GateRun Released!

Surprise! Our new game's out...John Weible's back doing the music, and Louise Via helped out with the art. The game's up on Newgrounds right now, so go play it! Then come back to read more.

It's unfair to call GateRun a Canabalt clone. The run 'n jump genre has recently become very big, and I had the idea to put a twist on it. In GateRun, you can't actually control your character directly. Instead, all that you can do is place the platforms for him to run on. The object is to make it through as many "gates" as possible without falling or missing three. It's a high-score game, which I told myself I wasn't going to make again after I finished Rebounced, but I decided to give it one more try.

I had Louise do the art for this game. She made a pretty cute main character, so we ran with it. It was actually done entirely with the mouse, so I'd say it's pretty darn good. Big thanks goes out to her.

And as always, John did great with the music. Don't forget to check him out johnweiblemusic.com

Keep checking back for updates!

Endurance 500 Post-Mortem

So it's been 25 days since I released Endurance 500, and there are a few things that I wanted to point out.

• The game has had 1,480 views and has rolled in around $0.68
• It has had no comments on Newgrounds, and on Kongregate it is still "Under Judgment"
• At the last minute I made two versions of the game: A viral and a site-locked version with more feature. This led to at least 400 more views on the blog, meaning a conversion rate of 27%. Not bad. (Note: I don't know how many of those were unique hits, so that conversion rate is likely a lot lower)

For a game made in a day, these stats aren't too bad. But they definitely show that I have much to learn about Flash games. But I am curious as to why there were no comments on Newgrounds. Usually I garner around 3 or 4 a game, but this time there wasn't a single one. My opinion is that the community will never comment on a game unless it's bad or it's good. My game was so average that they didn't know what to think! That's what I believe, at least.

I'm already hammering out the levels for the next game. I'll keep you posted when it is close to finished.

Endurance 500

After 3 long days of hard work, DeadPixel's next game is officially complete! I'm trying to find a sponsor this time around but I'm not sure how that's going to work out. I'm planning on going to next Wednesday: If I don't get a sponsor by then, I'll probably just throw ads in it and let it loose.

This time around I've created one of them there multitasking games. The controls are with the arrow keys (Left and Right controls one character, Up and Down controls another) and spacebar (to make the third character jump). I was going to leave it at this and just make it a high-score game, but I couldn't stop adding more features. It now has an entire upgrade system and a goal: Reach 500 points. Thus, the game has been named Endurance 500.

Which brings up an interesting point. From personal experience, I have found that Flash gamers have grown apart from the high-score games that they've once loved. A high-score table is something that they still demand, yes. But they also want something else: A goal.

Take REbounced for example. It was a simple high-score game that did very poorly. It threw more and more enemies at you and increased the time between your bullets so that it was an all-out dodgefest. There was nothing wrong with the core idea, in my opinion, but rather the execution. If the game had been split up into levels somehow, it would have done better. Upgrade system? That's an extra .5 added to your score on Newgrounds. But all in all, there is something more that they desire: Something to work towards. This seems obvious now that I'm typing it out, but in my head that wasn't the case. They don't just keep playing to get the highest score, they want to beat the game, and THEN go for the highest score.

So I've remedied this in Endurance 500. Hopefully this one will be better received than my previous attempts. Keep your eyes open for the (hopefully) soon release of Endurance 500.

REbounced is out

After a minor name change to avoid conflicting with already existing games, REbounced is now out and available on Newgrounds! Go play it! No, really! Right now! Why are you still reading?!

Oh, I might need to give you the link.

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/563590

There. Now go play!

What is REbounce?

REbounce was an idea that has been "bouncing" around in my head for a while now. The basic thought I had was, "What if there was a shooter where every shot you took could have negative consequences." Out of this thought, the basic premise of REbounce was born.

In REbounce, a shot is taken (initially) every second. This shot can take out enemies until it reaches the edge of the playing field. It then bounces and becomes "lethal"; if it bounces back and touches you, you take damage. Not only are you trying to shoot and avoid enemies, but you have to dodge your own bullets as well. This leads to a pretty frantic game about a minute and a half in, as your fire rate gradually speeds up and your enemies become more sparse.

I really like this idea of you being your own worst enemy. I hope to explore this concept more in the future. As of right now, my plans for the future of this game depends on the score it receives on Newgrounds. If it gets above a 3.0, I'm going to send it out to all the portals and hopefully get a decent amount of views on both the game and this blog, leading to both Mochiad and Adsense revenue. After that, assuming it got a good score on NG, I'm going to make its sequel. There's a lot more that can be done with this game, and I already have some ideas floating around in my head. I don't want to put them in, however, if people don't like the idea in the first place.

I personally think that REbounce is a fun game. I enjoy playing it, which is a good sign. However, what the masses think could be different; we shall see.

Welcome to the DeadPixel Entertainment Blog!

Howdy! This is Corey from DeadPixel Entertainment/4Horsemen Studios. If you're reading this right now, then you are participating in an experiment being run by me. In between projects at 4Horsemen I'm going to making shorter, less-involved, but hopefully just as fun games for DPE. My first game, Rebounce, is being worked on and should be out soon. My plan is to include MochiAds. If the game gets above a 3.0 on Newgrounds, I'm going to attempt to mass distribute it and hopefully make a quick buck off of both the MochiAd revenue and the AdSense revenue. Rebounce and the other games I will be releasing here are just short high-score based games based on unique ideas that have been going around in my head.

So stick around and enjoy these games!