J.E.Moores | Indie Games, Arty Books, and Wiggly Loaf

Harriett Sawyer 1823

HARRIETT WAS HERE

Far far away in the middle of Nowhere Maine sits one of the world’s oldest summer camps for girls. Years before this spot was a girls camp, it was a farm. The farm had a family plot graveyard. The campers can walk to the graveyard and visit Harriett Sawyer if they dare. She is there to greet the bravest. Harriett’s grave has a porcelain photo mounted in place on the front of her stone. It’s the only grave marker like it in the whole graveyard. She must have been very special and her death very tragic for the family to be so grieved to have this done in her honor.

Harriett Sawyer

It is said that Harriett feared rabbits. It is camp tradition that any time we pass the graveyard the kids chant, “Bunny, bunny, bunny, bunny, bunny, bunny, rabbit,” until they have safely passed. They say it’s the only way Harriett’s spirit will not follow them back to camp. Because of her gravestone photo and her mysterious tragic death at a young age, Harriett is the official camp ghost.

In 1971 the Blue Team wrote a song for Harriett titled, Born in 1823, and Mr. Mike recorded it during Song Meet using a cassette tape recorder. The recording went down in history because just when the girls sing the lyric, “…or hear her eerie helpless cry…” the recording has strange distortion. An almost vocal high pitched squeal. It’s only a few seconds long before the tape returns to normal. The audio anomaly freaked out everyone when they received the tape in the mail in the winter. Everyone who was present at Song Meet knew there was no scream when the girls performed the song, but only the recording of the Harriett song had that strange scream in it. She had been there – and had let us know it!

This spooky old recording is included in the new game I made called, Harriett Sawyer 1823. In addition, there are several different Halloween songs and spooky audio hauntscapes you can listen to while you play the game depending on whatever mood you’re in.

I’d like to thank the musical talents of Mark Harvey, Mitchell Vaillant, Rain Station, and the Blue and the Gray Girls for making it all happen. ~ Happy Halloween everyone!

Game play is simple. Move the skull to avoid the ghosts. If you can’t avoid the ghosts, click the Jack O’ Lantern at bottom of screen and you can hunt ghosts for 5 whole seconds. Harriett thanks you for visiting her grave. She really does. Come back when you can stay a bit longer.

Breaking The Rules

Indie Video Games by J.E.Moores for Android and iOS:

During all my years in art school I learned a lot of rules. Color theory, proper primers and gesso for different types of paint. I learned chemistry so I could mix my own ceramic glazes, how to safely run the kilns. Ha! Calligraphy has never ending rules, raising metal chalices by hand on stakes and anvils is like calligraphy, you must always be holding your tool at the same angle be it pen or hammer. I like to grind my own sumi ink, I mastered mold making and ceramic casting, hand cast resin toys, lost wax metal casting, silver soldering, braising. Seriously art school was full of rules that directly apply to the physical world. You could see the rule work for you or against you, right before your eyes.

But following the rules is not what being an artist is all about. You have to learn all the rules so that you are full aware of the loop holes and edges you can take things to. Pushing limits comes from understanding the limits and seeing where you can go one step beyond. Expanding and redefining the limits is what art is all about.

Art is not the object, but the conversation. If people are not talking about it, it’s not art. How do you get them to talk and transform an object into art? You kinda have to hurt their brain. Make ’em think. If your art can haunt their mind and cause questions and wonder, you’re on the right path. Art needs to push buttons and trigger a reaction.

I have discovered that writers should not always write for a wide audience because it can get boring. Instead, if you are having a block, write something you hope no one will ever read because of the ugly truths it reveals. Use your deepest secrets. The more difficult it is to write about, the more you should write about it. Then let the smartest person you trust read it and edit it with their help. Let go of any voice inside you that would try to stop you. Publish it and let everyone read it.

So art seems to go against the grain a bit. There is decorative hobby art, folksy crafts, mediocre art and then there is actual life changing art that blows your mind. You know it when you experience it, and it can be any medium.

For a long time I have made toys at JEMTOY.com – but I noticed a trend the past few years. Everyone has a smart phone and they really don’t care that much about anything else these days. I must have elf blood coursing through my veins because for some unknown reason I want folk to play with my toys. Since everyone is poking their phone, I thought it would make sense to make a few video games to transform smart phones into JEMTOYs. I figure, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, right?

When I wanted to learn how to create and publish games to iOS and Android I wanted to use my love for art history as inspiration. It’s what I know. The world’s greatest expressions of the human experience are indeed sweet fodder for classic arcade style video games. Players get to saturate into a fantasy world that never existed before. An interactive adventure inside some of the greatest works of art that ever made a mark on history. Each game is fun, exciting, or so spooky you’ll never notice you’re learning about boring old art history. Download your favorites today, just choose a platform below.

Games by J.E.Moores for Android and iOS:

Gods, Witches, and Demons

Garden of Delights
A game inspired by Hieronymus Bosch

When you cavort with the likes of Gods, Witches, and Demons, you can get a little worn out. I’m tired. I need a break. I have completed another video game and I’m a wreck. I can see why most games are made by an entire team. To keep everything straight in my mind I need to work 18 hour days for about 4 weeks and then I have a game. If I take too long a break I lose track of so many little loose ends. There’s a lot going on when you are creating an entire universe. The Gods must be weary!

Now is time for me to relax. I wish I had enough energy to celebrate, but the celebration of completing such a huge task shall have to wait. I will sleep for 24 hours and see if I can get this mind to rest. I can still hear all the little repeated sprite sounds inside my head. I am haunted by the minions of Bosch’s Hell.

I take a long bath to take my mind off things. It’s like my brain is stuck in work mode. Even though I’m done, I tend to go over every detail and can’t stop the thoughts from coming. This is why I don’t take many breaks, because they are not breaks if I’m obsessing on work. I would be better off getting back to the job at hand and getting it over with. Nothing but completion will give me rest, and not even then. I must wind down first. Must wind down!

After working 400 hours without much of a break, it takes a couple days to come out of the trance. Rest, good food. The second the game is published and live on iOS and Android my body crashes. All the weight I put on myself hits me all at once. I don’t even feel it until I’m done, then bang, it hits me. Like a ton of bricks.

When you were a kid, did you ever get sick during school break? Once the body knows it can relax, sometimes it crashes. It takes a big break because you didn’t realize how tired you were, how stressed you were. Now that the responsibility is over, your body knows it has to grab this chance at rest before you get started on the next impossible task.

Thinking and learning are tiring. When we are learning the most, we are growing the most, but it also has its stress factor. The more we push ourselves the better we have to treat our body. Give it rest, healthy food, water. Learning how to make video games has been an amazing journey, but I’m learning so much I get really tired. I spend hours reading forums and watching youtube tutorials so I can figure out certain game mechanics along the way. Each time I have an idea of what I want a game to do, I have to figure out a way for it to do it.

I’ve been making games on a theme of magic. Egyptian Gods, Hindu Gods, Witches, Monsters, Demons… I love the fantastical imagery of ancient art. I love the images humans created before movies and TV. When demons and monsters came from nightmares and imagination. I find that old stuff so spooky. It’s like they had first hand knowledge from seeing a demon themselves. The older the art is, the more convincing it seems to me.

No matter how far back you go in time every culture has Gods, Witches, Ghosts, Demons, Elves, Fairies, and other Magical Little People. How can such universal characters not have some truth to them? They must be real. There could be no other explanation for these types to be represented by every culture on earth. By consensus alone, they all must be real. After all, isn’t truth as defined by consensus what the Common Core Curriculum teaches our kids these days? Ahhh there goes my over worked brain again. I really do need a rest.

Hey, even I don’t know what the point of this blog entry is. I made a game inspired by Hieronymus Bosch Garden of Delights. It’s awesome. I hope you like it too. I’m really tired so I’m gonna take a nap now. While I rest, please enjoy one of the games I’ve made. I have honestly put my all into making every one of them. These games beat me silly… but in a good way. Please leave me a game review to help me gain momentum. Tell a friend. I’m all alone in here. Thank you. Check it out:

Games by J.E.Moores for Android and iOS:

Garden of Delights Video Game

Hieronymus Bosch Video Game

My favorite artist of all time has got to be Hieronymus Bosch. He painted some of the freakiest stuff I’ve ever seen. I could stare at the Garden of Earthly Delights for ever and ever and never see all the details. There is always something insane going on in that painting that I have never noticed before.

What amuses me the most is that this painting was completed around 1505 for the church. The triptych has Eden on left, Hell on right, and The Garden of Earthly Delights in the center. I believe the allegory is that you go to heaven or hell depending on what you do when you are in the center. But Hieronymus, why did you make all that crazy sinnin’ look so good? I don’t even know what most of them are doing, but I want to join in. In fact, The Garden of Earthly Delights looks so inviting I consider it my personal bucket list. I hope to do everything depicted in the Garden of Delights before my time is through. Won’t you join me?

In the Garden of Delights game you start out a lovely pair of citizens of The Garden, riding in a bubble pod doing your best to protect your pastoral existence from all the winged demons, beasts, imps, and evil minions who are infiltrating paradise. Shoot them with sweet ripe berries to end their wickedness so you can get back to your own debauchery.

If you can find Laughing Lilith, she will give you a burst of supreme alchemical Bosch power. Use it wisely. When you kill enough demons and collect enough forbidden fruit you can unlock all three panels of the triptych and unlock the special bonus characters that have all new super powers. You’re welcome.

This is another from my History Through Art series of indie video games. Download Garden of Delights for Android or iOS.

Parasite Zapper Video Game

So I’ve been busy making a fun educational game for the HuldaClark.com web site. The Hulda Clark Parasite Zapper is a device described in all of Dr. Clark’s books, along with instructions how to build a zapper. For over 100 years scientists like Nikola Tesla have studied specific frequencies that kill small invaders like germs, bacteria, parasites… you simply hold two copper handles a few minutes and allow the frequency to do its thing. I’ve used one many times. I think it works like magic, so I love my zapper.

The Hulda Clark Parasite Zapper is old public domain radio technology. Anyone can build or buy a zapper and experiment at home. The only way to know if zapping works for you is to try it. We hope our game exposes this little known secret of the universe to others who will benefit from its knowledge.

The classic arcade shooter has you zapping bugs of all different kinds. If the invaders become too many, you have a red panic button to kill all enemies, but it only works once per game, so use it wisely.

If you bump into the walls it might change the direction of your zapper. Click the little white arrows to direct the zaps at the bugs.

If you have heard the book excerpt enough, click the green speaker icon to silence the reading. Game sounds continue.

Thousands of people use zappers. If your immune system could use a boost now and then, maybe you should read more about the zapper. Check out the Hulda Clark Facebook page or the Hulda Clark Media page for videos and zapper info.

Download the Parasite Zapper game for Andoid or iOS

Video Games on Android or iOS

Indie Games by J.E.Moores for Android on Google Play and iOS App Store

History Teacher Creates Video Games To Inspire Students

I have taught art since 1984 to ages 8-15. As exciting as I find the subject, my students don’t always share my enthusiasm for ancient art history. I decided to make a series of video games inspired by art history hoping others could see what I love. I started out with Egyptian Hieroglyphs, Hindu Gods, The Garden of Delights by Hieronymus Bosch, and Spooky 17th Century Wood Cuts of Witches and Demons.

I did not want the games to feel boring and “educational”. One of my gripes is when adults ask me, “Is it educational?” Egads I hate that question. I always lean in as if I’m transferring some sort of guarded secret and say, “To be honest, I haven’t found a way to stop ’em from learning. Turns out everything is educational in some way!” So my intent was to make fun classic arcade style games with common platform game mechanics, so the players can focus more on the images and art.

Once a player has a direct interaction with a character, let’s say Lord Ganesha hits you with his ax and kills you. You’re gonna remember that differently than a static image you barely look at in a history book or slide show. I mean, Ganesha hit you with an ax and killed you! That’s a relationship, and even better, it can change. You later learn if you avoid Lord Ganesha’s ax, you can make friends with his rat, and you get rewarded instead. Now you know Lord Ganesha has a rat and an ax, which you might not have known before you played this game. I hope my games plant mind seeds that take root later.

Sometimes exposure is all anyone needs to want to know more. These games do not intend to teach any long history, but instead to simply inspire wonder. Once a player can point out the Goddess Isis, Hanuman the Monkey King, Lord Krishna or Anubis in the Underworld, we are on our way to a shared language that bridges time through the ages. “Woh! I crashed right into Thoth.” Yeah, I bet that hurts.

Middle school teachers feel free to use these resources to inspire learning. Many of these topics are being covered in 7th and 8th grade public school system. Use the free apps as rewards on their iPad. Help them learn each character’s name, share a bit of the history, and have fun.

Art History Video Games by J.E.Moores: iOS – Android

Making Indie iOS Games

On November 24, 2018 I gave myself a winter challenge. I wanted to learn how to create video games for Android and iOS. I subscribed to Buildbox and began working on a Wiggly Loaf game. I followed all the Buildbox video tutorials on YouTube, and bit by bit I built my game. I got geeky with it. I wanted the Wiggly Loaf game to look like it was animated on a chalkboard. I discovered a program called Doodly that filters my ink drawings of Wiggly Loaf into a blackboard chalk version. Even though the program is intended for other things, I painstakingly screen capped each instance of the Wiggly Loaf animation through the Doodly program to create all the chalkboard sprites of the game.

Making sprites took several long days. I found myself working 16 or more hours a day, crashing, waking up thinking about the mechanics of the game, and getting back on the computer. My desk was cluttered with energy bars and the much needed bottle of water to keep me going. I became a game making curmudgeon.

Knowing what I wanted the game to do and figuring out how to get Buildbox to do it was part of the fun for me. The game of making games is what I’m into. There is a delight to trying different settings until you find what you want or discover something you didn’t know was possible. It can be very exciting for a geek like me. So many parameters to tweak, and you know how I love to tweak parameters.

Luckily I married a very geeky girl. I asked my sweet wife to research creating apps on Xcode and uploading games to iOS store while I blitzkrieg the game into shape. I don’t think my brain would have the capacity to learn how to make and publish my own game in the time frame I wanted. I had been looking for a project she and I could do together and we became a team figuring it out.

I worked every day, often 18 hours with only snack breaks. By the time I was near done I was delirious and haggard. It was awesome. I love that feeling of giving my all and getting remarkable results. Wiggly Loaf was coming together and I was psyched!

By December 19, we were in the race to get the Wiggly Loaf app in for approval before the Official Apple App Approvers all went on their week long holiday break. By the skin of our teeth we got Wiggly Loaf on the iOS app store before Christmas. We did this clever promotion where we asked Wiggly Loaf Fans to submit Shout Outs to friends to be published on the walls of the chalkboard in the game. We updated the game with the personal shout outs by New Years, and they shared the app with friends and family who in turn found a shout out in the game just for them! What a sweet gift for the world and a huge success for learning how to make my first game.

So it’s possible to go from knowin’ damn near nothing to a self published indie game developer in under one month. My Buildbox subscription is $199/year. The developer fee at iOS is $99. I put about 240 hours in to make my first game. My games are already on their way to ROI due to the Google ads I placed in the free games.

While learning to make Wiggly, I started a few ideas for other games. I worked them to completion and have been able to publish a game about every month since I began making indie games. So if you have ever wanted to learn how to program video games of your very own, I believe you can do it. You’re only about 300 hours and 300 dollars away from creating your first game. I say, let nothing stop you.

Now after a few days battling with Android Studio Eclipse I can now export my games to the Google Play store for Android. It’s the gift that keeps giving!

Indie Video Games by J.E.Moores: iOS – Android

Andy’s Lard Quest

Andy’s Lard Quest Rules

The game opens to a menu of heads you can unlock by collecting chickens. The price of each head is under the head. You must play the Egg Man until you collect enough chickens to unlock the other heads. The other heads have different super powers that add to game play.

To play, click play. The interface is simple. Tap to make the character drop. You bounce your head through the platform levels avoiding enemies.

Collect chicken and cans of lard. If you collect 9 cans of lard in one session without dying, you will enter the most awesome Lard Wars level and battle giant kaiju cats for a whole lotta chicken. Once you crash and die, your lard count returns to zero and you return to the head menu with all the chickens you gathered.

Hot dogs make you invincible. When you eat a hot dog, you turn into an indestructible hamburger. You can smash anything. It feels really good too.

Society the cat tosses some very useful cat balls. When hit, cat balls kill all enemies in sight, but each cat ball you use cost 25 chickens. That’s a lot of chickens! Use cat balls sparingly or you could lose all your chickens.

Avoid everything else because it’s EVIL! If you touch it, it will kill you. Here’s a tip, if it shoots a pink laser beam at you, you must try to let the laser beam touch you. The laser beam powers you up and turns you into an indestructible fish bowl for 3 seconds, and you can beat the beast by smashing it to smithereens.

While you are playing, notice the can of lard in the top right corner. To its right you see a count of how many lard you have collected during your session. If you click the lard can it will bring you to the head menu if you want to unlock or switch to a different head to play.

At the bottom of the heads menu you will see Little Andy flipping out. Once you have enough chickens you can unlock the Bonus Level. Just click Little Andy to get there.

The goal is to unlock all 20+ heads and Little Andy’s bonus level.

About Andy’s Lard Quest

So I wanted to make a weird indie game from the strange stuff here at my house. First up is Andy, a duct tape voodoo doll my daughter made when she was just a wee one. Now a teen, I told her I was using Andy in my game, and she cringed. So far, so good.

There is Cosmo my dog, and Society my cat. There is a scary stick I found on the ground last summer. I thought it looked like a kaiju monster, so I glued googly eyes on his face and named him Xerxes. Now he’s flying around causing all kinds of mayhem in this game! There’s a floating rubber glove guy, a tons of ants, and rubber chickens are the currency you collect to unlock everything.

You start out as a fragile egg, and as you collect rubber chickens, you can trade them in for other fancy new heads that have all new super powers and moves.

Once you collect enough rubber chickens you can unlock the Bonus Level where the shrimp are running like mad! With 20+ different heads to unlock and play, and a bonus level to unlock, this insane game will have your friends wondering what the hell you’re doing. If they ask, just tell ’em you’re on a LARD QUEST!

Game music, To Town I Go by mopehead & Tony Iuppa from: Hauntscapes.com
Andy and other duct tape art by Malaya from: DesignCutie.com
Nature sounds from: Yellowstone National Park Sound Library
Cosmo the wonder dog courtesy of: TimeBrats.com

Wall Problems

The President and I are having trouble getting our wall built. The team at iOS rejected my Trumpty Dumpty Wall video game for being offensive. The game has no nudity, profanity, or obscenity, but without a doubt, it is a type of political cartoon.

I think they are confusing their frustration with the border wall issue with the appropriateness of my game. We are all frustrated at the government shut down and the impasse the border wall issue has caused. They are afraid some of their users would be offended by the game’s content, but there is absolutely nothing offensive to be found in the game. It’s Humpty Dumpty building a wall. Whoever stacks bricks the highest wins. It’s a game for little kids. It’s not offensive. It might be obnoxious, ridiculous, silly, or downright stupid, but it’s not doing anything against terms of service, so the offensiveness is subjective and individual.

In defense, my game does not take a side on the border wall matter. I think it’s best to let the audience decide on their own. If you are for the wall, you can help build it. If you are not for the wall, you can laugh at how funny the game is. My game has a wider audience by not taking a side. By not taking a side, it cannot offend any specific group. If it is offensive, at least it is equally offensive to everyone.

I love that American citizens can poke fun at their leaders. Humor helps to ease the pressure, and gets the conversation going again. The game is intended to create a dialogue. It is confrontational (like art), but it is not offensive (like porn). An even odder factoid on this matter, the game did not get rejected first time through. Trumpty Dumpty Wall version 1.0 was approved, so I am confused at version 1.1 being rejected on content. I only added a prompt to invite gamers to rate my app, which changes nothing visually in the game, so it’s the same game in every way that has already been approved once.

I believe the rejection was individual and subjective. I really can’t think of a single term of service that I’ve broken. It’s like I followed all the rules, but they just don’t like my art’s silly lighthearted message.