Jonathan Blow uploaded
Nicewrench, which is a remake of
Flywrench minus the instant death and with an added collecting aspect. I know that he didn't give himself a lot of time to make the game (
"This game was written in 2 days or so, during February 2008, while jetlagged on a trip to Copenhagen") so the movement isn't very finely tuned, but I found the game to be much more frustrating than Flywrench. Death in Flywrench isn't supposed to be punishing, it's just an affirmation of failure after which you are instantly thrown back into the level. Nicewrench deals with failure in a way similar to
Punishment, in that you're bounced backwards and forced into a situation that often makes it more difficult to overcome the obstacle. You end up facing the wrong direction and you've lost all momentum. In some cases, the positions of the lines have changed so that you're forced to retrace your steps through a different configuration of lines to get to a point where you can fly through the original setup at an adequate speed. The addition of the collecting aspect doesn't really make sense to me either, although in some games collecting things can be rewarding. There actually were collectibles in an earlier version of Flywrench. It also allowed you to bounce off the yellow walls whether you were rolling or not, and you were given a rank based on how many orbs you picked up, how fast you completed the level, and how many times you died. I eventually found all of these to be pretty obnoxious additions that left you with a game you never really mastered, since you only replayed sections if you reloaded the game. In terms of movement in Flywrench, you only control subtle changes to your ship's momentum so the open ended nature of checkpoints and bouncy walls accentuated this lack of control. Anyway, it was cool to finally play Nicewrench and I'd be interested to see how it would evolve if it were developed further.
Cowboyana is pretty much done. I'm going to upload it on the 15th, and if you're in Brooklyn you can play it with my gamepads. It's two player, and can't really be played otherwise. Jordan Stone and Evan Pritts did the music, which is primarily acoustic.
Here's some photos from the show at Light Industry. A lot of people came out and I think everyone had a god time. I was having some technical problems with Stenography Hero, so it wasn't running anywhere. I uploaded the game as is, but it's really just a tech demo at this point and I'd like to work on it more.
"the thrill of combat"
