NALGames V4

Those of you reading from the original source of these blog entries (I know they sync with Game Jolt so anyone from there won't have seen it) will have noticed that this blog has just undergone a graphical overhaul. If you aren't a Twitter follower of me, it's because my website is being rewritten to Version 4 by Sean Buller (UnknownGamer). Originally this was going to keep with the style of V3 (maroon/beige/black, grungy, stylistic). However, I decided that since it'd be so differently (read: better) made I'd fix up the style and make it, in general, better. So, wanting a change from the grunginess, I went with shiny rainbow-on-blackness. Yeah.

On the topic of the new NALGames.com, which should be active within the week (at the moment if you try to access it you'll get slapped in the face by an Under Construction image), there are a number of lovely changes, most of which I couldn't've achieved, as I despise coding websites. Seriously, changing the CSS for this blog to make it as it is was bad enough. It'd be less hateful if all browsers interpreted coding in the same way... but they don't. Half the time, it's Microsoft's glaringly inferior browser that puts a wrench in the works (most businesses have dropped IE6 support now... why not go one better and drop it for 7 and 8 too?), but even the bigguns like Firefox, Chrome and Opera occasionally screw something up. (Incidentally, I now use Google Chrome. Firefox 3.x has been problematic as hell; all the 3.6 update did was break more.)

Oh right, the new website. The biggest change for you, the viewers, will be that the Games, Archive and .GMKs sections will all be jazzed up and more usable. All items will start off "minimised" - in a normal list. There's a + on the end - if you click it, a game description, three screenshots, and all the details and various links will swoop in with a pretty little animation. The + turns into a -. Guess what that does.

The biggest change for me, which will be passively effective to viewers, is that Sean is incorporating a handy little set of admin tools for adding games, other items, and editing the text on text-based pages like About. Beforehand, I was having to manually alter all the coding on the page then reuploading it. This was a hell of a lot of hassle and meant the frequency of updates was poor. At the time of V3 going down, there had been four games released since its last update. Now, though, I just have to fill in a form and hit a Submit button, which is a lot easier and will mean I'll be much quicker in updating the site.

Other minor updates to the site, ignoring the previously mentioned style overhaul, is that the Links page has been switched with a Coverage page (now I've got just about enough to not look like a shit stain on the underpants of my website), the Game Editable and WIP Editables have been merged, Writings has been added to the Archive (so I can share my crappy poems and WIP short story), and Old Games has been merged into the current Games page. There's a tick box in the "Sort By" dropdown that allows you to filter these out or keep them in, so the few decent games I've made don't have to be drowning in a sea of Gemocides, Fight of the Heights and Blokmans (all three being 2005-or-before games).

Game-wise, I've nigh-on stopped working on Innoquous Hand Held/The Flip Side. I still plan on making Innoquous 4, but this won't be yet. Due to possible complications (if I take the YoYo Games job I won't be eligible for any of their competitions from then on) I doubt entering it would work out at all. A little disappointing, but I'd rather have a job than a public thrashing by at least 20 people that are better than me!

Anyway, that's the news of the NALworld. Some time soon I expect to make a blog entry listing my all-time favourite 100 songs. This is requiring me to scour my entire brain, as well as my tracklist, for those I know would make the list, and some others which I'll have to process-of-elimination-ify to get it to the hundred. Also, process-of-elimination-ify is a word now.

Let me know if there are any graphical glitches on the blog or, when it's out, the website. Screenshot would be preferred.

Until next time!

Innoquous 4: Early Stages

A blog post about my current active project, Innoquous 4, and some information on it.

Firstly, it's initially aimed for YYG Competition 05. It's going to undertake the alias Innoquous Hand Held for this. Innoquous Hand Held will lack online functions, be capped to 480x272 as its screen resolution, and be slightly fiddlier than usual. This is a direct result of the competition restrictions. What it will contain will be 100 levels (40 new, 60 from Innoquous 1, 2 and 3, many of which will be tweaked to accommodate the faster controls). There will also be other obstacles - I'm aiming for timed-shooting guns and pushable blocks, that will debut, and make appearances in both new and old, tweaked levels. I'm looking to add a level editor - this may not make IHH as the control restrictions would make it difficult to implement.

Once IHH is released, I will upgrade it to Innoquous 4. This will be the full-on game. 800x600 resolution, mouse-controlled, easy to use level editor (mouse-controlled), improved menu, plenty of customisation options (complete control over block colours, a choice of characters - play as a fish!, and other options), etc. I'll also poke UnknownGamer into making the online for it, which will build on I3's site - you'll be able to make an account on it, share statistics, see your rankings, upload levels you've created and download others', with level ratings etc. Depends on how much he can do.

Now, cost-wise. I initially said I was going to make Innoquous 4 my first commercial game. However, with the need to make IHH free, this is now unlikely. What I am edging towards is making the game DONATIONWARE. This would mean you could pay $/£20 (madness!), $4 (what I would've initially charged), or even 1p/cent (*stares*). The reason I want to charge for the game is because I'm about to jump into the world of work, and in all honestly I'd quite like to be able to jump out of it ASAP into commercial indie game production. I know it'll probably be a few years before that provides any kind of income, but hey, the sooner I start making this damn game, the better!

Yesterday I released a trailer for the game, showcasing its new IOTAS-style graphics and mentioning some of the planned features. If you're interested, here it is:And that's pretty much it, really! If you have any comments, suggestions, or anything else, don't hesitate to comment. Even if I don't reply to them, I certainly read them and take them on board. Thanks!

Until the next blog entry.

~ NAL