Hi guys. Here’s what has gone down the month of November.

Orbital

So after I finished up Connexus (see previous post) I decided that I would take a break for a while. There was a lot of work to get done leading up to that, so I had gotten myself into the routine of spending all of my spare time working on it.

Pretty much as soon as I finished it, suddenly there were all these unoccupied gaps in my schedule, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had to do something productive with them. My friend Vince ended up having some free time around the same time, so I started a new game project that I’m calling Orbital.

This is a much simpler game concept that I’d had rolling around in the back of my head for a while. It is simpler to the point that I’m actually almost done with it. I’m thinking I might do the extra polish work required and post it up on the new Xbox Live Community games thing.

Anyway, let’s make with the pictures:

Mmm… nice blurry trails

A fine bankshot

It’s a pretty simple game; it’s basically just like pong (or maybe air-hockey). The catch is that instead of just bouncing the puck around, you press and hold the A button to activate gravity. You use gravity to slingshot the puck back at your opponent.

One aspect of the design that I think is pretty cool is that due to the nature of how gravity works there is a built in risk/reward system. If you line the puck up with your ‘radius of stable orbit’ indicator and time it well, you can get a stable orbit and aim a reasonable shot. However, if you activate gravity when the puck is inside the orbit radius, then it will actually accelerate towards you. This is dangerous because if it hits you it does damage – eventually giving the other player a point. However, the puck also speeds up which means if you get out of the way or release gravity at the right time, you have the potential of making a much more effective shot.

Once you start taking damage, you can heal by achieving a perfect orbit immediately after the other player takes a shot.

and stuff

So in other news, I had a nice Thanksgiving in the mountains with my family. There wasn’t much to do so I read over all of the Scott Pilgrim books again.

I recently took the Motorcycle Safety Course. It was fun to ride a motorcycle again. I’m thinking about maybe possibly getting one.

I’ve been asked a lot about when I will hear back from the IGF about Connexus. The answer is that I’ll hear by January 5th, but don’t get your hopes up. Last year’s finalists were awesome games and this year there were 30% more total entries!

I still haven’t beaten Mega Man 9. I keep getting a game over at the 3rd stage of the final boss, but it takes so long to get back there I never try more than once. To my shame, I just recently beat Diablo 2 (again). That game is a terrible waste of time; never play it.

It’s over!