As I mentioned before I decided to once again make an entire game on a long flight. I invited other people attending GDC to do the same — whether or not they did, I guess I’m about to find out!

Anyway, B6 631 (named after the flight number) is a run-and-gun platformer. The game procedurally generates a level and you have to play through with the object of getting all the coins. As the coins are often pretty high up, this might involve being clever about using momentum from jumping off of enemies. You have a gun but it’s not that useful unless you want to get a high kill count or a streak. You lose your streak if you get hit by an enemy or a a bullet.

All the art, sounds, and programming are by me. Everything was made in the five hours I was allowed to use my laptop on the flight from BOS->SFO. I used Game Maker, and started off with Matt Thorson’s Grandma Engine.

I’ll probably polish it up a little more and release a post-jam version, but I’m really happy with this one. Download the game here. (Windows only.)

Instructions: arrows to move/jump. WASD to shoot. Collect the coins to win. R button restarts.

It’s really been more than a month since I’ve posted here. Sorry about that, it’s not for lack of things to say. I’ve been traveling a lot: I did some traveling for business, and this past week I was in San Francisco for the IGDA Leadership Forum. Tomorrow I drive to Montreal for MIGS.

I spent a good chunk of the last month playing two games: Mother 3 and Fallout 3. Here are some short reviews.

Mother 3: If you liked Earthbound, you will like Mother 3. It is not as epic in scope as Earthbound, but it shares much of the same sense of wonder and joy as that game, albeit very much grown up. Just go grab the fan translation and a ROM from somewhere!

Fallout 3: I hate Oblivion, and I love the first two Fallout games. So I was reticent about Fallout 3. Long story short, the whole game is completely fucking brilliant… right up to the very very end. This isn’t exactly a spoiler since I’m not giving away any plot details: the epilogue is short and does not tell you the fate of all the different towns and people you come across like the first two games do. This is sad, because it downgrades Fallout 3 from “favorite game of all time” contender to “favorite game of the year” contender. Still, favorite game of the year is pretty high praise! It’s certainly my favorite AAA game of the year, with Braid being the other contender as a non-AAA title. So I still recommend it in spite of the disappointing lack of epilogue.