Korrode is a brand new game that I have just finished. You get to play the part of entropy as a racing rust spot zipping around corroding metal bolts. It’s a level based racer that combines aspects of puzzle and time trial agility games.

My initial seed of an idea for the game was about crossing a 2d Katamari Damacy with Flow. The game has also drawn heavy comparisons to the excellent game Osmos but I had never heard of that game before beta test players started pointing that out. I wanted to explore the fun level design that would occur in a game where the level topology is constantly changing based on your scale.

The game isn’t released yet but I created a video game trailer so players and potential sponsors could get a sneak peek at what it is all about. Sponsors with an account on Flash Game License can also play the game here to consider placing a bid on it.

I’ve worked on Korrode on and off since January of this year. It is the largest game in both scope and time commitment that I’ve developed yet. I was very inspired by some entropy-themed texture photos a good friend of mine (Jeremy P. Bushnell) took from his travels around Philadelphia, Chicago, and New York. He gave me permission to use these photos as the base for a lot of the photo manipulation work I did to create both the UI and the levels for the game.

I also had the pleasure of recording the game’s soundtrack which was a refreshing break from coding. I was able to create 9 unique music loops using the sounds of factories, metal clanging, machines, and other industrial ephemera to build the rhythm tracks. I then composed some simple melodies to go over them. The trailer features a longer version of one of the songs from the game.

The game uses a pretty cool technology from the Playtomic analytic service I use that allows me to embed player replays in the actual highscore data for a level. This means that when a player finishes playing a level their new best time is automatically submitted to the global leaderboards for that level. Then when players view the leaderboards they can actually watch the replays from anyone’s run in the score charts. It’s a great way to encourage competition and allow the players to race each other’s replay “ghosts” after they finish watching the replays. It also provides a built in walk through of sorts if player’s are just curious how other people solved a level in the quickest time.

I’m pretty excited about this game and I really can’t wait to see the replays that top players will generate. I’ve already learned a bunch about the levels I designed by watching the beta testers solve them! The sponsorship process can take awhile though so I have to be patient. I’ve got plenty of other projects to keep me occupied anyway!

Just wanted to post a fun image I assembled from seven different games I’m working on releasing still. The top of the image which contains the aliens in the mushroom landscape is from For The Twin–a game that I’ve finished for the “A Game By It’s Cover” Competition over at TIGSource and which will be released in September or sooner now that it has found a primary sponsorship from Spil Games.

The rest of the images are from unreleased games that I’m still working on. They are roughly listed in the order I expect to complete them though that could change a little bit of course.

They are all between 50-80% finished though and I am not going to work on any new game projects until I clear out my backlog!  This of course doesn’t mean I won’t be participating in August’s Ludum Dare 48 hour game competition–I wouldn’t miss that for anything especially since I couldn’t attend the one in April.

I also will continue to complete my contract game projects like the one I recently finished up for Kongregate and Cheetos called Mouth Full of Happy.

A big reason for wanting to knock these game projects out is that this year I’ve only officially released two games so far compared to the six I released in 2009.  It’s not that I haven’t been working on as many games it is just that I have not finished as many. I believe in the importance of finishing your games and I fully intend to.

I also believe in the gameplay and the sponsorship potential of all the games above so I need to finish them off and get them over to Flash Game License for bidding before the year ends. That is the plan anyway–wish me luck!

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’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.