After sharing my numbers and experiences here on my blog from releasing my first Flash game TurnStyle I’ve had numerous requests to do a followup post.  I’ve wanted to wait for there to be enough data though to make it worthwhile for my time and yours.

It has been almost 60 days since I released TurnStyle and as I’m gearing up again to do another big round of game development in the next few weeks I think this time is as good as any to get this off my plate.

I will share my MochiAd developer screenshots below:  I have created 3 reports all of which show the entire history of the game in the wild.  I will report my numbers on Traffic, Hosts, and Countries along with some of my own thoughts and markings on the screenshots:

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You can play YoTowlr here in your browser

In the two hours leading up to the beginning of Ludum Dare 14 I decided to do a towlr compo warm-up to get the coding juices flowing ahead of the big theme announcement.  I posted my intention in the LD IRC channel and a few other developers signed on as well for the friendly towlr warm-up.

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Here is level 4 from a new Flash game I am making with my good friend and fellow game designer Jeremy P. Bushnell. It marks the first collaboration Hybrid Mind Studios has done and I’m very excited about co-designing this game with Jeremy.

We’ve been working hard on this during the month of April.  I did an initial prototype in about 3 hours which I sent out to my play tester email list and initial response was very good.  Since then Jeremy has been working on creating 10 great levels, art assets, sounds, ambient loops, title and inter-level screens.  I have been programming the game engine and integrating all the levels and assets and coding in some nice animations for the different collectibles and units in the game.  We’ve both been playing the heck out of it too and working together to tune the game mechanics.

That’s all I’m gonna say about this new game for now but we plan to do another play tester release this weekend.  Probably on Sunday or Monday at the latest.  After that we will likely make any changes based on feedback and we’ll be posting it for developer review up on Flash Game License before finally opening it up to sponsor bidding.  You want to set the best first impression you can and make the best use of the sponsor’s valuable time when you are trying to monetize your Flash games!

I spent the weekend competing in the tri-annual Ludum Dare 48 hour game competition.  This was the 14th competition the site has hosted and there was a record turn-out!  121 games where created and submitted in a 48  hour period.  The theme was Advancing Wall of Doom. This theme was picked by the community through a system of voting during the week leading up to the competition.  Once the theme was announced on Friday night participants had 48 hours to create an entire game from scratch.  All content had to be produced by the participant during the competition.  The event ran from Friday night on April 17th through Sunday night on April 19th, 2009.

Fleedom is the game I managed to finish as my entry.  It is a Flash game so you can play it in your browser here. I’m fairly happy with how it turned out think it is a great base prototype for further improving into a really great game.  I will continue to work on it and turn this prototype into a finished Flash game.  I won’t know the final results for two weeks on how it did but the competition is so much fun that the results aren’t really the point.  I have participated now in about 5 or 6 of these 48 hr Ludum Dare competitions and I am the most happy with this game than any of my past ones.  I actually enjoy playing this one a lot so that is a good sign indeed. Creating a game in under 48 hours can teach you a lot about game design.

One of the last Ludum Dare contests I entered was a smaller version called a “Mini” Ludum Dare.  These happen in the 9 off-months that aren’t hosting a normal Ludum Dare.  They are hosted by veterans of the LD community and can have customized house-rules depending on the host.  A prototype I created for the theme Cryptozoology eventually became my first published Flash game TurnStyle.  So, I hope to take Fleedom Flies into a similar published future.

I know it has been a bit quiet around here lately. That is because I spent most of March and the beginning of April not only learning ActionScript 3.0 but also working on a new game! I have just put the game up on Flash Game License to seek sponsorship. In the meantime, here are a few tasty screen shots:

I’ll have more info and a big announcement once the game secures a sponsorship and/or is ready to be released into the wild.  In the meantime I’m going to be combing my list of sponsor email addresses encouraging them to take a look at my game over on FGL.