Games by Coda
 

UPDATE: I'm going to try to keep the second post of this thread up to date with links to all of my games so you don't have to comb through the whole thread to find them.

Most of the games are web games. This is to let as many people play them as possible instead of requiring downloads and installation that limit which platforms they can run on. How well they work on mobile can be hit or miss but I've at least tried on all of the more recent ones.



So I'm working on a new game, and it occurred to me (and I confirmed with a forum search) that I'd never actually linked to anything I'd written!

So here's the game I'm working on right now, still in development but playable:

Gravity Runner
(old version)
Controls:
- Space: Jump
- Double-Space: Reverse gravity
- Right: Speed up
- Left: Slow down

You can only reverse gravity once per jump/fall, so no flying by toggling gravity back and forth. If you're not pushing left or right you'll settle at a medium speed.

Future plans: Platforms that are dangerous (one or both sides covered in spikes or something), touchscreen support.

My current high score is around 158.

Ludum Dare games:

Ludum Dare 36 entry: Bobble Battle (Windows, MacOS)
Ludum Dare 38 entry: Diminishing Lands (Windows, MacOS)
Ludum Dare 39 entry: Depths Disconnected (Windows, MacOS)
Ludum Dare 40 entry: Network Invader (Windows, Linux, MacOS)
Ludum Dare 41 entry: The Dungeons of Indianapolis (Web)
Ludum Dare 42 entry: Swirling Infestation (Web, Windows, Linux, MacOS)
Ludum Dare 43 entry: Golden Lord (Web)
Ludum Dare 44 entry: Watt Balance (Web, Windows, MacOS)
Ludum Dare 45 entry: Nullified (Web)
Ludum Dare 46 entry: Lily vs. the Swarm (Web)
Ludum Dare 47 entry: Skyloop (Web)
Ludum Dare 49 entry: Overclocked (Web)
Ludum Dare 50 entry: All-Nighter Simulator (Web, mobile-friendly)
Ludum Dare 51 entry: Starshock! (Web)
Ludum Dare 53 contribution: Loading Zone (Web)
Ludum Dare 54 entry: Adrift (Web)



Other games:

2022: Hanafuda (Web, multiplayer)
2019: Nonograms (Web)
2019: Jigsawmino (Web)
2015: Crystal Caverns of Kalin (Web)
2014: Gravity Runner - prototype of Crystal Caverns of Kalin (Web)
2011: Landon chatterbot - Java (source code)
2011: Landon chatterbot - C# (Windows / Mono, source code)
2011: Bagatelle (Windows, Mac OS X)
2011: Shells (Desktop/mobile web, DSi, 3DS, Wii, Wii U)
2010: Invader! (Desktop web, DSi, 3DS, Wii U)
Date unknown: Barebones Sudoku (Web)
Date unknown: Barebones Lights Out (Web, PSP, DSi, 3DS, Wii, Wii U)
2007: Same Game (Web, PSP, DSi, 3DS, Wii, Wii U)


Games by my son:

Ludum Dare 42 entry: Running Out of Space (Web)
Ludum Dare 44 entry: Game Over (Web)

That sounds pretty awesome Coda. o.o'

There was this one site that had this game where you... went between light and dark? Like the dark path would block your way on light, and vice versa, and you had to flip upside down to get across or something. XD IDEK.

If that sounds semi-interesting, I can see if I can't find it again. owo

If it sounds awesome, try it. XD That's a link, not just an underline.

Oh no, I ment I found a game elsewhere like forever ago. XD So just wondering if you were interested in trying it.

I'm guessing you don't go to normal online game sites? O: /these sound like unique games. XD

I'm currently debating on which game I might try first on your list. o.o'

I don't often really have time. To me, hacking on code to make something fun is actually more fun than playing it. :P

Ah. XD Yeah I know that feeling. /been on rpg maker for a while now

How do you come up with the inspiration for the game ideas ? :3

I dunno. It varies. Sometimes it's a matter of thinking of an interesting mechanic and building around it; sometimes it's just wanting to clone an existing game.

Ah. XD sounds like me.
Have you ever thought of taking different mechanics or ideas from multiple games that would work well together, and mixing them together? O:

If I ever became a game maker, that's something I'd probably do. But... not bluntly. Just. Discreetly. Like, trying my best not to 'copy', but putting the idea there at least. XD IDK.
There are some game stuffs that would be SO awesome if they were put together. /:

Yes. Yes I have. And I won't say any more about it because that would be spoilers because I intend to make it a Trisphee feature. ;)

Haha. xD Alright.

Ohh my gawd. Is lights out that thing where you're supposed to get all squares checked? XD Or unchecked?
I kinda suck at those games. o-O:

You're supposed to get them all unchecked.

Ah. xD I'm on 99 moves and theres this one square that keeps popping up. Damt. X:

There's a cute game like that on GTDS where it's called monster hatch and baby... alien things call you 'momma' the entire time. XD

Aww you made one of those games 8'D /trying samegame now
Those are always fun. X:

These are really cool! I haven't tried the last two yet though. :) Good job, Coda!

I'll be the first to say that Same Game isn't a particularly impressive example -- it was an experiment to see what I could get to work in the PSP's (incredibly limited) built-in web browser. There's a LOT the PSP can't do.

I didn't even know the psp had a web thing. XD
But yeah I'd bet. o_O; Still, you did good for being on a handheld device. o.o'

Invader, meanwhile, is capable of maintaining most of its feature set on the DSi, showing just how much better the DSi is compared to the PSP in terms of the web browser. (Though admittedly when running on a DSi it cuts down on the number of enemies fairly dramatically to keep performance up. It does that on 3DS as well, but not quite so much.)

Ah. XD It automatically does that? That's pretty nice. O:

Does it normally show a bunch of floating moving question marks, or is that my crappy computer/dial up that's making it like that ? XD

It's not AUTOMATIC, exactly. I tuned it manually. It detects what you're playing it on and switches modes. (Internet Explorer is a different mode too because IE8 is really slow by comparison to everything else that was modern at the time I wrote it.)

The question marks are actually a font issue. Invader uses symbol characters instead of sprites, but not every font has the whole set of characters it uses.

Oh wow, so that's an older game for you. XD

How long does it take on average to make a game? o.o

Ahhh yeah no wonder why. XD Alright.

It really pretty dramatically depends. Lights Out was... I dunno, maybe an hour? Bagatelle was mostly done in the car on a road trip, then polished up when I got home, so 8-12 hours or so for the actual implementation and then who knows how long to clean it up and make it shiny and package it up for deployment. Gravity Runner is probably sitting on around four hours of work so far. Shells was probably... might have been 30 hours spread over a couple weekends.

The Taskal War engine for Trisphee was probably around 40 hours total, but that counts the fact that I completely rewrote it due to performance problems after it had already been deployed. The interactive fiction game for Trisphee was actually fairly quick to implement (6-10 hours?) but most of the work was done by the writers to create the content.

As for age...

Same Game is one of the oldest of that set, I forget when I first wrote it but it was probably somewhere around 2007 because that's when the PSP-2000 came out (which meant the PSP-1000 I owned would have been cheap).

Lights Out and Sudoku were written around the same time as each other. I was bored over Christmas break at my grandparents' place and hacked them up. I'm not sure how to estimate the age.

Invader I first wrote in 2010, according to the dates on the sound files, but apparently I went back and revised it in 2011. If I had to take a guess, I got my first 3DS in 2011 and updated it to work efficiently there.

Bagatelle I can date to 2011.

Shells was also written in 2011, a few months after Bagatelle. It was a commission from Nicalis.com that they never ended up using.

Landon's Java port... also 2011. Landon's C# port... ALSO 2011, a few months later. Of course, not linked here was the original Scheme version... but I don't know when I wrote that. It was a LONG time ago, possibly as early as 2004.

Wow. XD So they're all pretty much relatively older games, cept for the gravity runner, at the moment. :3

Shells seems like it would have been pretty complicated o.0
Must be nice to make stuff like this when you want , since you have coding knowledge. XD I couldn't imagine doing that. x.x

And there was a Taskal war engine? o.o

Lights Out makes me twitch. I never developed a strategy for those...

Well, 2012-2013 didn't see much in the way of finished games out of me. I was doing other stuff, and tinkering with other stuff, but I didn't get anything put together far enough to say "here, play this." And this year I was doing graphics hackery -- check my art thread in my sig.

The art thread with all the trippy colors? XD Yeah I saw that one.
Must be really interesting to see what you can get out of those o.o'

Well it's good to do other stuff too. :3

The art thread with all the trippy colors? XD Yeah I saw that one.
Must be really interesting to see what you can get out of those o.o'

Well it's good to do other stuff too. :3

http://greenmaw.com/ahigerd/runner.html

Gravity Runner update!
* Background animation!
* Smoother animation!
* Better browser support!
* Gameplay balance improvements!
* Improved respawn behavior!
* And a bunch of little bugfixes

Edit: My personal new high score is 193. :D

Great to see an update. 8'D And to see you having fun on it XD
/still doesn't run on my crap dial up computer so I'll take your word for it. XD

>.>
What are the controls? *can't get morethan 15*

Tis on the first page lawman. x3

I'm working on adding touchscreen controls right now. I'll post again when it's done.

Touch screen controls!

*headdesks excessively* Sorry...

@ Coda ;
did you just seriously do it that fast? XD dam.

@ Lawman ;
pf it's okay. you're human o_o; -petpet-

That fast? I thought I was taking my time. XD It only took me an hour or so of actual work, and most of that was tinkering with the graphics.

xD Oh. Well still that's pretty good.

I just mean, I saw you post 'adding touch screen controls, will post when done'
then immediately below that
'done'
XD

I've done some heavy-duty code cleanup. It shouldn't really make a difference to performance (it might actually perform slightly worse but not enough to actually notice), but the code is nicer now.

I also added a Pause button -- press escape. It'll also automatically pause the game if it lags too much, because this probably means you left the window.

And then I also added high score persistence -- if you're in a browser that supports it, it'll remember your high score across pageviews.

would any of these games ever be implemented here?