OCTROPOLIS Windows, @Play returns

Octropolis for Windows, by far a better version of the game with much improved effects, music and an AI-played attract mode, is on itch.io for $3: http://itch.io/e/11311/rodneylives-created-octropolis

But more importantly, @Play, my long-lived column on roguelike games, is back in action:
On Blogspot: http://rodneylives.blogspot.com/
On Gamasutra: http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/author/JohnHarris/817117/

OCTROPOLIS

OCTROPOLIS is a maze game.  Guide an octopus through the huge underwater Octropolis, collecting "eggs," escaping sharks, and consuming "mega eggs" that let you attack the sharks back.  If this sounds a bit like Pac-Man, well, that's no accident.  Octropolis is a modification to and elaboration on ideas established in that game and its sequels.  It has colorful neon graphics, and is meant to hearken back to an age where people could just play video games, without shame.  It even pretends to be an arcade machine: it has a cycling attract mode and a screen of operator settings.  (Screenshots are of Android version.)

Determined pursuers

Complex mazes

Demo mode

How much of the maze can you clear?

• Instead of just four ghosts, there are eight different kinds of sharks, each with its own personality.  They aren't all in play at the start, but are added as the game continues.
• AI is heavily inspired by the original arcade maze games -- most of the same escape tactics will work here!
• Hint system hands out secret tips after each game.
• Most difficulties have occasional attacks by Great White sharks.  They are ruthless pursuers and are always faster than you.  However, if you can catch one with a mega egg, it doesn't regenerate but is gone for good!  Or at least until the next attack.  The problem is, while it's vulnerable it zooms away at high speed and takes random turns at intersections.  The only way you'll catch it is by it running into you....  If you do catch it, it's worth a whole lot of points.
• Instead of a sequence of individual boards, a game of Octropolis has just one very large board, giving you lots of room to escape from pursuit.  It is possible, though very difficult, to "win" by clearing out the whole maze.  In a typical game, that takes about 15 minutes.  (By the way, there is no special ending show.  So don't feel bad if you can't clear it all out!  Octropolis isn't "meant" to be winnable.  I can do it because I've practiced a lot, and I made the darn thing!)
• The game starts out moderately fast, and progresses to blisteringly fast as it continues.  But the sharks accelerate faster than you do....
• The dots eggs are worth more points the more you collect in sequence.  If you can keep that up for a while, you can get impressive scores.  But those darn sharks keep getting in the way....
• Octropolis has four difficulty levels.  Beginner has a shallower difficulty curve, saving some of the harder sharks for later.  Advanced has Great White attacks later on.  Expert is the competition-level difficulty, has several Great White attacks, and ends with the Great White Frenzy, a swarm of Great Whites that tracks you down.  Master is the same as Expert... but with an entirely different maze, one that's a lot harder to navigate.  Good luck with that.
• In real life, hammerhead sharks give birth to live young.  Please do not base your understanding of marine biology on a video game.

Octropolis is available on the Google Play store, and, soon, on itch.io.

New blog!

This is like my 12th blog, under one name or another.  Others I have include Coin Door Interlock (I haven't forgotten about In Profundis!  Seriously!), Roasted Peanuts (I haven't forgotten about that either!!), a game writing blog that I've never even linked to anywhere because it contains no posts yet, and a couple of really old blogs, Hopefully Not Stupid and Three Second Decree, which I have forgotten about.  I don't even remember what they were called.

Well, this blog is different.  It's only going to be updated sporadically, when I release a new game.  At the moment, that's just Octropolis.  That will be the next post.