Video Games – Chris Johnson

Adelaide itch.io Bundle and Exhibiting Games Talk

Chris — Thu, 21 Jun 2018 10:03:17 +0000

Just a short post today to let you know about somethings I’ve been involved with recently.

Firstly I’d to let you know about the Adelaide itch.io Bundle. The bundle is $20 USD and will be available throughout the itch.io Summer Sale. It contains 10 titles from artists based in Adelaide, South Australia. All proceeds from this bundle will be donated to Hutt St Centre to help those experiencing homelessness.

Our focus with the bundle was to highlight the existing and emerging talent within our community and to provide those who purchase the bundle a broad range of experiences. This bundle includes several digital and analog games along with a zine.

Secondly last night I presented a talk about exhibiting games. The talk was streamed online and is available to watch here.

Update 1: The bundle is no longer available. We raised $470 USD which is $637.75 AUD for Hutt St Centre. Thanks to everyone for supporting us.

itch.io also featured the bundle on their front page which was really lovely.

Update 2: The organiser of the game dev talks has uploaded a cleaner version of the talk which can be watched below.

Gem Thief Demake

Chris — Sat, 17 Mar 2018 01:22:10 +0000

Over the last week I’ve been working on a PuzzleScript demake of a now defunct iOS game called Gem Thief. The original game was released back in 2011 by Evil Genius. There are some really neat levels in this game which is why I felt compelled to demake it. I also hadn’t actually finished all 50 levels until I starting work on the project so this was a good excuse to do that.

You can play the game here on my website or over at itch.io.

Beyond this I’ve been working on an updated version of Cave of Atman. Since January I’ve prototyped out several new mechanics and blocked out 32 new levels. I’m now starting to rewrite the game in HaxeFlixel (was originally in FlashPunk). So expect to hear more about that in the future.

Exploding Barrels

Chris — Mon, 18 Dec 2017 11:24:37 +0000

Since I had no visible progress on my current game to show at the last play testing event I decided to doodle up a new PuzzleScript game. The game is called Exploding Barrels. The goal is to destroy all the red barrels. You can only shoot one if it’s next to another.

You can play it here.

Adelaide Game Playtesting Session – September 2017

Chris — Tue, 19 Sep 2017 10:05:55 +0000

Next week there is going to be another games playtesting event at AIE. This one is going to start half an hour earlier than our previous events.

Date: Thursday 28th September 6:00pm – 8:30pm
Location: AIE Adelaide Campus, 32 Grenfell St. Adelaide, SA 5000
Facebook Event for additional details

I’ve been busy with prepping Expand for PS4 lately and so I may not have a new thing to show. After a conversation at the most recent ARGGGH gathering I decided that I will finish a thing I started about a year ago. Here’s a screenshot.

Expand is coming to PS4 on October 3rd

Chris — Tue, 19 Sep 2017 09:52:52 +0000

Surprise! We’ve been working with Ukiyo Publishing and BlitWorks (porting) to bring Expand to the PS4.

Expand on PlayStation 4 will support extras with:

PlayStation Trophies
A bundle package with the game’s soundtrack
New language support in English, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Brazilian Portuguese, Japanese and Chinese (Simplified and Traditional).

The game plays really well with the PlayStation 4 controller and BiltWorks have done an amazing job with the port. We’re really keen to expose the game to a new audience of players.

Moirai, Interview and Indie Games Room

Chris — Sun, 06 Aug 2017 12:42:42 +0000

So I thought I’d post up a bit about a few things that have happened recently.

Firstly Moirai has been taken offline and is no longer available to download. You can read the community announcement here. Shaun Prescott from PC Gamer interviewed me about it and wrote a good piece.

Back in May I did an interview with Angelo Valdivia from Player Attack. We talked about Expand, Moirai and the Slaughterhouse.

And lastly, the Indie Games Room at AVCon was a few weeks ago. This was my fifth year involved in volunteering for the event. Monkeystack put together this short video from the room on Sunday which was pretty neat.

We were proud sponsors of @indiegamesroom at @TeamAVCon! Epic contributions from all- Congratulations on your 10th year! #gamedev #indiedev pic.twitter.com/R2lYoGiL0r

— Monkeystack (@Monkeystack) July 24, 2017

New Bot: Mirrored Game Covers

Chris — Sun, 11 Jun 2017 11:29:32 +0000

Recently I had a few idea for a bunch of new Twitter bots. I’m going to be working on these over the next few months. The first of these is the Mirrored Game Cover bot.

It takes popular game covers from Moby Games and creates two images one in which the left side of the image is mirrored over the right and the other where the right side is mirrored over the left. This idea came from a NeoGAF thread several years ago.

Here are some of the more notable tweets the bot has posted so far.

Duke Nukem 3D https://t.co/3sV4rkEAkE pic.twitter.com/F5u0F2IY7F

— Mirrored Game Covers (@gamecovevocemag) June 10, 2017

Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse https://t.co/C1htlHBQBR pic.twitter.com/VzKYdyqA3d

— Mirrored Game Covers (@gamecovevocemag) June 9, 2017

Conan: Hall of Volta https://t.co/QCbNBTcK58 pic.twitter.com/lhLlK5XuiV

— Mirrored Game Covers (@gamecovevocemag) June 6, 2017

The Slaughterhouse

Chris — Tue, 30 May 2017 12:29:53 +0000

So over the last 6 weeks or so Catherine and I have been working on an extension for Hacknet called The Slaughterhouse. In it you break into the computer network of a meat company and expose its violations to the public. It takes about 2 hours to play through. You’ll need to have both Hacknet and the Labyrinths DLC to play the extension.

We’re quite happy with how it turned out. It takes a much more investigative and complex approach to the original game. We also hope that it challenges an audience that usually wouldn’t be exposed to this kind of material.

You can access the extension here.

Australian Games Mix Tape

Chris — Mon, 23 Mar 2015 02:14:27 +0000

Update: Due to personal reasons this project won’t be going forward. Thanks to those that showed interest.

For the Fete at the Freeplay Festival next month I have a stall that I’m calling the Australian Games Mix Tape. The basic idea is that there will be a pirate kart like games launcher with just Australian games. The intention is to show the diversity of games being made in Australia.

You can find more details and submit your game here.

Free Local Multiplayer Games Website

Chris — Wed, 04 Jun 2014 16:45:34 +0000

One thing that I really enjoy doing is playing through the batch of games that are developed as part of game jams such as Ludum Dare. I usually sit down with my girlfriend and we take turns in trying out the different games. We also run through games listed on curated websites such as Free Indie Games and the recently released games on portals such as Game Jolt. When trolling through the list of games, those listed as local multiplayer games tend to stick because we both want to play.

Unfortunately there aren’t any websites that just curate free, local multiplayer games which is why I created a small tumblr blog to do just this. It’s called Free Local Multiplayer and was released a few weeks ago. I’m trying to regularly update the site with new games every week or so. The idea is to build a list of solid, enjoyable games that people can play together with a friend or at larger multiplayer parties. The spirit of playing games in a communal space with friends, strangers, family, partners or whoever is something that I think is definitely worth spreading.

I wanted to create something that was vibrate and fun. The website needed to quickly get across the types of experiences people could have which is why I opted for the grid design with large cells. I ended up choosing to use tumblr and modified an existing theme. The selection of themes on tumblr is impressive with most themes looking fantastic. I was originally hoping to use animated gifs for each screenshot however I ran into issues related to CORS so I opted for static screens instead.

All of the games posted are tweeted out at @FLMGames. If you’re interested in helping me curate the website then feel free to get in touch.