Run Elephant Run released today on Armor Games (it will be made available across the web on Monday).

There are many things to say about this game so instead of building a concise thesis and paper about it on a Friday night I thought I might bullet out the game’s history.

• The production on this game started 9:00 am Thursday and ended 6:00 pm Friday.  It was in production for less than 16 hours.   The reason for this is because the game was a challenge to myself.  I was working really hard on that platformer and needed a break, and both Dan (my boss) and I agreed it was a good idea to make a minigame but I decided to take on the 48-hour challenge of developing a game from start to finish.  Like it’s predecessor Elephant Rave I really wanted to see what I could push myself to do in such little time.
• The intro scene and corn field were the product of day one, and everything else was day two.
• Music is called Remotion by Kr1z and is available for download at that first link.  Major props.
• The music choice came very first, the story second.  The story was really bizarre at first but it came together at the end.  The music drove the storyline really well and helped me get inspired to write a good story.
• The story was the focus moreso than fancy game mechanics.  I don’t see myself as a great storyteller so I went way out of my way to try to embue this game with as much narrative as possible in the 3 minutes it runs.
• Most graphics were produced in Photoshop and pushed out to Flash.
• Came close to not using an elephant in this game but a last-minute change of heart for the rave-style trance song turned me back around.
• My boss inadvertently named this game.  He nicknamed it “Run Elephant Run” in an email and it stuck.  Original working title was “Elephant Escape.”  Run Elephant Run sounds fun because of either Run Lola Run or Run Forrest Run, each of which are appropriate.
• The screen size is small for a reason.  It’s a throwback to Elephant Rave and it’s so that I could keep the filesize small from all the heavy bitmap graphics.  Dark Cut is a good lesson in large bitmaps kids (10+ MB!).
• I am really bad at geography and had to actually research all the locations the elephant travels.  I could not locate Greece on an empty, non-grided world map perfectly (I know the approximate vicinity, maybe not the precise location though… had to double-check).  Also was not quite sure where elephants lived in Africa and had to look that up.  Although last time I played the “Name all the countries in 10 minutes” game I managed to name 100+ countries, so I’m fairly proud of myself there.
• I ate one burrito, one bag of chips, 3 Dr. Peppers, 1 eight-piece nuggets, 1 order of crisscut fries, and 4 cups of coffee in the development of this game.  The fat and sugar has caused my body to rapidly decay into an assortment of glum and blah.

Without further ado, go play Run Elephant Run on Armor Games.  Will be coming here Monday, will make an announcement when that happens.