I wish everyone is happy today and aiming for better in next year :) than 2012 :)
This year was amazing for me although I got depressed and stopped working on games and other bad things happen but an overall look it was an amazing year with lots of games released and some of them were large games that took a lot of time to finish
So Let's Recap this year fast, First thing is my games let's talk about this year
The Power: I finished that game last year (2011) as a collaboration project with Alexitron, It took around a year to be finished (not entire year working on it). The game stayed too long in sponsoring I sent emails to lots of people begging them to sponsor it for some good money so I told Alexitron I will release it for free but he was in need for money so he told me lets sell it cheap. So it got sponsor from Game Pirate (it was a bit low deal but I liked working with them).
The game as I expected was a Kaboom and lots of sites wrote about it and liked it (FreeIndieGames, IndieGame Magazine, IndieGames Weblog, JayIsGames) Also it became featured on Newgrounds.
After Finishing with that game I wanted to start a new collab project so I wrote on twitter that I want to make a collab project anyone interested so Vartagh replied on me and saying "Yes", Then we started talking on Skype about the game with each other and we had the idea of mixing The Binding of Isaac with Arena Shooters like Hyper Princess Pitch and we wanted to be funny and retro so I wanted to kill evil mushrooms and make it funny and that's how Alone in the Park started (btw Vartagh chose the name and I like it as a parody to Alone in the Dark game).
Project Cupid: Then it was Valentine's Day and my game Project Cupid was finished also a year ago before finishing The Power but this game didn't get any sponsor deal so I wanted to release it on Valentine's day as a free game and I have done that :) which was something nice in my view also I make the game on Chrome Store and also made a Theme for chrome.
At that time I started working with GameTako on a Flash Story Game Engine for them, So they can use it to make story flash games and after it I made 2 games for GameTako and stopped working with them as I wanted to focus on my career somehow (As I am Teacher Assistant at Faculty of Engineering and I wanted to start my Thesis) and I thought that working with GameTako make me more busy.
Don't Push The Button: In the middle while I was working with GameTako I entered LudumDare for second time but this time I wanted to finish something for it for the first time and the Theme was Tiny World so I got that strange idea about life that keeps us always away from danger but if we changed the what we are doing we get some rewards (coins) but at same time to achieve this we face more difficult situations to reach it. In my view even if the game didn't got any mention I like the game a lot and loved the idea and how it came out and I consider it one of my best games this year.
Then my friend Omar Khaled Shokry enthusiasm me to enter Imagine Cup 2012 and I always wanted to do that, from here Clean'Em Up was born for the competition, and we named ourselves Omidos (Omar + Amidos = Omidos).
Ta'mya: GameTako wanted me to make a game about Egypt something special and I had that strange idea about frying Falafel but since there is a game called Falafel so I wanted to make to pick a more Egyptian name for Falafel which is Ta'mya. The game is pretty boring but it has a interesting concept I wanted to try.
Clean'Em Up: I finished the game and started marketing it and released it on 22/6 this year (it didn't win on Imagine Cup nor IndieCade). It was my first Commercial game to finish it and I didn't want to see how the sales are going on the first day so I saw the sales on the next day and I was stunned just 6 or 7 copies sold I don't remember, I tried with all means to make it sell better send to press and got nice reviews and previews from different sites (Final Boss Fight, IndieGame Magazine, IndieGames Weblog, Lazy Games Review, RockPaperShotgun, True PC Gaming, True Gaming) but this didn't change anything, the game didn't do well in sales and very low amount of people downloaded the demo and try it so I got totally depressed and I felt I am a great failure and I was living a lie called "Game Developer" and believing it so I stopped making games and told myself Alone in the Park will be my last game and I will stop making games for a while.
In that time I started playing lots of the famous and amazing Game Developer "Increpare" and I wished I can make be like him but I know that's super difficult for a moron like me (until now I think I can't be half as good as Increpare as a designer).
Connect: By that time there was a competition made by Mochimedia for summer and whom enter the competition will win a tshirt and I never won anything before so I said to myself why not I make a game and get a tshirt :) At that time I was cleaning my room and found lots of memories and old stuff in it which remind me of my childhood so I wanted to try to make a puzzle game about my childhood and I remembered how I was bad at solving puzzle (and still suck at it) and the only puzzle I liked playing was match the dots to get a shape so I said why not make a game about that one I used to love it as its easy. From here Connect was born.
Robotic Arm: I have a huge problem in my life which is ....... "Fear" I always been afraid from trying new things always thinks it's impossible to be done, I am not that good to do it and always down grade myself. I had an idea of rotating planets (How idea of the game came to me) and I didn't want to do it because I was afraid so after releasing Connect and getting Honorable mention at MochiMedia, I encouraged myself and started working on that idea. So Robotic Arm is created and I was so happy bu how it turned out very well for me its the perfect puzzle game as its not difficult and interesting and give an interesting shapes as an output and feels dark (I adore Darkness and Mystery in games).
Collect: Next LudumDare started and I wanted to make a game about Evolution so I made this weird game (inspired from Genetic Algorithm). First I tried to implement my own physics engine (as I am always afraid of trying new stuff like Box2D physics) but since I failed to make the engine works great so I said to myself lets try Box2D I won't lose anything and I am glad I do that :) I finished the game and made it works perfectly :) the only problem is that after finishing it due to repetition I felt that game sucks so I got some how disappointed but guess what?? The Game became featured on Newgrounds so it get lots of views so I got more excited to explore that idea in a better way.
Explode: It came out as an evolution for Collect and it was my first game to get a trophie on Newgrounds and picked for Daily 3rd Place. That was really incredible.
Balls: This idea came out as an evolution of Explode with some Pool and angry birds and zuma game and I aimed high for this game and wanted to expand it with my friend Omar as a small Omidos title called All My Balls, the game did normally not so good but since it is easy I will continue and make it the second Omidos title.
Find It!: It was an experiment me and Alexitron were doing to test does the game length affect the amount of bid and how fast we get a bid as Alexitron made a flash game port to his famous art game And Everything Started to Fall and his game Jet Pod ReManfacured and both games get a higher bid than The Power and also faster. So the situation was weird so we did this experiment and it fails (more info).
Snazzle: Snayke was released and I was jealous about that game how amazing it is and I wished I was helping in developing it and while I was at my fantasy world :D I got that strange idea of Snazzle so I worked on it and released it and didn't know it will be one of my hits that everybody likes and talks about and it was my second game which took a trophy from Newgrounds as Daily 4th Place (FreeIndieGames, IndieGame Magazine, JayIsGames, PC Gamer).
Top Down Super Crate Box: McFunkypants made a miniLD for charity so I wanted to join it and the only restriction was to make a game using SNES pallet of colors so I was thinking that most of famous game other people make in other camera view and became fun too (example: Awesomenauts is 2D Platformer game for DOTA and League of Legends). Since I was hearing at that time Super Crate Box OST and since I love Top Down Shooters and Hate Platfromers (that was the part I hate about Super Crate Box) so I got the idea of Top Down Super Crate Box which is making the game I would love to see Super Crate Box on its form.
Mindless: At that time I was so furious from people in Egypt all of them make lies to make their opinion the best and don't listen to other people so I entered GameJolt GameJam and made that game for it (finished it really after the Jam as I read the dates wrong :D) and I think the game have some repetitive elements but I think it is very good in how it shapes out.
Alone in the Park: It has been for one month on FGL looking for sponsor and I became disappointed again that the game that I spent on it 8 months comes out very bad and non want to bid for it or sponsor it. So I thought me and Vartagh to publish it for free on Newgrounds so I asked Tom Fulp to support the game and sponsor as a support for the game and he said to me that Newgrounds don't have enough money so he can spend so little on the game so we accepted it as even we didn't get anything from Newgrounds we will release it on it as I adore that site alot :) the game turns out not so good but there are a nice amount of people like it which is nice.
Evil Goat: Last game that year made for LudumDare 25 for You are Villian Theme, the game is not innovative but what I liked that I managed to make 15 levels very fast with nice ideas and not repeating which I liked.
Teddy: This is my last game made for GameTako I made it in the middle just after Ta'mya it was using my story based engine I made for them.
Kabba: It was made to help the Syrian Refugees (Its just reskinning Ta'mya to use Kabba (Famous Syrian Eating) instead of Falafel) for more info see that link.
Woooooow you continued to here in the article that's really wooow :D also It was a wonderful productive year although I was depressed and stopped working for some months but I learned a lesson "Keep Trying".
Second thing of the article is about my best games I played this year (may be some of them is not released this year but I played it that year)
- Thomas Was Alone
- To The Moon
- The Binding of Isaac
- McPixel
- Micron
- Little Gardens
- Soul Caster
- Escape Goat
- Hotline Miami
- Seedling
- Phantasmaburbia
- Evil Quest
- Offspring Fling
- Koya Rift
- Super Wagon Adventure
- Celestial Mechanica
- Out There Somewhere
- Broken Robot Love
- To The Moon
- Another Moon
- IndieGame: The Movie
- Journey
- The Binding of Isaac
- Hotline Miami
- Theophany
- Super Crate Box Special
- Celestial Mechanica
- Anodyne
- Out There Somewhere
That's Everything for now
Bye Bye