Friday, June 19, 2009

New Pieces: Spaceman, World Hand, Citizens, Small Square and more.

It's new pieces time. Whee! And most of them are free. Double whee! :-D

Spaceman (425 Pips): It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's a spaceman! With a blaster. Completely keyboard controlled, this new player piece shoots straight ahead in front of him.




World Hand: A hand that only grabs world (environment) pieces. Perfect for those Spearmen games, you can't even cheat!





Citizen Berserker, Moon Child, Hunter and Rocket Girl: Citizens, Unite! Or should I say Non Player Characters? Populate your games with citizens. Make them walk around or stand still. Careful though, they are vulnerable.

Inner Quarter Circle: It's curvy, on the inside.






Small Treasure: Tiny but so shiny!






Small Square: A small square to build world for those smaller player characters





Small Triangle: A small triangle, to go with the small square.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Contest Winners: "Orange Darkness" by Avalon and "Moon Child's Day" by Toast

Congratulations to our contest winners!

General:
Congratulations to Toast for winning the General category with his platformer game, Moon Child's Day. An average day for Moon Child? I think not.



Premium:
Congratulations to Avalon for winning the Premium category with his game, Orange Darkness, a platformer. Restore balance between Night and Day in this eerie dark (and orange) world.



Play through all the recent hottest games or make your own games.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

New Pieces: Acrobat, Swing, Cart, Hanging Bar and Arial Text

OMG, OMG! It's new pieces! And my guess is... you're going to love them. :-D

Acrobat - 510 Pips: Straight from the circus, I present to you: ACROBAT! Don't be fooled by his tiny size, Acrobat is a revolutionary new player piece: he can grab to any surface with friction. His speed, jump and acceleration are all adjustable.



Swing - 85 Pips: Grab on and start swinging. Adjust its angular friction and heaviness for more or less swing.





Cart - 85 Pips: A cart that moves left to right. I wonder what would happen if you combined it with portals. Don't you? Adjust its power and max speed for a crazy ride.




Hanging Bar - 85 Pips: Go ahead, jump onto it, but watch out for the wobble! Adjust its angular friction and heaviness for a dizzying effect.





Arial Text: English isn't your favorite language? This new text piece is UTF-8 compliant and supports all sorts of accents and characters. That means it supports YOUR language.

New pieces = YAY! You = make game.

New Features: Multi-stamp, Screenshot Preview and More.

New features, (almost) all about improved game creation! W00t!

Multi-stamp: Select multiple pieces in the Workshop and stamp them as a group. Enables you to create complex structures, bosses, etc. and duplicate them easily.

Screenshot preview: Preview what your game screenshot will look like before you publish your game. Don't like it? It's easy to change!

Easy rotate: Rotate pieces easily. The rotate control appears as soon as the piece is selected.

Add player pieces to your bag: You can now drag any piece to your bag, player pieces included.

Improved navigation: Get from one place to the next more easily and faster, without having to expand the navigation.

Awesome, right? So go make a game now!

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Contest Winners: "Robo's Legacy" by tut07 and "Domino Shemomino" by d4rktopaz

Congratulations to our contest winners!

General:
Congratulations to tut07 for winning the General category with his game, Robo's Legacy. In this action game, you are Robo the robot. Can you rid the galaxy of the B.I.R.Ds?



Premium:
Congratulations to d4rktopaz for winning the Premium category with his game, Domino Shemomino. Trigger the dominoes In this contraption game, and let yourself be amazed with the results.



Once again, we decided not to list runners up. There were simply too many great game and we didn't want to leave anyone out. You should play through all the recent hottest games.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

PlayCrafter Awarded Maker Faire Editor's Choice Award

We had a booth at the Maker Faire this past weekend. Even despite the last minute nature of things, our setup worked out great. We were able to borrow a friend's flat screen TV to show off a game being created. And we had 3 workstations set up for people to try PlayCrafter for themselves.

John (aka ForkliftKid) makes a game on the big screen
while several teens try their hand at game creation.



It was great to see people's enthusiasm for PlayCrafter. We ran out of the 500 or so business cards we had brought.

Getting hands on with game creation at the Maker Faire's
PlayCrafter booth

We ended the weekend on a high note since PlayCrafter was awarded a Maker Faire Editor's Choice Award. We were very proud to display our blue ribbon since there were so many great things at the fair and only a few got this award.

Monday, June 1, 2009

New Feature: Earn Pips, Buy & Sell Your Own Game Pieces

Rejoice! You can now earn Pips, the PlayCrafter virtual currency, for free by inviting friends or by selling your game pieces to others. You can also buy game pieces, songs, backgrounds that others have created.

How many Pips do I earn by inviting friends?
You earn 30 Pips when your friend creates an account, another 30 Pips when they reach Level 2 and an additional 60 Pips when they reach Level 10.

You still earn 15 points when your friends sign up and now you also earn 5 to 13 points when your friends level up up to level 10.

How many Pips do I earn by selling game pieces?
Right now, you can earn from 13 to 104 Pips per piece sold depending on what type it is and how much profit you decide to make.

When someone purchases one of your pieces, your account will be credited with a number of Pips equal to the profit that you set.The rest of the proceeds go to other creators if you are deriving someone else's game piece and to PlayCrafter for making the system that allows you to sell your pieces in the first place.

So, go on. Start selling your own game pieces now!

New Pieces: Loose Blocks, Weak Blocks and Reticle

We have a set of cool new blocks that come in various shapes and sizes. Time to start building castles, totems and skyscrapers, folks!



Weak Blocks (Free): Now you can really go on a rampage with these destroyable blocks! And, unlike the crumble block, they go away instantly. They can be anchored or not, affected by gravity or not.
Set of 1x1 and 2x2 squares, 1x2, 1x3, 1x4, 1x5 and 2x4 rectangles.

Loose Blocks (Free): Like the Loose Square, Hex and Bar, these blocks cannot be anchored. Set of 1x1 and 2x2 squares, 1x2, 1x3, 1x4, 1x5 and 2x4 rectangles.

Reticle (85 Pips): Add this Taker piece to your level and instantaneously transform your mouse in a sniper riffle. Just point and click to shoot. Since it isn't a player piece but a taker, you can even shoot at the player. Wait... That's backwards!