. Taking good ideas and trying to make them better is something I’ve always done. As a youngin’ , I modified all sorts of games: board games, card games, pen and paper role playing games and yes, even video games. If anything, doing this taught me about the core elements of game design and the mechanics that make games work. In my opinion, understanding how games work is the most important step in game design. Once you understand it, you can learn how to replicate it, or make it better.

As an exercise, take a simple board game such as Snakes & Ladders and break it down into it’s rules or elements:

(Chutes and Ladders, Snakes and Ladders…same thing)

- Movement is random (based on the roll of the dice)
- Snakes push you back squares
- Ladders take you forward squares
- Players take moving in turns
- Win by getting to the top first

Pretty simple game design, there’s really not much more to it. But we could make it slightly more interesting if we modify the rules or add rules to it:

- Certain squares makes a player lose their turn
- Bonus squares take players forward
- Add “elevators” that take the player up one row

Easy, and it can be done with any game, regardless of how complex. Monopoly, Guess Who, Scrabble, heck I turned my Hero Quest and Space Crusade sets as a kid into a fully working Warhammer game of my own design. No need for programming or knowing how to draw, just an existing game, a few sheets of paper and a pencil. It’s a great place to start and find out if making games is really something you want to do.

Eventually I went on to modify games like Doom, Duke Nukem, Unreal and lately Company of Heroes, using these very same techniques and ideas. The point is, you’ve gotta start somewhere and these days diving head first into building games can be pretty daunting.

Until next time, take The Last Stand as an example of a modified game. When you break it down, it’s really just Space Invaders with some new graphics and few new rules…

The MS-Ride is less than 5-weeks away and our Team Jerseys are ready to go. Here’s how they are going to look, so if you see us on the day of the ride, make sure to say ‘Hi’.

It’s not to late to donate and support a great cause. You can visit our Team Page, or click on a team member and support them.

Armor Games Team
Daniel McNeely
John Cooney
Jeff Hiltbrand
Brian Hunter
Miles Kushin
Alfred Santana (Coming Soon!)

Money Magazine recently came out with an article of the 100-best places to live in America. Number 4 on the list was Irvine, which is where the Armor Games offices are located.

If you are an experienced Flash Game Developer or talented Graphic Artist and want an exciting job making games for a living, check out our jobs page and send us your resume!

We look forward to hearing from you.

-The Armor Games Team