lorenhgames

[lorenhgames]

Reblogging to say that this is confirmed to be working. Thanks to everyone who downloaded to help test it out! 

Downloadable Stand-Alone Puzzlestuck and DudeQuest clients

I bookmarked some time this winter break to try and figure out if I could find a way to make my Flash games playable without a browser (or internet connection). It was exactly as difficult as I thought it would be, but I think we MAY have success. 

In this dropbox folder [LINK] you’ll find EXE files to run both games, as well as a separate zip with the SWF and instructions on how to run it without a browser if you are on Mac or Linux, or don’t want to run an EXE on Windows. 

I’ll need some help from you guys - if you download and use these clients, let me know if they work (or don’t). Once I get some thumbs up, I’ll update the website with the link as well. 

RIP Flash, you nightmare disaster, and thanks to everyone who wrote in their support over the last year. It’s been a tough time at work and personal projects have been sidelined more than I want, but I’m still chugging along and am excited to show what I have been working on soon. 

[lorenhgames]

Downloadable Stand-Alone Puzzlestuck and DudeQuest clients

I bookmarked some time this winter break to try and figure out if I could find a way to make my Flash games playable without a browser (or internet connection). It was exactly as difficult as I thought it would be, but I think we MAY have success. 

In this dropbox folder [LINK] you’ll find EXE files to run both games, as well as a separate zip with the SWF and instructions on how to run it without a browser if you are on Mac or Linux, or don’t want to run an EXE on Windows. 

I’ll need some help from you guys - if you download and use these clients, let me know if they work (or don’t). Once I get some thumbs up, I’ll update the website with the link as well. 

RIP Flash, you nightmare disaster, and thanks to everyone who wrote in their support over the last year. It’s been a tough time at work and personal projects have been sidelined more than I want, but I’m still chugging along and am excited to show what I have been working on soon. 

[lorenhgames]

hello, I really liked playing Puzzlestuck and wanted to replay it but since Adobe Flash shut down it's not possible anymore, is there a way you can release it as a downloadable game or something similar? I don't know anything about programing really and was just wondering if there was a way we could play it again... thank you for your time and inredible game

I’m super sad about this and it’s definitely on my mind. I have a few different ideas of how to keep the game playable I want to explore but work has eaten up all my spare time for a while now so I haven’t had too much of a chance to dig in.

I’ll definitely post if I figure something out and am happy to hear suggestions as well!

[lorenhgames]

I loved the epilogues and this articulates why way better than I ever could on my own.

Metanarrative and Catharsis

Okay I don’t do a whole lot of anything on this site but I have thoughts and I just want to share them. Seriously, as you can see from my blog, I post on here almost never, so if I forget to tag things or don’t format stuff how you usually see, sorry!

A few up-front disclaimers, of sorts:

(1) I’m an academic and this is just forever how I’ll engage with texts, so anyone who wants to come tell me to chill or that it’s all meaningless can have that opinion elsewhere, because engaging with texts as important cultural artifacts and reading critically is my wheelhouse and I both like it and won’t stop.

(2) I have generally positive feelings about the epilogues, so if you’re not gonna even consider a positive outlook because you hated them so much, don’t bother reading! But I think if you didn’t like them and are interested in thinking through the meta stuff, you’d probably still find some stuff below worthwhile.

(3) I read Meat first, and have not reread anything. This is all based on a single read-through of Meat then Candy, and I’m sure it will be lacking some insights and nuances that could only come from rereading, or having read Candy first. This isn’t a dissertation! It’s just some thoughts I’ve been collecting about the epilogues.

To me, the epilogues are two things: first, a catharsis; second, a story. In that order.

Keep reading

[lorenhgames]

Weekend reblog!

A while ago I built a tool for a friend to help him learn how to use spreadsheets using game design as context. Since then a few folks have asked for similar advice so I decided to clean it up and share it publicly. It’s a fully interactive series of short exercises that walk you from “what is a cell?” through more complex stuff like VLOOKUPs and Filters.

Hope this is useful to some folks! Please feel free to use or share if you’d like, or ask me if you have any questions. 

[lorenhgames]

A while ago I built a tool for a friend to help him learn how to use spreadsheets using game design as context. Since then a few folks have asked for similar advice so I decided to clean it up and share it publicly. It's a fully interactive series of short exercises that walk you from "what is a cell?" through more complex stuff like VLOOKUPs and Filters.

Hope this is useful to some folks! Please feel free to use or share if you'd like, or ask me if you have any questions. 

[lorenhgames]

Looking for artists! (paid)

Hey folks, I’m gearing up for my next project and I’m on the prowl for one or more artists to work with!

The Game: My next game is an incremental RPG for mobile devices. It’s heavily inspired by the Dark Tower series, as a sort of western post-apocalyptic fantasy with time travel and other worlds and all that jazz.

The actual gameplay is largely UI-based - think “A Dark Room” or “Candy Box 2″ but with graphics and a scope blown way out of proportion because that’s how I roll, I guess.

What I Need: Because this is a UI-based game, I DON’T need things like walk sprites, tiles, etc. Instead, I’m going to need background art, character art, monster/enemy art, and a buttload of icons. 

For a quick and easy example of the kind of art I’ll need, check out my first RPG, Dudequest. This project will be pretty different in terms of mechanics and setting, but the art needs are relatively similar (vs say a game like Undertale). 

Who Am I: I’m a professional designer who makes small games on the side for fun. All of my games are free, as this is just my hobby. I always finish my projects, but sometimes they take a while. You can see my hobby work at http://lorenhernandez.com.

All art would be paid, either at an hourly rate or a flat rate depending on what folks are comfortable with. 

Right now, my art needs are not immediate. If you think you’ll have time some time in the next year or so and would be interested in knowing more, please contact me lorenhgames at gmail. If you think you might know someone who might be interested, please let them know as well or reblog this post to help me reach more folks.

Thank you!

[lorenhgames]

I am laughing so hard oh my god clickhole

[lorenhgames]

I was wondering if it would be okay to use some of your awesome non-canon Denizens in fanfic?

Absolutely, that would be so cool!! Please send me a link if you write anything - I love your other work so much :D

[lorenhgames]

five patterns of thinking

I first read about these over 15 years ago in Piers Anthony’s novel On A Pale Horse, borrowed from my dad. In the books, the incarnation of Nature uses 5 matchsticks to form an analogy for the way we think. Even though I was pretty young, this stuck with me for a long time and I still think about it regularly. 

Quoted or paraphrased from the novel:

Anyways, I thought these were pretty cool when I first read about them and I still find them useful to revisit when I’m stuck in a rut. 

[lorenhgames]

So this is the full puzzlestuck spreadsheet/design document, for those of you who were curious. It’s a bit of a mess.. 

¯_(ツ)_/¯ 

In addition to the game tuning and math, I found some fun stuff in my brainstorm notes I had forgotten about. At some point, I considered a bunch of weird ideas for this game including:

Originally, you didn’t do damage when matching colors - only skulls. That SUCKED. 

Earning Boondollars from defeating enemies, and using those to buy your characters (instead of just getting them when you beat them)

Earning chests with coins / exp / some other kind of resource when you do a 4- or a 5-gem match. WTF. So complicated, why??

Levels where you fight multiple enemies at the same time (this ended up being just too time consuming to write, and I didn’t have great content for it either)

Passive leader abilities a la PAD. nty, this game is complicated enough.

So much midnight crew. Unfortunately, I was never able to figure out a way to make them work that didn’t totally sideline all of the rest of the characters, or didn’t like triple the scope of the game.

It’s fun to see what made it through to the final iteration and what didn’t. The entire Green Moon was a last minute addition, though it ended up being my favorite part of the whole game.

[lorenhgames]

i guess the weird thing about personal growth is that it can turn you into something that you are not, and that’s a fucking strange feeling no matter how bad you want it

[lorenhgames]

'supdate

Sup folks, sorry it’s been quiet. between holidays and politics it’s been a low energy couple of months but looking forward to getting back into the swing of things. 

Hit a milestone earlier this week in Puzzlestuck: 20,000 players and over 80k sessions! That’s a ton of people :O huge thanks to everyone who’s played!

One thing I am wondering is, would anyone be interested in the nuts and bolts of the design or development of puzzlestuck (or other titles)? If y’all want, I’d be happy to answer questions, share code or spreadsheet work, etc.

Anyways, if there’s anything you’d like to see, let me know!

[lorenhgames]

This is so cool!!! I'm super impressed.

Puzzlestuck is officially released!!

You can play it at: www.lorenhernandez.com/puzzlestuck! 

For newcomers, Puzzlestuck is a free Homestuck Puzzle RPG that you play in your browser. It’s inspired by Puzzle Quest and Puzzle & Dragons. Thank you to everyone who’s followed me on this journey! 

And HUGE thanks to all of the artists who gave me permission to use their artwork - this game would literally not exist without you.

This project was so much fun to work on, and I hope you all enjoy the game! 

[lorenhgames]

Will the Alphaverse Guardians and the Pre-Scratch trolls ever be added into the game by any chance? (Maybe the Alpha Kids' sprites too?)

Probably not :) The game is basically complete as I envisioned it. Any additions would have to basically be like full game expansions, and that’s more time than I’m interested in investing right now (probably 4-8 months of extra work).

Alpha sprites were all void (unprototyped) so they would be very boring and would be stuck at max LV 10 with no ability! 

Dancestors would also be quite boring - they are, after all, terrible fighters. They’re also all dead and are, at least in canon, ‘stuck’ within their own personal character progression as well - they literally can’t move forward or grow as people (there are a couple exceptions, but still). So they would be exceptionally weak characters and probably wouldn’t evolve. 

The only characters I really wish I could have added were the Midnight Crew... but maybe that’ll just need to wait for another game :)

[lorenhgames]

Do I have your permission to download and edit Puzzlestuck to add achievements, the Dancestors, and other things? (since you've expressed disinterest in doing those things)

I’d appreciate it if you sent me an email, an anon ask isn’t really the best place to have this conversation! If there’s strong interest in continuing the project, I’d be happy to talk about what would be involved in making it open source or opening things up to other developers :)

EDIT: To make this clear, please do NOT do this without clearing it with me first. The fact that I consider the game to be finished does not tacitly grant anyone permission to edit it. Did not think this needed to be spelled out but there we go ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[lorenhgames]

Hall of Fame update: we’ve hit 100 people! I added anyone who messaged me before I got home from work today. AND, I’ve set up an automated Hall of Fame so that you guys can add yourselves! Just use this form to make an entry, and you can view all the entries in this spreadsheet. Please ignore the test entries haha. Thanks to the anon who suggested this! 

Answers to a bunch of anon questions under the cut, including questions about updates, EXP bonuses, and other random stuff. Don’t see your question? It’s probably already answered in the FAQ. 

I would have no idea how to do this, but if someone else makes a wiki entry (is that even allowed?) I’d be happy to assist in providing info for it!

Sure thing, here it is. Credit to @roachpatrol for the awesome artwork.

You only need wifi to download the initial game and data! That said, this is something a lot of folks have expressed interest in. I’m not sure how to do this as all the game data is in external files unfortunately, but I can look into it.

The above asks, plus a dozen more in my inbox, all want to know if the game will be available on mobile and if I will be adding new characters or content. 

The answer is no to both of these, and here’s why: This game is old. I finished it over a year ago, but wasn’t able to post it immediately. I actually made my first mobile game between then and now. Flash is an outdated technology, and it would take me months of boring work to port this game to mobile. I do this for fun, and that’s just... not fun :( Making updates for this game feels futile for a similar reason. If I were to add new content, I would want to do it right - that means new zones, new mechanics, new systems. And this sounds cool in theory, but it would require me to reopen an old project and I know that my heart just wouldn’t be in it. I’d probably stall out, nothing would ship, and we’d be in the same boat except I’d be really guilty and unhappy.

Instead, I’m going to focus my energy on making new games. They’ll probably be on mobile, and made with newer technology. I hope you guys will stick with me and be around to see that happen. And who knows, maybe there’s more fangames in my future. We’ll just have to find out.

Giving this one special attention because everyone wants Dancestors. Which I get, they’re fun characters. They’re not in the game because a) they’re not fighters, literally this is spelled out in canon, and b) aside from Meenah, they have no meaningful character arc or development to speak of. That was the entire point of their existence - they were stuck, unable to move forward. They’d all have 1 HP, 1 ATK, and be stuck at LV 1 forever.

Sorry folks but it just doesn’t make sense for this game! Even though I would love to spend a few hours beating Cronus up. 

Also, the way you asked that is totally rude, and you know it :( :( :( I’m a person, not a machine.

Sure. But I won’t tell you who to use :)

Group Synergy:  - Sprites - Beta Kids - Alpha Kids - Beta Trolls - Ancestors - Guardians

Pair Bonuses: - Scourge Sisters - Team Charge - Meowrails - Catnip - Rap Battle (Requires 4 people) - Crockercorp - Heretic (Signless + crew) - Prankster - Pir8tes - Engineighr

This is horrible, but I laughed. 

And that’s all. Huge huge thanks to everyone who wrote in saying nice things about the game. Also lots of love to the folks on the puzzlestuck tag, and to the folks out there sharing the game. Your kind words make all of the work totally worth it. Thank you!