The Dreamsong (2015) was made using the tileset from Below the Root, with a few modifications and some original art.
I grew up with Space Invaders, Asteroids & Pac-Man at the grocery store, next to the gumball machines. Birthday parties in arcades. Tron & Dig Dug near the hotel pool.
Atari and the Apple IIe
Around 1982 my parents got us an Atari 2600 clone for Christmas. It came with Pitfall, which was like playing Indiana Jones. In 1984 we got an Apple IIe. Older school kids gave me copies of Castle Wolfenstein, Conan & Loderunner. These early games were almost always made by one or two people. Jordan Mechner made Karateka and Prince of Persia on an Apple IIe, and famously documented those early days of computing in his journals.
Haunted-house pixel art
In 1985 I made my first computer graphics. I drew a haunted house on graph paper and typed the coordinates into a BASIC program. That simple X,Y grid made sense to me as a kid, like the patterns my mom used for cross-stitch (I still like the limitations of pixel art). The next step was to animate the graphics, which led to making games.
Programming games
I haven’t made a Stardew Valley, but I have finished a few small projects. Some of these games are JavaScript (ImpactJS) remakes originally programmed in Microsoft QuickBasic on a Zenith 8088 PC, and on the Apple IIe using ProDOS and the Beagle Compiler from 1988-1992. The really old “games” in Applesoft BASIC were not always finished or playable (too slow), but I put them here to archive what I did back in the 80s, when I was just a kid, and when it was all so new and exciting for everyone.
The Dreamsong is my most complete and complex game. It’s a new (2015) game done in the style of Below the Root. In true indie-gamer fashion, it was never officially completed or released, but I consider it done because it is playable in a browser right now.
Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum
Ludum Dare 33 game jam entry
THEME: You Are The Monster —
You play the giant and try to stop Jack from planting beanstalks
and stealing the golden goose.
Pâques en folie
You play the Easter Bunny who must distribute eggs equally to kids. When a new kid shows up, try to get him eggs and prevent the others from getting more than their share.
Élections Québec 2014
Player guides political leader to touch party logo (and avoid those of other parties), but identity keeps changing.
Sauterelles
During the 2012 student tuition-fee protest, grasshoppers were released in the HEC École de gestion Montréal. Exterminate them before they multiply out of control.
Mountain Bike
Player races against two computer opponents. Made for the 2012 Olympics
Quexlor: Lands of Fate
A retro action RPG built by a community using the iPhone Game Kit. I made most of the levels using tilesets with Tiled, and wrote & recorded the music.
To Tame A Land
Jump & run platformer. Player is a knight who explores underground dungeon, killing creatues and gathering potions. Original version had a built-in level editor.
The Sacred Lamps
1990 Apple IIe - remade in JavaScript in 2012
Diving for Dollars
Player dives to collect treasure, while avoiding sea creatures and running out of air.
Balloon Ride Rescue
Applesoft BASIC game that allowed you to explore several screens. A bird obstacle showed up randomly. In the final version (source code is lost), you would explore until a screen randomly showed a crescent moon with a girl waiting for rescue.
Search for Atlantis
Submarine was drawn using shape tables, a technique that saved a vector drawing into memory. A new background image was loaded into memory when the sub came to the edge of the screen.
Seaweedman’s Adventure
Attempt to create a character that could throw a whip or lasso.
Jungle Jack
Attempt to make a character walk, run, jump, crawl, climb and shoot. Another Indiana Jones/Jungle Hunt/Pitfall inspired game.
Archiologist (sic)
Should be Archeologist, but I was just a kid. Inspired by the rope bridge scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Moonbase Infestation
Made after seeing Aliens. There's a guy with a gun and a jetpack, and an alien. But it’s mostly just drawings of levels.
Army
I think this was going to be an obstacle course for basic training, but it turned into a guy doing the high jump into a small pool of water.
Castle - Wizard Bob
Castle was plotted on graph paper, and coordinates typed in by hand. A filename called Wizard Bob has a wizard that can shoot a lightning bolt. Castle and Wizard Bob were combined. An early version had a bug that caused the lightning bolt to spin and leave a trail.
Quad Run
Made one evening after watching quad racing on a sports channel, right after Tour of Duty. Uses same collision detection as Flame Jump.
Flame Jump
Early attempt at collision detection
Seek and Destroy
Middle school kids having fun with computers in 1987. Uses same controls as Thor & Vulture.
Thor & Vulture
Keeping sprites tiny due to slow redraw of uncompiled code running on a 1 Mhz machine. Thor could throw his hammer, Vulture would try to run into Thor.
Spiderman
Trying to make a character swing from a building. I wanted to do this in other Pitfall-type games too, but never figured it out even with the help of teachers.
Peeblo Williams
Can’t remember what this was about.
Space Lander
Variation of the many Moon Lander type games at the time. I'm not sure how original this was. It may have been done at school.