Jack Oatley

Tokyo 2048

2048 is one of my favourite casual games, but in it's raw form of numbered tiles it does very little for me. I'm a fan of making simple concepts look beautiful and interesting.


But all versions of 2048 I could find that done that took it beyond being a simple game of 2048 any more; they expanded the rules, the grid size and generally add concepts that make it easier. While that's all well and good, I don't think they qualify as true 2048 games anymore. So that was my goal with this game, it's 2048, it's got 2048 rules, and nothing to make it too easy, but it looks beautiful and interesting. My good friend Darrell from Hawtpixel did the art and UI design.

Terrablox

Terrablox has been a big hobby project of mine for a very long time. I've learned a lot from creating it, both design-wise and technically. I've always seemed to attract a lot of slack about this game, with some peeps calling it a "Minecraft clone". And I don't deny the similarities and the inspiration, but that to me is no reason to not do something that's been so beneficial from me.


A few things to understand about this game though that I think set it apart is that the idea is actually nearly as old as Minecraft itself. I started making it when all Minecraft had was a couple of blocks in creative mode. So I don't see it as copying Minecraft, I see it as following the same potential, the same restrictive yet creative mechanics.


I've been working on this idea for nearly a decade. And it's gone through many technical re-writes as I've learned new and effecient ways of doing the same things. Only recently do I feel it's actually nearly a "complete" state. And by complete I mean playable for a period of time with a degree of challenge. So it's an exciting time for me with this game, after so long it's coming to, hopefully a climax.


The latest demos and news can be found on the Terrablox Community Forums.

Mindfield

Mindfield was made for The Week Of Awesome 2 game jam over at Gamedev.net. The idea started as a horror game, but due to the ever encrouching time frame, it quickly decended into comical madness. You play as a submariner on a nuclear submarine who, through no fault of his own *cough*, ends up spilling juice over the control console, which ultimately ends up possibly destroying the world.


It may be a small game, made in a small time, but it's by far one of my favourite creations. The character/mob and submarine art is by my good friend and long term development partner Francis Fonye, while I done tilesets and some item art. It did relatively well in the jam, coming joint 3rd with another game. The jam had community donated cash prizes, and ironically I came joint 3rd with the guy who donated the money for 3rd place. I ended up feeling like I didn't deserve it, as it's basically someone doing just as well as me giving me the prize. So I decided to give that money to charity (CRUK, Cancer Research UK, for anyone interested.)

Castle Storm

Castle Storm was made for the LowRezJam2016 over on itch.io, the restriction was that the resolution must be 64x64 pixels. It's a strategy game about building up your castle defenses and sending troops to attack the enemy's castle defenses.


It was meant to be a small and simple game to make, but ended up taking a lot longer than I thought it would. But it was finished in time for the jam and I enjoyed making it so much I continued to port it to Android after the jam had ended.


I'm also considering plans to make an online versus version of this game, as it would be a good competitive time killer.