As my games will be played on single pages of my sketchbook hopefully this will help me come up with some ideas for my own levels.

I want to try out making a variety of different games that can be played on the pages of the sketch book. I currently have one simple game functioning where the player has to simply collect an object that is projected on the page. The challenge is to see how many items the player can collect in a set period of time. So they are battling against the clock.

I decided that I would also like to have a game that included enemies that would chase the player while they move around the platforms. So I have been working on building some enemy types. I looked back at Mario and some of the other early platform games and took a look at the enemy types. Many of the enemies are mindless and just move around the levels without taking notice of the player, they are just there as a moving obstacle that the player must avoid.

They also have the types that will chase after the player. They lack certain abilities however, such as being able to jump. This gives the player an advantage over the enemy but the player is required to think through their actions a bit more as the enemy will chase them while they are within reach.

I have currently made two enemy types for my game. One will chase the character around on the floor, moving left and right after the player, the other will constantly jump making it harder for the player to avoid them.

I haven’t designed the look of them properly yet, nor is there a consequence if the player comes into contact with them. At the moment they just have a place holder graphic. But you can see how they will act when in the game.

While looking around the Information super highway today I came across a cool collection of flash games/tutorials that attempt to teach you some of the basic elements of game design. The series has a brief look at how people understand the rules of a game, interactivity, what makes a game hold the player’s attention and many other subjects.

Episode 1

Episode 2

Episode 3

Episode 4

I found these useful in helping me plan my own games

The ball is being projected onto the whiteboard and is able to detect when it comes into contact with the black lines. They draw lines to bounce the ball back to each other.

To get this to work you just need a box, some sort of clear glass or plastic, which you cover with paper and a webcam. You place the webcam in the box and then cover the box with the plastic wrapped in paper. You then need to install the software from here, calibrate it and then you have a working multitouch pad.

I didn’t have any boxes at hand that were the right size or any plastic for the surface so I sort of winged it a bit and made do with what I could find laying around. Surprisingly it worked. It’s a little buggy due to the fact that I don’t have everything put together perfectly but this could work as a nice controller with a bit more tinkering.

What I like about this is that you interact by touching paper. This helps it all feel more consistent when playing in the book. The box at the moment is still quite large but if I were to either work out a way to make it smaller or figure out how I could build it into a desk so the size of the box was hidden, I think it could work really well.

My box also has a face… it does not look amused.

I’ve been looking around for fun and interesting games recently to help inspire me for my game and today I came across a little slice of awesome called You Have To Burn The Rope.

It’s incredibly simple but packed full of charm.

They have a bunch of interesting games on www.mazapan.se. Another that cought my eye was “Metro Rules of Conduct”

I recently came across this game called crayon physics. It’s a physics puzzle game in which you have to draw objects in order to solve its puzzles.

The art style in the game has been designed to look like you are drawing on paper and when you draw it looks like you are drawing with a crayon. When played with a tablet or used on a tablet pc it is really effective at giving the impression that you are drawing on to paper.

Crayon Physics Deluxe from Petri Purho on Vimeo.