PIXELSPACE is finished and can be downloaded now for free at dcfgames.com/games/pixelspace!

You play as a white pixel defending yourself against incoming infected green pixels. You do this by shooting them down or by guiding them to crash into each other (the latter having the chance of an ammo drop, hence “enemies as weapons”). Coming into contact with enemies will cause damage, but you have the ability to regenerate health at a rate determined by your accuracy with your weapons.

For all my updates from throughout Ludum Dare 18, see my Twitter feed (#ld48 tag), the Ludum Dare entry page and the dcf Games blog LD18 tag. To see all the games from the event, click here.

A few screenshots of the finished game before I head off to bed!

The first screenshot of my Ludum Dare 18 entry. The player plays as the white pixel firing on the incoming infected green pixels. Ammo is limited, so the player must use the homing tendencies of the green pixels to cause them to crash into each other, producing an ammo crate containing 100 bullets and killing both involved.

If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you’ll already know I’m taking part in the Ludum Dare 48-hour game development competition this weekend.

My game idea is a basic top-down shooter, with different enemies having different effects on the enviroment when they are shot. The player has a very limited ammo supply, so use of these effects is vital to survive. The player can also lure enemies into colliding with one another to kill them.

It’s the start of sunny day 2 with 16 hours to go, so here’s a sitrep…

• Particle system is up and running
• Player movement working
• Enemy spawning working

Now I just need to add the ability to shoot, collision detection for the enemies and the various environmental hazards… I’d better get to work!

More news to come throughout the day.

Meet Sushi - mascot and part-inspiration for davecheesefish Games!

What’s wrong with a cheesy Wotsits-coloured goldfish with Ronnie Barker’s glasses and a miniature bobble hat from a smoothie bottle to keep warm? I AM NOT INSANE

Game-modding community site Mod DB has just launched its new indie game site Indie DB! From today I’ll be uploading selected games, screenshots and tutorials to both dcf Games and Indie DB at my account, davecheesefish. If you have an Indie DB or Mod DB account, you can “watch” me via the eye button on the right-hand side of my profile page. You’ll also be able to track the development progress of individual new games by going to their respective pages and “tracking” them too!

2009 Global Game Jam game Lag is now available via Indie DB and (less than 48 hours after uploading it there), has reached rank 18 out of 1782 games on the site overall!

I look forward to participating in the lively community, and hope to see you there soon!

The first X48 GameCamp of 2010 was last weekend at Birmingham City University, and Mat Simmons, Jason Thomas, Martyn Poole and I were there competing against 15 other teams from around the UK to produce a game in just 27 hours!

Our Friday started off with a 4-hour journey to get to the venue itself. Once we’d finally ventured over the English-Welsh border and up to wild and wintery Birmingham, it was simply a matter of finding the right campus of the university (no small feat as every second building we’d passed on our way in seemed to have the university logo on the side). After a little confusion, we were informed by a friendly lady behind an information desk that actually the science museum/IMAX cinema we were in was indeed the right place (why don’t we have one of those?).

This year’s theme for Birmingham was “Discovery”, quite an open-ended theme leaving plenty of opportunities for some interesting game concepts. We started off with a 1-hour session coming up with any game idea we could get our hands on, no matter how stupid or difficult-to-build they sounded. From previous experience, the best ideas normally come from something completely ridiculous and immensely over-ambitious, scaled down accordingly.

Working through the night (only broken by the now-familiar experience of 2 hours sleep on industrial computer-lab carpet), we came to day two when everyone decided it would probably be a good idea to let those of us not doing anything at a particular time to get some more rest before the final push (that and the fact that our bus home wasn’t due to leave Birmingham until 8pm, still a full 12 hours away).

At the end of the day we didn’t win any prizes, but it was still a thoroughly enjoyable two days and I know I’ll certainly be back next year to try again! You can download and play our entry for free from dcfgames.co.uk/games/drainbamage. As for the future, the team is going forward to compete in the Imagine Cup and we’re looking into entering Dream-Build-Play and Dare to be Digital 2010 so watch this space for further updates!