Shush -- The Game

Now with a link to the freebie file folder that comes with my Broadband account -- underneath the links to my books on the right. Some screenshots in the posts below. God knows what would happen if people actually downloaded it in any numbers. I don't know why, as it is a freestanding .exe (name of shush85.exe), but it downloads as a document file. Rename it once downloaded as Shush.exe and it should be ready to go.

So it is a falling blocks arcade puzzle game. I have tried to put some novelty into the control scheme, and some personality in the game as a whole, but its lineage is clear. Hello Tetris, I see you poking your head out there. It has sequential difficulty that isn't yet refined. What it needs is user testing. The plan is that I present a wide open version to my students who will then be able to see (and access) the process of game balancing and what it means to twitch variables, redraw the basic levels and add components. Very year one undergraduate and very introductory. If it doesn't work I will throw it away and rethink, or choose some other middleware. I might even have to see if I can still write proper lines of code.

The second year students get their hands dirty with Unreal 2004 and Source (and I really must try and get playable builds online of the projects from this year, or at least get some gameplay video together), but I think they could have benefitted from more than just Flash and Maya projects, as well as paper design exercises, at an earlier point.

There is a level skip cheat built in so that you can see most of the game without playing from scratch. Hit the Space Bar to go to the next screen. When there are nine coloured worms at the top, three dark grey ones hammering down and the timer bar is zipping at a fair old rate you have seen all there is to see and the game is asking you politely to pack it in.