BYOND and Within #26

I watch my fair share of Let's Play videos.  Some members of the BYOND community create a lot of fangames.  SOPA and PIPA are not my friends.

...And you should listen to me because I'm playing indie games instead of Skyrim like all of my Steam friends.  That makes me elite and not just broke, right? ;)

This edited version of BYOND and Within comes to you from an unpaid volunteer using a game/development portal and software engine called BYOND.  Rather than play suggestions, the column focuses on recent developer activity.

Within BYOND

Silk Games uploaded the 12th episode of the official NEStalgia podcast.  PVP tournaments with the new skill trees will occur once schedules settle.  Level cap increases will come after content additions.  Interfaces changes, a gamepad mode, and monster companions will be available soon.  Sympathy for Bethesda is already here.

Feval 2.0 is no more.  Iccusion Entertainment's Aaiko has stated that the source of the multi-squirrel game of exploding nuts has been lost.  The last backup was made before the addition of avatar customizations and shops.  Plans to complete the game on BYOND have been shelved.

Some of the latest work on the MORPG Teridal was lost as well.

Hoping the event will be judged soon, Ganing released his 2011 Game in a Day entry Myth of the Zodiac for download.  During certain in-game months, those of corresponding Zodiac turn into powerful, bloodthirsty killers.  Players only know their own Zodiac.  Each must use this knowledge to form alliances and destroy everyone else.

Ganing's base defense tribute to Teridal, Seika SE, received some bug fixes.

Oasiscircle used BYOND and a new programming environment to create a quick action game in his Computer Aided Design class.  Bomber lets players guide a plane over factories and tanks.  The factories are just bomb fodder, but tanks which make it past the bottom of the screen remove the player's health.  More health can be earned by shooting power-ups and attaining scores.

Acebloke released multiple updates for his military/economic sim Wargames.  New features include elephant and helicopter units, ministerial councils for advice, tundra terrain and custom subscriber themes.   Acebloke recently hosted a tournament where the winner gained a year-long subscription to both Wargames and Wargames 2.

Vexonator provided another round of bug fixes for the tactical fantasy Surreal Dreams.  Plans are underway to support multiple games per server so that players who login late will have something to do.

Brettpenzer's shifting platformer BlockWorld now features leaderboards.  Speed power-ups, tools to create/distribute levels and a Retry button are on the way.  The latter will cost a life in hardcore mode.

Lugia319 fixed a turn taking bug in his PVP implementation of the knight's tour, Law of the Board.  I'm going to act all snooty and mention how I offer multiple libraries which avoid this sort of thing.  Then I'm going to avoid thinking about how I quit my double major in physics just when it was getting to what I wanted to learn, wait for the final part of The Fabric of the Cosmos and let Lugia319 finish his research paper on MOND vs dark matter.

Beyond BYOND