Here's a sneak peek of what's likely to be my next game project - Marren Kane. This time I'll be working with a small group of long time comic collaborators; Tony Suleri, Adam Grose and judgephuz

More details will follow soon!

(Artwork by Tony Suleri)

<img src="http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2877/9200350988_be335e1fd3_c.jpg" border="0" />

<img src="http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2813/9200354970_93f6207fdc_c.jpg" border="0" />

<img src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3808/9200358290_8d2fffb22e_c.jpg" border="0" />

judgephuz

Took me long enough to notice your art on here. Marvellous stuff, as always. Just got a few loose ends to tie up on Board Horde, then I'll be free to sink my teeth into some new projects.

mineet

Just thought I'd mention the King Of Dragon Pass game is currently down to $1.49 in the gog summer sale for the next 24 hours (if you have a PayPal account you can buy it that way). It seems a very good place to pick up bargains at the moment as there's lots of sales going on. You could probably find many other trading games there if you hunt around.

Pirates, as mentioned by damainman is an absolute classic. I have that in so many forms (including ipad, PC, and Amiga 500). Settlers is a good choice too, I always loved that one (could never get into patrician though).

mineet

That's the best thing about making games. You get to play them for eight hours, and pretend you're doing research...

MrFrettz

I'm not sure if Armor Games accept html5 games (they only seem to mention flash on the site). The other three are definitely good places, though demos are often scored low just for being demos.

It's probably also worth trying Clay.io (which gives you access to many useful features, including ads, analytics, ability to push the game with ease to other sites), and Facebook. I'm currently in the process of testing out various sites with my own game, so I'll be sure to let you know if I find any other good places.

Looking more and more stunning every time you show it. I think the samurai hero really helps ground the story, and give you a solid base to work from.

Keep up the mighty fine work!

mineet

Those are all good games to look to for inspiration. I would also suggest looking into King Of Dragon Pass, for a different approach to trading/storytelling (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_of_Dragon_Pass). It's quite an old game, but has recently been revamped for ipad (and can also be bought for cheap on PC from gog.com).

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I'll be sure to keep updating my forum entry with any other useful findings. I'm hoping to tackle Kongregate and Market Js at the weekend, and also approach a few review sites to see if that helps push the viewing figures up a bit.

So far, according to the Clay.io viewing figures, Board Horde has had 1,200 views (many of which were probably from me as I tested the game out) and has made a whole 49 cents from advertising! Now, I'm no expert on the exchange rate, but I reckon that translates into about three and a half billion pounds.

More updates soon.

mineet

Thanks for sharing this devlog. I was wondering what you've been busy cooking up.

Although its not an easy choice of genre to start with (lots of statistics likely to be involved, and not so many preset behaviours, etc) sometimes you just have to go with the idea you're most passionate about. I knew absolutely nothing when I started my board horde game, and just tackled it one problem at a time.

I would highly recommend getting to grips with Functions, Families and Groups as these will cut your events down massively and keep your project easy to manage. Also try to set aside a group/function for Debugging and cheats as it will save you a lot of time in the long run (I wasted many an hour testing my own game and hoping the heroes would eventually collect the latest potion I was trying to test, when if I'd just put a key press in from an early stage that would instantly changed it to the right potion it would've been so much quicker!).

It's also a good idea to decide what screen size your going to go for quite early on (something fairly universal) and whether you're building the the game for desktop, or mobile as well.

Anyway, you were very supportive of my project and many other people's projects, so I'm sure there will be plenty of people happy to help out if the need arises. Just give me a yell if you get stuck.

seothen

Best of luck with your comic project. I come from a comic art/writing background myself, so I'll be watching how it develops with interest.

The biggest problem you're likely to run into is memory issues, as lots of full sized images can cause slowdown and other problems. Do plenty of tests, experiment with compression techniques and reuse images in a creative way when possible.