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So I will be doing a shooter with a minor tint of puzzle game for this year's speedgame. This testimony is about facing fear and being free from it, hence the name, Freedom.
For the gameplay, you will be shooting these robots that represent different types of fear called Scare_Crows. And they are not the kinds at farms, they are actually robotic crows. Red Scare_Crows represent grief or horrifying events from the past. Blue Scare_Crows represent phobias or stuff that freak you out in the present. Yellow Scare_Crows represent fear of post doom or being afraid of what will happen in the future. These Scare_Crows will fly by, and the game will be over if a specific number flies by each time. Now sometimes, present and past and future fears relate to each other. Sometimes these Scare_Crows join and form new color Scare_Crows. And your cursor will consist of three targets: red, blue, and yellow.
The point of the game is to break down these Scare_Crows to their simplest color and destroy them before they get out of range.

I look forward to seeing other people's speedgames this year.

Here is a picture of what the game will supposedly look like.

I like it! You'll have to show me what you have so far when I stop by.

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Q.E.D.

This looks fun Angelboy! Can't wait to give it a try! Keep up the good work.

God Bless!

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Sam Washburn

P1XL.com - Rockin' Pixel Games for your iPhone
Rom12 Studios - Christian Games for Young and Old..eventually.

Being freed from your fears is an awesome testimony. I think it's a great thing to base your game on.

The color based gameplay sounds really cool. I see an orange robot in your screen. Would you have to shoot it once with yellow and once with red? (Am I understanding correctly?)

Yes. Shooting it with a red target will absorb the red out of the orange making the Scare_Crow yellow and vice versa. This will apply to a few others as well. This represents past, present, and future fears mixing together.

For those of you who are wondering what the targets/cursors will represent. They can represent whatever you feel is the right way to be free from fear. It can be prayer, confrontation, reading the bible, etc.

@Angelboy, At level where there comes whole screenfull of all kinds of birds, single colored, multicolored etc. Is there any more levels after that, and if, then how many, and do you have some cheat code to jump there directly?

No, the only way to go to the final level is by going through each level.

For those of you who were wondering, it is game over if 15 Scare_Crows make it to the other end for each level. My apologies about this not being mentioned.

But is that the last level? And is there anything special if i complete that last level?

But is it 15 scarecrows in one level, or 15 in total?

It is game over when 15 scare_crows make it across for each level. The game would be way too hard if were total.

Okay. After several tries, I still havent completed the last level, so my review will be slightly imcomplete.

This what I think about your game.

Thers lot of good about it. Graphics might not be of top notch, but they work hand in hand with the simplicity of the game. Therefore being good enough. Most importantly, even graphics might not be even close to being top notch, they are anyway very clear. It clearly looks like some amateur made game, but it is one of the good games made by amateurs (made by amateus deosnt mean its necessarily bad game, although it more often does).

The idea of three different basic colors and three dirreferent shooting methods, including the middle mouse button was pretty neat. And having different gun sound for each color also added to the feeling of the game.

What I strike me as one single best thing, was the educational aspect of this game. It was brilliant that after couple of levels you started getting orange, violet and green scarecrows, and finally even gray ones. That is really brilliant subtle educational aspect. You dont even think that is educational, but as a matter of fact, you are being learnt about mixing of colors.

I would even say that when having played all but one speedgame games (Righteous Rampage still left to play), This color mixing idea was best purely educational idea in all speedgames this year. Only one that I would think even better is Vanguards biblical map usage, but that is only because it is Christian educational idea. Purely from educational point of view and forgetting the christian aspect, this was definately the best educational idea this year. Very good job on getting up on that idea!

You also had vey nice training screen there at beginning, but it was how ever bit hidden there. For I had already played several games before i noticed there was this training screen. It was very good idea too by the way. Although I have to say that I am happy I didnt notice it at first, since it was actually much more fun that suddenly there starts coming orange birds and i realise I dont have any more mouse buttons left to use, so what do i do now? "Hmm.. Maybe if i push these two buttons together" and it worked! Brilliant!

Levels are short. That is very good. Vanguard team should learn something from you on that and make their driving parts shorter. If your levels had been long, It had become boring and uneecssarily hard at some points as well. Now they were fun to play as even on tighter levels, you only got that short rush, sort of like feeling of attack waves in traditional shoot em ups.

I also liked very much that you didnt fall on the trap that many often do that first comes, blue, then red, then yellow, then orange, then violet, then green, gray, then blue and red, blue and yellow, red and yellow, blue and orange, blue and green blue and violet...

But Instead you kept having only couple of rounds of each idea and then the next idea came out.

And depsite the small amount of options to build different kind of levels, you actually were able to achieve good variety in levels quite nicely and keep game interesting that way.

The music that goes on the background adds to the game. It might not feel too much that it was made for the game, but it helps pass the time anyway and doesnt disturbe the gameplay. By other words, it does add to the gameplay experience.

Moving background clouds and that sun were nice additional touch too making the game seem more lively. Actually that was one of the things in this game that although graphics were amateurish, you had anyway took effort to make the game look lively by scarecrows having animation, cursor changing color when shooting and clouds moving on background. All this helped to feel that the game was good and fun to play for the short while it lasted.

It is also good that you didnt make the game too long. If it had been long, it hadnt been good. As a short game with short levels like it is now, it is actually quite good game, and It was even one of the most entertaining games from this years speedgames, if not even most entertaining.

It was also good that the limit of 15 scarecrows resets after each level making there come tight spots in levels when you have only 1 more left to let go and then the level ends and you can sigh from relief and can once again let 15 pass the next level.

However, there were bad things in this game too.

First thing that comes to my mind is the last level. IIm actually going to reduce one point because of that when judging it for the competition.

I can basically get through every other level withut letting a single scarecrow through, yet even after multiple tries, I just couldnt get through the last level.

It had been real fun game if the diffivulty had raised the same amount as previous levels compared to each other had, because then I would have completed the game and had my satisfaction. Now I was already playing in frustration trying to pass through the last level to see it till the end, but simpky couldnt. I gave my last try just before starting to write this, and still failed.

If you would had added continue option or sometihing like that, it wouldnt matter the same amount that it is so hard. But its real annoying to everytime start from beginning, when rest of the levels dont give you anything new or challenging anymore and then the last level is simply impossible to beat.

It also makes me wonder what was the idea of the Christian message, that you can never conguer your fear? Is that the message you want to spread? That better just give up to your fears and let them come instead of even figthing against them, since sooner or later there will anyway came such a batch of fears that you cant beat them anymore. I would understand that if there would be some clever thing that you can somehow call Lord to help you get through it, but i didnt see option like that there.

Also about the christian message I have to criticize that if you would just play the game without reading the txt file (which was quite good from christian point of view by the way), you wouldnt find out this to even being christian message nor learning the message, You would just think this is a game where you shoot scarecrows of different colors.

But it was good idea to use those SCAREcrows to present fears.


While the idea of adding third button to the game was basically good, it however was quite terrible in pracitce to use. There might be mouses that actualy have nicely pushable third button, but as far as i can recall, it seems to me that basic mouses third button is quite terrible to press in a game like this that requires it to be pushed rapidly all the time.

Also about shooting there were some problems sort of.

For while it was good that you could in green first shoot blue then the yellow out and especially it was great that when you shot the blue out, then the scarecrow changed to yellow, there however was one problem too arising from this sort of.

For one way to shoot any bird without thinking its color was to simply push all buttons down.

So while I liked that the mullticolor birds could be shot down color at a time, I think from educational point of view it had been better to only be able to shoot them by holding right mousebuttons down at same time.

This naturally is opinion based thing, and not actual fault in game.


Another thing I noticed is when i tried the windowed mode in hopes it helped me conguer the last level, that on windowed level you see both your score as well as scarecrows left? Why dont yo show this info on fullscreen mode as well?

Especially the scarecrows left had been valuable information.

About points I once again have something to point out. For no matter the Scarecrows color, it was always 5 points to destroy it. Wh not give more points from muticolored? For even at minimum two colored birds should have been 10 points and gray 15 due to amount of shots reguired.

This would have added to the game a bit more arcade feeling although you really werent figthing for points but tring to conguer the game. Differernt point values would have also add to the replayablitiy value since at later levels you are not able to shoot every scarecrow that comes to the screen anymore, so you could pick the higher valued targets instead and compete against your friends on this.



To put this short:

Graphics maybe not that good, but they are clear and they work for this very suitably and due to lot of animation, graphics look very lively.

It is nice to have three different sounds for each shooting color. And mixing of colors together and needing to shoot them with corresponding colored shots is excellent educational idea, the best in this years speedgames.

Levels were suitably short and tight, level difficulty was rising with good pace and variety of levels was surprisingly good when thinking how little moving parts you had to built them with.

(supposedly) Last level is simpy too hard and makes the game much much worse than it had been otherwise. I would have completed the game and having positive memory of it and thinking of even wanting more, but now I never want to see a sequel to this game and am feeling extremely fdrustrated trying to complete it again and again and again in vain.

Background music fits okay, nothing special, but nothing bad either. Rather it plays there than not.

Christian message stays hidden unless you read the txt file in which the christian message was brought up very nicely.

Practice screen was very nice idea, but was somehow stayed bit hidden.

If last level is kept this hard, and even if it isnt, something like continue option, even limited amount of continues, would make this game so much better.

And why hide the points and left scarecrows on fullscreen mode?

Not winner, but definately good job on this game and except because of the last level, this was very much fun to play. Wihtout that last level being too hard to play, this might have been even the most fun game to play this year (especially since it seems this years quality wasnt as good as previous years since most games stayed more or less critically uncompleted)

Overall: I liked the game quite much, except for the last level.

Don't worry about finishing the last level. I don't think that it is possible to beat the last level... which goes to the way of turning to Jesus for him to conquer your fears. But I didn't put an option on that.

yeah, i thought the idea would be something like that, like Mene-Menes impossible Alone two years ago, but it didnt come out to player that idea. Unlike in Mene-Menes game where in both the name and in the game over it tells that it is impossible alone and you have to take Jesus.

It is also that if every christian game would be impossible to complete based upon that idea, it would become quite drustrating to keep playing christian games when you couldnt finish any of them and it would always leave you feeling of frustration and not being satisfied by the need to complete it.

In Mene-Menes game it was different, since the idea of the game is not to complete it and player knows it, but to stay alive as long as possible.