Divine New Year in Dragon Mania Legends

Posted by Peter (Devee) on February 25, 2018
Posted in: Journal, Videos. Tagged: , , . Leave a comment

Dragon Mania Legends is a typical phone game in that there are multiple currencies in the game, and one of them is purchased using real money. Their events ramp up in difficulty in what I assume is obviously an attempt to get people to spend money to finish them. And I don’t spend real money on this game.

In this style of events, you go through multiple levels unlocking chests. A chest can contain the key to the next level or a puzzle piece toward unlocking a dragon. (Collecting dragons is the primary goal of the game.) The last level has a chest that will contain the a dragon itself, and this is basically the goal of the event. This event celebrated Chinese New Year, and the final dragon was the Nezha dragon.

For the first time, I was able to get that final dragon! The event ends tonight, and I got it this morning. And yet I did some quick math and found that it would be impossible for me to get the puzzle piece dragon at this point without spending real money. Still, I’m happy I finally got the end dragon in one of these events!

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Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp – New Year

Posted by Peter (Devee) on January 2, 2018
Posted in: Journal. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

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I’ve been playing Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp recently. Is it time for a new hat, or can I wear my Happy New Year hat for a little longer? I realize I haven’t blogged here much in a while, and part of that is because I think I need to say something specific. Should I explain what Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp is and review it before I start to write about it? No, I don’t want to do that. I just want to talk about the game. But if you want to add me as a friend, my ID is 2604 7697 654!

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Also, this amuses me. These are my only two friends in the game that I actually know, and for a moment I wondered how my friend could be in two spots at the same time. It took me a second to realize that they just dressed similarly today. That’s gem on the left and Anela on the right. Nice fashion!

Polygons and Pixels blogging in review for 2016

Posted by Peter (Devee) on January 3, 2017
Posted in: Polygons and Pixels. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . 1 Comment

It was quite the slow year for Polygons and Pixels in 2016. I only published 4 articles total. This has been my slowest blog since I created it, but it’s still surprising.

Besides the homepage, the top articles include topics such as Castle Doombad, World of Goo for Android, “bob’s game,” Lifeline, and Papers, Please. I got more visits from the US by far, but following the US are Brazil, UK, Germany, and France. Thanks!

Here are the views by year:

  • 2012: 593 views, 91 visitors (blog started in June)
  • 2013: 6,858 views, 3,933 visitors
  • 2014: 7,891 views, 5,010 visitors
  • 2015: 4,029 views, 3,106 visitors
  • 2016: 2,251 views, 1,690 visitors

I didn’t do much serious gaming in 2016. I played a lot of Hearthstone, Overwatch, and some World of Warcraft: Legion. I tried Lifeline 2 and was disappointed. The only console game I played was BattleBlock Theater, which I finally beat. I also played a couple storylines of Hatoful Boyfriend after my friend, Tram, suggested it. I played a ton of Sailor Moon Drop, Dragon Mania Legends, and Pokemon Go. Super Mario Maker got a little playtime (and blog posts) as well. KOMRAD finally was released for iOS, and I played that. If you count party games, Jackbox got a lot of play. In December, I started playing Ingress at the suggestion of my friend Chuck. Finally, I downloaded Super Mario Run and tried to resist paying for the full game. I lasted two days.

@gameboycameraman’s photography

Posted by Peter (Devee) on September 28, 2016
Posted in: Art. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

@gameboycameraman

Jean-Jacques Calbayrac posts photos taken with his Game Boy Camera to his interesting themed Instagram account, @gameboycameraman. The earliest photo I see on his account is from May 7, 2016, so it seems like this is a relatively new endeavor despite old hardware. He’s based in London and seems to take photos around his city (despite the recent photos taken of the game No Man’s Sky, which I find to be quite the disappointing subject for a neat experiment). It’s neat to see the world through the more restrictive lens of the Game Boy Camera, an accessory for the original Game Boy first released in 1998. Restriction can lead to beautiful results.

The photo shown in this post can be found here.

Super Mario Maker: Peter’s 30th Birthday Bash

Posted by Peter (Devee) on March 30, 2016
Posted in: Design, Event, Journal. Tagged: , , , , , . 1 Comment

Super Mario Maker: Peter's 30th Birthday Bash

No celebration is complete without some Super Mario Maker! It was my birthday last month, and while I was spending the day with some of my closest friends, I wanted everybody to come together to make a level with me. Our creation was Peter’s 30th Birthday Bash! If you look closely in the screenshot above, you’ll see “Happy birthday Peter” spelled out in the level.

For those interested in playing it, you can find it using the ID BBD9-0000-01E1-1F90.

Super Mario Maker: Peter's 30th Birthday Bash

Anela kicked off the level with some springs, pits, and a number of enemies. She didn’t pull her punches either. Just when you think she might be nice, she has a trick up her sleeve.

Super Mario Maker: Peter's 30th Birthday Bash

Antonio worked on the next section, and his girlfriend Kaleigh contributed as well. His section contain projectiles, fire beams, thwomps, and more. The POW comes in handy though!

Super Mario Maker: Peter's 30th Birthday Bash

You can usually tell gem’s sections because they’re filled with coins. The areas void of coins in her section spelled out “happy birthday.” You have to take your time here or you could fall to your death.

Super Mario Maker: Peter's 30th Birthday Bash

Edward started his section by spelling my name. He also filled it with lakitus. You really need a star to get through this part (which we added when the level was too hard).

Super Mario Maker: Peter's 30th Birthday Bash

This section was also created by Edward. It seems like he likes enemies.

Super Mario Maker: Peter's 30th Birthday Bash

I ended the level with some Bowser, Jr. enemies and one Bowser.

It was a blast making the level with everybody. I love how you don’t have to be super into video games to enjoy Super Mario Maker. Check it out using the ID BBD9-0000-01E1-1F90.

Thank you to everybody who celebrated my birthday and made Peter’s 30th Birthday Bash with me!

“bob’s game” Kickstarter updates after twenty months

Posted by Peter (Devee) on January 20, 2016
Posted in: Editorial. Tagged: , , , . 1 Comment

bob's game

For an overview of bob’s game, see my post The strange tale of “bob’s game.”

Robert Pelloni’s Kickstarter for his game “bob’s game” succeeded back in May of 2014. I wrote about it in a post called “bob’s game” Kickstarter succeeds. Since it succeeded, he made a single Kickstarter update a year late rin May of 2015. Of course, I wrote about that too in post titled bob’s game Kickstarted: one year later. Now we finally have another update. You can check out the update on Kickstarter under the name Small update.

The condensed version of his update is that it seemed pretty honest about his troubles. He “set the bar low for the Kickstarter,” but it seems he set it too low. He used the money to get an apartment for eight months but eventually ended up living out of his van for the next six. She pitched the game to invenstors without success. He eventually got another apartment and enrolled in online classes. (It’s unclear if he’s still in school.) He also discussed some issues he had porting “bob’s game.”

It looks like he’s hoping to port the bob’s game puzzle game first to multiple platforms to help give him income to work on “bob’s game” the RPG. (For some context on the name, bob’s game is a puzzle game. It’s a stand-alone game, but it’s also the final game within the RPG “bob’s game.” “bob’s game” is a game about bob’s game.)

Both bob’s game and “bob’s game” have been listed on Steam Greenlight.

Good luck, Robert!

I’ve linked the original sources, but I’ll reproduce the update as well as the Steam Greenlight descriptions here:

bob’s game (puzzle game) from “bob’s game” Steam Greenlight description:

bob’s game is the best puzzle game ever made.

The legendary bob’s game is the final game from the infamous homebrew Action-RPG “bob’s game” (a game about the puzzle game- note the double quotes!). You can check out the separate Greenlight entry for that game here: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=604630184

bob’s game is a multiplayer puzzle game- but not just any puzzle game, *every* puzzle game! It’s a build-your-own puzzle game with a puzzle game creator where you define all the rules to your own custom game!

More than that, great care has been made to ensure that bob’s game is the *best* version of every puzzle game. I went through every puzzle game forum and wiki I could find and made sure to implement every detail and feature required by tournament level hardcore players. It has wall kicks, floor kicks, spin kicks, T-spins, adjustable timing, powerups, you name it.

The rules of bob’s game change in real time as you play it, morphing from game to game and making every round completely unique. Or you can choose to play just your favorite game type against your friends with fantastic controls, super tight timing, and features and powerups from other games.

bob’s game is completely customizable, allowing the player to create in-depth rulesets to mimic existing puzzle games or create entirely new ones to add to the online library.

Create your own puzzle modes! Invent custom rulesets or challenge your friends to a sequence of all your favorite games. Compete in an online world championship and improve your skills to reach the top of the public leaderboard.

bob’s game is constantly evolving with new theme packs, new rules, and user-designed puzzle packs.

This game is not complete, the Java demo featured in the video is an early alpha “MVP” version and I’d like to add many more features. I am also currently porting it back to C++ from Java so that it runs as smoothly as possible with no garbage collection hiccups and can be ported to any platform.

It will be released and continuously updated for desktop PC both standalone and in browser, and on mobile for Android and iPhone, with the source code available to be ported to any other platform.

You can play the alpha version that appears in the video as an embedded game inside the “bob’s game” RPG Demo 3 for PC here: http://bobsgame.com/files/bobsgame_demo_3_dist_win.zip

 “bob’s game” Steam Greenlight description:

“bob’s game” is a game about a game called bob’s game. I worked on it for a long time. It’s not done so I want to get it on Early Access.

See more about it on http://bobsgame.com

Please download and play the demos if you have questions about the gameplay.
(Remember: Don’t give up on Tetrid, there is a trick to it.)

Download Demo 1+2 for PC here: http://bobsgame.com/files/bobsgame_demo_2_final.zip
Download Demo 3 for PC here: http://bobsgame.com/files/bobsgame_demo_3_dist_win.zip

Also see the separate Greenlight entry for the bob’s game puzzle game (the best puzzle game ever made) here: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=603367632

I’ve also listed the custom BobEdit tools and “bob’s game” engine used to make this game on Greenlight, so that others can make games using them if they want:http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=604913553

“bob’s game” Kickstarter update #2, Small update:

I set the bar low for the Kickstarter but I was hoping it would make enough for at least a year or two of development.  Unfortunately it barely made the minimum amount, but in my situation I had to take what I could get.

I chose to get an apartment instead of trying to live in a van, thinking I’d be better off with the convenience and hoping that I’d be able to figure out something else in that time.  This only gave me an 8 month extension, and I spent most of it still very traumatized and frustrated and I did not find any other solutions.

Once I ran out, I ended up living in my car again for another 6 months until I could find another way to support myself.  I tried sending a pitch deck to over 300 investors and even went door to door on Sand Hill Road.  I emailed every publisher I could find.  I applied for YCombinator and 500 Startups.  None of that worked, so I ended up enrolling in online classes and taking out student loans.

So now I’m back in an apartment and I’ve slowly started getting back into development after almost 2 years of sleeping in a car.

I’ve listed both the puzzle game and the RPG on Steam Greenlight, in hopes that I could get on Early Access, which would really be great for my situation since I could possibly make some steady income as I worked on the games.

I’m still moving forward with the games the best I can and I will still fulfill the backer rewards when I am able to do so.  I am still living on borrowed time, but I’ll do the best I can with the time that I have.

I’m currently porting the Java puzzle game to C++ so that it runs as smoothly as possible. It will be released and continuously updated for desktop PC both standalone and in browser, and on mobile for Android and iPhone, with the source available to be ported to any other platform.

I am doing this as it is the fastest way that I can possibly gain some reliable income, so that I can work on the RPG without worrying about my situation.​

I am not sure what I’m going to do with the RPG. I rewrote it in Java as an MMO so the game world could be continuously updated on the fly.  I was successful at doing that but it is very cumbersome to develop on at this point and it needs to be worked on by a team with funding, not one person with no resources.​

I had gotten caught up in the Silicon Valley hype and thought it would be possible to get investment for a fairly large existing project with a cool online demo. Unfortunately that was not the case.  It would probably have helped to have had some traction and numbers, but maybe it’s just too small of a project for big investors to care, or maybe my background is too risky, or maybe it’s just not good enough.

I’m also unhappy with the state of Java, and the client doesn’t run well enough on mobile which I was really hoping for and one of my deciding factors.​  I had anticipated that Java would become more popular because of Android and hence also more supported on the desktop, but because of some security issues and the lawsuit between Google and Oracle it became less popular.  I would really like to port it back to C++ but that will take a long time, so for now I will stick with Java. I will probably just scale it back to a single player desktop game and release manual updates, or have a good upgrade function built in.