Welcome To Charlie’s Games :)

Click on the images to check out my games! They’re all super fun! Click here for more games. Scroll down for the blog.

Scoregasm update

Hi,

Well, January has flown by and i didn’t quite get Scoregasm out in time Basically, all the levels are there, and the game plays fine etc. but i’m not happy with how some of it looks, so i’m focusing on getting the game to look and feel as ace as possible before i release anything. I need to get some more audio feedback going on as well, some of the sound effects are missing or not up to standard.

I’m feeling good about the game though, and it’s definitely moving in the right direction Check out this new video of the first level:

Cheers
Charlie

Bullet Candy Perfect on Linux

Hey,

I’ve released Bullet Candy Perfect for Linux You can grab a copy over at the Bullet Candy Perfect Page. There’s a demo available there too.

click the image below to visit the page

This makes the total number of my games on Linux total 3! The other two are Irukandji and Space Phallus

I’m not planning on porting the original Bullet Candy though, Perfect pretty much covers everything it has to offer in a much more excellent way.

Cheers
Charlie

Online Scores Fixed!

Ok, i’ve got all the fixed and working versions of my various games online, Fixing online scores for all of them Also, i’ve got the Mac version of Irukandji up to date with Windows and Linux now.

I’ll be sending out emails tomorrow with new links, but you can use your original download links to get the latest versions if you’ve bought a copy. The demos are all updated too on their various pages.

See you on the scoreboards

Cheers
Charlie

Online Score Fail!

Bit miffed about this one actually, the service I was using to to host my online scores has simply vanished from the interwebs! It basically means i’ve lost 5 years worth of user data for all my games, and you’ve lost your world conquering high score

Anyway, i’ve got a new database sorted out and worked out the scripts for getting and setting scores thanks to a rather handy tutorial i found on google, so hopefully normal service will be resumed by tomorrow.

Cheers
Charlie

Making Bullet Candy

Part of my procrastination routine involves checking my RSS feeds for interesting new articles. I must check them at least 4 or 5 times a day, it’s an addiction! It’s almost as bad as my addiction to Wheat Crunchies. Anyway, part of my grand plan for this year is to try to do a bit more blogging, and maybe turn this site into somewhere that people will want to return to.

So, rather than leave the above as a statement of intent (my usual trick) I’ll carry on…

With Scoregasm just around the corner, I thought it was about time I got this Making Bullet Candy thing I’ve been wanting to do written up. I’ve been intending to do it since the final iteration of the game was released on Steam in 2007 (not counting Bullet Candy Perfect of course), and I’ve kept putting it off for what is now about three years. In fact, I’ve got a whole host of other stuff I’m either putting off now, or planning to put off in the near future, so I’ve decided to start clearing the putting off list a bit so I can make space for some new things to get round to later.

The main reason I’ve been a bit slack getting round to doing this is that I wanted to add videos, images and a sort of archive of all the different versions of the game from the very first prototypes to the finished article, and talk a little about each step as I go. After much hunting through my Mac’s hard disk, I’ve found absolutely loads of stuff, way more than I thought I still had. The only bits I can’t find it seems are the Java and C++ prototypes. I suspect these were lost when my old iMac decided to bin itself, corrupting loads of files.

Anyway, I’ll get started. I’ve uploaded all the builds of the games in the videos below to the Winners area, along with a couple of others that represent the game at different stages of it’s life. I can only find one version of the game that will run on Windows, so for most of them you’ll need a PPC mac, or a Mac that’ll run PPC binaries to play. No Linux version I’m afraid, the code no longer compiles. You can access the Winners area by entering the password presented to you when you beat the last level of Bullet Candy Perfect.

Making Bullet Candy

Having been amazingly impressed with my Dad’s iMac G3, I bought myself a fancy new iMac G4, one of those quirky looking angle-poise ones. The thing was though, I didn’t really have much use for it other than shoot Nazis in Wolfenstien and browse the internet really slowly via it’s built in 56k modem (which would only connect at 26kbps, stupid crappy thing!).

It didn’t take too long to recall my childhood ambition of making a computer game. I used to pretend to know what I was doing with STOS on my Atari ST when I was a kid, so I figured there must be a few similar games-orientated programming/wysiwyg tools out for Macs that I could use to make games with. There wasn’t. There was pretty much a choice of one language, TNT Basic, and a vast array of useless Hypercard game makers.

So I got started with TNT. I was pretty taken with it actually, it was super easy to learn, and a great refresher in programming. The syntax was pretty similar to Pascal, which i’d learned at sixth form a few years earlier, and the STOS-like built in graphics and sound commands made it pretty easy to start making games. Really, really bad games too! Here’s a few pictures from some of the ones I’ve still got:

I made a really bad Ikaruga style shooter, a really bad side scrolling asteroid game, a really shocking Megaman clone, and several rotten Defender clones. I decided that maybe making the next Best Game Ever may not be as easy as I’d first thought. At this point, I gave up trying to make a game, and started making silly graphics ‘things’, which did nothing other than look pretty (well, I say pretty, but most of them looked rubbish to be fair).

A while later, whilst browsing the internet really slowly, I came across a homebrew website that was running a ‘make a Llamatron game’ contest. I loved Llamatron on my Atari ST, so I thought I’d give it a go. I never actually entered the contest, but I did make a Llamatron style game.
It was easily my best attempt at a game to date, with silly graphics and sounds, and endlessly repeating levels. Here’s a video of that game in ‘action’

The thing was, despite the fact that the game was (and still is) and unmitigated stinker, I really enjoyed making it. I decided I’d take what I’d learned from making it, and apply it to my own ideas of a modern Robotron update. So I got busy and a couple of weeks later I had a much improved game, with several different enemies, hardware accelerated rotation on the sprites, bonuses to collect.

The problem was, the game was still dreadful! Although this time it wasn’t exactly all my own fault. TNT, it turned out, wasn’t really up to the job. It’s hardware accelerated graphics mode was REALLY slow, and there was a 12mb limit on the size of the project file. Check out the FPS counter on the video below, and bare in mind that I recorded it on a 2GHZ machine, the slowdown is just shocking!

Rather than persist with TNT, I decided to learn another language that would let me do what I wanted without impairing the speed of the game, and the fancy effects I had in mind. I started with Java, as it would have let me have the game embedded in a website for friends and family to play, but the Java2D library was almost as slow as TNT, so that was a bit of a non starter. I did make a small game in the language, where you shoot squares. You can have a go by clicking the link below, and compiling the source.

LINK TO CRAP SQUARE SHOOTER GAME

The next language I tried was C++. I got on ok with it, and it was plenty fast enough, but it took a lot more typing and thinking to get things I’d taken for granted working. Fortunately, I was spared from continuing with C++ by the release of Blitzmax.

I was totally sold on Blitzmax from the word go. Not only was the language syntax pretty similar to TNT, it was also about one thousand times faster, and had tonnes of useful graphics tricks built in. After a few weeks, I’d got my head round the language, and ported my TNT code, and improved it tenfold! It was still pretty crap though. Here’s a couple of videos from 2005:

And so, with a bit of persistence, CG_01 (as it was called then) got slowly better and better, until actually became pretty fun to play. Spurred on by nice motivational comments from people, and a nice beta review from Bill, I finally started to feel like I was making a good game, rather than the rubbish I’d been producing before.

Link: Beta Review
Link: Encouraging People

This is the only video I’ve got of this version, and it’s pretty low quality I’m afraid!

I finally got a first release out in May 2006, which was ok, but missing the vital ingredient, Suicide! I actually have Mark and Oddbob0 ( of Squid Yes! Not So Octopus fame) from the forums to thank for this suggestion, the suicide feature really made the game

Link: forum

This version of the game got a few nice reviews too, and even won a Gametunnel award!

A short while later, I was contacted by Steam, who offered the game a spot on their site. This was great, but there were outstanding issues with the game that I wasn’t really all that happy about, and a number of compatibility problems mostly caused by the eye watering feedback effects. Obviously, I didn’t want to be flooded with support request from angry Steam users, so I spent a month re-developing the game from scratch, fixing all the little quirks in the gameplay, ‘tightening’ up the graphics (there were FAR too many particles flying around in the first version!) by making some of the effects more subtle, and removing the feedback effect completely.

This version of the game would (aside from updates, like adding Steam Acievements etc.) end up being the final iteration of the game, with much improved scoring and added a better balance of difficulty. Here is the trailer I made for this release:

So that’s pretty much the story. The recent Bullet Candy Perfect is another rewrite, based on the stuff I’m using to make Scoregasm. This latest version is by far the best, further improving the gameplay and adding 3D graphics and other cool stuff. Perfect was actually going to be a mini game in Scoregasm, in fact I’d been sitting on the complete code since April this year before deciding to pull it from Scoregasm and release it separately in October.

Anyway, that’s about it. A brief history of Bullet Candy. Make sure you check out the playable versions in the Winners Area

Cheers
Charlie

IGF Finalists!

Well, the IGF have selected their finalists, and sadly neither Space Phallus or Scoregasm made the cut Oh well, there’s always next year. I’d just like to say thanks again to everyone who helped me raise the entry cash. Regardless of my games not being selected, your support was fantastic

There are a few pretty cool games that have made the finals though, namely Cactus’ Tuning, Lazy 8’s Cogs, and Sparky’s fantastic Star Guard.

I’ve posted a little run down of my favourites this year below, but i feel i must point out a huge injustice, and that is the absence of Terry Cavanagh’s amazing VVVVVV from the list of finalists. Terry you were robbed Seriously, I was sure that this one would win, it’s just SO well designed. I think it’s out on the 10th of this month, do yourself a favour and get a copy. I’ve posted a video below, and you might be interested to hear that the music for the game is written by Magnus Pálsson, who also wrote the music for the first level of Space Phallus.

Anyway, here’s my IGF picks for this year:

Tuning

I’m a big fan of Cactus’ stuff (i even host some of his games), but i think Tuning is a bit of a milestone for his games. Even in the beta state i played it in around a year ago (i think) it felt much more finished and way slicker than his usual stuff. I really hope this does well for him
Link: Cactus

Cogs

Typically i’m not a big fan of puzzle games, but i thought this one had something really special about it. I’ve not really gotten addicted to a puzzle game like this since Puzzle Bobble in the 90’s.
Link: Cogs

Star Guard

Just a fantastically well executed platform shooter. What really lifted it for me was the way you could go back through the levels once you’d completed them and try to beat your best times. The little counter telling you how many times you died led to a bit of a drunken competition between me and a friend too
Link: Star Guard.

Those are my favourites this year, what are yours?

Cheers
Charlie

Offer Extended!

I going to let my Holiday special offer run for a bit longer, Friday seemed a daft cut off point. I’ll take the links down at some point on Monday. You can find out about it here:

http://www.charliesgames.com/wordpress/?p=471

thanks to everyone who has bought copies of the games on offer so far

Cheers
Charlie

Happy New Year!

Happy new year It’s been a good year here at Charlie’s Games too, with 3 new games released, Space Phallus, Bullet Candy Perfect and Irukandji all released in the last 12 months!

It was so close to being four, but i just couldn’t quite finish Scoregasm in time Anyway, here are some new Scoregasm Pics.

Cheers
Charlie

Indiegames.com <3 Phallus

In case you don’t read it (WTF?) indiegames.com has put up it’s top 10 list of the best freeware shooters of 2009, and Space Phallus is 5th!

link: http://www.indiegames.com/blog/2009/12/feature_top_freeware_shoot_em.html

I think that’s pretty awesome, especially as there’s some really great games alongside it in the list

Stay tuned for some Scoregasm news and pics tomorrow It’s nearly finished!

Cheers
Charlie

Merry Christmas!

Happy Christmas! It’s about 9.45am here in England, and I feel like a zombie. Stayed up watching ‘The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly’ until about 3.30 this morning, and was quite rudely awoken by people crashing around in the kitchen at about 7.00! The house also smells a little more like Boxing Day, on account of a pre-Christmas dinner put on by my Mum and co. yesterday evening!

Anyway, have a great Christmas!

Cheers
Charlie