What’s this!? Christmas in September? That’s right, this month’s game is Christmas themed since Walt Disney World’s holiday bookings start around this time of year. This month’s Backstage pass game is a take on the classic Three-card Monte. Keep your eye on the acorn as the mistletoe shuffles across the screen. The rounds get successively harder, so put your glasses on!

Once again, make sure you sign up for a free My Disney Vacation account before you play.

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I hit up Kongregate for a quick peek at what’s out (always checking out the latest platformers). When I was there, I stumbled on I wish I were the Moon (actually, it wasn’t much of a stumble since it was on the front page). I actually completed the whole game, which is rare for me. If you play it, you’ll see it’s not that hard. There was something unique about it that caught my attention, so I checked out the author’s website. His name is Daniel Benmurgui, an indie Flash developer that focuses on gameplay experimentation.

Daniel’s work captivated me moreso than just about anything I’ve seen in quite some time. It stands out among the barrage of Flash garbage, not because it is deeper, longer, or more complicated; in fact, I think it’s the opposite. I think I enjoy his work so much because it’s so simple. He explains this philosophy a bit in this particular post.

I think the game that best captures his work is The Trials.

I’m not sure how I’m going to process this stuff yet… but I think his work will be an inspiration, especially for all the Disney games I work on.

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I’ve finally made the “Big Switch”. No I don’t mean from PC to Apple*, I mean from APE to Box2D. My flash sidescroller engine is almost back where to where I left off in APE, but with a few great improvements:

• Currently 60FPS in the browser, on my 3-year old PC, with as many characters as you’d need. 
• Load level image assets at any time, meaning you can load all the images at the beginning of the game, or individually before each level starts (great for long and/or many levels).
• Image caching, meaning if you’ve already loaded an animation from one level, you won’t load it again in the next.
• Level objects can (but don’t have to) have angular velocity. This means you can have game assets that tumble realistically, such as crates, chairs, and vehicles.
• Complex shapes. No more ties to the rectangle. Combine shapes, create odd-shaped polygons, circles, and more!
• Simpler setup. Create a Flash sidescroller in under 10 lines of code!

Stay tuned for more… 

*this old PC won’t die

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