About a week ago, on June 1st I released a small one level game called June. This is the first game is a series of, you guess it, twelve. Each month will have it own small game. My goal is sixty seconds of playtime, or somewhere around there.
Title Screen
I wanted to work with a couple concepts when I created the game.
1. The aspect ratio, for those of you that played, or saw I Threw the Red, you may recognize the aspect from Mini Ludum Dare #34. 1024 by 128 pixels, a long and narrow play-field. The most challenging part about this aspect ratio, is giving any kind of instructions, in a coherent manner. Making a game that fits inside the bounds is actually one of the easy parts. I wanted to use this aspect because I knew it would fit nicely on the website.
2. After seeing Sos Soswki’s website that has a game like background the moves. Yet I couldn’t figure out how to control the character. I though it would be really cool, and fitting if a website about games, had a game that was playable on it, right in your face. So now when you visit the All Around Games website, the first thing under the navigation is June the Game, and later the other months will be there.
3. I have long been inspired by Suzuki Harunobu, a famous Japanese Ukiyo-e printmaker. I pull two major ideas for the game from his works, as well as Ukiyo-e prints in general. The first is the coloring, June uses only a few colors and they are for the most part solid. I did not want to blend the colors together to much. Most of the graphics only use three colors, that are selected to be light and translucent. One of Harunobu’s series is a calendar in which he creates a print for each month, based on a famous poem. I used this in two ways, first the general idea, to make one game for each month. The second is that I wrote a poem (haiku inspired three line poem) about the month, at least the way that I see it in my life. The last thing that I was inspired by was the subject matter of many Ukiyo-e print. Many have to do with day to day life, and the ukiyo-e print were sold to the lower class as a form of art that anyone could obtain, unlike a Rembrandt or Picasso painting. SO in June, I choose an activity that is very common in the month. Mowing your lawn.
In the game you control the lawnmower, and must mow all of the grass tiles, while avoiding the rocks. You also want to pick up the dog toys for a higher score. There is a tree that you have to mow around as well. I wanted to use a mediocre or boring subject and turn it into a game. I hope you will go play it, if you haven’t already. Also be sure to check out the high score-table, that is organized by date. Click here to go play June.
Next week is 7dFPS and I hope to participate, I’ll post more on this soon after I prototype out a game. I’m leaning towards using Construct 2, and making a 2D first person puzzle click game.
