loren h games

I bookmarked some time this winter break to try and figure out if I could find a way to make my Flash games playable without a browser (or internet connection). It was exactly as difficult as I thought it would be, but I think we MAY have success. 

In this dropbox folder [LINK] you’ll find EXE files to run both games, as well as a separate zip with the SWF and instructions on how to run it without a browser if you are on Mac or Linux, or don’t want to run an EXE on Windows. 

I’ll need some help from you guys - if you download and use these clients, let me know if they work (or don’t). Once I get some thumbs up, I’ll update the website with the link as well. 

I’m super sad about this and it’s definitely on my mind. I have a few different ideas of how to keep the game playable I want to explore but work has eaten up all my spare time for a while now so I haven’t had too much of a chance to dig in.

A while ago I built a tool for a friend to help him learn how to use spreadsheets using game design as context. Since then a few folks have asked for similar advice so I decided to clean it up and share it publicly. It's a fully interactive series of short exercises that walk you from "what is a cell?" through more complex stuff like VLOOKUPs and Filters.

Hey folks, I’m gearing up for my next project and I’m on the prowl for one or more artists to work with!

The Game: My next game is an incremental RPG for mobile devices. It’s heavily inspired by the Dark Tower series, as a sort of western post-apocalyptic fantasy with time travel and other worlds and all that jazz.

The actual gameplay is largely UI-based - think “A Dark Room” or “Candy Box 2″ but with graphics and a scope blown way out of proportion because that’s how I roll, I guess.

What I Need: Because this is a UI-based game, I DON’T need things like walk sprites, tiles, etc. Instead, I’m going to need background art, character art, monster/enemy art, and a buttload of icons. 

For a quick and easy example of the kind of art I’ll need, check out my first RPG, Dudequest. This project will be pretty different in terms of mechanics and setting, but the art needs are relatively similar (vs say a game like Undertale). 

Who Am I: I’m a professional designer who makes small games on the side for fun. All of my games are free, as this is just my hobby. I always finish my projects, but sometimes they take a while. You can see my hobby work at http://lorenhernandez.com.

All art would be paid, either at an hourly rate or a flat rate depending on what folks are comfortable with. 

Right now, my art needs are not immediate. If you think you’ll have time some time in the next year or so and would be interested in knowing more, please contact me lorenhgames at gmail. If you think you might know someone who might be interested, please let them know as well or reblog this post to help me reach more folks.

I first read about these over 15 years ago in Piers Anthony’s novel On A Pale Horse, borrowed from my dad. In the books, the incarnation of Nature uses 5 matchsticks to form an analogy for the way we think. Even though I was pretty young, this stuck with me for a long time and I still think about it regularly. 

Quoted or paraphrased from the novel:

So this is the full puzzlestuck spreadsheet/design document, for those of you who were curious. It’s a bit of a mess.. 

¯_(ツ)_/¯ 

In addition to the game tuning and math, I found some fun stuff in my brainstorm notes I had forgotten about. At some point, I considered a bunch of weird ideas for this game including:

Originally, you didn’t do damage when matching colors - only skulls. That SUCKED. 

Earning Boondollars from defeating enemies, and using those to buy your characters (instead of just getting them when you beat them)

Earning chests with coins / exp / some other kind of resource when you do a 4- or a 5-gem match. WTF. So complicated, why??

Levels where you fight multiple enemies at the same time (this ended up being just too time consuming to write, and I didn’t have great content for it either)

Passive leader abilities a la PAD. nty, this game is complicated enough.

So much midnight crew. Unfortunately, I was never able to figure out a way to make them work that didn’t totally sideline all of the rest of the characters, or didn’t like triple the scope of the game.

Sup folks, sorry it’s been quiet. between holidays and politics it’s been a low energy couple of months but looking forward to getting back into the swing of things. 

Hit a milestone earlier this week in Puzzlestuck: 20,000 players and over 80k sessions! That’s a ton of people :O huge thanks to everyone who’s played!

One thing I am wondering is, would anyone be interested in the nuts and bolts of the design or development of puzzlestuck (or other titles)? If y’all want, I’d be happy to answer questions, share code or spreadsheet work, etc.

Probably not :) The game is basically complete as I envisioned it. Any additions would have to basically be like full game expansions, and that’s more time than I’m interested in investing right now (probably 4-8 months of extra work).

Alpha sprites were all void (unprototyped) so they would be very boring and would be stuck at max LV 10 with no ability! 

Dancestors would also be quite boring - they are, after all, terrible fighters. They’re also all dead and are, at least in canon, ‘stuck’ within their own personal character progression as well - they literally can’t move forward or grow as people (there are a couple exceptions, but still). So they would be exceptionally weak characters and probably wouldn’t evolve. 

I’d appreciate it if you sent me an email, an anon ask isn’t really the best place to have this conversation! If there’s strong interest in continuing the project, I’d be happy to talk about what would be involved in making it open source or opening things up to other developers :)

Hall of Fame update: we’ve hit 100 people! I added anyone who messaged me before I got home from work today. AND, I’ve set up an automated Hall of Fame so that you guys can add yourselves! Just use this form to make an entry, and you can view all the entries in this spreadsheet. Please ignore the test entries haha. Thanks to the anon who suggested this! 

Answers to a bunch of anon questions under the cut, including questions about updates, EXP bonuses, and other random stuff. Don’t see your question? It’s probably already answered in the FAQ.