www.jindos.co.uk/vertigo2/play.php

(Excuse the long loading time, loading bar should appear after it's about 30% loaded, this is something I will fix soon. The game is currently about 23MB)

Still plenty to be done but there's enough working content for people to test and play the game, I hope you enjoy it!

Feel free to leave feedback here or PM me.

Also the soundtrack is available on a YouTube playlist here for anyone interested!

Enjoy Christmas and the rest of 2013!

Dark Maze is finished, it's a mouse maze set entirely in the dark:

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/621442

Vertigo 2 is almost done too, most of my work towards it has been on the soundtrack, I uploaded 3 of those tracks recently:

World 4: http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/542756
World 6: http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/541281
World 9: http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/542848

Box-art-styled graphic of Vertigo 2

Lastly I've been finishing off a project from last year, it's Pong with multiple arenas and power-ups, looking to release that some time in the next couple of weeks.

A few weeks ago I got back in to Dark Souls and finally had a chance to try out the additional content, I was inspired to paint Artorias but didn't make a start until today, see the image below for my current progress.

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On Feburary 10th I wrote up a post summarizing both the release of The Snake Game and my ideas regarding Vertigo: Gravity Llama, particularly regarding its game design and where I would take that in the sequel that I began to work on.

2 months and 5 days later, I am finishing up World 10 of 12 and I'm genuinely pleased with how this game is turning out. It is already a great deal better than the first game and I've had a chance to implement pretty much everything I talked about before.

Below are videos of Worlds 1 and 2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJ4GEOE-h1c World 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upckgGACPP0 World 2 (Since these videos I've replaced the world selection menu with an overworld)

I hope to update my YT channel with more previews of Vertigo 2, in the mean time here's Artorias in progress:

It has been about 2 days since I released The Snake Game, in that time I've been making adjustments and corrections to it (mostly to ensure that the medals are definitely awarded)

I have 2 other projects that I've been working on since 2012 that I plan to finish up and release very soon, in the mean time I've officially begun work on a new Vertigo: Gravity Llama game. The plan is to continue the story of the first one, but I don't want to change too much in terms of the game-play, rather I want to make improvements in certain areas and generally add more content to it.

For instance, in the original Vertigo I put a power-up in each world that you used for the duration of that world (but did not get to carry outside of those worlds). Understandably a lot of players would have liked to take the double jump and double switch powers out of those worlds and in to the others, but my level design simply did not account for this. So my plan for Vertigo 2 with regard to power-ups is that they'll be unlocked in each world and then the player can choose from their collection, revisiting old worlds with new-found access and abilities.

Another glaring issue with Vertigo was the lack of use for coins, other than one or two of the awards in-game which required you to collect all the coins in particular worlds. It very much felt like I'd just put them in for the sake of having something to collect. My plan for Vertigo 2 with regard to coins is to have the player spend them on unlocking levels (usually in the form of hidden levels or alternative routes)

There are dozens of things about Vertigo that I would improve given the chance but I'll just have to voice those improvements through Vertigo 2 instead. What amazes me about developing larger games like Vertigo or Greg Can Jump is that during production I'm convinced that it's my best work and that I've given it 100% of my effort, but it isn't until I release the game and see the masses of constructive (sometimes less so) feedback that all of the imperfections and improvements suddenly stand out. I learn more in the hours after release than I do in the months I spend working on the game and this will always fascinate me and compel me to get my games out there.

That is all for now, if you're reading this then that's awesome!

TL;DR

~ Released The Snake Game, and I am happy with the people's verdict.
~ Working toward a release for my next two games. The Pong and Light Games. (videos in an earlier post)
~ Large discussion over my last major game, Vertigo: Gravity Llama, focussing on areas of improvement.
~ I have a plan for Vertigo 2 that I think will make an excellent game.
~ The experience and feedback gained from the release of your project is far more valuable than that of the development process.

Lastly, a screenshot of a few hour's work:

The Snake Game

This was something I decided to work on while finishing up my other upcoming projects. It's effectively a mini-game in which you must avoid snakes for as long as possible, very small but very fun to work on, I hope you'll enjoy it!

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/608323

I've spent a few weeks putting this together and it was a huge rush towards the end to get everything working but I think this is stable enough for you to enjoy, so please do!

Hoping to release this some time in the next few weeks, here's a gameplay video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CweVaM0pzQY

I also encourage you to check out InvisibleObserver who is working on the music for this!

It's been almost 2 years since I last uploaded a game here, this is entirely due to focussing on studying and exam work but fortunately that's all paid off and I now have some free time!

I actually have two projects on the go in the hope of kick starting my return to the scene, one of them is almost finished while the other is making rapid progress.

The game I hope to be releasing in the very near future is essentially crazy Pong, you play in a variety of arenas each with their own quirks and twists to the gameplay, you collect points and medals through your victories which you then use to unlock more levels and upgrade your paddle. The ultimate goal is to become the greatest, which means beating all of the campaign levels.

The big thing about this game for me is the AI, I've done my best to make the computer controlled opponents as natural as possible and to some extent I feel I've succeeded, to the point where I've added an AI vs. AI mode in which you pick a level and let two computer paddles go at it, their game-play is very different every time. Video 1 shows me demonstrating the AI

The other project I started this month and have made huge progress with over the last week, it's very ambitious like some of my older projects in terms of content (I'm aiming for at least 100 levels + an increasing difficulty every time it's beaten.) This game's working title is 'Alone in the Dark' and is a mouse avoider in which you guide a ball of light from flame to flame, firing pulses of light to help see your way around the pitch black mazes.

This game very much plays with the idea of sight and your dependence on it to progress, you have a limit to how many pulses you can fire before you are extinguished but the only true way to die is to collide with a wall or obstacle. You can replenish your pulses by reaching exits, checkpoints or refreshment flames. Video 2 shows a powerups demo for this game.

As you progress in the game you start to reach areas with multiple exits and the game suddenly begins to branch out, giving you the possibility of replaying the game by choosing alternative paths and uncovering new areas. Videos 3 and 4 show some of the different areas in the game and how the obstacles change between them.

Video 1 - Pong AI Demo
Video 2 - Powerups + Gameplay Demo
Video 3 - Waterworks and Armoury Preview
Video 4 - Greenhouse Preview

So that's where I'm at currently, the Pong game is practically finished and I'm hoping to release that this month. Alone in the Dark will be released some time after, probably under a new title.

If you didn't have time to read through this whole thing (which is fine) I recommend you at least take a quick look at Video 4 above.

Hope everyone is having a good new year so far.

Despite saying that I wasn't going to make a Vertigo sequel, I do want to remake the game to a better standard (mostly by improving the controls and adding a level editor); the game's code was written pretty poorly to how I would've written it at this stage so I will be doing most of the programming from scratch again as well.

There will be more worlds, more levels, additional walking/movement environments besides ice (water that starts and stops at random points in the levels due to the weird gravity rules), and enemies with more inventive AIs.

No idea when I will start on this project.

Besides this, I recently uploaded an illustration to the Art Portal which got front paged, so thanks a lot for that!

An update for my latest game, Vertigo will hopefully be up within the next week. Controls and saving haven't been implemented yet but they are on the way.

Other than that, thanks a lot for all the support from anyone who might have tested the game prior to its release. As I keep stressing, I worked for over a year pretty much single-handedly on this game and it's a truly amazing thing to see almost nothing but positive comments and criticism towards it.

I have no idea what I'll work on next, I have a couple of ideas and maybe one or two people who wanted to team up on something. Hopefully next time I will nail the simple things such as controls before finishing a project.