Robin Burkinshaw's stuff and things
Gamejams are where game developers get together and make games in each other’s company, usually with a time limit and a specific theme. Sometimes the games are collaborations, sometimes they are solo projects.
Over the last two months and a bit, I’ve been to five of these events, and I’ve enjoyed them enormously. I’ve been trying to make games in 48 hours, 24 hours, 12 hours, and often just 3 hours or less.
Suspiciously Spherical is a stealth puzzle game. You are an anthropomorphised rolling ball, in a place where it is not good to be an anthropomorphised rolling ball. You must escape detection by the sentries, and make your way to the exit.
Click here to visit the story of Alice and Kev
This is the continuing story of my slightly unusual playing of The Sims 3. It follows little girl Alice and her struggle to survive with no home, no money, no food, and the worst Dad in the world.
I’ve been playing a lot of Space Rangers 2 lately. I first played it after reading Kieron Gillen’s Eurogamer review three years ago. But I bought the complete version recently with added expansion pack as part of the Impulse sale.
I had completed the game before, so this time I wanted to try something a little different. I decided that I would try a crazy plan I’d had the last time I played, but never seriously put into practice.
I would become the best space ranger in the galaxy. But I would do it by assassinating every ranger above me in the rankings.
Continue reading ‘Space Rangers 2: Arthur Stone and the Rusty Nail’
‘Rest to Reset‘ by Trash80 is one of my favourite pieces of music. Trash80 provided the music used in Darwinia, all low-tech electronic sounds reminiscent of early videogames. Rest to Reset was written and performed on 4 GameBoys, and recorded live. I think it’s beautiful.
This game is intended to provide an experience that supports that music, with everything that happens in the game happening in response to something in the music. Like an interactive music video. Or like Audiosurf, but sculpted just for this one track. It’s an experience rather than a challenge. Although you can treat it like a challenge if you want to – there’s a score of sorts displayed at the end.
You control a spacecraft as it launches from a planet and ventures on its first journey into space. It turns out space isn’t terribly friendly to you.
Far Cry 2 is one of the most immersive games I’ve ever played, yet there has never been a game story I have felt more disconnected from.
SOS is my mod for the freeware game Notrium.
It’s a 2D top-down game about survival on an alien planet. You are a cyborg slave, waking to find your ship crashed, and the human crew dead. You have to find food and water, build weapons and defend yourself, investigate the unusual creatures of the world, and try to repair the spaceship to escape.
You can download the original Notrium here.
You can download my mod here.
To install, extract the SOS .zip file into the directory you installed Notrium into. Then to run the mod, select ‘SOS’ under the mod option when starting a new game.
Play on the easy difficulty setting the first time you play the game. This includes a short sequence that introduces you to the controls and the world. For later attempts, the default medium setting skips this. In almost all other aspects, the three difficulty settings are the same.
I might write more about this later.
“Dude, there’s pride and stupidity, and you are massively outgunned.”
A video of a battle in Eve Online.
A coalition of hundreds of pilots gathers to attack the territory of Insurgency. The two forces gather either side of a stargate, the Insurgency force wildly outnumbered.
The non-aggression pact ends, and the war begins.
It’s very different to my last video. Much slower paced, and showing a bit more of the story behind it.
Length: 3:49
Size: 87MB
Eve Files download
EveTube link
YouTube link
Credits:
Music: Hidden Mementos by Jon Hallur
Map image based on the 2D EveMaps by Ombey
A short movie to celebrate Insurgency’s territorial victory against Stella Polar and Phoenix Allianz in the Branch region of Eve Online. I first released this movie on 24th March 08.
It features spaceships, explosions, laughter, a lot of drums, and a scottish alliance leader taking a shitbeating.
It’s not the kind of Eve movie I usually like to watch myself. I prefer the ones that actually tell a story over those that are pretty lights set to music. But I made this for my video editing coursework, and it had to be something under three minutes long with visuals matching some music.
Length: 2:23
Filesize: 92 MB
EveFiles download
Youtube for the lazy
Credits:
Music: The Art of War by Valve.
