So for our sixth and final meeting we were one down, but Patricio sent his completed game URL so we could play it.

Bungee Fisher had come a long way, with a sound effect, fish to eat and bottles to evade. We suggested there be more sound effects, such as when a fish was hit or a splash for the dive. The 4-heart health bar was neat, but not accurate enough to provide feedback — maybe they could be quartered for each mishap? It was also noticed that the randomness of the bottles appearing seemed unfair and too random, and then it was discovered that this could be countered just by clicking the fisherman back to the top if a bottle appeared beneath him. Should there be a whiplash penalty? Everyone was impressed that it ran on the web, as Processing compiles to Java files.

Then came Mouse Police v2, which had the beginnings of a terrifying new level. After the player, as a cat, gorges themselves on 12 mice, the cat explodes and splatters the screen with gore.

Then the player becomes a maggot feasting on the entrails while avoiding the deadly beaks of huge crows. Peter explained that the game dynamic will be that the maggot gets more nutrition from the lighter entrails, but that it’s also easier for the crow to kill them there, which we thought sounded good. He had trouble with getting rid of the original scoring mechanism from the first level but we all thought it looked great covered in blood and guts and encouraged him to leave it.

Cupcake Challenge, Susan’s game, was very different from her previous version as she ran into many difficulties with buggy collision detection with Game Maker. Still using her hand-markered cupcake, she put her drawings in a maze setting instead.

If you finished the level you got a neat close up of the drawing before the next level.

It had music but we thought it needed sound effects too. Some of the images were too small to make out. But all three levels were playable and fun, as evidenced by everyone playing the whole game. Susan said that the little girl enemies were supposed to have better AI and follow the cupcake but they were too predictable.

Next up was my Baby Runs This Mofo. I’d made a title sequence that reveals the concept in a series of thought bubbles, which people liked (though it was noted that the title should get its own “space” somehow). The mother’s text had been replaced by (too quiet) audio, and the video ending was much better quality having been reshot on a DV camera. People said that the ending should definitely have a close up of the baby’s face looking sinister. It was suggested that one or two of the controls should be pointless but fun, maybe something sticking its head in the window, as most of the other controls had a point. More animations — such as for the fireplace — would draw more attention to the changes each thing is creating in the room.

Rosemary got swamped with high-profile comix work and didn’t progress on Albacross, but her good feedback on the games and a pledge to get it done for the April open house assuaged the outrage of all attending.