You guys hankering for some more SHIFT action?

Well first, let me get a few other discussion points out in the open as well…

First, what the heck happened to The Greater Good? Didn’t I say it was almost done? Didn’t I release a level editor? Where did it go!?
Well as it turns out, the game has been compeltely overhauled. The gameplay remains the same, the levels still all work form the editor, but it’s now no longer based on sacrificing cult members.
Stifle your groans, minions! I’m not here to dissapoint. Whats more fun than killing faceless cult members? You guessed it - killing cute little animals with big round eyes and loveable appearances.
How loveable you say? Well the artwork for them is being supplied by Mr Michael Swain, who you may know from such smash hits as the Mastermind series and the blockhead series.
So expect big things in the next few days.

Second Tidbit is another, smaller game I’m working on with Dim of the Super Flash Bros, a side crolling shooter based underwater. The style of the graphics is super snazzy, and sadly this game had been pushed backcause of the revamping of the greater good for the IGF, so poor
Dim has done a tonne of the artwork for it, but while I have the engine running smoothly, it will take a bit more time before completion. But keep your eyes peeled, this ones going to be lots of fun.

Third on the agenda is my return to my favourite game series, SHIFT. Shift 4 is going to be another step forward for the SHIFT series. I’ve tried to build on each one in succession to add more depth to gameplay for you crazy cats, and this one will be no different.

The idea I’ve been toying with is an experimental multi character approach. DId anyone ever play that one game Scoregamites? During the making of it I had tonnes of ideas for a more enclosed game like shift using a similar concept, but without the repitition represented by scoregamites.
I’ll also be incorperating tonnes of Armor games members levels into this version, which is always fun.
And here, for your viewing pleasure, is a neat little promotional poster mocked up by Chris Ignatov, with the clever little logo by Matte Bell. I have big things in store for you Armor peeps.

We recently had a contest for Hedgehog Launch that had an interesting outcome, and I thought I might share it.  A few users discovered methods of “channelling” which is not only brilliant but totally needs to be explained, along with a breakdown of my game, which I thought might make an interesting article.

If you have never played Hedgehog Launch, it is a strategy/skill/luck game in which the objective is to shoot a hedgehog into space in as few days as possible.  Players can reach higher ground each game by buying upgrades, and you are awarded cash based on your ability to collect coins and hit springboards while in midair.  At the end of each level, players get an additional bonus based on the length of the time and the height of the launch.

How This Works

The game seems infinite in each direction, but because Flash can’t create infinity the game has to create a world as you go.

The game breaks up the world into 1,000 pixel areas (called Segments) horizontally in each direction.  Every Segment is an area where a number of coins and platforms are loaded.  Each time your player moves across a Segment, a new Segment will be added.

In order to keep Flash performing up-to-speed (it lags when too many coins and platforms are around), the game will only generate a new Segment only when you are traveling into a new one.  That Segment is generated after the one you are entering, so if you kept moving forward you would always hit more Segment.  In addition, it will destroy a Segment behind the one you are exiting, as it is far behind you and probably forgotten at this point.  This way the game won’t have millions of Segments loaded.

So to make things easy, there are a few Segments always active… the couple in front of you, the couple behind you, and the one that you are in.

Now players have figured out that this loading system can be manipulated to an advantage.  Even though the Segments are invisible and hard to distinguish in-game, they can be guessed and found.

So by running back and forth over the Segment boundry, they can easily manipulate the game to generate a ton of content in a Segment over and over again, essentially creating a wonderful wall of coins and platforms.

By default, the current values are assigned to a single Segment:

• 10 Blue Launchers
• 2 Green Launchers
• 2 Yellow Launchers

• 40 Bronze Coins
• 20 Silver Coins
• 5 Gold Coins

Which means that these players could generate nearly 100+ gold coins in an area quite easily, especially if they used the parachute.

So easily I could classify this as a bug, since I should have been destroying Segments far earlier (like after you leave one), but as this glitch is far too subtle for the common player to find I haven’t even recognized the problem until now.

Which brings me to my apology to DragonSoul and SP3000.

When these users presented videos of massive amounts of coins and platforms in very small areas, I asked, “How is this even possible!?”  I dismissed it as a “variable hack,” which is a method of hacking in which you take the Flash file and edit some variables (like how many coins and platforms are loaded) and then have a shopping spree.

But after watching the videos again, I noticed that the users indeed manipulate the Segment loading, which was completely in-bounds.  An additional email from DragonSoul confirmed the tactics used, and in the end, once again, DragonSoul and SP3000 took first and second place, respectively.

I’ll be sending the top three prizes, so I’ll be emailing you guys soon.

-John

*UPDATE*
We have some additional video verification going on from protested scores, stay tuned (John, 10/21)

Whew, Summer was busy.  So busy that we forgot to judge the contest!  Fear not, here are the results!

Congrats to Jordon for his $2,940,000 run!

After verifying all the entrants, it was determined that some of the gamers here decided to tweak a few variables ;).  There are limits in the game to how many of specific platforms appear in certain areas, and for some users videos they had to be disqualified due to the game rendering too many platforms of a certain type.

Congrats to the runner-ups as well!

Jcat - 1,900k

EDM - 989k

Silverfire - 937k

Gabriel - 858k

Now that it’s Fall we’ll have more time to do some more timely contests, so stay in touch!  We might have some level editing competitions, maybe another Compulse competition?  We’ll see!

Here’s a preview teaser trailer for my very very very soon to be released game; “The Greater Good”.

I’ll be announcing the prize winners also very soon, and the levels I’ve got for this game so far are pretty sweet - even Dan and John got their hands dirty with the editor to make some levels.  Who’s the boss now, huh?

Anyway, here’s the vid.