Kingdomy is a strategy game or rather a kingdom sim where you are the king and you have to grow your kingdom as big as possible! There are many parameters to play with; namely structures to build, military to train, lands to conquer and stances for your kingdom to adopt. Experiment with various builds and you will realize how your kingdom can really GROW!

It's my first time working on a non tower defense game and I have implemented features I have learnt from making other games. However I have learnt even more in the process of making this game! There are definitely a lot more things to be learnt and I am really glad that game developing has been enriching for me :)

Play Kingdomy

Back in last July when I launched my first game, I came to this problem of not having a proper website to hold my games. It was also partly because I was still trying stuffs out and as a result I made a very simple and straight forward page to hold my game:

Fast forward 3 months later, I launched my 2nd game and housed it in another page, complete with various information regarding the game:

It was a very much more complicated website; with AJAX integration and many sub-pages. However it soon turned out to be a chore for me to make a website for every game I made. This has hampered a lot of my progress in terms of game designing and publishing and I have finally decided that I need a proper website to hold my games! Introducing Pixelshocks Games:

Fundamentally, it's simple and straight to the point where you enter the site and play the games. As you can see, the designs lend some influence from Eboy (For its isometry and whacky details!). My idea of the site was to be fun-loving and inspiring to play which led me to the isometry designs.

I can't say it's the most amazing website out there but I certainly like my own website! More details to come soon!!

...Or rather, my game is featured! Jayisgames has always been one of the flash games review sites that I visit for inspirations and this morning when I checked, blam! I saw my game!!

Pardon the horrific drawings, I am as excited as a small kid.

An isometric tower defense game that doesn't stray too far from the genre's established principals. The interface is a bit cluttered and complex, but the core TD gameplay is alive and well. Hopefully the music won't drive you too insane...

...Right. Though I didn't get a full review and it doesn't sound that fun, but hey, I am featured!! This is my second attempt at game designing for the masses and I think things are looking good!

One small step for the game, one giant leap for me! Yay!

- Pixelshocks

http://games.pixelshocks.com/tower2/
It took considerably less time to develop the sequel (less than 3 months) and what was lacking in its predecessor has been addressed in this version. More maps, more creeps, more options and more depth.

The most obvious change you will observe is the change in the UI which is now more intuitive and less clutter. There are 6 different Game Modes and each mode has its own sets of rules to play with.

This is probably the most complicated flash application I have ever made (the last one was Road Safety in schooldays!) and I guess it is also the most complicated tower defence game out there! Making this series has taught me a lot about flash game designing and a number of people online has approached me asking how to make games. Whoa! Don't want to scare anyone but I think should you be interested, you should be picking up actionscripting now and you will be able to make one soon. I think.

As of now, I do not have plans to start version III soon but I will give regularly updates to the game (maps) to keep things fresh. I have some rough ideas for the next version and I think it will be really cool but I really need a break from the TD genre (almost a year at it!) and explore other possibilities. Well, probably I'll see how next year and till then, enjoy what's here!!

Innovation plays an important role in game designing. However, through the design process, some ideas though seem cool, turned out not practical. Below is one of the ideas that I really wished to implement but was eventually axed due to various reasons.

This is a mock-up of a small portion of a multi-level map with creeps moving through path over path. Part of my vision is to have the creeps move slower up the slope and speeds up while moving down. Towers placed on higher grounds gain more range and creeps on higher grounds suffer less damage from towers on lower grounds.

However, as I expanded the idea further, I came to quite a number of problems design issues.

• Firstly, like Singapore, land space is scarce in my game, all the multi-levelling will take away precious buildable areas. I attempted to solve it by getting a larger map and reducing the amount of multi-levelling. In the end, it looked really redundant to have multi-levelling.
• Certain areas will be blocked by the higher tiles. Attempted to solve by having the user toggle between the first and second level to see the creeps like 'The Sims.' It might work but it simply adds another chore for the user.
• Bigger/taller creeps might not be able to fit into the tunnels. What about flying creeps? I can make the tiles wider and higher but it did not work out aesthetically.

In the end, what seemed like a good idea has to be axed because it is simply less feasible to implement.

Alright there's no Johnnie Walker but look, I got your attention!

Casual Collective

This is Casual Collective (CC), a website created by Paul Preece and Dave Scott, two passionate flash game makers who joined forces to make a community for casual gamers. They are bunch of creative people whose passion are at making games for the masses. I have been dropping by their blog and site regularly to see how they are doing and they are truly the kind of people that I sought to emulate. To seek their dreams and pursue their passions. They started off rather casually (and humbly) making games out of hobbies over the weekends but eventually they stumbled upon a great genre, tower defence games and from there, everything took off.

I am not sure what drives them but making games have always been a passion for me and I have been attempting to make games for a long time. From the simplest board games to flash interactivity now... it's been a long way. It's probably the reason why I took up AD&D, Magic: The Gathering and other PC games to see what can be implemented and how the game will be like if it is done in another way. Though unfortunately, it seems like no one else is interested in this field so I am basically making games for myself to play... lol? Eventually, I did look elsewhere, especially in the general interactive field which is also something I loved, making impossibilities possible and exploring the unexplored.

The guys at CC are absolutely meticulous in understanding their gamers from all the data they are gathering. They must have learnt a lot and been through much to arrive at where they are now. I truely envy and salute them for their persistence and passion. What they have now, the site, the knowledge and the experience, will probably take me forever to even get close to. It's taken me months to add a new theme (funky) to the portfolio and close to 7 months to piece together my first tower defence game. There's a lot I wanted to try, but I simply don't have the time.

My first tower defence game hasn't been exactly successful but I am pretty satisfied with where I ended with most saying it has its potentials. Its graphics and isometry are something none has offered thus far. With all the experience, I have begun development on version II and hopefully releasing it before Septemeber.

I understand that it's unavoidable that for every aim one wish to achieve, there will be difficulties to overcome. Though it's always comforting to know there are people out there striving hard too and these are the role models to learn from.

Keep Walking.

http://games.pixelshocks.com/tower/
After working on it for 8 months (on & off), it's finally completed. I can't gurantee it's bug free because of the sheer amount of scripts inside but I have tried to keep it running as smooth as possible.

You will probably notice some ads on the page -- that's because I am trying out the feasibility of online advertising. The game is a straight-forward tower defence game that has various the features any normal tower defence game has. Frankly speaking, veteran tower defenders will probably see this as a simple game which is probably true. This game is more at an experimental stage because I am trying out the various aspects of the game. Part II will be deeper, harder, bigger and most importantly a lot more complicated. But then, that might another 8 months away? Lol??

The game's first true day online saw about 10k hits. I am not sure if that's a lot of traffic but I think it will start to go down after a few days. Anyways, I gotta thank the owner of towerdefence.net for his swift response to my game posting. I'm not sure how the game will fare in the days to come but if there's any bug in the game, please lemme know!!

Judging from my one-entry-per-month trend, I'm not sure if it's that I am running out of things to blog or just that my life is filled with SAF which I can't share at all. Anyhow, some updates on my isometric tower defence game that I have been working. It's near completion already and it mostly playtesting and debugging these days. 5th month in development and coming to half a year soon... it's just crazy...