Single Player Games

The Single Player Games guild is open to anyone who's developing a single player game and, due to lack of membership or other reasons, needs help advertising their game to the rest of BYOND. So if you're developing a single player game that can be downloaded and is playable enough for people to test and provide feedback, then post a request in the New Developments forum and let me know.

Single player game developers may be provided with a forum for their game and the ability to moderate it, and free access to post updates or other useful information to the blog as long as you keep your posts clean and professional and don't abuse it.

So if you're not a BYOND member and you're looking for a means of getting feedback on your game and to announce your latest updates to the BYOND community, then come and sign up here. My only request is that you be be civil and try to maintain a sense of professionalism when using this guild.

Just make sure your game passes the Submission Guidelines before submitting a request. That means no anime games!

I've been searching for some appropriate sounds for each of the actions in Tomb Explorer, and while good sound effects for a few things are eluding me, I've provided sound for most of the actions in the game. There is also some subtle ambient background sound that'll be playing most of the time. The whole game might be a little too quiet, I'm not sure, since my volume is usually pretty low anyway, but I'll let everyone else try it out and tell me what they think.

And of course, the "Sound" option in the menu actually works now, and sound settings are saved when you quit so the settings will stay where you leave them.

I encountered a few spots during testing where sounds played when they weren't supposed to, but hopefully I've fixed them all. If you encounter anything like this, please let me know which tiles it happened with and under what circumstances.

Also, I'm still looking for a few more sounds. So if you have any good sound effects that would fit well for these categories, or might be better alternatives to the ones I'm currently using, please let me know. The sounds that I currently still need are:

Secret passage revealed
Arrow glowing
Arrow stops glowing
Glowing arrow rotating
Clearing away rubble with pick axe
Clearing webs
Swinging across spike pit
Sliding floor slab (trap door)
Walking up/down stairways.
Extinguishing a lamp stand

NOTE: If you happen to encounter a situation where there's no "OK" button on the credits window, you can use ENTER or ESC to get out of the window. To fix this problem, clear the old Tomb Explorer skin from your BYOND/Skins directory.

Here are two new maps for Tomb Explorer, both are fairly small: Hammergate and Leaga Cave.

Also a small update to to the game and editor which introduces Boulders, which can only be removed with explosives/dynamite, and which fixes some small password-related bugs in the editor. So be sure to download the latest versions of Tomb Explorer and Tomb Editor.

Based on the Gamasutra article called Fourteen Forms of Fun.

This gives you a simple way to calculate your game's fun factor. For each of the 14 sections mentioned in that article, you assign your game a score of 0, 0.5, 1, or 2.

A score of 0 means that element is not really present in the game.

A score of 0.5 means the element is sort of there, but is not really prominent.

A score of 1 means that the element is a regular part of the game.

A score of 2 means that the element is a very prominent part of the game.

So take the list of elements and assign a score for each one depending on the game, and then calculate the totals to determine your game's fun factor. If you're not sure about the meaning of each element, then I encourage you to examine the article and get a better description of what each element means and whether it applies to your game or not.

* Beauty
* Immersion
* Intellectual Problem Solving
* Competition
* Social Interaction
* Comedy
* Thrill of Danger
* Physical Activity
* Love
* Creation
* Power
* Discovery
* Advancement and Completion
* Application of an Ability

So for examples I can go over my games and apply some numbers then see what the total is. For simplicity's sake, I'm going to remove any elements that didn't score for each game.

Tomb Explorer

2 Intellectual Problem Solving - Problem solving is the key element of the game, where your goal is to figure out what needs to be applied where in order to progress.
0.5 Competition - The game includes high scores and completion times when finishing a level. Its possible to compare your high scores and completion times with others in order to compete for better scores and times, but this hasn't been done effectively yet, and it would be much better if high scores were done online.
2 Creation - The level editor allows you to create new levels and, personally, I find the creation and availability of new levels to be one of the most interesting parts of the game.
1 Discovery - Whenever someone creates a new level, there's more to discover.
1 Advancement and Completion - You can feel yourself advancing through the level as you acquire more items, and when you finally reach the end of a challenging level - especially if you're on a timer, its a very satisfying feeling.

Total score for Tomb Explorer: 6.5

Solar Conquest

1 Beauty - The game looks good. It takes advantage of huge background images, translucent graphics, and 360-degree ship directions as well as a wide variety of planet graphics and stars.
1 Intellectual Problem Solving - You have to decide where to send your ships so that they'll be most effective, and which combinations of ships will work best against what you know of your opponent's fleets. You also have to figure out which upgrades will be most effective in which locations, and whether or not its worthwhile to upgrade.
2 Competition - This is the aim of the game, to prove that you can do better than all the other players - to show your superiority.
0.5 Social Interaction - Plenty of lively discussions with other players, sometimes teaming up against other players and forming alliances or deals, making social interaction an active element of the game.
0.5 Thrill of Danger - While there really isn't anything to lose in the game besides your empire, there's definitely some thrill when you decide to leave your borders vulnerable as you attempt to strike an enemy's weak point. There's always the chance that someone will pick up on your weakness and attack you while your forces are over-extended.
2 Power - Everyone loves it when their empire becomes strong enough that they can begin to dominate other empires, and everyone in the game is afraid of you because you're becoming so powerful.
1 Advancement and Completion - You can watch your empire grow as you conquer more territory, and you can get that feeling of completion every time you deliver the final crushing blow against one of your enemies.

Total score for Solar Conquest: 8

Ancient Ruins is my latest map for Tomb Explorer. Its also my largest map to date and, if you look at the high scores, it took me almost two minutes to complete knowing ahead of time where everything is. Should keep you occupied for a little while. Feel free to post your high scores and times!

http://www.byond.com/members/Foomer/files/maps/ Ancient_Ruins.map