11.08.2014

Little release, new announcement and Twitch

As I said in previous post, PATRIOT project is frozen for indefinite term. But it’s not mean that closed. PATRIOT is almost complete and I will return to it in near future. But I have some news.
Few time ago I released small game called TwoNumbers. It was made in only one night. Game has little confusing rules, but it is very simple and minimalistic. I got some feedback (even from Tom Fulp at PM on Newgrounds) and hope I’ll make mobile port soon. Don’t be strict, just keep in mind that it was made by one man in few hours.
I noticed, that my last games was really simple and small. So I started make new game called Holiday in DPRK. It’s something like jRPG about team of cool soldiers in North Korea which must kill Kim Jong-un. Game is a satiric and trash a little. I started to draw for this game. I hope I will develop it till the end and it will get positive feedback. I planned make game about North Korea already few months, but only short time ago I got nice idea.
And last little news is about my Twitch channel. Sometimes I stream game development there. Not really interesting but who knows. Just follow it. Thanks.

10.02.2014

Standstill 2

Few months past after last post and I need something to write here.

As I said, I have no stable job right now. So I spend a lot if time for getting money at different projects. But now I get some energy and unfreeze my main main project PARTIOT. It need a lot of work and I can’t promise soon release. But work is going and it was moved from dead point. I hope on some news for you at near future.

I skip last Ludum Dare because of theme. It really sucks. I have a lot of awesome ideas for new projects, but first I need to complete current. And it not cancel my words about outsource projects where I getting money.

8.06.2014

Current status

Some time has passed, you need to know about my current business.

I started development of the promising project called PATRIOT. I call it game but it more looks like monumental social experiment. At this time I doing it not alone – my good friends took server-side programming (yes, it’s not single player game). I really lay my hopes on PATRIOT.

patriotLogo

In addition, I can say that possible few little projects in partnership with great DiscoFish. I have plans for game series with different mechanics but with same universe. I think Alex can do awesome art style for this project. He agreed for this, but I can’t promise it soon because I will take outsource job for money~ Hey, I’m indie and I need money sometimes!

7.19.2014

Ports to iOS — check

After I left my job, it was pretty easy to complete updates and ports. Before I planned it done until summer end but now it was finished in few weeks. I’m glad. Here are the links in AppStore:
And guess what? I reincarnated my octahedron studios site. New lite WordPress design and separate  pages for games. Hope you like it. It need some work and time but it better than it was before (static blank page if you remember).
Now I’m started working on new project, that not really game but huge social experiment. It will be awesome and weird. And now I’m not alone with it: my old friend helping me with server side programming. It first not solo experience in development for me (except taphophobia of course).
It will be a lot of news at near time. You can follow my fresh Twitter — there are will be some short news.
Thanks for reading, I’m happy.

7.01.2014

Indie. Day one



Today is the first day without office. Yep, I quit my job yesterday. Now I’m poor but free. Now I can take all time to my games.

Here the plan for near future
  • Make updates and iOS-ports for my mobile games
  • Ressurect octahedron studios site. It will be just homepage for mobile games. All news will be here
  • Ludum Dare 30 in August
  • New games!

Damn, I’m so glad that I can spent full time to my own projects. I hope I’ll not die from hunger.

5.24.2014

Ludum Dare 29 Summary

, or how I fucked up.

I’m very dissapointed, so I do not want write the post of full value. It’s overall place is only 221th. Fool statistic is available at LD-page. It’s very sad adter previous Ludum Dares, when my games always took first hundred. I have some thoughts why it turned like that. But now I put my mind about mobile port with improvements far away.

And here, if you don’t played, the link to the game Snake Intuition. And here the timelapse video of development:



It’s enough for now. Current time I’m working on huge update and iOS-port of my old mobile game Hungry Brothers. I hope I’ll done it soon and do it with my other mobile games. And only after that I’ll start to make new games.

5.07.2014

GamesJamGAMM Summary

Few moments ago judgment of GamesJamGAMM ended. I wanted to write post about it after that. So here it is.

About contest. It was Russian game development contest where participants created games in 7 days in given theme. Theme was ‘phobias’. I think rules must be more adjusted, because they have some unlogical moments. For example, it is possible to participate with any old game if it suitable for theme. Even if it was developing already two years by team. But prizes for win places was tasty (money and other shit) so many developers droped to this contest. But I wanted to write not about prizes.

I participated in GamesJamGAMM as warmup before Ludum Dare. I wanted to make a little game with any zest and not counted for winning. So here borned idea about taphophobia – fear of be buried alive. Firstly I wanted to make game like film ‘Buried’ with Ryan Reynolds. It should have been puzzle, where main character every night see dream about he is buried in a coffin but when oxygen ends he waking up in bed. And dream by dream player got new details and must use it to avoid burial and bad dream ends. But when realized how much energy and time realization will take, I was forced to change game in something more simple. And shocking. So here concept was reborn as it now in final game called taphophobia. No spoilers, just try it.

It took only 3 evenings to complete development. My woman recorded a lot of breathing sounds, that was cropped and insesrted into game. I think it turned pretty cool – something between fear and excitation. As I wanted. Also She made final theme that was originally made not for game but I think it sounds pretty organically. Thanks a lot.

So I put game to my favourite Newgrounds. And after that to GameJolt where I recently registered. Also you can check it at contest page. Sure game wasn’t featured and got odd feedback. Furthermore it now have lowest rating of all my games. But most interesting things was started few days later.

First, I’ve got not bad feedback from members of contest. I thinked it will be more negative. But all comments was fun irony or finding of significance of game. Second, I had very weird conversation in Skype. One Newgrounds user found me and said (quote) “you are fucking genius, sir”. It was amazing that this man from Italia was not lazy and wrote directly to me. I was so happy. I think only this convesation was enough for making game. And I think he is my first real fan who is not from my friends. And third, after I’ve got reference to a taphophobia game in Twitter, I suspected that something is wrong. I’m googled my game. And what I found? And think it awesome, but I found my game at indiegames.com. I’m not sure that it a real cool site, but the fact that it was made by creators of Gamasutra is enough for me.

So what we have at the end. Game that was in really weak rhytm got really positive and interesting feedback for me. Official results of contest was predictable for my game. It got 53th place from 105 games. In the middle. But you know, it was not about place. Will do something like that again.

4.30.2014

Jam week ended

As I said, last week was Jam week. I participated in two events.
First was GamesJamGAMM. It’s a russian game jam. It continued 7 days and had disputable rules. Theme of GJG was ‘phobias’. I didn’t strive and it was something like warm-up before second event. I made a little dumb game (that more looks like cutscene) in 3 evenings. More information about development (it has few interesting facts) will be later after results. Sure, I’m not claim for any victory, just for fun. You can play taphophobia now. It’s take only two minutes for whole game.
Second event, and more important for me, was Ludum Dare 29. I really like it. It was my fourth time when I was involved in compo category. It’s mean that the whole game (idea, code, graphics, etc) was made only by myself in 48 hours. I wanted to try my best, but this time theme ‘beneath the surface’  knocked me down. As always, devlog can be seen at my LD-page. I made something like redefining of classic snake-game. It will be more information about this game after results but now you can play Snake Intuition at Newgrounds.
It’s really cool that Tom Fulp featured my game at main page as always at Ludum Dare. Futhermore, my friend was involved in this Ludum Dare too, and his game also was featured. It was really awesome to give high five to him from main page and from categories page (his icon firstly was choosen as icon for LD 29 but after it was changed).
So, this is my last news. Play in these best games and give 5 stars if you can.

4.18.2014

It's not over yet

I’m too lazy to write all about my project failure, but I don’t want to make dead-end for this blog. I had some problems with addictions but now they are solved and normalized. Now I’m planning to use it for all my game development news. Stay tuned I’m back.
From my latest news:
  • Chop-chop Gobbler (February game) is frozen. Not sure that I’ll return back to it someday.
  • I’m working as freelancer for small game project. Something like legendary Incredibox but for children.
  • Two game jams are coming, where I’m planning to participate: GamesJamGamm and LD29.
  • I’m working on porting of my Android games to iOS. Don’t have enough time for it, but it is on rails.
  • And, besides all, I continue working at my main job at office.
Wish me luck and all will be fine.

2.23.2014

February game announcement



I spent only one hour and now I think that game idea need some more time for realization. I’m afraid about time: how can I catch?
Howere here my announcement, game will be called Chop-chop Gobbler. It will be a simple clicker. Need to do a lot of non-gamedev things, so haven’t time for good post. Here a little of early progress of game menu.

2.17.2014

Lazy bastard

Not so much progress at this week. I’ve created project for the game and started to draw. This will be busy week and I dunno how I’ll finish my game.

C’mon lazy ass! It’s a simple idea and realization. I really need give it just one or two evenings to complete it from blank page.
Sometime I hate my procrastination.

2.10.2014

Current business

As you know it’s already February (almost middle) and time for new game. I tried few ideas and stopped on very simple game concept, that will be announced soon. May be it will be on the mobile too, but can’t guarantee.

On the attached gif you can see one of a deferred idea, which will be back later I think. It has awesome story, but boring gameplay and realization. But I like it very much.

2.03.2014

Searching ideas


It’s time to do the February game but all earlie prepared ideas weathered out of my head. At the weekend I tried to construct a prototype of new idea by using old pixelization filter. Rendered my apartament but didn’t think about gameplay. I save this prototype until better times and start making a new game.

Now I started to make a new prototype. Trying to implement a very old idea. If in the next few days I will not stop works it’s became a my February game. Wish me luck and do not screw it up with this new shit.

And yes, some fag broke my blog few hours ago but it has been restored. I don’t know why he done that.

2.01.2014

Worth it

Despite deserved failure of the game, it’s was suprisingly nice to see Ultimate Frontier on the main page of Newgrounds.
This is not the first time for me, when Tom Fulp places my games at the front page of his site. I terribly flatted as I understand all this undeserved – my games are not cool. Most likely I get this indugence because of embedded adversting of Newgrounds. A great reason to continue doing it.
Anyway achievement Daily 4th place and placement at front page already make my efforts about this game not in vain. I’m already started think about February game.

1.27.2014

ULTIMATE FRONTIER – January release

The game was done already in December and was made in just one week. This month, I polished it up a bit, added a couple of features. Anyway the game does not look exatctly as I would like.
A little later I’ll write detailed postmortem about development, results and lessons that I have learned.
In the meantime play me new piece of shit game ULTIMATE FRONTIER!
I will be happy if you give good review or just rate it.

1.20.2014

Standstill 1


Despite the fact that polishing of the game continues (added a couple of new features), I still have nothing to show. In addition, I have some deals that I need to sort out.

I have some new ideas at my head for future games, but first I need to complete poor January shoot’em up game.

1.14.2014

Pixel experiment

The last couple of days I was lazy and didn’t touch development. The only thing  – tried hastily implement old ideas about pixel art stylization. Wanted to cheat: draw in vector and then dynamically render it into pixels.
Well, shit happenes. Altough, static objects (Saturn for example) seems to be quite acceptable to me. Now save this expirement for a while, may be someday I will back to it.

1.08.2014

Work resumed


After drunken holidays I resumed work on my game. Today I almost finished the section “Armory”, where player can find his favourite gun. Looks neat, right?
And here, once I started involving into development process, as I realized with horror that spare time is fucked up and there are a couple of days before I need to go to a desk job, which will take all the time.

Generally, it’s still quite difficult – combine fulltime job with development at home. Even when I getting idle time, I want to spend it on entertainment rather that on the development. You are enthusiastically waiting for the weekend to finish the game and when it’s coming – you just spend time for the internets. Don’t care, blog was founded for this, to create motivation: I promise someone that games and articles will come. Really.

Not less than 12 games this year, not less than 50 posts. I really will do this.

1.05.2014

January game announcement

To the readers, who randomly come here, did not have doubts about game development derection of this blog, I will post screenshot of my upcoming game.
This is last year’s game, which has an interesting history of development. The game was made within one week, but I totally failed release (my curves hands and thoughts). With my finger, the game was removed from the portal before it collected at least a thousand plays. Damn chinese, I accidentally already saw this game at different portal.
Now I decided to finish development to the desired result and release it again but in the current project – it will be a January game. Originally I wanted to do shoot’em up game but it’s turned into some sort of defender. Not going to fill the history of development and other descriptions of game. Very soon, this month, you’ll be able to touch and play. But do not know yet, it is worth writing articles about this game before or after release. All depends on the fact that the game is almost done and I just lazy to finish it.
Well to hell with it [development], just look at this fucking screenshot.

New sections

Day Two. I created and filled a pair of sections for the blog.

In the Games section now contains links to the few games that I can show you. Feel free to play. In the future, as the releases will come, I will be adding new games there. Needless to say, each release will be loud sanctified in posts of main section of the blog.

Under Who? section I added a bit of information about myself, in case if someone wants to know about this. I dunno what to write there, but as soon as I will invent or remember – certainly will add.

At current time I have another couple of ideas for future posts, which I will try to write in the coming days.

1.04.2014

Blog launch



Here it started. I will write here about game development. And many other things that fit and do not fit into the format. Actually, there is no format as it was in my purpose – I wanted a blog where I can write whatever I want in a convenient form for me.

In fact, I am pursuing several purposes:

1. Develop systematic. As stated in the motto of the blog, at least once a month will come out a new game, and once a week – a new post. But I’ll try more. However, add to favorites, it will be another great incentive for me not to drop it.

2. Track own progress. I will try to make plans for a month and other periods (soon I’ll write about plans for January), and enjoy about accompishments in various areas.

3. Train an English language. Since my native language is Russian, I have some problems with English. Will fix.

4. Circle responsibility with my friend. But I will tell about it in some other time.

So, time will tell. This blog is some sort of huge project for me that can lead me to the desired results in 2014. Happy New Year fuckers, it will be a long year.