It has been a while now since the first preview trailer for Voxatron came out. At that time it quickly became apparent that I should recklessly suspend everything in my life to make this game, and apart from a couple of months clambering out of contract work and some other minor distractions, I've been hacking away on it non-stop since then. It started as a cut-down arcade game to alleviate my long-burning desire to make something set in a virtual display cube, but is now growing back into the potentially expansive adventure game it originally came from ("Felix and the Firebird"). It looks like it will grow even larger and absorb much of the design of Felix.

I don't yet have a fixed schedule for the final release as the design is still evolving. But what I do have is a very playable alpha that will be available shortly for anyone who's keen to pre-order the game. The alpha also includes a map and voxel editor with which it is possible to make almost everything you can see in the following trailer:

[ Continue Reading.. ]

Anyone who upgraded to OSX Lion and plays games made with SDL might have noticed a lot of programs crashing all over the place recently. Including mine. The problem is with SDL's fullscreen support using code that is no longer supported in Lion.

It looks like there's a new stable version release on the horizon to address this, but my solution was just to use an opengl surface instead:
SDL_SetVideoMode(0, 0, 32, SDL_FULLSCREEN | SDL_OPENGL);
And then update a single quad texture using glTexSubImage2D each frame. It seems to be reasonably fast on modern macs.

If you're a registered user, you can get the Lion-compatible versions here:
https://www.lexaloffle.com/games.php?page=my

Another minor feature in these updates is the ability to get a larger window in windowed mode. You'll have to manually change the configuration file to do this though. Look in ~/Library/Application Support/Game Name/config.txt (Mac OS X) or C:\Program Files\Game Name\config.txt (Windows) and change large_window to 1. This will give you a window scaled up to 960x720 for all games.

It's been so long since I played CC, that I forgot all the "cutie things" you can do, e.g., send my solutions; find a solution; etc. I just entered the BBS for room 38- easy and found my own solution. I'm stuck there, but I can't read my own solution.

I high-lighted it, then press "ctrl+c" but now I have no idea what to do with it. There's a "clipboard", but honestly, I don't remember where it is, how to access it, enythin! It's like if I were playing CC for the first time.

I appreciate any help given! Thanks!

I love writing tools. There's always one more nifty time-saving feature to add and the constant promise of the whack things you're going to make with it. Lately I've completed a fairly intense block of tool development and am reconfiguring my brain to shift back into creative content-manufacturing mode. So now might be a good time to show a few things I've been working on. Also to confirm to RSS subscribers that the feed is actually working (first post!).

Most of my tools are quite hacked together and behind the scenes. Voxatron's sound synth designer, music mixer, BBS code for sharing and previewing levels, and my trusty sprite editor are all gangly monstrosities that noone else should be exposed to. The thing I'm most excited about is the Voxatron editor, which is starting to feel like a user-friendly piece of software. Rather than considering it a peripheral feature that hard-core users can engage with, I'm hoping to make it a central part of enjoying the game. It should be possible for an average player to plonk some monsters, items and blocks into a level and still have fun playing it. Here's an example room that took about a minute to make:

[ Continue Reading.. ]

I made this video for a freestyle rap band. The stills were captured from a screen that has a lamp behind it (backlight was broken) which is why the lighting fades out towards the top.

Click here for video!

You mentioned in your blog post that you plan to ship a more advanced version of your voxel editor with the game, and considering that your games are very user-generated-content-friendly, I was wondering if you know yet if there will be much opportunity for users making things for Voxatron. Granted, I still have virtually no idea what gameplay will be like, but the bright, flashy, and color things in the sword video are inspiring and make me want to create my own little world. Are there plans to allow things like mods or other forms of user-generated playable content?

How do you transfer Zen garden to a new computer?

the title says it all the game looks epic from the video

None of the pickups in Voxatron are as useless or as fantastic as the sword. Choosing to use one against oncoming hordes is much harder than any of the robot's long range weapons, but at least if you die, you can go down with a bit of honour. It's also good for smashing scenery up, and comes with a two piece set of dandy armour.

The first half of this video shows the voxel editor I'm using to make models for Voxatron. Something similar will ship with the game, but with a nicer interface (at the moment it's like a cross between Blender and Emacs).

[code]
Title: My Castle
Author: Anon.
Difficulty: 3
Wall: 3
Floor: 3
Validation: 0
-----------------------------
W W . . . . . . . . . . F F f 
w W . . . . F F F F . . F F F 
W W W F F . . . . F . . . . . 
. . W F F . . . . . . . . . . 
. . W F F . . . . . . . . . . 
. . W W W W W W . W W W W . . 
. . . . W # # W . . . . . . . 
. . . . W # # W . . . . . . . 
. . . . W W W W . . . . W W W 
. . . . . . . . . . . . W # W 
W W W . . . . . . W . . W W W 
. . W . . . . . . W . . . . . 
. . . . W W W . . W . . . . . 
. . . . W . W . . . . . . . . 
. . . . W W W . . . . . . . . 
-----------------------------
    
-----------------------------
[/code]

Cart #1402 | 2011-04-18 | Embed ▽ | No License

Play this Games ok :)

Bold Italics underline
Link Text

This is a table

hmmmDescription

Thanks to the magic of Adobe Alchemy, it's now possible to play puzzles on the BBS directly in your web browser. Just click the 'Play' links in listings for Zen Puzzle Garden and Chocolate Castle to get a flash version. If you're up for some punishment, I urge you to try Robin Houston's set of gardens.

In other news, there's now an RSS feed of the blog here.

Here are my puzzles from the old BBS, originally posted in February 2006. Only two of them (broken barbell and Stretch-a-wretch) have ever been solved, as far as I know.

[code]
Title: broken barbell 
Author: puffinry 
Difficulty: 3 
Season: 0 
Validation: 74e2a820 
Rocks: cgbabgchhahhaaaahhahhegdadge 
------------------------------- 
# # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # 
# # # # . . . . . . . . # # # # 
O O O O . . . O . . . . O O O O 
O O O O . . . . . O . . O O . . 
O O # O . . . . . . . . O # . . 
. . . # # # # # # # # # # # . . 
. . # O . . . . . . . . O # O O 
. . O O . . . O . . . . O O O O 
O O O O . . . . . O . . O O O O 
# # # # . . . . . . . . # # # # 
# # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # 
# # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # 
------------------------------- 
[/code]

Cart #1391 | 2011-04-15 | Embed ▽ | No License

1

[code]
Title: etch-a-sketch 
Author: puffinry 
Difficulty: 4 
Season: 1 
Validation: cf6e4020 
Rocks: aaaaaaaaaaaaaadaaeaaaaaaa 
------------------------------- 
# # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # 
# # O . . . . . . . . . O # # # 
# # O . . . . . . . . . O # # # 
# # O . . O . . . . . . O # # # 
# # O . . . . . . . y . O # # # 
# # O # # # . . r # # # O # # # 
# # O . . . . . . . . . O # # # 
# # O . O . . . . . . . O # # # 
# # O . . . O . . . . . O # # # 
# # O . . . . . . . . . O # # # 
# # O . . . . . . . . . O # # # 
# # O # # # # # # # # # O # # # 
------------------------------- 
[/code]

Cart #1392 | 2011-04-15 | Embed ▽ | No License

1

[code]
Title: sketch-a-ketch 
Author: puffinry 
Difficulty: 4 
Season: 1 
Validation: 540e12a0 
Rocks: aaaaaaaaaaaaadaaeaaaaaaa 
------------------------------- 
# # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # 
# # O . . . . . . . . O # # # # 
# # O . . . . . . . . O # # # # 
# # O . . O . . . . . O # # # # 
# # O . . . . . . . y O # # # # 
# # . # # # # # r # # O # # # # 
# # O . . . . . . . . O # # # # 
# # O . O . . . . . . O # # # # 
# # O . . . O . . . . O # # # # 
# # O . . . . . . . . O # # # # 
# # O . . . . . . . . O # # # # 
# # O # # # # # # # # O # # # # 
------------------------------- 
[/code]

Cart #1393 | 2011-04-15 | Embed ▽ | No License

1

[ Continue Reading.. ]

To test the linux versions of my games, I made a build of Jasper's Journeys with bundled SDL libraries. If it works then the others should too. So please try it out! It's the full version nudge nugde

Download (3.3M)

EDIT: fixed music (thanks despens)

At the moment it's a copy install - just unzip it somewhere and execute jasper-run from terminal:

1. open: Applications->Accessories->Terminal

2. type:
   cd Desktop/jasper (or wherever you unzipped it)
   ./jasper-run

EDIT: OR, just double click on jasper-run

I tried it under Ubuntu 10.10, and a clean install of Slax under Virtualbox, both on a Macbook.

Player preferences are stored in "$HOME/.lexaloffle/Jasper's Journeys"

testing