BEAM

WIP games, tools & toy projects
#1

http://binarymonks.com/images/banners/banner2.png

LINKS:

OVERVIEW:

BEAM is a retro arcade puzzler. It aims to achieve the same gaming pleasure of classics such as Space Invaders, Tetris and Bubble Shoot. It does this with a clean and distinctive 2D art style, tantalizing light effects and nostalgic synth tunes.

The aim of the game is to use your single laser BEAM to destroy invading waves of alien puzzle heads. The puzzle heads defend themselves with mazes of mirror walls. They arm themselves with rapid falling anvil blocks, bomb blocks and static shock lightning blocks. These simple mechanics mean that you need to use your laser and your own reflective mirrors to find the gaps in the alien defences and avoid the booby traps that can be triggered by destroying the wrong part of the puzzle. The game starts simply, but soon you will need all of your powers of perception and dexterity of finger to stay ahead of the invading puzzle heads.

The game was designed to take advantage of touch screen in its tactile and satisfying use of sliding mirrors and laser powerups. There is definitely a casual feel to the game, but the real gaming pleasure comes from spending the time to master the simple mechanics and progress through the levels, blasting big boss puzzles along the way. We hope you enjoy it!

DEVELOPEMENT:

I have been working on it in my evenings and weekends since July 2015. Before that I had chosen a much bigger project, but doing something like that as a part time solo gamedev turned out to be a bit too ambitious.

So, I started looking for something with a simpler mechanic and premise. BEAM was inspired by the simple classics like Tetris, Space Invaders and Bubble Shoot.

It was the wall bouncing mechanic of Bubble Shoot that really was the seed for BEAM. I would always try to bounce the bubble even if I did not need to. So, with that in mind, BEAM came into being on a scrap of paper in almost the exact form you see it in here :D. (There might be a touch of melodrama in that origin story :D)

BEAM has been developed with java and libGDX (with box2d and box2d lighting) and a little bit of R.U.B.E

The game was released on 1 July 2016

https://twitter.com/binarymonks

SCREENSHOTS:

http://binarymonks.com/images/screen_shots/menu2.png

#2

Way freaky. :slight_smile:

I like the graphical style and the neon colors.

#3

Ha! Thanks for the spot. Luckily not much dialogue in BEAM.

PS. Have to thank my artist, she did an awesome job replacing my 90’s coder art.

#4

I like fast paced games. I played a game where you literally typed 110+ words per minute at an almost consistent rate.
(All the words where made of wasd1234rfeq and space and many, many clicks)

#5

Looks pretty awesome! I’m not huge on puzzle games, but it seems like there is a good bit of depth in this one.

#6

Thanks!

Yes - it is definitely a puzzle game. But the movement makes it some sort of Arcade game maybe?

I get 2 types of feedback generally:

  • From people who like puzzle games; “You should have a way that you can do the puzzles without the movement”
  • From people who like more dynamic games “Cool, love the scrolling puzzles”

So hopefully I have not burned my bridges with both crowds and not made anyone happy.

#7

Eh, screw what people like, just make what you want.

#8

Released. Can be moved to showcase…