I'm making a game for the first time since high school when I programmed a couple on my TI-85 graphing calculator. Great gaming machine there. I remember someone one day showing up with Tetris on their calculator. It inspired me to make my own creations: a betting game where the +, -, /, * raced across the screen at different random rates that determined the odds, and a top down racing game where you'd maneuver your "car" between the slowly lowering posts.

Things have changed in the past 20 years.

First off, I'm determined to do this in a free development platform. I started out on Game Maker, got quite a bit done, then hit the object limit that the free version has that I didn't notice. So, I tried Construct, got a little ways along and found it pretty lacking. Most likely because it seems like the open-source version I was using has lost a lot of support since they now mostly back their superior commercial version. Finally, I very briefly messed with Game Editor before I bit the bullet and decided to learn Blender. Now it's entirely in 3D (though still 2D in spirit) and infinitely more complicated.

It's been a week and it's nearing completion. Hooray for vacation! Also not bad for being out of the game for 20 years. If you can call developing calculator games being in the game.

Title Screen:

Level 2:

Screenshots don't do much for dynamic lighting.

I call it a SIBH (Self Inflicted Bullet Hell) game. To get points, you have to shoot at yourself. If the blobs hit you, you lose points, if they hit each other, they die and you get points. Don't shoot, and you'll have no trouble avoiding non-existent blobs, but you won't score anything. Mash the space bar and there's much more chance for points, but you've then got a swarm of blobs to avoid. Risk-reward gameplay at its most basic.

There are not many blobs on the screen in level 2 there because I was busy hitting alt-prtscr. Though I did get lucky: you can see two little upside-down +1s as two of the red blobs annihilated each other making their shadows and everything, hee. The blue barrel in the middle is what shoots at you, and you are the yellow orb. There's an explanation for these characters and a "story" I invented in a drunken fury, but I won't spoil them here.

In the works are:

• Finish up between-level transitions. Only one left to go.
• Make multiple endings. At least four are on the way.
• Building the super secret level you have to meet certain, extra super secret conditions to get to.
• Optimizing Python scripts and logic bricks. Always optimizing...

So far it runs like gangbusters on my dual core G620, 4gigs RAM, 256mb Nvidia 8600gt and only gets framey if I mash like Takahashi Meijin. I foresee keeping it like that since if it gets too sluggish, I won't be able to play it anymore.

Enough time posting, back to developing.

Never been much of a blogger. Always short on words and to the point I am. Yet here I am writing one on Giantbomb mostly to get the blog quest out of the way since I've recently been bitten by the quest bug and partly to actually voice an opinion:

I like my video games video gamey.

Over the course of my video gaming career (hobby,) video games have gotten progressively more movie-esque. Cut scenes abound. Characters have, well, character. Everything has a bloody plot. I feel like I spend as much time - if not more - watching video "games" than playing them these days.

This isn't a bad thing. I'll never forget plowing through Final Fantasy VII in my dorm room, skipping classes and generally wrecking my GPA back in the nineties. Xenogears was a transcendental experience despite the second disk of rocking chair Citan blathering important plot points that I never got to take part in. The first God of War (I skipped most of the PS2/Xbox/Gamecube generation until late) blasted unused synapses into action with over the top QTEs and raging Kratos badassery. Even more recently, I was permitted to step into the shoes of Batman even, through a couple of great games by Rocksteady.

However, I miss the 2-dimensional (literally and figuratively) characters, inexplicable "plots", general weirdness and resulting sense of mystery that came prepackaged standard with the games of yesteryear. Call it nostalgia if you must, but there's something alluring about the hero whose only characteristic is his senseless name and apparent desire - manifested through my actions - to wipe all evil from the face of whatever world it is I'm saving today. I was free to imagine my character being any sort of person/automaton/benevolent force without the strict characterization thoroughly administered by today's Uncharteds and Gears of Warses.

The most fun I've ever had with video games was with those with zero plot, and a whole lot of pixel smashing action. Shmups, 2D platformers, on-rail shooters. Bring back the visceral and simple. Blah blah blah.

<insert conclusion here>

I'm a little drunk on a Friday night and about to play some Dead Space. Yeah!