Dionysis Chatzidakis

CFT calendar 2014 by Ruslan Lobanov (by Ruslan Lobanov)

Luke Rissacher's Trippy Trippy Bad Bad is a puzzle arena shooter in which players have to get their on-screen avatar past a swarm of insects and make it to the exit of every room. You can only avoid the creepy-crawlies in the first few stages, but latter levels will contain guns for you to collect and use in your escape.

Each enemy will have its own unique traits for players to discover. Giant beetles chase after you whenever you get close to them, centipedes split into two when you shoot at any part of their body, while ants move in a straight line and will only change direction when they bump into an obstacle.

Most rooms take less than a minute to play through, and a level skip option is included for players who are having difficulty getting past any of them. There's also a boss fight at the end of the campaign, and you can unlock two extra modes if you beat enough stages under their par time.

The Windows version of Trippy Trippy Bad Bad is available to download now from Quadruple-A's site.

[Download Trippy Trippy Bad Bad]

The first one-week Speccy Jam, dedicated to creating 8-bit games that would feel at home on the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, recently concluded with over 20 entries submitted. There's no need to worry about an emulator, though, as almost all of the games chosen below work in your browser.

Toxin Games' Firewall 48K is a four-sided frantic Space Invaders of sorts, with you needing to constantly switch between sides with WASD to shoot enemies as they move inward. If you lose your barrier, you can replenish it by allowing white download chips to fall to the center. Of course, not shooting them when they are next to the enemy virus is a challenge.

JeromBD's Water Spears is a tough deep-sea diving game, where players have to manage their spear count, oxygen levels, and lives while collecting pearls, gold, and air bubbles and avoiding enemies and purple urchins and thorns.

Craig Moore's Henry Hedgehog and the Haunted House is a solid platformer that has you collecting the letters to spell "Henry" to save his girlfriend. I almost feel like the double jump makes the game too easy and seems not needed.

Dioxin Dump's Attack! Defend! Magic! is a turn-based battle game that makes the shortlist because of its exceptional animated death sequences. They make the fighting feel satisfying, even with the random card element that seems to dictate the strength of your turn.

Freeware here, (yep, you gotta download it), but worth a mention: BeeTLe BeTHLeHeM's Are You There Theseus? is a fantasy roguelike, with the basic features of the genre (permadeath, procedural generation, multiple-level dungeon) and various interactive content (monsters with particular properties, items, shops, tiles with special effects).

Looking for a Bit.Trip Runner-like? Derpman has you covered. A Desktop Dungeons clone? Speccy Dungeons is your game.

If none of the picks sound fun, you can easily go through all the Speccy Jam games online.

Halfy birthday, Hap-Life! Well, I guess it’s technically the day after your birthday now, but an upgraded version of Source-powered Half-Life tribute Black Mesa still counts as a gift, I think. You might remember that the free labor of time, love, and more time was greenlit a while back, but now it’s finally taking the Lab Facility Train Ride of Ultimate Auspiciousness over to Steam. Better still, Gabe and the knights of the Valve table have given it their blessing, allowing the Black Mesa team to earn some especially pretty pennies for their hard work. The Steam version will include new features too, but not Xen. That’s apparently still “a ways off,” sadly.

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Originally being sold for 3 dollars on Desura, Denis Grachev decided this week to make AlterEgo: DreamWalker a free download on all platforms that the game is available on (with the exception of Windows Phone). In it, you get to control two characters at the same time, but you're required to switch between both of them in order to overcome the challenges in each level.

The number of swaps allowed per stage will always be indicated above your twin's head. If you make a mistake or run out of switches before all items are successfully collected, the only option left is to restart the level. It's an unnecessary limitation imposed on players, but I suppose the developer's intention was to make each room seem more like a puzzle if you have to stop and think on your approach to gathering all of the pixels.

You can grab the Windows, Linux, and Android versions of AlterEgo: Dreamwalker from the link below.

[Download AlterEgo: DreamWalker]

Mapping,

I’m glad I finally finished the two maps planned for the next UOF Map Pack (UOF5). This is DM-Mako-L2 and Greed-Mégane Winter Edition. I am very proud of Greed-Mégane WE as it is in my opinion the best of my maps at all levels and I have worked hard to achieve this! But I can reveal the release date of this pack. So, to follow…

I started another low poly (BSP) map since some months now which I didn’t found a name yet. This map is using the ‘Quake 4, PK02 texture set’ by Philip Klevestav. This is the official preview of the pack :

And also some work in progress pictures :

Stevie’s corner site,

I’ve made many changes under the 3D / Arts main section. You will find a completely revamped Artist page

In the UT3 world,

I note that despite several recent publications on BU / Epic forums, threads are almost empty of comments despite there are hundreds of views ? This is very discouraging for level designers Although we build maps for us at first, it is important to get the community support, otherwise it give absolutely nothing to release something on a forum if no one share their comment ! Players, it takes 10 seconds to write something constructive while we, level designers, take us months to build a quality map. So comment if you want to download other maps in the future ! Do not wait until the forums are empty before doing it

In the UDK world,

Although a little slow since the past months, very interesting projects continue to appear on the Epic and Polycount forums. I am amazed to see so many quality projects. This is great !

Filed under: Varia

A thing I’ve noticed about trailers is they very rarely show you the player failing. You can see why – a game wants to show itself as this vivid, exciting time, where you will endlessly succeed. But it certainly proves refreshing to see a game showing failure, as is evident in the trailer for elaborate first-person, gravity-themed puzzle game Attractio. And if you want to experience these failures for yourself, there’s a demo available.

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Windows/Mac/Linux: Adobe Lightroom might be the professional photographer's photo management tool of choice, but you can save $149 and download free and open source LightZone instead.

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Craig was rather impressed with our initial glimpses of Raindrop, a very pretty survival FPS which has been in slow development as a Source mod for many years. Now though it’s made the jump to Unity in order to materialise as a standalone project. The survival space is beginning to looks quite busy now, and Raindrop aims to stand apart by being “a surreal, environment driven, survival game that includes fully explorable levels with intuitive, complex puzzles.” An FPS puzzler and survival game? Does this see the FPS puzzle legacy of the past few years finally colliding with the survival genre?

Watch the video, because this one’s a beauty.
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Some of the best puzzle games excel because they use simple mechanics to give players the tools and space to hang themselves if they aren't careful. That's exactly what 10 does, and it does it with bright colors and basic math.

IOJOE's 10 is all about moving blocks in straight lines to combine them, adding the numbers on them together until you create a block which, as you can probably guess from the name, shows the number 10. Combine all the number blocks into 10 blocks and you've beaten the level. Once a 10 block has been created, it becomes sedentary, immobile yet able to be used as walls to direct other blocks where you wish them. If you're not paying attention, however, they can also make it impossible to win, as examples from my own playing show.

Later levels introduce new kinds of blocks, starting with sedentary blocks which are present from the first but including things like wormholes that suck your blocks in. The game has launched with 140 levels, but IOJOE intends to add more content with time.

The game is available for iOS and Android devices, and is currently free on iOS. This is a release promotion only valid for ten days, however, until October 20th. After that, the game will be $0.99 in both stores. 55 of the levels are also available in the browser version.

Secret Formulas. Hookshot swings. The Chains of Poverty. Chainsaw grindfest. Laser Command. Mixing colors for missiles. Harvest Escape. Heavymetal mowing.

These are some of my favorite things from Indie Speed Run 2.0 today.

Windows freeware Secret Formula by team IDK takes "secrecy" and "vines" and creates a swinging platformer, where you dodge lasers and missiles and swing over acid, all the while discovering secrets of your origin in the lab.

Monterrey ISR Jam's browser-based Laser Command takes Missile Command and "combines" color theory with "sunglasses," where you try to avoid bright lights and cross laser streams to shoot down invaders that don't match the primary colors you start out with.

AbstrAKTGames's Windows freeware The Chains of Poverty takes the variables of "chainsaw" and "poverty" to create a modern grind game, where your abject chainsaw performs for money, sawing certain objects and dodging others. You aim to furnish the chainsaw's condo (thereby earning power-ups to perform longer) and complete his longing for material objects.

Lastly, Team Neverpants combines "agriculture" and "engines" to make the browser-based, speed puzzler Harvest Escape. You only have so many seconds to decide where you and your farm animals should stand to avoid getting mowed down. The music and sound effects are of particular delight.

David asked me if I’d be up for a guest post picking out some of my favorite Pens from CodePen. A daunting task! There are so many! I managed to pick a few though that have blown me away over the past few months. If you just can’t get enough, I heart a bunch of Pens every day and reserve my triple hearted Pens for my absolute favorites.

Whale

I love the simplicity of this one. When you think about how it’s made, it’s just some shapes stacked on top of each other that follow the mouse around. But timing and the shading and responsiveness and everything makes it so satisfying to play with.

See the Pen Whale | SVG & JS by Diego Leme (@diegoleme) on CodePen

Avgrund

Hakim’s demos are always so perfect it’s hard to pick one. I think I like this one because of how practical it is. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a modal window accomplish the visual trompe l’oeil of depth so well.

See the Pen Avgrund by Hakim El Hattab (@hakimel) on CodePen

Tearable Cloth

I believe this is our most popular Pen ever on CodePen with going on 1.5 million views. And for good reason. It’s rather amazing how “real” interacting with it feels – with the gravity and the swaying and how the fabric folds up on itself and tears and falls to the floor and everything.

See the Pen Tear-able Cloth by suffick (@stuffit) on CodePen

Ribbon

Justin Windle also creates spine-tingling interactions. It is easy to feel good about the future of the web platform when you see stuff like this performing so smoothly.

See the Pen Ribbon by Justin Windle (@soulwire) on CodePen

Light Loader

I’m a sucker for particle demos, but especially when they have a practical twist to them like this progress bar indicator by Jack Rugile. I’d wait all day for a page to load with that baby.

See the Pen Light Loader by Jack Rugile (@jackrugile) on CodePen

Mechanical Grass

This Tim Holman Pen just immediately transports me to some other worldly place. Like a steampunk Alice in Wonderland or something.

See the Pen Mechanical Grass by Tim Holman (@tholman) on CodePen

Personal Page

I felt really good about CodePen when I saw this Pen by Tim Pietrusky:

I spend my online time chatting with the 4ae9b8 team. We found each other through CodePen. Hugo Giraudel, Mads Cordes (>:D), Sara Soueidan, Ana Tudor, Fabrice Weinberg & Joshua Hibbert. A really awesome group of people to spend the timewith. I ❤ you guys!

See the Pen “Tell us something about you” by Tim Pietrusky (@TimPietrusky) on CodePen

Twitter Button Concept

3D CSS effects can be simple, classy, and effective like Bennett Feely proves here.

See the Pen Twitter Button Concept by Erik Deiner by Bennett Feely (@bennettfeely) on CodePen

Triangle Optical Illusion

Ana Tudor is great at instructional programming, where she reveals how it is done through the visual demo itself. This tricky old optical illusion is one of my favorite fun examples of that.

See the Pen Now how does this happen? :) by Ana Tudor (@thebabydino) on CodePen

A huge thank you to Chris for sharing his favorite pens! It’s really great to get his take on the work being featured on his platform. I hope you enjoyed his favorites and hit CodePen to find a few of your own! I also hope you are inspired to add your own awesomeness to CodePen so he picks your pen next time!

Read the full article at: Chris Coyier’s Favorite CodePen Demos

» The World’s Simplest HTML5 WYSISYG Inline Editor

All it takes is contenteditable, execCommand, and 14 lines of JavaScript. (The demo uses Bootstrap and jQuery, but they can easily be done without.)

℅ @chriscoyier

I like Chess, but it can be a really slow game. Players are susceptible to analysis paralysis, creating long wait times between moves. Sven Anders Robbestad solves that problem with his real-time strategy game CHESS (all caps to distinguish it from the boardgame, I suppose), which he made for the 7-day RTS / Mini Ludum Dare 44 competition.

The board is set up like a normal chess match, and all of the pieces' movement and capture rstrictions apply. As soon as the game starts, you can click any piece and move it to any legal location. A cooldown timer appears behind each piece that's been moved, counting down to when it can next be clicked. You can make moves as quickly as your mouse and the cooldown timers allow.

It doesn't take long for things to get pretty crazy, and you have to think ahead while reacting to an ever-changing board in order to beat your computer opponent. The cooldown periods are a brilliant element; they allow for strategic play and keep the game from devolving into a clickfest. The real-time nature of CHESS makes checks and checkmates obsolete, so you have to actually capture the king to win. Occasionally this can make the endgame a duel between lonely kings, but even these are fun and tactical.

You can play CHESS online in your browser. The current build is an open beta release, so the game's still undergoing some polish. In particular, the developer is working on improving the AI. Tweet the developer with any suggestions or bug reports at @svenardocom.

Το πρώτο στον κόσμο «έξυπνο» κινητό τηλέφωνο που χρησιμοποιεί το λειτουργικό σύστημα Firefox της Mozilla κυκλοφόρησε στην Ισπανία. Πρόκειται για τη συσκευή ZTE Open που κατασκευάζει η ομώνυμη κινεζική εταιρία και το οποίο διατίθεται στην αγορά από τη μεγάλη ισπανική εταιρία τηλεπικοινωνιών Telefonica.

Ακολουθήστε μας στο Twitter για άμεση και πλούσια ενημέρωση!

Over the weekend, the crew at Tom's Hardware was busy testing the recently-released Firefox 22 using the usual bevy of benchmarks. This roundup included Chrome 27, Firefox 22, IE10, and Opera 12, along with the new Chromium-based build of Opera Next (alos known as Opera 15).