Bacon and Games

Year: 2014 (page 2 of 5)

I call this one “Jump”. I’ll pause while you take in the originality of that.

It’s Week 3 of my One Game a Week challenge and while I realize this one is incredibly simplistic and unfinished, this is actually my favorite so far. The concept is that you press and hold to charge your jump and release when the power reaches the appropriate height to collect the pellet. The one other element built in to this point is that the hero (the white square) gets smaller with each pellet he eats, making it progressively harder to hit your target.

As is, it’s surprisingly fun. There are a few other elements I’d like to add to the game that I think might put it over the top though I do want to keep it incredibly quick and simple. I think when I’m ready to pursue one of these for mobile this might be where I start.

This is a holiday “card” I made for my clients back in 2006 (8 years ago, wow!). I made it in a single sitting, which meant pulling an all-nighter and then going from my office straight to a meeting over breakfast. In my younger days I could do that standing on my head. I’m not so sure I have that kind of stamina any more.

Still, it’s fun to look back on stuff like this. Not too shabby for a programmer, eh? :)

OK, so the title needs work.

This is a game I was prototyping a few years ago, back when I was playing around with Flixel. It was inspired by a Ludum Dare game done by Adam Saltsman (creator of Flixel) called Grave Robbers as well as Super Crate Box. There’s also a dash of Lemmings in here, but rather than idiot-proofing the world you’re “controlling” the cute, fuzzy animals as well as elements within the level in hopes of getting them into the right buckets.

As each level progresses, different traps come online meaning you always have to keep an eye out for new things looking to off your critters. It plays a little goofily with the mouse but the concept was originally intended for a touch interface.

This game, as well as Collect Coins. Don’t Die. (from One Game a Week), touches on a this idea I keep coming back to… this idea that rather than moving through a game that gets progressively more difficult you’d stay put in an ever-changing, evolving room. I will probably do something with it on a larger scale some day, but it’s fun to see a piece of that larger concept in these quick protos.

Not shown in this video is the ability to feed each animal their respective food (e.g. carrots -> bunny) to get them to wait a few seconds while they eat. You could also combine like animals by jumping one onto another.

This is an old prototype I built in Flixel that I didn’t end up pursuing. It resurfaced recently as the seed of an idea for Week 1 of my One Game a Week challenge. It’s a concept I believe that if fully explored could be a lot of fun. I might revisit this idea one day but for now it’s more than served its purpose as a vehicle for exploring both Flixel and Unity.

A while back I came across a job posting that interested me. I decided that rather than send them the usual resume and cover letter I’d throw together a little game to introduce myself. I didn’t tell them much about who I was or what I wanted. I just sent them the link to the game and thanked them for their time in advance. Unbeknownst to them, the final screen of the game would link them to a hidden page on my site with more information about me and my work.

Well, it turned out the job posting I had seen was out of date and no longer existed. Nonetheless I was called in to meet with their team, we struck up a relationship and have done some work together since (and continue to do so).

It was a fun little project (made over a weekend) that turned into a great story and a bunch of new relationships. I’ve always chosen to take the unusual paths and more often than not it’s worked out quite well. This particular story is one of my favorites.

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Sean James McKenzie

I have been inventing games all my life, of the video variety since 2002. No delusions of grandeur, I just want to make things people will enjoy and earn the respect of my peers. #indiedev #gamedev #creativity

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