Saturday 29 May 2010

Hello World!

Hello, and welcome to my blog. I intend to use this blog to publicise games that I make (primarily for a Windows platform, since that is what I have on my computer), and occasionally review other games by independent game developers (hereafter referred to as "indie games").

At the time of writing, I am creating games exclusively using Game Maker 8 Pro, which is available from YoYo Games for $25 (GM8 Lite is free and has most of the functionality though). Game Maker is very useful in that every game I make comes preloaded with the basic functionality needed to play sounds, display graphics, calculate motion and collisions, design levels, and quite a bit more. As such, it is excellent for making games quickly and efficiently, though it relies largely on DLLs for things like online play, fast and effective 3D, and most things a more professional game programmer would need. It's very good for beginners and indie developers though.

All my creations so far are available at www.yoyogames.com/members/snowyowl, so until I update the layout of this blog to show them here, that's where they'll be. Not all of them are complete, or necessarily very good.

I participate in the Ludum Dare game design competition, a 48-hour competition which is getting more popular by the year, and is currently just past its 17th iteration. My submission to that one was Jump Pirate, which did quite well. There is also the Mini Ludum Dare competition on a monthly basis, with similar rules but usually more relaxed.

And I guess that's all you need to know about me. I don't have any projects ongoing at the moment, but I'll be sure to update when I do. If you're a future reader busy looking through the archives to find my first ever post: Congratulations, future reader, you found it. What's the future like? Do we have teleporters yet? If you came searching for some sort of prize or secret for those who find my first post, I'm sorry to disappoint you. Though I could try to explain the title of this blog, if that counts: I decided against calling it "Snowyowl gaming" when I realised that it has nothing to do with avians of any sort. Instead, I remembered that the Game Maker logo is a hammer. So now I have a hammer and an anvil: the tools of the game blacksmith.