My son and I have been playing games for years, but he’s finally old enough to have learned a little coding. Using GameMaker 2, and a ton of outdated tutorials, a lot of trial-and-error, and probably too many pixels, we created our very first game together: Progress Bar Wars. It’s a silly “time waster” browser game where you travel through time — computer history, in fact — trying to find the correct letter key that will advance the progress bar (or punch card, wave form, LED, etc.) and get you to the next era.
It’s a little “heavy” in that it takes a minute to load due to the large PNG’s we created, and may take a minute to load if you’re on a crappy connection. Also, it is ONLY for full computers — not just iPads as Apple would have you believe. No mobile phones, either. You must have a keyboard!
This was a fun introduction to game design and production, and we’re happy to have it wrapped so we can start building some “real” games in the near future. More news on that in the coming months.
Also, to help us kick things off be sure to check out Kitten Stuff Done on September 9, when we’ll launch our first real product: A productivity “game” featuring the artwork of over a dozen artists. Part of the proceeds will go to help cat rescue groups, and we think it’ll help keep you motivated and productive every day. Think Magic: The Gathering meets David Allen’s Getting Things Done.
Anyway, here’s Progress Bar Wars for your enjoyment! We tested it in Chrome, Safari, and Firefox on Macs and PC’s, but it’s likely you may have issues on your WebTV running IE3 from 1999. Buy a computer!