August 26th 2009
That's the last time I did a Mailbag post!

Blinkin' eck!

Over the past 6/7 months, I've occasionally dipped into the mailbag and plucked out little snippets, but I figured it was about time I did a proper one.
A few of these have already been posted, but there's a whole batch of new ideas here.

Let's go!!! (There's a lot!!)
-=-=-

Pio (Thursday 27th of August)
A game with classical music MIDI soundtrack

I probably wouldn't use Midi. I fell out with midi files a long long time ago. They have an annoying tendancy to sound mindbogglingly different depending on the setup. I'm not really sure what kinds of games fit the "classical" genre. Other than Elite. That worked well!


Shitterwing (Thursday 27th of August)
Piperats? box's bash dir is in dusty Gravity Bob gamey - you may count it as making piperats an AI-enemy in Gravity Bob!

Surely a Piperat would be a goody, wouldn't it?
(took a while to decypher that one!)


Shitterwing (Thursday 27th of August)
nothing new to bring to BoulderDash? take Supaplex's gameplay, add an enemy that behaves like Bat in JnkSaga and... some items that change "polarity" in a few seconds (torn from mines to diamonds and back), make an AI who tries to reach the exit faster than you. Possibly, make items that, instead of exploding, launch fire in certain direction? get Rocks'n'Diamonds, try making new pieces - maybe, you'll get some cool ideas. Maybe, make it like Cave Chaos (diamonds move behind you, like in Flicky - if the trail is long enough, you can dig on 2 squares without losing the square you stand on)? look for BD-like games with good ideas, take good pieces from there to your own game - blocklets fit in Cave Chaos-like BoulderDash concept. Maybe, make a level randomizer not to make levels rubbish? look at BD's around to find goods.

See, these are the ideas I tend not to like, mostly because these kinds of ideas feel like they suit JNK"Saga" (?) better than a top down maze game.
In truth, JNK"Plat" was created after a top down JNKMaze existed, but only as a bizarre experiment as to how a grid-based maze might work with Gravity. As such, I've tried to add to that, as opposed to taking a step back, and adding things back into JNKMaze again.
Perhaps I should, though!!!


Shitterwing (Thursday 27th of August)
JnkGuyZ - platdude-like creatures move on the side-view map. each of them has a different ability: red shoots, blue digs, yellow drops a rope for others to climb down... when touched with DS's stylus, each of them spends an action point to do his action (specifying professions is what'd make this Lemmings-like game significant). Possibly, make 4 modes: Cinematic Mode (arcade controls) and Manouver Mode (stylus-driven), each in single and multiplayer mode. Possibly, make Gravity Bob and his cubes one of the AI's that oppose the player - when a combo of blocks disappears, enemies of that color respawn? (you were asking if Gbob was any good, my answer is: it's good as an AI in games).

Plattings, if I bothered to redo it all on the DS, would just be a cheap imitation of that fantastic LemmingDS game. That's a GREAT port, and I'd have nothing new to bring to the table. Or at least, nothing amazingly new, anyway.


Shitterwing (Friday 28th of August)
gigapede - like Gravity bob, except level starts with 2 or 3 centipedes, which's segments turn into boxes that you need to destroy. Centipedes must be deadly for the char. And, please, make few skins for Gravibot itself - make each level use a random position. Also, make Puzzobomb's sprites easier to modify - so people can write skins easily (or add skins by yourself).

Can you tell these posts were around the time I made Gravity Bob!?
I'd love to remake Gravity Bob sometime, actually.. Maybe I could make it better, this time!

.. Maybe.


Shitterwing (Friday 28th of August)
ADSish GoForGreens - pinball with animals, greens give power-ups. Maybe, add Platdude inside the "ball" to put it into Platdude/JNKPlat series?

I suck at Pinball physics. Tried and failed many many many times.


Shitterwing (Saturday 29th of August)
try making a Wii+4DS game (Wii downloads/gets it from USB, sends it's DS part to 4 DS's via WIFI and works like a server, with realtime scoreboard on the TV connected to Wii - maybe, Piperats/Piperats+Gbob will do?

I've still not got around to trying Wii-dev, yet. I installed the Homebrew channel many many months ago. Had no time to play about.
My main put-off with Wii-Dev is the fact that JNKPlat would no longer have three handy buttons on the right (Jump left, Hold, Jump right) and I'm not sure how comfortable it'd be to keep gripping the B button all the time.
Someday..
maybe..

But probably not a combo thing!!


Thunderskull 4024 (Saturday 29th of August)
some sort of combination of Dr Mario and Gravity Bob? Piperats as an AI in Gravity Bob? color-changing bricks? RandomDirection bricks? whatever can improve Gravity bob - try it! Put in a time limit, make "more time" bonus and the level's Exit green! Random skins of bricks in Gravity Bob! Put it into a two-grid system with multiple objects moving on the hex-based grid! Pick any of those ideas and improve the awesome pre-idea to a full shareware-to-be game, release it for PC for free and for Java as shareware/linkware! I guess a better Pusher skin along with other upgrades will make it sell REALLY good! Your games can rule the WAP services!!! you're the KING of the game developers!!! TYVM for all the GREAT stuff you made!!! Also, keep releasing one RPG's episodes with a bit diferent mechanics - as CoDeMaLL is not related to it, make it the hero's nightmare. You can release parts as separate DAT's to run with one EXE or DS header. YOU RULE THE INTERNET, DUDE!!!!!!!!!

There's that Piperat=Gravity Bob thing again.. What's with that!?
Lots of little Gravity Bob ideas here. I'll keep them aside for a later revisit.
Also, not sure about the "rule the internet" bit. If I did, there'd be more visitors!


Thunderscull 4024 (Sunday 30th of August)
Angry blocks in MonkeyBlocks (when it touches a same-colored normal block, it turns into an enemy that chases you, and can only be stopped by putting him between blocks of his color, but not making a combo - he'll run left-right, but won't hurt you). Also, make 2-player "who's faster" mode with MagnetMax from Gravity Bob being controlled with 8 4 5 6 0 of NumPad. What else can MonkeyBlox have? Angry Blocks + all Brix elements + 2p mode = BESTSELLER!!!

Munky's Block was a nice change of pace, and then there was also the DS edition, too. Having just done Munky in a Mario Costume, too, I'm not really sure if I want to head back into Munky's world again, so soon.


Thunderskull 4024 (Monday 31st of August)
Balloon Fight remake with more levels, randomizer and skins.

I have nothing to complain about with this idea..


Thunderskull 4024 (Tuesday 1st of September)
Random skin selection in RetroRaider, Painter and/or MonkeyBlocks.

Thunderskull loves skins, methinks!
The thing with skins is that it requires me to draw everything again! Doing AGameAWeek, I generally don't have time to do those kinds of things. Heck, I barely have time to draw the first set of sprites in the first place!
I do, however, always leave the png files sitting in the folder. If anyone ever wants to redraw anything from any of my games, ever, they're all there.
Doodle, remake, send back, and we'll see what's good.


Shitterwing (Tuesday 1st of September)
Mouse-driven Frogger in hexes.

Why hexes!?
The Hexagonal Maze was quite a nice game, considering there wasn't really all that much to it.
It'd be nice to expand on that game.


Thunderskull 4024 (Wednesday 2nd of September)
Igor, the monkey outcast, fell into a weird dungeon full of Nullifying Cubes of different colors (!1!). Once he managed to escape from there, he saw a weird staircase (!2!), and barely managed to reach the top without being hurt by spiked celling. Then he had to destroy all the alien polymorphs (!3!). Then, he was caught in a huge Tetris glass (!4!), after getting out of which he was trapped in another dungeon with Nullifying Bricks (!1!, lvlset 2). Then, he was attacked by another wave of Polymorphs(!3!), then tried to sneak into Platdude's house (which was hard as !2!). After he failed, he was killed. 1 - Monkey Blocks, 2 - Stair Jumping, 3 - Aliens, 4 - Tetriller. You can replace hardened 2 and 4 with any monkey games you want - possibly, even a clone of |Icy Tower|. Remember: if i mark a word or two in |'s, it means: keywords for Google

It's been a while since I did a multi-game story type thing. Space Monkeys 5 did it (pre-munky!) as did The Heist, but maybe it's time for a new one.
The main problem is trying to come up with a bunch of teeny tiny games to fit into it!
(ps, really loving The Jay Archive, right now.. How handy is that! I can link to all my games, really fast!)


redmoth (Tuesday 15th of September)
invent a new gambling/casino game

Hey, I started remaking Kasino Green, didn't I?! What happened to that?! *shrugs* Games tend to disappear if I don't quite finish them off..



Thunderskull 4024 (Friday 25th of September)
Sokoban-like game with hex-based grid. Another idea: EvilBricks - a monkey climbs up/down the ladder on the right side and shoots bricks into a chain of bricks, 4 one-colored bricks in a row disappear, if bricks smash a banana - game is over. (second idea is Zuma-like, DS version might sell well if you give it to PopCap)

Hex again!
I don't think Sokoban works in Hex, mostly due to control issues. Mousebased could work, I suppose..
The second idea sounds like that puzzler on the Gameboy.. the name of which escapes me..


spinal (Friday 2nd of October)
Can't go backwards

I've not really done "Just forward" games that much. When I do bother to design levels, I tend to like making the player backtrack a lot! It makes a small level look much bigger, and keeps the game going a little longer.
I'll see what I can come up with!


Namo (Thursday 8th of October)
May I suggest a "Tower of Druaga" mode for Arcade Slots?

Mmm.. Arcade Slots.. I restarted that, too, didn't I.
Where'd that go?!


JYDE (Saturday 17th of October)
NO

OK!!

(I think that's spam.. There's a lot of spam!!)


mosh (Friday 23rd of October)
Colour matching horizontally scrolling space shooter

Wow! Is that even do-able!!
You know, I really love playing AudioSurf, but then you look at any gameplay mode other than "Mono", and you think.. "Why on earth did they do this?!!"
It's horrible, and completely unplayable.
It doesn't fit..

Would colour matching fit into a shooter?!


Thunderskull 4024 (Friday 13th of November)
Since you already have a picture of a rat in your source kit, why not try a remake of ChuChu Rocket? (download the GBA port of ChuChu Rocket on any console emulation website). Replace the "rockets" (goals) with Firework Launchers.

I have the Dreamcast original, no need to emulate it!
A great game, and I was indeed thinking of it whilst coming up with PipeRats, but then went the other way when I realised you could puzzlify it even further.


momo (Monday 16th of November)
you kan swim

Actually, no... I can't swim!


AK (Friday 20th of November)
fast paced platform s with simple neon graphics

What a good suggestion that turned out to be! NeonPlat


Scattle (Tuesday 8th of December)
make a game, where you can use a top-down, and a platformer view

So.. JNKMaze + JNKPlat?
I can imagine something like that working on the DS, where you see two alternate views of the same thing.
But.. Control wise?
hmm.. not sure..


UrbanTrashbag (Saturday 12th of December)
Hey, what about JnkSplat? (like Asteroids, but with possibility to use NeonPlat-style balloons to turn rocks into Black Holes that destroy the rocks? Another game would be RoboRaider - la text-based top-down shooter with randomized levels.

Sounds complex. Why would the player not get sucked into the black hole?
... hmmm..
*shrugs*


Dr. Junkworm (Monday 14th of December)
wtf? just make Platdude ride a weird device and put it into a gravity-enabled labyrinth, add some 9-pixel monsters and the time limit for each level (levels are randomly generated)

wtf indeed..
Why's the monster only got 9 pixels?
What would that even look like!?!



ASTUR2000 (Saturday 2nd of January)
Can you add mario bros on Platdude's Retro Collection?

'fraid not, due to the original game's new ability to refuse to compile.
I'm not really sure why, but that seems to have happened to all my DS games.
dangit..


Thunderskull 4024 (Wednesday 3rd of February)
Look at Simon Moore's Conflict Island and try to add something new into that game. That game is a mini-RTS.

I'll be honest, I've never been a fan of RTS games. Except LAPD : Future Cop. That was a great game, and felt more like a playable game, than a clicking session.


mosh (Friday 5th of February)
Either a game (platformer?) where you put out fire, build up speed and smash through glass or a mixture of both.

.. Well, Ace Paceman let you put out fires, so hopefully you're happy!


mosh (Saturday 6th of February)
a game where something big is chasing after you at a fast rate and you have to run a certain route and collect as many items by the end of each level to get the highest bonus.

Considered many times. In fact, most recently considered whilst doing Storm of Idigidragon.
Just haven't quite gotten around to the full thing, yet!


peter (Wednesday 17th of February)
cannon. Pineapples. tourists.

Not sure if this is spam or not, but the idea of taking three random words and turning them into a variety of games is always intruiging.
Unfortunately, here, the three "random" words aren't all that random, and Peter appears to want me to shoot tourists with a pineapple cannon..
.. Nothing wrong with that!


Jiro25 (Saturday 13th of March)
A game based on giving the player a simple goal. Don't explain any of the mechanics, only the controls and goal.

Aah, my favourite sort of game.. Work everything out as you go!
..I wasn't entirely sure how obvious the "Walljump" was in Munky in a Mario Costume.. Hopefully people figured that out, 'cos the game's impossible without it!


Jiro25 (Tuesday 16th of March)
A game with tons of cheat codes that actually don't do much.

Love it!

...
And then there's this..

recteringhes (Monday 8th of March)
BGdRdvsuvfqCRqNW

It's obviously spam, but "Recteringhes" is quite possibly the best word ever, and probably the first time I've ever considered naming my little yellow/orange rounded rectangles.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I introduce..

It rhymes with Orange!!