Whatever you do, Don't Die.

I have, just now, released a new game. Entitled "Don't Die", this is an epic tale of a red ball with a face that can throw flying robots at each other!

Ok, it's an arcade-like game, not an epic tale. But there's nothing wrong with that. :)

Don't Die is a score-based game. Leap upon and grab the robots, then throw them at each other to cause chain reactions of robots knocking each other out of the sky! You can wall jump as much as you like, but you have a limited supply of mid-air jumps, which is boosted for every robot you kill. There are a number of different ways to kill robots, each adding it's own multiplier to your potential score. Landing will add your potential score to your total, but also reset your multipliers. So, for the really big scores, you will have to try to stay airborne for as long as possible. But beware, getting hurt will halve each and every multiplier, devastating your potential score.

Also, there's no dark secret in this game. Nope, none here.

Just, don't die...

Download here.

If you have any feedback, I'd love to hear it. Have fun. :)

Graphics does not not equal gameplay.

(yes, there are two "not"s there)

With one of my current games, I am experimenting with changing the graphics at certain points in the game. I'm having a little difficulty, though. Aside from the fact that I'm not that great at creating a consistent look (I'm setting the game in the sky so I don't have to draw ground with a crispy pixelated look, and because I can do nice looking clouds), the other problem is that graphics don't just help encourage people to play your game, nor do they just make it a nice experience to play, but they actively change the gameplay, even when none of the gameplay itself is changing.

The most obvious change is when something becomes visible or invisible. If you can see something, you can react to it. If you can't, you have to either rely on clues around it or on guesswork. A similar-yet-different change occurs when the graphical shape of something does not match its hitbox. While hitboxes of complex characters rarely match their shape, and we are used to this, slight adjustments to hitboxes of less-complex objects can mean the difference between frustration and joy. One example that comes to mind is the awesome one-button game Canabalt. The hitboxes for the buildings were just a little bit longer than the buildings themselves, giving a slight, but welcome, benefit-of-the-doubt effect on the part of the game when you just missed a jump.

This is not the difficulty I'm having, however. (Actually, I have this one enemy with its hitbox in a really bizarre location to get it to work properly, but that's not a problem anymore.)

There is the oft-discussed topic of character silhouettes in games. If you have a collection of common characters in a game where rapid identification is key, you can check if they are visually distinct enough by reducing them to just a box with sticks for arms and legs, and another box for the head, and give them their most basic colours from their textures. If you can still identify them easily enough, then you're on the right track (probably because this is what they'll look like when they're far away on a screen).

Thing is, the background is also part of this. You may be able to easily identify six different colourful characters on the white background of paper, but it will be harder in a busy festival. Or floating in a psychedelic, trippy void-thing with fireworks.

Also important, and probably a reason you often see a character wearing the same clothes every day (unless they're all similar or the player is either notified or is the cause of the change) is that if you change the clothes of a character, or worse, change what something looks like entirely, the player has a little trouble keeping up. Be fair, the longest games run into a hundred hours (excluding grand strategy games and the like which can go nearly forever), which isn't really much time to go from being new to a game, to highly skilled, to never playing it again. If the player has been fighting robots, and suddenly they are not robots (and you have not made the change explicitly clear), the player is going to feel confused at first, and when they figure out what's going on, they'll just think the developer is lazy for not changing the gameplay too.

So the thing I'm having to carefully consider at the moment, whenever I want the background or foreground to change, is whether it makes the scene too busy, thereby making it harder to identify the important elements of the game. Similarly, some gameplay elements are going to visibly change, so I have to make it clear that they are changing, otherwise there'll be problems playing it.

(Incidentally, I'm actually writing this post because doing the graphics is getting very tedious, and I need to give my brain a little shake before going back to it).