This gonna be the largest post of all time, which will make you remember old days when I was writing about lots of stuffs and concepts and lots of amazing things.
This post is so long so if you are busy now you can check it later as it will took alot of time to check everything in it and this post will be starting for series of posts which gonna talk about my career and my coming games and my thoughts.
Let's Start the post with some music and tracks from games that you must buy them without hesitation, these tracks are so beautiful that you must at least check them
- Conscience of a Dreamer Suite by Jason Covenant
- The Binding of Isaac by Danny Baranowsky
- FEZ by Disaster Peace
- Neptune Gasoline by Jonthan Geer
- Journey by Austin Wintory
- Celestial Mechanica by Roger Hicks
- Indie Game: The Movie by Jim Guthrie
- Offspring Fling by Alec Holwaka
- Tree of Knowledge by Yogurt Box
Third thing will just tell you about amazing games that are worth your money and you should at least check it some of them are not so new by the way :)
- Assasain Blue
- Bastion
- Block That Matter
- Braid
- Celestial Mechanica
- Crayon Physics Deluxe
- Cube Mayhem
- DLC Quest
- Diablo
- Etherlords II
- Escape from the Underworld
- Freedom Force
- Iji
- Insidia
- LIMBO
- Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes
- Monster Slayer
- Mushroom Madness 2
- Offspring Fling
- Out there Somewhere
- Robot wants Icecream
- SoulCaster
- Spirits of Metropolis
- Super Brothers: Swords and Sworcery
- SuteF
- Swords and Soldiers
- The Binding of Isaac
- The Company of Myself
- Treasure Adventure Game
- Vivid Conception
- Winter Solatice
- World of Goo
These are just some indie news and music non about my games and progress or anything so the next part of the post will be totally revolving around my games and progress.
First thing Ludum Dare results were out long time ago but I didn't wrote anything about the game (Don't Push the Button) or about the results.
Let's see the results first:
#135 Humor 3.00
#220 Innovation 3.38
#273 Overall 3.24
#325 Fun 3.00
#379 Theme 3.14
#410 Mood 2.71
#419 Audio 2.50
#456 Graphics 2.83
#851 Coolness 33%
As it is obvious from the results I didn't win nor got advanced position as usual but this time I have to analyze this.
- It was my first Platformer since long time ago besides I am not good at playing Platformers
- I made the game and I was the one who tested it so I wanted to make my Platformer difficult and fast so I adjust the gravity and speed to be a bit high and since I always test it so I get used to it and never noticed that it's too fast to the player
- I don't have good exposure in indie scene beside I don't have lots of friends their although I am trying hard so my game is played and rated only about 40 times which is not indicative at all
The Next couple of new if you where following me on twitter(@amidos2006) I think you know most of them.
First thing do you remember my Collaboration game with Alexitron :)
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Yes you are right The Power
Is now out by GamePirate you should go and try it as I consider it one of my best games so far (link).
As you notice this game took so long to finish it and so long to get a sponsor deal at the end the deal was low but we decided (me and Alexitron) that it should be published so may be some are asking why this long.
I will explain, the core mechanic of the game was finished in about 2 or 3 months after starting the game and the only stuff remaining was the boss fights and the conversation system and menus. I started working on them and I finished the first boss in less than a week with most of the menus, but at that period I was recruited by the army (its a must and there is no way from getting away) so I spend 1 hell year trying to work on The Power but I couldn't and I find myself starting to forget about game programming so I decided to start a new project (Project Cupid) and it was intended for a competition but since my vacations in army period was not good so I couldn't submit it in the competition and continue to work on it till I finished it and put it for sponsoring.
I didn't get a single bid on the game so I got somehow depressed so I decided to try to finish The Power and started to work on it again at October 2011 and by December I finished the game with everything and we were happy (me and Alexitron) and the only thing that was missing was the boss fight track since Alexitron have lots of nice friends and amazing people on Poppenkast so he asked Brother Android to continue on the project and finish the last track and he agreed.
Alexitron start a beta testing for the game on Poppenkast and we got nice comments about the game and we fix lots of bugs.
Here are some of the nice comments we got:
- Andy: hey yeah, i've heard of Amidos. He's cool and he's really active in the indie world and just overall has a good presence. good luck on the project, guys!
- Andrew: this is exciting. good luck buddy, keep us posted!
- Stampede: Super! The Power was really good game. You gonna get lots of players with this!
- Pgil: Sounds like things are going nice. I loved the Power...
- DeadHeat: The power was great fun, hopefully this one goes just as well
- Br.Android: The Power is awesome by the way.
- Br.Android: Also also, this project is turning into basically an orgy of talent, and that's superexciting.
- Alexitron: Awesome ! Amidos is so cool to work with
- ChevyRay: Lookin great babe.
- Andrew: this is shaping up great.
I decided to send emails to sponsors and I collected lots of sponsor emails and start sending about the game, and start waiting and after a month I got the first bid I was so excited and was imagining it will be at least 1000$ but what happens is that it was just 500$ so I got shocked and depressed and waited for more weeks but no reply from emails and also the views of the game started to decrease so I decided to leave it and start with new projects till it get a better deal.
After 5 months of waiting and I asked Alexitron to publish the game without sponsoring but he said "its better to start Last Call and see what we can get" (its a system in FGL to indicate sponsors that I am going to close bidding and start to choose a sponsor for my game)
I started Last Call and during the 3 days of last call I didn't get any sponsoring deal except one from GamePirate (btw they are very nice and working with them is fun) although it was still low (<1000$) so we decided to make approve with his condition and he became the sponsor.
As you see the game took around 5 months to finish as work and in the end we (me, Alexitron, Brother Android, Pgil) got a very low amount of money that doesn't compensate our expenses :( but I see its a great game and working with these amazing guys was great experience as it was my first time collaborating with someone and it was so fun :) also I noticed that long adventure games aren't what sponsors are searching about.
By the way one of the most amazing thing I love about the game is its music as it is a result from collaboration of two talented musicians Brother Android and Pgil and the tracks were amazing and you can check the album on Bandcamp its free.
Another thing I think someone will ask about it "why don't you try to make Indiegames Weblog or any other review site talk about your game so you get better exposure so may be more deals came?". I tried that and sent emails to lots of website but as usual because I am not known and its only me whom is sending emails, I didn't get a preview on any website, also I don't think with exposure I can get a good deal as for example Celestial Mechanica by Roger Hicks is much more amazing and beautiful than The Power and it got exposure on IndieGames Weblog telling people that it is looking for sponsorship and after about 2 or 3 months I found Roger Hicks decided to sell the game on his own rather than trying to find sponsorship which means that(I think) he didn't find good sponsor deal and decided to go on his own.
Some people might say "why don't I do the same like Roger?" the answer is obvious The Power is just a flash port to Alexitron game which he made long time ago using game maker which runs on PC so the only way is to get a sponsor for it (link).
After this I knew that sponsors are rarely interested in long adventure games and I think they thinks its doesn't worth and that's because most of flash players are casual players who needs fast and easy game to play not long adventure game.
After finishing The Power in last December and put for sponsor I wanted to make another Collaboration game so I wrote on twitter if anyone is interested to make a game with and I got a reply from @Vartagh which is an italian game developer and best know for Steampack and Steampack C64.
We started talking with each other on skype the game we want to do, So I thought choosing a theme will narrow down our search. LudumDare 22 was just finished and its theme was Alone, so I told Vartagh about what about Alone theme as it looks nice, and he like it too. We talked about games we love and we found we love top down shooting games so we decided to do a top down shooter game and this decision came from our love to The Binding of Isaac and Hyper Princess Pitch and how these games are funny and at same time very addictive.
Varatagh told me lets make it looks cute and funny and that's by using mushrooms as enemies (evil ones) and you are alone in a park where evil mushrooms started attacking you so the game name was inspired from that and told me let's name it Alone in the Park as a Parody about Alone in the Dark and I told him that's nice.
Then we started to work on the game he worked on graphics and design and I started coding the engine and helping in design and we are still working on it. I didn't post screenshots about it here but I posted about it on my twitter account so I will repost them here again.
The game now 95% finished just some story lines and some editing level design and it will be available for beta testing before looking for sponsorship on FGL (as usual) hope to get a better sponsoring deal than The Power.
About Clean'Em Up, I told you that it is participating in two competitions (ImagineCup, IndieCade). ImagineCup round 3 results were released a week ago and the game didn't proceed to round 4 which made me sad some how but not much at same time as I know the reason for that :) but before talking about reason I will show you 10 games that proceeded to round 4 and I think it will give you a good indication why our game didn't proceed.
Do anyone realized why it was not one of the 10 :) the most obvious solution that our game contain lots of action and shooting that make the game doesn't deliver the theme (How technology can solve World toughest problem?) quite well. We got this in feedback email from round 2 and we tried to make the game more involved with the theme but I think it didn't do well in that.
I am hearing someone saying "Where is the relation between Clean'Em Up and theme in anyway?" its simple the problem we chosen was Cyber technology Threats and the solution is using Antivirus systems and we converted this into an cyber world where you play with the antivirus and trying to eliminate the viruses and worms and other forms of threats.
About the reviewing the game didn't got feature at any site or got a review :( which sucks and non reply on my emails and the only site that replied on me was TruePcGaming and they were busy so they just made a preview for the game on their site but Adams is a nice guy :) btw and there other two reviews done by two Arabic review sites (first, second) and thanks to Abdulla Hamed (CEO of GameTako) for helping me to reach these sites as he is a well known person.
I wondered why all review sites didn't reply on me so I sent to PixelProspector as he is sweet nice website but he was busy so he send to me some tips and hints to how to make a good email for press release so I updated my email and sent them again to reviewers according to his tips but I didn't get any reply so I asked him on twitter why no one reply on me although I made everything better than past time.
As I told he is a sweet person so he asked me to send him the email with all data I sent, so he modified on the email and gave me some advice to be better and told me to send a follow up email when the game is released.
So I am waiting to finish the latest stuff in the game and I am asking again if anyone want to beta test the game or review the game contact me (amidos2002 (at) hotmail.com) or on twitter (@amidos2006).
Last thing about Clean'Em Up that it is expected to be released later that month (I hope so) as just some final fixes and adding more music tracks. I hope it do better in IndieCade.
I think the post is long enough by now although there are lots of stuffs I wanna share with all people :) but I will end this post and prepare for lots of incoming posts about my game making history where I am going to share the source code of lots of old games and abandoned games.
Also I started with new project for mobile devices called Crappy Dreams its an experimental game about dreams (my dreams), This project I am gonna share most of details with you and how I designed it and formulate it from my dreams and you can help me by giving me some comments and feedback about everything to try to improve the game.
Last thing thanks to Andy Moore and his DevVlog (especially these 1, 2, 3) as I was totally depressed with everything as whenever I ask someone for help rarely some one reply to me and its rarely I find a comment here in my blog about anything, beside none of my games got a mention or played with many people example Project Cupid is only played 127 times which is so low and didn't get a feedback on it. May be I got depressed because my games always fail but who said that this is failure?
I said they fail because I was measuring success by how many plays and will it get feature but that is wrong measurement and I shall not treat games like that and I should change success goals and failure goals as they never been my dream in any day they evolved due to stress and pressure of work and low response. So I changed my perspective and I now make games like old days because I like making games and I love that and I wanna share my thoughts and experiences with people not for fame nor money (but I don't say No for moeny :D as I need it for living)
I am inspired by Andy Moore and will post a lot and talk a lot and try to be more social with the indie scene and try to improve my games and my game design skills and I hope everything will be better in future and my main goal now is to enjoy what I am doing and let the stress away :) and I hope one day some people may say that I contributed a lot to the society and the gaming scene.
Sorry for long post hope you enjoyed it :)
Bye Bye for now
