Sploder is nominally a web-based game-making tool, but, actually, it’s more a collection of tools that make different yet somehow all sort of same-ish platform games. I think either different developers made different tools and then one person bundled them together or one developer kept starting and stopping projects and decided to release all of them instead of making one really good tool. They all sort of are meh with inconsistent creation metaphors, inconsistent levels of in-tool help, etc. It’s all sot of haphazard, and it’s hard to recommend Sploder over something like Construct 2 or GameMaker Studio. I basically wrote this in a review for Graphite (not yet published), too.
Anyway, I didn’t feel comfortable writing the review until I had checked out each of the tools. I’ve already written about one game I made in July, sHMUP bLUFF [write up], but I went and made two more games (in July and August) that explore the same themes of trying to break the conventions of platform or 2D sprite games.
In sHMUP bLUFF, you’re meant to just stay still and let your loved ones take care of your external worries for you (while you focus your energy on your own depression). In Friends Ignore You and Using Friends, I tried to make games where the enemy blocks or monsters are actually representative of your friends, so you don’t want to fight them and you want to use them rather than avoid them. Really short games, but here’s all three:
The post #GameAWeek Challenge: Sploder Trifecta – sHMUP bLUFF, Friends Ignore You, and Using Friends appeared first on Mark Danger Chen.