Kloonigames

Well, I went to the store and bought a Xbox 360 so I could play Braid today… (Read the previous post.)

I just finished playing though the first world (collected all the puzzle pieces), and I’m totally blown away by it (pun intended). My congrats to Jonathan Blow and David Hellman and everyone involved. You’ve created one beautiful game.

Also I’d like to repeat what Chris Hecker said about the game. If you enjoy the game (which you will) spread the word. Tell your friends, blog about it, digg about it. Independent games, like Braid, don’t have the marketing power that big studios have. They really need the word-of-mouth to be successful. And if there is any justice in this world, Braid should be a huge commercial success. Put your part in and make sure that Braid doesn’t end up being the Psychonauts of indie games.

Now I’m gonna go and solve the rest of worlds…

Jonathan Blow’s beautiful game Braid is finally available on the Xbox Live Arcade. If you’re an owner of Xbox 360 you should go buy it. Now. Seriously.

It’s the best game I’ve played in years. I’m predicting that the Internets will go nuts about this game. I know that I went nuts after playing the game. The game made me realize that I didn’t know anything about game design and after playing the game I got some what depressed because of it. So if you’re an aspiring game designer and you think you know something about game design, don’t play this game. You will get depressed, sad and fan boyish towards Jonathan.

(Btw. I don’t own a 360, so I’m actually really tempted to go out and buy one just to play Braid. Jon has promised that the game will be released on PC later this year, but still I’m really tempted to go buy one so I could play the game right now.)

Summer Assembly 2008 was held during the weekend. Unfortunately I could only be there for the first two days 🙁

Choke on my Groundhog, YOU BASTARD ROBOTS was my game development competition entry. I came in third! 😀 Which is cool since there were some really nice games in this year’s competition.

Here are the top 5 of Assembly game dev combo:

1   3692p   Dave the Ordinary Spaceman by Lasi Interactive
2   3056p   Kiuasturvat feat. VastaIsku by SX cracked by tAAt
3   2867p   Choke on my Groundhog, YOU BASTARD ROBOTS by Kloonigames
4   2636p   Pakoon III - First Blood by Mayoneez, Osmic & Kani
5   2107p   FlipOut by Mikkosoft Productions

Link to the full results

As you can see my archnemesis Jetro beat me again this year. His entry Kiuasturvat came in second and beat Groundhog by 231 points. Last year my game was fourth and Jetro beat me with just 10 points…

Also this year I held a seminar at the Assembly. It was called Making of Crayon Physics Deluxe or How I Got Lucky and Won the IGF. The talk it self went well and people seemed to enjoy it. Unfortunately the Assembly crew hasn’t posted my talk online yet (and I doubt that they ever will). But you can watch my archnemesis’ Jetro’s and Jani’s talk online in the meanwhile 🙂

Image stolen from http://www.assembly.org/

Sorry, but the monthly game is going to be a little late this time. The game is done, but I can’t upload it to the web server 🙁 It’s my ISP’s fault. I can’t get a connection from my desktop computer to the web server.

(I’m writing this entry in lynx from our schools web server). Unfortunately I’m traveling during the weekend so that can cause even further delay. I’ll try to get everything up and running as soon as possible.

In an effort to show my support to point-n-click adventure games, I declare Kloonigames to be April Fools’ Day joke free!

Ron Gilbert states that every time an April Fools’ Joke is played, adventure game concept is killed. There’s no reason to doubt him, because he’s always right. And he said that Crayon Physics Deluxe is awesome and because he’s always right then I’ve scientifically proven that Crayon Physics Deluxe is made of awesome.

I posted this only, because I didn’t have enough free time to do a parody of Rod Humble’s newest game Stars over Half Moon Bay. Which is a shame because last years April Fools’ Joke worked like a charm.

Oh and this month’s game was posted few days in advance: Small-Time Scorched Earth Invasion.