Mitchell Vaillant and I have been best buddies since we met in Baltimore MD attending art school from 1982-86. Go MICA. We started making music together as part of a poetry class we were in.
Fourty years later I’m back home in the Maine woods, and Mitch is in NYC. Last I checked NY has been hit really hard by Covid 19, and I know Mitchell is suffering because they’ve closed all the bars. I hope he is okay.
Luckily, he sent me an email with a new song he’s recorded, so he must be alive and kicking. A song for fall. When I gave it a listen I got all kinds of weird images of spirits flowing, blowing, merging, and surging, so I started making this game. It’s not done yet, but here’s a video so you can feel the weird vibe it all has.
Here is a test game of what we have so far for Windows PC. The ads don’t work yet, so it’s ad free. Thanks for checking out Spirito. Stay safe.
Mr. Bombface is an end of the world simulation game that is guaranteed to be more fun than the actual end of the world. The best part is you get to play the hero of the story and save us all. News@9 star reporter Tiffany Meadows will guide you through the event with a series of news casts. The story so far: Terrorists are attacking the major cities of the world and it’s up to you to defend and save our planet by playing all the mini games below:
Front Line Defense Choose the city under attack nearest you and guide your missile launcher left and right doing your best to take out all the falling bombs. Sure the bombs might remind you of cute little red and green turnips, but each bomb that gets past you kills 3000 innocent civilians! Shoot at Mr. Bombface when you have time, but be sure to take out the falling turnips at all cost. You will notice if you take your missile launcher all the way to the left and right side, a strip of barbed wire will go up helping you defend your turf. I know it’s hectic and a lot of turnips are dropping, but do your best to build the barbed wire so you have more protection while defending the border! Radar Defense You will see Mr. Bombface on the radar screen. Tap when the dial reaches Mr. Bombface. Each time you tap, the dial will change direction. Tap each time the dial touches Mr. Bombface. If you time it perfect, you get a BONUS reward. As you get better, it gets faster. Go for it! Bomb Squad There’s a ticking time bomb. Do you know how to disarm a bomb? There are three wires to clip. Two will blow up, one will save us all. Which wire will you tap: red, black, or blue? Only one way to find out. Carefully tap on a wire and hope for the best. Ransom Hostages At some point hostages must be ransomed at $1000 to continue game play. This can be used in your game strategy. This game has two score types 1: Lives Saved and 2: Reward $. Top score is based on how many lives you save. Leader Boards open every time you earn $5000 reward. TIP: Spend your money on releasing hostages so you can play longer. This way you save more lives. Get top score, post to Leader Board. It’s a crazy world and only YOU have the power to save it! Leader Boards To open Leader Boards, save as many lives as you can before you accumulate $5000 in reward payments. The top Leader Board score goes to the hero who saves the most lives. Reset game and play again for a better top score until you rule the Leader Board as the ALL TIME HERO OF THE WORLD! Credits This free to play end of the world game was created using: Buildbox Tiffany Meadows News Reporter image: clipart-library.com Tiffany Meadows animated using: CrazyTalk Animator Tiffany Meadows’ voice generated by: naturalreaders.com Audio edited using: Audacity Sound Editor Mr. Bombface game assets made with: Inkscape J.E.Moores Indie Mobile Games: JEMoores.com
Bird and Cow indie mobile game by J.E.Moores is available now on Google Play and iOS App Store.
Mama Filly Lou Bird is trying to hop up the tree to hatch her eggs, but all those silly cows keep getting in the way! Each egg you hatch gives you 5 seconds to tip cows out of the way. Hop up, hatch egg, tip cow. It’s that easy. Hatch enough small eggs and you win a big egg. Trade big eggs for colorful bird upgrades.
I met Michael Remillard on line. He and I were making resin toys of our characters. We traded a few of our resin toys through the post and have amused one another for a few years now.
I thought his characters were perfect for an arcade style game. I asked if I could use his paintings to make a game, and he said, “Yes!” So we are making a game called Alien Monster Blast, and it’s been a ton of fun bringing these images to life.
I love seeing his characters jump out of the painting and move about. I often look at art and imagine it animating. I want the static images to complete their action. When I see Michael’s art, I want to let the monsters loose and see what unpredictable things will happen.
It’s time to get Wiggly… in space!!! Blast off with Wiggly Loaf on an outer space adventure. Meet 3ROTH3R the ship’s computer who will guide you. Although your rocket ship is a state-of-the-art piece of equipment, a bunch of Gear Gremlins are causing all kinds of trouble. With your help Wiggly Loaf must fix several fuse boxes to keep life support from failing. But that’s not all. First you must turn off the laser security system, which could be dangerous.
Don’t forget to watch out for UFOs that abduct your friends and crew members. This space travel stuff is challenging. Save your ship, rescue your mates, and have a great time upgrading to different equipment and characters to help your mission succeed.
It’s a beautiful summer day and it’s time to mow the lawn…
For each patch of grass that Mow Mow cuts, Mow Mow gets 3 seconds to collect gold coins. Without grass the coins kill him and Mow Mow dies. It is your mission to get Mow Mow through all the obstacles while mowing enough grass to survive. Use strategy to power up with grass, and blast on through the challenge! Wacky platform game with lots of strange arcade surprises.
When Mow Mow is mowing grass you will see Mow Mow’s heart grow strong. Once that little heart goes away you must avoid coins and other obstacles until you mow another patch of grass. Once you have strengthened Mow Mow’s heart, collect the coins and blast through obstacles. You must be fast to constantly get to another patch of grass to keep Mow Mow’s heart strong!
Each level has a different physics based dilemma to challenge Mow Mow. The challenges are slightly different each time you play.
Goal: Collect the most coins, unlock new lawn tools, hire yard help, and post your top score on leader boards.
To play Mow Mow: hold phone horizontal, use left thumb to swipe left/right direction, and tap right thumb when you want Mow Mow to hop. Mow the lawn and then collect coins. Over and over.
Tips and Tricks: Grass gives Mow Mow 3 seconds of “Heart Power”.
You need Heart Power to:
Collect gold coins.
Mow over the falling lawn darts.
Jump into the rain cloud turning it into a sunny day.
Tag the kite and swing set.
You do not need Heart Power to tag the cans of Gas. Gas makes you go faster.
The back story of Mow Mow
Mow Mow may be Wiggly Loaf’s lovable lawnmower, but remember kids, he’s still a lawnmower. Lawnmowers are loud and obnoxious. Lawnmowers are dangerous. Imagine a deadly spinning blade combined with a tank of explosive gasoline, and you have yourself a lawnmower. Regardless of all this, Wiggly Loaf loves Mow Mow and provides him plenty of Mow Mow’s favorite food. What is Mow Mow’s favorite food you wonder? Grass of course!!! Mow Mow also enjoys a large can of gasoline now and then. It gives him a giant boost.
If you are wondering who (or what) Wiggly Loaf is, well, we need to go back a bit to the beginning. The best way to get to know Wiggly Loaf is to go see him yourself. Wiggly Loaf has a game of his own. Mow Mow is a spin-off of that game. Wiggly Loaf is where the story begins. Click the Wiggly Loaf link above and check it out! Thanks for playing and reviewing indie games!!!
My friend Nicola Isgrow draws these really cute hedgehogs and posts them on social media for her friends to see. I love those prickly little critters. I thought they’d make a cute game, so I asked Nicky if I could make a game using her art, and she said, “Yes.”
I like this game a lot for several reasons. Nicola’s hedgehogs are adorable. Her art captures something that Nicola is a natural at. Being a friend. Love is at the core of everything Nicky does. When I saw her illustration of the sun catching a falling balloon racer on my facebook timeline I was struck by how many times Nicola has caught me, no matter how prickly I was at the time. The precarious nature of balloons and hedgehogs hit home. Life is always on the balance of a very thin line. It is the people that would be there for you if you ever needed them that help you to be strong. Nicola’s art animated in my mind right then, and I set out to ask permission if I could use her art. Nicola was kind enough to let me make this game.
Hedgehog Balloon Race is the most hyper casual of any game I have made in the past. I have found it a difficult task to make a simple action that is also challenging and engaging. To balloon race you only need to swipe from left to right as you avoid the other balloon racers. While the game play is simple, the different strategies you have to use to get past all the other hedgehogs is not. Your hedgehog must avoid branches and deal with all those birds that can push you around and crash you into other hogs. At least the gold coins give you the power to knock them all out of your way.
We have been testing this game for weeks and ironing out many details until this little game is nothing less than nifty. I logged over 350 hours designing this game in 22 days. What did several weeks of 16 hour days bring? Lots of way cool surprises! Fun stuff like balloons with unique super powers for you to unlock, owls who will take you for a lift, and adorable fans to cheer you on. It’s a gigantic dose of cuteness and fun addictive game play – all for free! Just download and play.
Hedgehog Balloon Race is on Google Play for Android because Nicky has an Android phone and I wanted her to have the game first. I love you Nicola Isgrow. Thanks for being my friend for all these years. Today we published the iOS version so the iPhone folks can balloon race too. Very excited.
After a year of subscribing to Buildbox, here is a run down of my up front expenses for being a solo indie game developer.
Private Mail Box – get this first, before you get a dot com. $120/year.
Dot Com – use your private mail box for the public contact info when you register a dot com. It is a good idea to not put your home address on domain registrations, so get a local PMB address. Domain registration is about $12/year.
Hosting – you need to host your game’s web site which should include game info, contact email & PMB address, and a privacy policy you can directly link to. Web hosting is about $100/year.
Game Engine Software – I am an artist, not a coder so I use Buildbox subscription software to help me design my games. There are free options out there, but Pro version is $500/year.
Apple App Store Developer Account – $100/year
Google Play Developer Account – $80/year
To self publish on Steam – $100/per game!
Making game art, and promotional videos require software. Photoshop is $10/month, Video editing software…???$$$
To publish Buildbox games on Apple App Store you need an iPhone and a Mac desktop or laptop with XCode to generate your final build for publishing. That’s about $3000!!!
To publish Buildbox games on Google Play you need an Android phone to test games on, and you must master Android Studio to generate your final build for publishing. If you want to publish for both iOS and Andoid, you would need both types of phones and gear to test games on. This adds up fast – $$$$$!!!!!!!
Don’t forget your computer gear, internet access to run cloud software, wireless routers… we take a lot of this for granted, but the bills come every month!
TIME – you will need 40-80 hours to make a very basic game from scratch. Your first year will be spent searching and watching YouTube game dev tutorial videos as you learn the new software.
So now I understand why game developers all seem so stressed out. I created 10 little mobile games my first year. I made $100 on the ads in that year. I invested over $1000 to do it.
I see the loss as the price for my education. Now I must take what I have learned my first year, and include a better business plan into my game design. I believe the games should at least pay for themselves.
So there you go. You can now easily see why a solid business plan is essential to succeed in the saturated mobile game market. Be kind to your local indie game developer. They are trying to balance a lot, all at once.
NEOBLAST – Shoot the Discs! – Are you the next Master Neoblaster?
You are controlling a Neoblast Drone and it’s your job to blast all the incoming invaders. Be sure to catch a burst of Indestructible Super Power when ever you can reach a pink fuse. Avoid the pink pointy bits on the end, they hurt.
Bright and colorful game play. Imagine sparking neon lights and fireworks exploding in outer space. Easy one thumb control. Drag to move left or right. Tap to shoot. Fast, frustrating and addicting!
Easy rules: Shoot the discs!
Goal: Get a score over 200 to become a Master Neoblaster and post your high score on the leader board for the entire universe to see!
Challenge your friends to see who can push the other off the board, and learn once and for all which one of you is the true Master Neoblaster!!! All must bow to the Master!
NEOBLAST ~ A Game by J.E.Moores
RULES:
Drag to move left or right
Tap to shoot
You must shoot discs 2 times
Get a Super Power when you touch a fuse
Avoid the pink pointy bits
Scores above 200 open up leader boards
ABOUT THOSE SUPER POWERS: The fuse gets its power from the pointy bits on each end, so if you shoot the pointy bits away, the fuse fades away with it. It is best to avoid the pointy bits for the benefit of reaching the fuse and getting the Super Power. The Super Power will make the Neoblast Drone temporarily glow and become indestructible for 1 – 3 seconds, which is a better way to get rid of those pointy bits.
