Nightshifted

Boston Game Jam 2007

Original version

The original version of Nightshifted was built solely for the Sony Ericsson W810i phone, which runs Flash Lite 1.1 but doesn't seem to have any Flash sound support. As a result, this version of the game doesn't have any sound and it was only designed to be played with the buttons on the phone. In addition, there was an annoying math bug that doesn't appear on the phone but shows up on some PCs.

In its defense, I did build it in 36 hours, and most of the core game mechanics are present. I've included it here for comparison. If you try playing it in a browser, it will be quite a horrendous experience :)

Release version

You'll need to hit "Enter" when there isn't an obvious button to click... it still makes more sense with a phone keypad. If nothing seems to be happening, try clicking on the Flash applet itself.

This latest version of Nightshifted is built for mobile phones running Flash Lite 1.1 as well as recent PC installations of Flash. It incorporates Jim Ingraham's artwork, Duncan Watt's sounds and Katelyn Olmstead's voice, all created and recorded during the Boston Game Jam itself.

In the original version, the passengers got hungry but it wasn't obvious. Some of the eleventh-hour animation code also had to be dropped for the jam deadline. The animation and sounds are all incorporated in this latest version and there's a good deal more visual feedback to inform the player of what's going on. I've also tweaked the game balance to make the game harder to cheese.

I figure it took an additional 48 hours of work spread over a few weekends, with the principal goal of making it run decently on browsers and a larger variety of high-end phones other than my personal handset. It's also playable with a mouse and keyboard without breaking the phone interface. It still looks best on a Sony Ericsson W810i, which is now my handy demo platform.

Special thanks

I'd like to thank Jim, Duncan and Katelyn for their contributions to this game, Darius Kazemi and Dan Roy for making the jam possible, and Jen, my wife, for being patient and letting me shanghai the MacBook Pro.