01/9
Breaking the Seal with Puzzlejuice ¶
Wow, it has been over sixteen months since I released my last game, Solipskier. Before that, Mike and I were releasing games every few months. It was a pace that I really took for granted. Since Solipskier I’ve taken on between five and six separate projects and none of them have seen more than a few breaths in teasers or cryptic mentions on twitter. So today, I can finally announce Puzzlejuice.
For the last couple of months I’ve been working with Asher Vollmer on a really rad game called Puzzlejuice. It mixes Tetris, boggle and match-three styles into a concoction of pure fun. It’s coming out on iPad, iPhone and iPod as a universal app on the 26th the 19th. Asher just submitted to the app store last night, then proceeded to sleep for 37.2 hours. I’m so pumped to see what people think, I think the game is just crazy fun. I mean, seriously, it’s not because I worked on it. I play this game everyday and discover new strategies all the time, especially in single-screen co-op on the iPad. Damn that’s a fun way to play.
12/14
Critiquing Critiques ¶
Thinking about how we critique each other is just as important as the changes we bring up in those critiques. There is no right way to critique someone, it depends on the topic, the audience and many other factors. But there is a good and bad way to do it. We can hone it towards something sharper.
Recently, I watched this video critique on the new Twitter browser interface design by @ys.
I too, think Twitter’s redesign makes some missteps, but this video is not a fair critique. When we evaluate others creative work, especially in the field of design where “form follows function”, it’s incredibly important to lay out where the words of criticism are coming from. Context. Criteria. These are incredibly important. If I designed a chair for babies but one of my friends came along and ripped into me because they didn’t find it very comfortable, well that’s not very fair, is it?
11/14
Flash is dead ¶
No.
As a rule, I always balk at sentences structured like “______ is dead.” To declare something dead that is clearly alive is well, wrong. Of course, this is more of a colloquial statement, right? It’s actually a campaign to spread the idea that we should kill Flash.
Let’s not.
Flash is very much alive and that’s really its best feature. The fact that Flash has something like a 98% penetration rate on all PCs means that publishing something in Flash on the internet can mean the maximum amount of exposure for anyone willing to publish. The only barrier erected between a potential player and your game is a hyperlink. They click it and boom, they are playing. That is incredible.
If we all went around calling for the head of an imperfect piece of software or platform then well, we wouldn’t have nice things to play with anymore. Flash has its flaws, many of which I am unaware of. However one thing I am very much aware of is how Flash changed my entire life. I am a game developer and if it were not for Flash, its tools, its exposure and its market, I would not be a game developer. I am positive of that.
Flash allowed me to get things done and get them out there to anyone that cared to look. We needed to learn how to make small games and grow our designs incrementally. All of our early games were sold for sponsorship on FGL and while the sums of money weren’t huge, they were enough to allow us to make the next, better game. It was a hand-over-fist education in game development and the existence of Flash made it all possible. These guys shitting all over that hard-cut path we took are being far too cavalier.
Continue Reading ¶
11/13
Newest Tease ¶
I’ve stopped working on this but recently picked it back up after working a bit on it with Roger Levy here in Baltimore. It’s a personal project of mine that I’m very passionate about. I almost let the cat out of the bag for IGF submission time but I think she needs another year before she’s ready.
10/5
Newer Tease ¶
It’s almost the 6th and in the interest of my own impatience, what the heck; here’s a little tease of another game I’m working on right now. Numbers are involved, it would seem.
Can you crack the code?
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