“But Karja, haven’t you heard? iPhone/XBox Live 360/Android/etc etc is the new indie platform of choice! This guy I read about made six billion dollars on his game there!”

I have a number of reasons why that is utter bull excrement:

• iPhone is flooded with games. Literally flooded, with thousands and thousands of games that make it hard to gain visibility. Also, iPhone relies on Apple’s SDK, objective-C (to some extent at the very least), touch screen, low-end hardware, etc etc – and all of these aspects have to be hand-crafted for the iPhone release without being reusable on other platforms.
• XBox 360 is good if you only intend to target Windows and XB360. But that would be incredibly stupid for me, since my target audience isn’t the XBox lads.
• Android is interesting. It would be neat to get in quickly just in case the market suddenly explodes á la iPhone. But, and this is a big but, Android requires Java which is utterly incompatible with web deployment (Flash is the only viable option there).

After some consideration, I found that my options are as follows:

• Java – Windows and Mac deployment is possible, and I can deploy on Android as well, eventually. I also looked at Java-to-Actionscript converters, but…that feels desperate and unreliable. So, web deployment is a no-go for this one.
• BlitzMax – What, BlitzMax? That only supports Win/Mac! Yes, but I seriously considered trying to write a BMax->Actionscript converter since I already have a lot of BMax code and an abstraction layer API in place. (This means that I would have to write the APIs for drawing/sound in Actionscript from scratch, but convert the game logic at least.)
• C++ – Screw web deployment, and go for a full-fledged C++ engine! That would be the most fun to code in. But… No. 2010 is coming up and the web is the new black.
• HaXe – This would allow web deployment, and there’s a neat HaXe->C++ converter that can be used along with NME/NEASH, an SDL version of the flash API. Essentially, what this promises is that the same code could be used to make a Flash version and a compiled standalone downloadable (…as well as an iPhone version!). Alas, things aren’t as good as they sound. I did some quick tests and NME/NEASH lacks a lot of bitmap manipulation support. For example, BitmapData.colorTransform() support is missing – and this means that the alpha channel of bitmaps cannot be modified in the downloadable version. Things like this make HaXe seem way too shaky at the moment.
• PushButton Engine – If I’m considering pure Flash (well, Actionscript) engines, this is a strong candidate. It’s a well-designed library intended to be used for larger game projects. However…. After looking at the code a bit, I fail to see exactly what it will bring. The rendering, file-loading and game state management seems to be the biggest things that it provides but to be honest those aren’t all that tricky to write by yourself.
• flixel – Another Actionscript/Flash engine. This one seems very attractive at first, but the main problem with flixel is that it makes assumptions. “You only want to make a platformer style game, right? You’ll want to use pixelated effects, right? You want to embed all files since you’re deploy for the web only, right?” And so on.
• Actionscript/Flex – Finally, the last option is to go for pure Actionscript with Flex. No no no, I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel and have a NIH (Not Invented Here) mentality. But to be frank, writing the main framework that flixel or PBE would provide is…not that much work. Also, I have specific needs: for example, I need to target different platforms and handle files differently on the different platforms (embedded/external).

Nothing is decided at all, but I’m currently leaning towards using PBE, flixel or pure AS/Flex. My main beef with that is whether or not it’s fast enough to look good on the downloadable versions. HaXe seemed like an interesting choice for a long while, and I’m sure that it will be in the future, but I simply found too many flaws in it to provide any actual benefit at the moment. I’m (probably) going for a double-buffer approach with quite a few alpha effects on bitmaps (not in the least for the particles), so the current unstable alpha support in the SDL parts makes HaXe’s NME/NEASH solution for downloadables and iPhone pretty dubious.

In the end maybe I oughtn’t spend so much time investigating this, and just choose something and start developing instead. I guess all engines and choices have their flaws, so nothing’s going to be perfect.

My latest game, Wildhollow, is released and I have some great ideas for my next game. Let’s just say that it might include puzzles, RPG elements and some online functionality. Oh, and superheroes or monsters too. Not really sure which yet. Either way, in order to get the game done I need to decide what to implement it in. Sheeplings, Spandex Force and Wildhollow were all developed in BlitzMax, an object oriented BASIC language that’s extremely easy to develop cross-platform games in.

As long as your cross-platform needs are Windows, Mac or Linux, that is.

As an indie casual games developer I find myself wanting to maximize my potential market (of course), and that means maximizing the number of platforms I can distribute games too. To make things easier for me I’ve constructed this table of feasible game engines/libraries as things are now in 2009:

Note that I said feasible engines and libraries. This is not close to a complete list, but they are the ones I’m considering. I can list some criteria:

• There must be decent performance, which means preferably no software rendering
• All Windows only, Xbox only, etc libraries are of no use to me. I’ve listed a few anyway just for consideration
• I want to be able to create mostly 2D games in an efficient manner. 3D engines are often bloated and unusable. Unity may be free but it’s of no use to me, for example
• Finally, I have a prioritized order of platform preference. You may note that the columns in the table are ordered rather strangely. That’s because I’m going from most important to least important platform

A quick glance at the table shows that there’s no single engine or library that fulfills all my needs. An X demarks that the platform is supported, and an (X) means that limited support is possible. That could mean that it’s possible but requires a lot of messing around (e.g. HaXe for iPhone), or that the solution isn’t practical (e.g. Java web applets aren’t very useful), or that it requires unreasonable things (e.g. Unity on the web requires a specific plugin).

Most engines and libraries support Windows and Mac, so that’s not really a problem. The real problem comes with my third platform of choice: the web. And by the web I mean that it should run seamlessly for most users. Which means that Java is doubtful (too…clunky, and portals won’t accept it), and that leaves only Flash. Which, of course, is mostly incompatible with “normal” programming languages and engines.

This is not an easy decision…

For the ones curious what Wildhollow is all about, here are two reviews:

http://jayisgames.com/archives/2009/11/wildhollow.php

http://www.gamertell.com/gaming/comment/gamertell-review-wildhollow-for-pc-and-mac/

Also, I’m constantly googling “Wildhollow” to see what people are saying about the game. One thing I noted this weekend is that a cracked version of Wildhollow has popped up on various file networks. Trembling with fury and sorrow and trepidation and other things I downloaded one of these files to see if it was a bona fide copy of the game. Were people downloading my precious little game and playing it for free? Were people ignoring my hard work for a moment’s instant gratification?

It turns out that the answer is no.

If anyone feels tempted to download the “Wildhollow RIP” that’s circulating on warez sites you should be aware that it’s technically cracked but you won’t be able to play further than Steinheim Keep. You see, for the trial version I made two modifications: I added a time limit of 60 minutes, and I content-limited the game so that nothing from beyond that point is included. The warez version available only removes the time limit but – obviously – cannot add the missing content.

I guess that it’s just a matter of time before a real version pops up, but I feel pretty happy that for now loads of people are going to play the game an hour or two until they realize that they’re playing a trial version after all!

Get Ready for Adventure! KarjaSoft Releases Wildhollow

Sweden, November 27, 2009 — Independent game developer KarjaSoft proudly announces the release of tongue-in-cheek adventure/pet raising game Wildhollow for Windows and Mac.

Wildhollow introduces the story of a young boy or girl returning home to find his or her parents missing under mysterious circumstances. The player is tasked with solving quests and ultimately discovering the fate of his/her missing parents, while also restoring the titular Wildhollow ranch to full glory. The game features an original mix of dialogue driven adventure gameplay and pet simulation elements in which animals can be raised and crossbred. A wide variety of breeds can be discovered, and varied food gathering minigames spice things up even further.

The game world is filled with colorful characters and humorous dialogue, and provides many hours of open-ended entertainment. The player encounters inept adventurers, cowardly dragons, greedy merchants, dwarf lords in love and much more as the story progresses.

“If you enjoy funny dialogue, adorable pets to raise and clever jabs at common fantasy cliches you’re going to love Wildhollow,” says Miro Karjalainen, owner of KarjaSoft, not at all deterred by the fact that his opinion might be slightly biased.

Wildhollow is available for Windows and Mac at the price of $19.99. More information, screenshots and trial downloads can be found on the official webpage:

http://www.wildhollow.com

Features:

- Loads of wacky characters to interact with
- Adorable animals to breed
- Tongue-in-cheek humor poking fun at fantasy cliches
- A colorful fantasy world to explore
- Hours of adventurous quests
- And much more…

System requirements:

1 GHz CPU, 512 MB RAM. Windows 2000 or higher, or Mac OS X 10.3.9 or higher.

About KarjaSoft

Founded by Miro Karjalainen in 2006, KarjaSoft has previously released the fluffy arcade game Sheeplings in 2007 followed by superhero puzzle/RPG Spandex Force in 2008. KarjaSoft focuses on developing casual indie games with a twist, including lots of humor and genre blending. Visit KarjaSoft online at http://www.karjasoft.com

Contact:

Miro Karjalainen
www.karjasoft.com
info@karjasoft.com

###

The adventure/simulation game Wildhollow is about to be released November 27, and I’m trying my best to arrange everything for tomorrow. Full version and trial builds for Windows and Mac, press release, webpage touch-ups, ordering system setup, and on and on and on… The time is now 10 PM and I’m starting to question how much sleep I’ll get tonight.

Stay tuned for a press release posting tomorrow…

• More eye candy for the minigames
• More eye candy when tending animals
• Additional dialogues and items of interest in most locations
• Click a button to check for new versions – and if so, download the upgrade
• Trial version limitations and nag screens

The upgrade feature is a simple version checker plus redirection to the Wildhollow webpage where some PHP scripts will run. It may be simple but it will be a major time saver when I release updates! If you’re running a trial version, it will redirect you to the updated trial download; if you’re running a full version you’ll have to enter your e-mail address and it’ll authenticate the e-mail with the purchaser database before sending the upgrade.

The last item is trail version limitations.

So far I haven’t bothered with having a trial/full version but from now on the trial versions I release will be limited to 60 minutes, have a nagging screen, and be content limited. There are three reasons why I have content limitation as well as a time limit:

1. The download will be smaller
2. Games are always cracked, and with missing content I’ll ensure that it’s slightly harder to get a full version of the game. You can’t just run a patch to remove the trial limitations
3. Related to the second item, I chose to have a really trivial method to determine trial vs full version. I assume that the game will be cracked swiftly either way so I’m taking the least problematic route for me. Thus I really need to have content limitations – otherwise I’m guaranteeing instant warezing of the game. As it is now a pirate will have to get hold of the full version first, at least

All good reasons, I think.

After reading the description I didn’t have very high expectations on the game:

“High adventure, real time strategy and hidden object gameplay come together for the first time in Totem Tribe.”

Hidden object gameplay. Meh.

Still, eager to broaden my horizon, I decided to give the game a go – and I was pleasantly surprised. The game is divided into different islands on which you have to perform various tasks ranging from finding objects strewn all over the island, to building your village and defeating various kinds of enemies á la classical real-time strategy games. It’s easy to suspect that a casual real-time strategy game would fall into a single type of RTS. Tower defense style, or build-stuff-and-overwhelm-your-opponent style, for example. The beauty of Totem Tribe is that both these gameplay styles are included – and many more as well, as there’s great variety between the tasks given.

The RTS part is in general fairly simple but surprisingly fun despite that. There are lots of units, lots of different tasks, and lots of things to see and do. And most importantly – for a game I play as a diversion, for relaxation – it’s hard to lose. Not impossible, though. So don’t get too cocky, thinking that you’ll breeze through every single island of the game. Especially not the last stage of the game. Sweet mercy, the difficulty ramps up incredibly for that one!

In fact, that’s one of the game’s negative sides. I dislike backtracking or redoing things in casual games – I want to see steady progress. I really hated having to restart an island in Totem Tribe, the few times it happened. It’s hard to balance loss/gain/challenge/boredom but I have a suspicion that it could have been done a bit better.

Another annoying thing is the hidden object parts. Trust me, I was pleasantly surprised by those too, but I still found myself grinding my teeth now and then as I found myself missing an orange, or a single bleeding turtle shell that was nowhere to be found. I really really really hated the fact that I didn’t even have a hint button, or some way to purchase (maybe with some in-game currency) hints, or anything at all to guide me toward the missing items.

On a final note I have to mention that the game is gorgeous and sounds very nice indeed, and that I’m very pleased with my gaming experience – despite a few irritating moments.

Graphics

Good graphics, nice sprites. Really, there’s nothing that I feel that I have to complain about.

4/5

Sound

To be honest I can’t recall the music at the time of this writing…but I think that it serves as evidence that it is integrated properly and works quite well.

3/5

Gameplay

Build stuff! Explore! Battle! Find hidden things! There’s a lot to do here, and I like it.

4/5

Addictiveness

I was seriously debating with myself what grade this game should get. It’s very addictive, but also annoying at times. Either way, the game is highly recommended.

4/5

Technical notes

The only annoyance was the usual problem with dual displays and fullscreen mode. Running the game in fullscreen messes up the display on the other screen. One of these days I’m going to have to look into the reason for that – many games I try display the same behaviour.

Here are some tiny screenshots from the late stages of the game. If you’re really sensitive toward spoilers you might want to avert your eyes now. Nothing critical is revealed – I’m just offering a friendly warning in case you really want everything to be a surprise.

Yeah, let’s get it oooon!

I think I smell some fightin’ comin’ up!

Breaking the fourth wall? Guilty as charged!

I went for a very basic credits screen. I think it works, though.

Now, as soon as the minigames are functioning properly and the animal tending sub-game is in order I think the game is just about ready for release. I still wonder how it will be received, and if it will be appropriate for portals. Time will tell I guess.

Stay tuned for more information!

The graphics are adorable. The intro was very cute and I like the look in general – a slightly more painted look than the standard CG colored or pixel art look often present in casual games. The animation also receives some bonus points as it’s fluid and pleasant, and the game screen is full of life. Butterflies and stuff fluttering around everywhere. Very nice. At times it’s hard to differentiate between objects one can interact with and a colorful bird that’s just decoration, but that’s a small price to pay for a lively background. The audio is also quite pleasant, and I was impressed by the speech in the tutorials. Nice touch.

The gameplay quite simply is fun. There’s a lot to do, a lot to explore, and you always have the urge to solve the next mystery or see what the next technology level will bring. While My Tribe is a ripoff of Virtual Villagers, it does bring some new things such as random islands instead of just a static one. Also, the island is a bit bigger and more dynamic – chopping down trees cause them to disappear and you have the option to plant new ones as well. In general there are more ways to affect the environment than in Virtual Villagers.

After a while I started feeling that the island was limited, though. I think that there needs to be more stuff to do – a bigger set of things to interact with. I may not be the ideal person for these kinds of simulators but I feel that there ought to be more to do all the time. Sure, I need to let my little islanders work in order to improve their skills, but I’d like to have minigames to play at the same time. Something to occupy my restless mind with. The game is still fun, but I can’t concentrate on it since there’s often nothing to do. Which brings me to another aspect of the game…

The game is progressing even when it’s not running, so while you’re away your islanders are still chopping up wood and fishing and researching. This is a neat idea, but also a very frustrating one: you need to remember to play now and then in order to not wipe out your entire tribe. I left the game a couple of days and feared that white skeletons would greet me upon my return, but I was pleasantly surprised. They had managed to take care of themselves and had given me an excrement-load of science points to boot! Great! I assumed that the game wasn’t all that keen on that death thing, so I got cocky and left the game a couple of more days.

Disaster! Tombstones littered the island. My once proud tribe was reduced to its bare minimum. I did find two survivors though: Jeremy and Hannah were starving but mysteriously still alive. Also, a young girl was alive as well. I wonder if this is a contingency plan by the developers? “That lame dude left all his islanders to die! Well, we’d better make sure that he has enough to breed more people at least.” If so, it’s a brilliant idea. However, it doesn’t work in practice.

This is where the game enters a downward spiral. With so few people left it’s no fun to play the game, which means that you won’t be arsed to start up the game very often. Which of course means that the tribe won’t expand very quickly – or at all. In the end I had a tribe consisting of 54 year old Xavier, an aged woman and a young girl. It’s impossible to breed more people once they are too old, so these few are the remnants of a once proud budding civilization now destined for extinction.

By the way, when you click on an islander you can see his or her thoughts. I kept seeing “Xavier is very happy to live on the island” and “Xavier thinks this island has no equal.” No shit. Here’s a guy who’s lived a nice and cozy life alone with two women on a deserted island. You old goat, you.

Finally I have to mention that despite the game’s flaws it’s strangely addictive. My current tribe is doomed but I have the urge to start a new one – see if I can get things right this time. The game is still a bit limited, but fun nonetheless.

Graphics

Quite nice! Good animations and lovely painted look in the intro.

4/5

Sound

Nice music, and good sound effects. Extra credit for the voice acting even though the girl sounds smug. You biatch! Don’t smirk at me while you tell me how to play!

3/5

Gameplay

My Tribes is fun, there’s no getting around that. A bit lacking in variety and things to do on the island.

3/5

Addictiveness

I want to make my tribe great! I want to solve the mysteries! I want to explore lots of islands! I guess that means that the game is pretty addictive?

4/5

Technical notes

The game started up in fullscreen and did awful things to my two-screen setup. Everything was restored fine when I put it in windowed mode, though, so no harm done aside from messing up my desktop brightness. I like the loading screen – “sailing to your island” and a boat moving to the right to indicate the progress instead of a simple loading bar.

Edit: As was mentioned by Olivia in the comments below, the game can be set in slow mode if one intends to leave it for a while. The problem for me is that I never know in advance if I’ll be gone for a few days – I play games when I feel like it and have the time to spare, so it’s not always easy to predict these things.

Other than that there are three worrying tendencies in the feedback: the minigames suck (I’m fixing that), the animal management needs to be improved (I’m fixing that)…and I have a sneaky suspicion that some people feel that there’s not enough guidance in the quests.

I’m all for easy-to-play games that one can pick up instantly. But Wildhollow requires you to read a lot of dialogue and deduce what to do based on that. I’ve done my best to have “quest hints” for each stage of the quests and have characters repeat important bits of information if they’re relevant to a quest, but there still might be a lot of exploration required to solve some of the puzzles.

I’m still on the fence whether or not this is a good thing. My initial response is “It’s a good thing, dammit! It encourages immersion and makes the quests flow naturally rather than appear forced.” But yesterday I played Rise of the Argonauts and now I’m not so sure anymore…

I consider myself a casual gamer, and Rise of the Argonauts is a pretty casual action RPG. I click some buttons, and the dude runs around like a scorched ferret, cutting and clubbing people all over the place. I love it! Epic violence, beautifully performed, that requires almost no skill at all. I don’t have to spend hours to learn how to do weird combos – they simply appear out of nowhere!

But all is not well in ancient Greece… The game gives almost no indication as to what I need to do next. I can’t be arsed to read all the text in an action game – I’m playing the game to spear people on my enormous barbeque stick! But if I skip too much I end up with my hero standing around looking dumb, and me sitting there feeling even more dumb. “So… Uh… What? What do I have to do now? Do I have to talk to someone? Is there a list of active quests? I don’t know what to do!”

Now, Wildhollow and Rise of the Argonauts aren’t comparable at all. Not in the very least, and not only because RotA is a frigging multi-million production. My choice to rely on text in Wildhollow is a major part of the design – it’s an integral part of the game. RotA’s focus is on action, with text added on. In Wildhollow you can quickly click around to try out things or talk to people; in RotA you have to physically move your character between the scenic vistas to see if this was where you needed to go…and retrace your steps if not. But at its core, Wildhollow relies on the player to explore to proceed – just like RotA.

I’ve been toying with the idea of adding graphic indicators for whom to talk to next, but… That feels cheap. It breaks the immersion. And it just might make the puzzles too easy. Another approach might be to make conversations pop up more often – make some NPCs initiate conversations on their own. That’s probably a better approach, but I’m still not sure if that would work. What I want is to make a game that’s easy to play and follow, but still not ridiculously simple or lacking in immersion.

Any suggestions for good games I ought to play to get inspiration for how to solve my dilemma?

No one?

Not a single suggestion?

Man, you suck.