So here it is: Invisible Ink. It’s not the epic kind of game and it does require to put a little bit of imagination and thinking at work. Watch the pen move and guess the doodle being drawn in invisible ink.

The game is available in 5 languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish and Romanian.

And, seriously, it’s a coincidence it was released on August 23rd, the former National Day of Romania

A few words about the game:
Idea: Not much of a game-play to be honest, but mostly inspired by a “pillow game” , that kind that usually go with the pillow talk And a bit by Z-Rox.

Production: about 3 weeks, including localizations requested by the primary sponsor (Spil Group).

Graphics: Doodles were traced with Inkscape. Rest of the “graphics” were done with pen on paper and a scanner.

Programming: required attention in two spots. One was the SVG path reader, that was ported to HaXe and tweaked to fit the specifics of the game from the DrawSVG AS3 source. The other was a Bezier curve (adaptive) subdivision algorithm, again ported to HaXe from the works and research of Maxim Shemanarev. If anyone needs the HaXe sources for these two, please ask and I’ll post them.

Licensing: the game was added to FlashGameLicense and after a month and a half, 6 sponsor views, 7/10 editor rating, 5.05/10 developer rating and one bid later, the primary license went to Spil Group.

Feel free to suggest possible answers, if you think they fit the doodle, and please enclose them in spoiler tags ( [spoiler ] and [/ spoiler] ).

Nothing related to that Orbital Decay, but funny stuff nonetheless

Anyway, more of this guy rockets here and here.

A puzzle game has been completed – it’s actually ready since April – and it’s that kind of game that will twist your brain so hard that will make it melt down So I won’t be surprised if lots will hate it. Spil licensed it, which means that it too waits for localizations in 13 languages, which further means that the public release date is unknown. Probably in September.

Meanwhile, a bullet-hell/arena-shooter title is in the making, the result of my collaboration with a talented artist, which, incidentally, is my cousin. Not that cousin, though. Anyway, expect cartoon-ish graphics, flying pigs, a little less conversation, a little more action. Audio/video assets are done 90%, code&design are trying to catch-up, expect a beta in September.

Also, two other titles are in pre-production and are trying to make themselves a place in the busy schedule. One is a “match-3″ type puzzle, but with a lemon twist, the other is a strategy with ZX Spectrum retro feel, which will, somewhat resemble Orbital Decay. Both are small projects and will probably take 2-6 weeks to complete. Unless a catastrophic event is scheduled, they might be out during the Autumn months.

I have abandoned momentarily any project that might take more than 6-8 weeks to complete, so Orbital Decay 2 is postponed indefinitely. There is a concept for the graphics and game-play, but I don’t have anything clever to say as the story, and since the story was the backbone of the first game, it would be a pity to waste effort for a game that doesn’t “speak”. I’d pretty much like to do it sometimes, but I’m aware that it exceeds my resources right now.

As for the Born of Fire TD 2, there’s not going to be any. Maybe a Born of Fire RPG, I’d pretty much like to expand on that universe, but that’s so far in the future that I’ll probably release Pure Power before it

It includes a bug fix for the medals icons going beserk after repeatedly opening the mission window in the mission selection screen.

Also,  proud to announce that Spil (also) acquired a license, which means that game is going to be localized in 16 languages (unfortunately, all texts but the story). So the game received minor tweaks to the way texts are rendered, which won’t be obvious unless you’ll play the Chinese, Japanese or Russian versions

Stats are for game impressions: one Mochibot ping before the game is loaded/initialized.

The game was also licensed to Armor Games, where it got 300k+ plays and an unknown number of plays at Big Fish Games (but probably around 100k). All in all, 2.5 million game plays for a game that scored 3.75 at Kongregate, 4.15 at Newgrounds and 7 point something at Armor Games and received overall mixed feelings of awe and anger

Jayisgames reviewed it and their readers voted it  in the top 10 browser shooters of 2009, while later on, the reviewer, Josh, remember it as:

the “battleship” premise is unique and under-utilized in this genre, sporadically popping up in occasional gems like Orbital Decay.

Our players said that it sucked badly enough that it deserved a lengthy bash or that it ruled and is the best game evar. No compromises, love it or hate it. Just as I intended to

• unlocked heroes are no more level 1. Instead, they get the same level as the lowest of the other heroes. This should greatly reduce the “grinding” for “Normal” campaign.
• heroes over level 20 get a 10% bonus per hero level to damage skills. This should help (and motivate) players that go for the “Hell” and “Eternal Damnation” missions;
• there are now visual rewards for completing a mission with one hero (the crown) and completing the mission without letting a monster slip (the shield).

Play it here and don’t hesitate to comment.

…click…click…type…type…click…click…submit…*wait*

Table ‘.\nonoba\search’ is marked as crashed and should be repaired

If this isn’t fun, then I don’t know what else is

So remember: when doing house chores, it’s imperative to wear Manowar insignia! Humming “boooorn with a heaaaart of steeeeeel” is optional, but recommended. It really helps

Flash-back, a couple of years ago. As part of the Gameloft porting drone army, I’ve got the task of getting AND1 Streetball work on a couple of Sprint phones. On the first look, the phones were decent, with plenty of package and memory and it seemed like an easy task. But nooo….

On phone #1, on very rare occasions, and only in the hand of the tester, the ballers displayed incompletely. Sometimes, they missed a hand. Or a thigh. Or even their head. The game audience was supposed to be teen, so having the Headless Horseman with a basket ball didn’t exactly fit. Needless to say, the first few times I dismissed the bug as DNR. Oh, how I loved “did not reproduce”: the only way a programmer could veto a pesky tester. But the tester  wouldn’t give up and pictured the headless baller in action. After crunch time, a couple of sleepless nights and many packs of cigarettes later, it seemed that, for an unknown reason – technical talk ahead – the references body parts images magically became null like something in the Java VM erased them. Maybe the garbage collector decided he wanted to collect heads. The Jeffrey Dahmer GC.

I think I fixed the bug. In hindsight, I would have given a reference to an arm to see a player noticing a headless baller

Phone #2, on even rarer occasions, decided that too much play hurts the brain and corrupted the entire screen.

The only thing that pops in my mind was the tester running from the far side of the working space, phone in hand, yelling “I’ve reproduced it!!!” Needless to say, it was the first and last time I saw the bug in action and eventually came up with a “blind” fix. Never, to this day, knew what caused the bug or if the phone (the only there was around to test on) was damaged.

Hop in the DeLorean, back to the future, time set “one day ago”. See myself working on a build of Born of Fire TD to release on Kongregate. Version built and uploaded. Messages received from angry players: “loading stucked at 80%”. Wait, what?!?

I have 5 browsers, 2 computers and a couple of stand-alone Flash players (those from the Flex SDK that are like from the time Noah built the Ark – anyway, old enough to ensure a valid test enviro). A couple of my friends (hello there!) also tested the game in perfect conditions. And yet, this bug slipped through the cracks, pass the day of release.

Do I have to say that I fixed the bug “in blind”? Or should I say like a true Klingon programmer,

Our users will know fear and cower before our software. Ship it! Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are!

Anyway, bugs love me.

I know for sure they will crawl again in my code.

Demon Incarnate

The King

Kitsune

The Shield-maiden