This is the Only Level 3 is a collaboration between Tasselfoot, myself, and Jimp.  Tass has been asking me for months (years?) if we can make a third and after much thought we finally got to work!  Here it is, and I hope you enjoy!

Why aren’t you playing?  Go play This is the Only Level 3!

Hello everyone,

Long time no post.  Good news everyone!  Chuck the Sheep has launched!  It’s a launch game… with Chuck.  Chuck is chucked in the sky to fly to a field where he can escape being sheared!  Anywho, it’s my second launch-y style game after Hedgehog Launch and I hope you enjoy it with all your heart.  It’s been a couple months in the making ever since I got back from Italy (another post to explain).

Enjoy!  Click!

A small two week project (more like 9 days if you don’t count a stupid day of a single bug fixing ), Coinbox Hero is a funtime hoedown with polka music.  Unlike some of my other games the polka music actually came before the game theme, so it was fun to work in the atmosphere of polka.  I think it really shined through on this one.

On a more technical note I created an engine (in part thanks to Tony and Joey of Armor Games) that would allow for over 3,000 coins in the engine to display on-screen at once with minimal lag (this is a huge step above Luminara and some of the other particle games).  Originally my other engines were limited to about 200-300 particles, so this 1000% increase is quite drastic.  Without all the dancing and polka it could handle about 5,000 coins, holy smokes!

Anyway, enough babbling.  Enjoy Coinbox Hero.  Any requests for my next project?

Oh, and it’s my birthday today.  I’m 25 and getting older.

Exit Path 2 has released!  One of my largest and longest projects to date, the game continues on past Exit Path with a brand-new Uniplayer campaign as well as 35 new Multiplayer levels (and 10 new challenge courses available via exitPASS).  It’s a lot to take in at once, but I’ve enjoyed getting the project out finally.

A few might encounter a looping rewind bug around the 20′s levels (still investigating).  If you’re logged in you’ll have your progress saved.

Anyway, special thanks to Chris Branscome for an amazing soundtrack (coming soon for download!) and Adam Phillips for an amazing opening animation.  Jimp also assisted on some of the art.

I’m quite stressed about this project.  Not only have I felt sick for a week but my back has become fatigued and recently pulled (I think from my desk chair).  I am ready for a recovery (a few smaller games will do it I think).

-John

If you can figure out what the heck is going on let me know!  It’s a fun little game.

Also available on the iTunes App Store (YES) so you can take it mobile (thanks Mike!).  The iPhone game is a wee different and more challenging so enjoy.

Cheers to Jimp for his amazing artwork as always (go visit his blarg) and thanks to ZeRo-BaSs for reprising his role once again for the soundtrack (he has a new album out, check it out!).

•  2009 -  Elephant Rave releases as a worldwide pachyderm phenomenon, being featured around the world on various news sites grabbing millions of visits.  Fights for Elephant diplomacy skyrocket.

•  2010 -  Elephant Rave HD releases to the world, enabling those who want to show off their elephant diplomacy on their HD screens to do so.

And now in 2011 I am incredibly proud to announce an even better, more meaningful game… now over 5x longer than the original and with a medley reworked graphics and code.  It’s Elephant Rave HD sLoWdOwN Remix, and it’s here to do knock your socks off in the most slow-paced, casual, “I’m at work eating a sandwich but want some jib-jab about elephants” way possible.

CLICK HERE TO PLAY!

I have to admit, I have caught a lot of flack about Elephant Rave being too difficult.  “This game is too fast and difficult” they say!  “0/5 this game is impossible.”  No it’s not!  Well, not now at least!

Elephant Rave is a game about moving left and right, trying to avoid laser beams in an elephant-conscious game environment.  This is great to someone who excels at gaming, but to those who are more casual gamers or need a bit of help getting through the game… I felt like I was losing them.  This is a game with meaning and it’s hard to understand when everything is moving so damn fast. I need to grab that “I can’t beat the first level” audience, but how?

Elephant Rave HD sLoWdOwN Remix not only is a bunch of capitalized and lowercase letters mixed together but a great version of Elephant Rave that runs just a bit slower so you can really sink in the morals of elephant-to-media relationships.  The elephant is a really important element of not only human society but world society, and if we categorize, judge, and persecute these noble creatures as haphazardly as we dump them into Flash games we’ll be regretting it soon enough.

A lot of careful work went into Elephant Rave Slow.  After playing the original several times I realized that the game played like a 5-year-old with 12 Coca-Colas transfused into their body.  This is not a great way to really drive a message home.  Who was I kidding?  No one could read that fast and play the game to get the message.  I needed a better option, and that option was simple.  Slow everything the heck down.

Not only will newcomers get a great crack at this game but vets of the old Elephant Rave will get something out of it too.  In fact, they’ll be getting a game that is approximately 5-6x longer than the original!  That’s over 6 minutes of gameplay!  In addition there is 500% more music to tune to.  There’s something for everyone in Elephant Rave Slow.

If you are looking for the modified audio track you can play it here:

I hope you enjoy the game! Enjoy the first day of a great, more approachable month of gaming!

Go play it!

I’m dealing with a few glitches on release (always seems to happen ) but overall I am very pleased with the release of this title. It’s my largest game to date… although it was never meant to be this big.  It was supposed to be a smaller game with simple graphics and simple office interaction.  It really blew up beyond that.

This game took about twice as much code as Frontier.  Although the scale is much more finite the game is much more complex, with practically all parts being auto-driven by AI.  It’s a bit crazy looking back at what was accomplished.

If you find bugs feel free to email me (jmtb02 [at] gmail).  I’m logging all bugs and fixing them as they come in!  Thanks to Jimp for his amazing artwork, the game turned out great.

•  At the Armor Games office we made a streamer fort for Ian:

•  Flock Together released.  It’s a chill game, about catching birds and flying higher.  Good reception so far.

•  Some press for Treadmillasaurus Rex: Entertainment Weekly, IGN, Kotaku AU

•  Website was updated with a few new features.  I am experimenting with a top-bar image to see how that works, you’ll probably see me messing with it for the next few weeks.  I am also STILL working on the forums.  Software is working, just working on the theme.

•  Here’s some Macro Photography:

•  I finished my 13.1 mile run with Carlie.  I signed up for a full marathon (26.2 miles) next year, get ready to see me in pain!

•  My next game has no animals or blobs in it.  Start wondering.

-J