My Original Flash Game Did Not Win

Well, I feel like I'm not good enough, my skills aren't up to par, everyone is better than me, etc. whatever.

Not really. I'm fine. I'm happy for the winners of the JayIsGames.com Competition. Sure, a win would have been nice. I was really just hoping for hits to my Graphic Design Website...and I got them. (I really wanted the CS3 software license).

I had put MochiAds on there, so in three weeks I have gained about $20. That's fun. Tricked Out Trailer ended up getting 25,000 plays in three weeks. UpBug got around 8,000. That's pretty good. The winner of the "most played award" had like 1 million. Wow.

Both games are now in the MochiMedia competition...although Tricked Out Trailer is having some problems with the external movies...lesson learned. (they received over 200 games, so I'm not expecting to win this one either).

I learned quite a bit through this competition. For one, it's a lot of work to promote a flash game, not just building a complicated flash game.

I thought I had a chance with my game being funny, but I guess that doesn't carry as much weight as I had hoped.

The winner of the competition was a space shooter which was actually quite good. Similar to many games in that genre, but had it's own coolness.

So, I guess I really have to consider what I'm getting into next time there's a competition. It took way more time than I thought it would, but I'm not sure I would have been motivated to make a game like Tricked Out Trailer if there wasn't a competition.

So, to all of you that played the game, thanks.

Here's another one I've been waiting to release...it's just a simple Tic Tac Toe game, but it's cute. My 6 year old likes playing it.

Have a great day.

jorge

Flash Game Competition Update

There's less than a week left in the JayIsGames.com competition #5. My two entries have been doing pretty well.

Tricked Out Trailer has been played over 20,000 times in just over two weeks. I expect it will get a couple more thousand hits before the end of the competition. The game was picked up by a couple of game portals (DigYourOwnGrave.com and Kongregate brought a bunch of hits). I'm pretty excited about the views it got.

UpBug has gotten over 7,000 plays...which is pretty good considering the game is pretty simple, and not potentially controvercial like Tricked Out Trailer. I'm planning on submitting this game to Mindjolt.com and see if it gets another round of plays...see what that does.

Tricked Out Trailer is a multi file game, which means it calls external movies during game play (the two mini games - skeet shooting beers and playing Monster Truck Poker). This causes problems with some portals. I could not get this game up on Newgrounds because of this, and I know that it would have gotten a bunch of hits there.

I tried to modify the code to make it so that I could host the external games on my server, but I couldn't figure it out. It kept messing up the score. bummer. I'm certain that would have bought me another 1,000 hits at least.

Newgrounds has been really interesting. There are so many people on that site every day, that within the first hour or so, each game I submitted would get like 200 views. That's pretty intense. The views drop sharply after a day, and then almost disappear after that, but it's a big deal to get so many hits all at once. Check out my submissions...there's probably a game or two of mine you haven't seen. I'll probably be posting more of my games there when I get some time.

Last week, the competition sponsors opened up a way to vote on the games in the competition. Here's the page where you can cast your vote by donating $1 to your favorite game. The donated money goes to the developer, and the game with the most votes also gets a $500 cash prize. That's nice.

I voted for BFD (Bovine Flatulent Defense). It's a good game.

So, if you haven't played my games, go play them. If you have, thanks (you can always play them again...if you played them early, I've updated both of them after the first week).

The nex t competition is the MochiAds/Gaia Online competition which is coming up on the 7th of April.

jorge

Pilot a Robotic Bug Flash Game

I've entered two games into JayIsGames.com casual Game design competition #5. My other game is a redneck trailer sim game where you trick it out with upgrades like Wheel spinners, spoilers and undercarriage neons.

The theme for this competition is "UPGRADE".

My Robotic Bug Game entry is a simple idea that got very complicated very quickly. In fact, I think I might have made the game a bit too hard, but maybe not.

It started as an "avoid the other bugs" game that got gradually harder by adding more bugs. It starts with a couple of ants, then some spiders, then some really annoying mosquitoes.

The enemies are not intelligent...they do not chase you, but there are a lot of them, and they seem to be random, but they are actually not. There are probably some players that will find the "safe spot" where no bugs will hit you.

So it started with the bug you drive around avoiding the bugs, and eating the "food" bugs. That's it. It was kinda boring. So I added a health system, where if you eat a food bug, the heath goes up, and if you get hit by a bad bug, the health goes down. I mae it start at like Health:20%, and then when it got to 100%, it triggered the "win" and it would go to the next level.

So then I decided that once the level was finished, the reward should be a newer faster bug, that was harder to kill and needed more food. So I built those, added more enemy bugs, and it still wasn't holding my attention.

Oh, and this whole time, there are also obstacles that make the whole thing like a maze, so I played with putting those in strategic places to make the levels harder.

Then, I wanted to add weapons. Not weapons that are attached to the robot bug, but that are on the field.

I made a nuke that you drive over and it blows all the bugs away for a second or two...giving you a little much needed breathing room on the 3rd and 4th level.

Then I felt like coming up with another one, but instead of a weapon, I made a little "incubator" I called it "Horde". Basically, you drive over that and 4 food bugs speed out of it. This can help when your health is low.

The third and last powerup is the plant remover. I called it "Hydro". Basically, when you roll over it, it takes away the plants on the field so they won't be obstacles.

Then I decided to make some of the plants where you can go under them...just to confuse things a bit.

I thought I was done. I made 4 levels, so the game could take about 10 minutes to finish. Oh, and I added a high score board (mochi Leaderboard) that tallies how many Robot Bug Vehicles you used to finish the game. The best possible score is 4 (which I still have not achieved...I think my best is 6 or 8 or something).

So then I though about a "Survival Mode". This is like that video game "driver" where like 6 cop cars are chasing you and you try to stay in front of them.

Well, I used the same idea, where you get a modified version of the "Stinkbug". I chose the stinkbug because it is fairly small (not like the cockroach) and not too slow. So I switched out the engine and added traction and navigation from the cockroach, and drop him in the middle of a mass of bugs. More bugs come out at 40 seconds, 80 seconds, and 100 seconds. There are a couple of nukes thrown in there for a moment of calm, but it doesn't last long.

Well, then I think now I have a pretty good game.

So the idea is you successfully pilot one ship, and your reward is to get upgraded to a higher performance vehicle.

Oh, and you have to do a flight check before you launch. This was a nod to the JayIsGames.com comunity, that seems to really be fascinated with "escape" games (search JayIsGames for "escape the Kitchen"...it's my favorite. It's not a complicated flight check, but you have to do it before you can deploy. (just click on buttons and switches to see what they do. Some are time toggle switches, some are press button and some are motion sensor buttons...you'll see. Don't get frustrated...it's easier than you think.

Oh, the "survival" mode has it's own high score system, capturing how long you stayed in.

Maybe in the future I will add levels, but only to add powerups and more enemy bugs. I didn't want to make the game too long because it's kind of the same thing throughout, and that gets dull sometimes if it's not a puzzle or something.

So, something I've done with this game is new for me, sort of new. I have created a game I can not beat. Well, I may have beat it once, but I have to build in cheats while I'm testing it, and then take them out for the launch. I've only created a couple of games like that, and it's funny, I always wonder what people do in those cases...maybe just get testers to test the heck out of it or something.

As far as coding goes, I think almost all of it is "HitTests". Pretty simple.

The owner of JayIsGames said that during the month that the games are being judged, the site gets over 1 million hits a week.

Here is basically what he said:

The site gets 750,000 unique visitors each month, and each competition
collection (they've had 4 so far) gets 1-5K views each day. The competitions
each got around 1,000,000 hits during the competition judging period (about
3 weeks), and this time (competition 5) is expected to "eclipse" the number
of previous visits because of some "viral" directions they are taking (ie. letting other game portals host the games simultaneously).

I hope my games get played...I hope people visit my website as a result of that, and I hope I get work from a few of those visitors.

Go play games...not just mine, play the other submissions too...these are brand new games by developers who worked very hard to get these games submitted in a very short amount of time.

Here's a direct link to the game on my website, and a link to the JayIsGames Competition page.

Oh, and that's my voice going through the flight check. I found an actual 777 flight check (the actual flight check sequence is really really long and complicated) and got some ideas from it.

jorge

Redneck Trailer Game

I have entered a flash game competition over at JayIsGames.com. I entered 2 games. One is a redneck trailer game and the other is a robot bug game.

I'll write about the 2nd game later this week.

The theme of this competition is "UPGRADE".

The redneck trailer game is called "Tricked Out Trailer" and the gameplay is like a sim game. You need to make money doing several things so you can buy upgrades to your trailer.

Upgrades you can add to the trailer are: wheel spinners, a spoiler, a new paint job, decals (like a flame job or a racing stripe), some undercarriage neons, etc.

You can make money by pawning something, going to work at the beer factory, skeet shooting some shaken up beers, playing poker, or buying scratch-and-win game cards.

There are a few fun little things you can play with, like: you can adjust the antenna, you can knock out the christmas lights, and a couple of other fun things.

I really have a good feeling about this game. I think that it could win, although it probably won't.

This is where you come in. There are several ways to win. Most of the big prizes are judged, but one of the prizes will be determined by counting up how many plays a game gets.

The reason why I started making games was to get people to my business site. This is still my ultimate goal...to get some customers, be it for web design or game development. Either way, that's great.

So, if you go and play my game, click the "send to a friend" button and send it to a few of your friends.

Play some of the other games too...I am sure there will be some great games submitted.

As always, I learned so much making this game. I have a BUNCH or "Movie Clips" that are "watching" the score. For example, the scratch and win icon on the left has a watcher script on it that says: If the cash equals less than $5, then hide the icon, but if the cash equals $5 or more, the show the icon.

More compliated was the pawn shop items. Once one is sold, the code tells a "watcher" to equal "1", so if when the items Movie Clip enters the frame, it looks to see if the watcher says "1" or "0", and then shows it or hides it.

There are watchers watching if you have purchased an upgrade, if you have gained a "Golden Beer", If you have purchased the gun, and even if it's day or night.

The other huge thing in this game is that it calls external swfs. The skeet shoot and the poker game are stand alone games (sort of) that get called when the frame gets to a point once you've clicked the icon.

I also added MochiAds and Mochi Leaderboards (a high score system). The high score I chose to focus on was how much money was left over after you get your 6th "Golden Beer".

It's a pretty fun game, I think so far, everyone that's seen it hasn't been offended, and has actually laughed at least once. I think one of my friends actually shot some of his drink out of his nose while playing it.

It's not action packed...it's a sim game, but it's still pretty fun.

Please go and play the game at jayIsGames. I am also hosting my game on my server, and it counts toward the "Viral" score I talked about earlier.

Please let me know if you played the game. Do you think it might win?

jorge

How Much Can You Make on a Flash Game

It's the big question: How much can I make on a Flash game? I've recently started actively trying to get my games to make me some money, and it's actually been working.

I've started adding MochiAds to some of my games (which gets me pennies at a time).

I've also posted a couple of games on FlashGameLicense, and that's actually brought in a bunch of offers for several of my games.

I've been researching what is "a good offer" and how much can I really make on a game. Considering if it's a game that gets "dugg" and on the front page of several big online gaming sites, it looks like it's possible to make several thousand dollars...just for building a flash game. That's pretty good.

MochiMedia posted this great article about Will Hankinson and his game "filler". It's a great article, explaining quite a bit about how much is possible to make on a flash game. This is exciting.

Here are my games, just in case you are curious.

Maybe one day I'll make a game that blows up.

jorge