Robots Love Ice Cream is a game that combines a lot of the elements of Space Invaders, Missile Command, Super Stardust HD, and many other titles. I’ve tried to channel my childhood spent falling in love with video games into each and every decision I’ve made on this game. It’s been a blast and I’ve really got to spend a ton of time in the Unity engine learning more and more every day.

We aren’t ready to show our latest progress on the game but for more information about the project, here are some news outlets that have covered the game title during our successful Kickstarter effort, where we raised $18950 in 30 days!
Our Kickstarter Page
Wired.com – Geek Dad
IGN Wireless
Destructoid
Boing Boing
Indie Games Channel

You can follow the game’s progress on the Addo Games company blog, http://www.addogames.com

About the project

The assignment was to develop the side-scrolling gameplay portions of a “trans-media” experience for The Electric Company, a timeless and popular kid’s program on PBS. Working for Primal Screen, I filled the role of Flash developer as an independent contractor for a period of seven months. After initial research, we used the World Construction Kit. This proved to be a great choice as we were able to interactively layout our levels without the need to build our own level editor from scratch. This choice enabled us to meet our deadlines and still focus on creating unique content and engaging game systems. The project was developed in the Actionscript 3 (AS3) language and we employed heavily the use of the Flash IDE and it’s JSFL Tools, and Flash Builder.

Key features for the game’s implementation and other notes include:

• Custom Bitmap caching system – Allowed design team to work in vector format and still get many of the performance benefits afforded to a Bitmap based system
• Trigger System – Created a system that allowed us to create interactions between components (e.g. a key opens a door, a remote turns off a device) that helped to enrich and connect the world as a more whole experience
• Custom Cinematic Camera System – Using the Trigger system, the game could pause and move the game camera across the level in order to highlight and interact with objects in other areas of the game level. This was great for giving overviews and better context to the game experience.
• Character caching system – Utilized and modified existing Flash API to take a completely custom character with more than 100 frames of animation, custom accessories, colors, etc. and render it to a sequence of flat images for fast drawing to the screen.
• Success! – The experience that I was able to help create and shape with the creative power of Primal Screen proved to be an extremely successful campaign. See the stats for yourself!

About the project

Using provided documentation and assets, I developed a game inspired by the on the classic Dig-Dug game franchise by Namco. Game was programmed in Actionscript 3 and utilized a slightly modified Pixel Blitz game engine. The player’s goal was to dig into the group and find a buried space ship piece to repair his ship. While doing so, the player had to negotiate and overcome enemies that were seeking to “exhaust” the player in his efforts.

Key features for the game’s implementation include:

• Unique grid system that the player and enemies are allowed to move on. There’s a buffer present in between each horizontal row and each vertical row. This allows the player and enemies to move in a structured fashion without being able to freely carve out the entire space. This result is the ability for the player to, like the original Dig-Dug, carve out a network of tunnels that are used a game design mechanic to provide the player with escape routes and time to evade pursuing enemy monsters.
• Pathfinding and AI – Developed system that respects the player’s control and dictation of the movable space in the game. The enemy monsters are, for the large part of the game, only allowed to move within the network of tunnels the player has created. The enemies were programmed with a degree of “aggresiveness” and a “lack of patience” that encouraged them to reassess their route. After certain intervals, the enemies sped up, providing a heightened sense of urgency for the player to plan

About the project

In the spring of 2008, I developed this 70% functional clone of the popular facebook (and more recently iPhone) game Bumper Stars. I made the game clone to serve as an example of my abilities and development efficiencies given a specific goal. I created this clone within the span of four days. I then was able to present it to the original developers as a testament to my abilities. It turned out we both used the same resource for the logic that dictates the ball and bumper physics.

Bumper Stars is © Large Animal Games