Graduate Games' Blog - Family Friendly Games, Kid Games, Casual Puzzle Games, Downloads

Bye Bye Blogger

After being with Blogger since 2006, I have finally embraced and fallen in love with Wordpress. The blog will be moving to http://www.graduategames.com/blog/

In the next couple days, http://blog.graduategames.com will be released back to my server and point to the new blog as well. After that happens, this old blog will be deleted.

Good times blogger... but I'm over you.

Free Game Prototype: Portals thru Dreams

About a month ago I decided to do a free game. I've been thinking about Graduate Games next full game for awhile now, but have been indecisive. I stumbled across some abandonware on my hard drive and decided to explore the gameplay mechanic a little more and release it as a game prototype. I spent probably around 48-72 hours making the game and found it refreshing to limit myself from adding other baddies, graphics, and features.

Portals thru Dreams was inspired by Valve's Portal. I played portal for the first time over a year ago when the Orange Box was released. It inspired me to attempt to adapt the gameplay concept into a 2D platformer. I got it working ok, but later abandoned it. I picked it up again to use as my first free prototype, but drastically changed some of the mechanics.

The original abandoned version had a pencil/sketchbook art direction and involved shooting a portal with a gun (much more similar to Valve's Portal). The stick figure sketch guy also had a wall jump/slide ability similar to MegaMan X which made him way too mobile. The biggest changes for this new prototype are the mouse controls and the new Dream theme.

Portals Thru Dreams

Download (~15MB)

Installation

Download and unzip the contents to c:\portalsthrudreams\

Launch the exe file

Instructions

The goal is to collect remnants of your memories and return them to the exit gate. When all your memories are recovered, the exit portal will open. Your goal is to exit (press W on the exit) before time runs out.

Load - opens a load selector - pick levels from \data\levels

Play - Plays the loaded level

Edit - opens the level editor where you can make your own levels

You can move through the world with the A, S, D, W keys. Create portals in the world by left clicking and colliding the shot with the background. Touching a portal will transport you between the portals. Portals keep your momentum going, so falling into a portal will shoot you out the other.

Credits

Game by: Mike Gnade

Music: Little Piece by Pit_X which is freely available on http://www.ccmixter.org/

SoundFX: SpeedY's Guitar Sound Pack which is freely available on http://www.freesound.org/

Inspired by: Valve's Portal

Two New Magic Toy Chest Reviews

Our Game has received 2 new reviews.

ThumbGods Raves: "Magic Toychest is a good kid-friendly game, without defaulting to the usual match-3 system of many indie all-ages games."

and Unigamesity gave it a 4 out of 5, GREAT! Rating saying:

"The Magic Toy Chest a really great title, one you can play 20 minutes per day, just to relax and keep your brain working or 6 hours straight to prove the entire family that you simply rock."

"No, The Magic Toy chest really works and, with the excuse of making you a better and cleaner person, it manages to entertain you across an endless number of levels – all both mind bending and entertaining, fun and smart."

Indie Game Magazine Fan Page

It's very busy here and there's a ton of things to work on. I realize, I forgot to post here about the Indie Game Mag facebook fanpage. If you're a facebooker and like indie games, please join the group: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=79279222533

Here's some of the things going on here at Graduate Games: