A. Aronsson's WeBOLLog

(A link to the game!) To make a long story short! Mig over at HBO contacted me about two weeks ago to make a Flash game to help distribute codes to the Halo: Reach beta. I pondered the project and said I would do as good as I could muster, in my busy spare time. When I finally got to working on it last Sunday it was pretty close to the deadline, the game had to be public Wednesday night!

How did I manage it? To start off I opened up an old project I had never finished from 2007. Why the progress had stopped back then was because the game ran so slowly on my computer hardware at that time, but now that was no longer an issue. I began with writing a list of things to do, to be slightly organized. The list of changes and additions is probably not very interesting, but the important stuff I did was adding a new collision detection model, copied over database connectivity from another game I have not finished, added an actual UI (though incredibly basic), designed all the obstacles and finally a level for people to play. Half of these things I did the evening before the game was published, which is kind of nuts when I think about it.

So on Wednesday night at 2am my time it was posted in the HBO forum, and I could finally go to bed, after a three day headache :) Before falling asleep though, I checked the reactions popping up on the forum, and I have to say I have not felt that feeling you get when people are playing a game you have made in quite some time! I can’t even imagine how it would be to release a retail game you have worked on constantly for several years… but I enjoyed this very much in any case!

All game sessions were registered in a database and nine winners were picked. The categories you could win in were not only highest score, but also most runs, most quits, longest time played and so on. There is a summary of it here.

About the game itself.

The game takes place in a cramped tunnel on the last level of Halo: CE, The Maw, where you had to race towards an escape to safety while all these parasitic life forms that are The Flood were bearing down on you. This rendition of the event is a bit calmer with only static flood blobs, but they are instead incredibly dangerous! Touch one and you are assimilated!

The style is quite clearly based on Stuntmutt’s stylized version of Master Chief, the famous One One Se7en. I greatly enjoy using Mr 117 as it makes content creation quite quick but also instantly recognizable by the right crowd. Win win!

The only tips you get when it comes to controls are what keys to use, the rest is for yourself to find out through experimentation! Personally I feel like more games could be made this way, as I greatly enjoy exploration even in that sense… but I guess that much depends on the complexity of the game.

Afterthoughts? I wish I had time to do more things like this, more often, for sure.

Flumen Formula is one of my many spare time hobby Flash projects which is unfinished. This one I’ve spent a fair amount of brain-juice to create, so I better complete it or the waste would be terrible! The game is fully functional, but what it lacks is levels, and some polish.

Development grinded to a halt when it was time to design the 144 levels the game can handle, but after several months I got the suggestion that I should open up level creation for anyone who would dare, which is now what I’m doing.

So here you have it, your chance to make a contribution to this project!

The Game
Water flows from the blue block. Your mission is to move and rotate the colored blocks so the water uses all canals in the entire level, without any leaks, including canals that are immobile.

How to Play
To lift a block, click it and hold the button down. To rotate the block, use the scroll-wheel or the left and right arrow keys. To drop the block, simply let go of the mouse button. Give it a test spin to understand what it’s all about, use the link at the top or click the game logo.

Level Creation
I’ve written a description of how to create and test levels for Flumen Formula, and I present it here in Word, PDF or HTML format. Also available are reference material in PDF, PNG and Flash (in HTML) formats for the game board, the various blocks available and a sample paper conversion.

• Level Creation Documentation: levelkit.zip @ 193KB

As mentioned above, levels can be pasted into the game and tested, right now! How to is described in the documentation!

Submission
To contribute your level to the project, please paste it in an email, or attach a .txt file with the level data, and send it to submit@7708.net. You decide yourself what personal information you want to disclose, but any type of name will do. It’s all that is needed for the credits. There is no deadline, but I will post a message when I have gathered enough acceptable levels!

Ownership
If you submit a level you grant me the ownership to the level data if you don’t specify otherwise. This is to simplify the process if someone wants to purchase a license for the game or the source code. If you do not want to grant me the ownership please note that in your email submission. In an eventual business transaction those levels will be removed from the game.

Credit
Everyone who gets their level(s) in the final version of the game will be mentioned as level designers in the credits and on any eventual site/page that accompanies it. If you go by a moniker, it shouldn’t be perverse, politically incorrect or anything else I wouldn’t want to say in public.

Genereal Feedback
Of course I also appreciate feedback on anything surrounding the game. Be it user interface, graphics design or anything. Feel free to send your feedback to feedback@7708.net or post a comment right here!

Thanks!

Note: The game itself is hosted on my private server, and not the server that hosts this blog, which is why it’s located on the 7708.net domain.

Update: My initial plan was to have this ready two weeks ago, but as I was finalizing the public release I came up with new features that changed how levels were constructed and other things that needed polish, so I’ve been postponing it several times. Two times the post managed to pop up on my front page as my social life kept me so distracted I forgot about when the post was going live, as well as denying me the time to finish the small details I myself thought necessary, sorry about this.