Mana Clash Alpha 1

The download for Mana Clash Alpha 1 can be found here.

What is Mana Clash?

Mana Clash is a simple puzzle game in which you control falling pairs of Elemental Mana, very similar to the NES game Dr. Mario. By matching four of a particular color in a row, you can clear out Mana Blocks that are preventing your character from casting the required spell. When all of the blocks in a particular stage are cleared out, the spell is cast and play resumes to a more difficult stage (Or, at least it would but I only have one level enabled in Alpha 1.)

Controls:

Arrow Keys: Move the Mana pair around the screen.
Ctrl: Rotate the Mana Pair Counter-clockwise.
Alt: Rotate the Mana Pair Clockwise.
P: Pauses the game.

Misc. Notes:

Currently, this is a bare bones working version of level one of the game. When you clear all of the blocks, the game continues on indefinitely until you either exit, or get Game Over. You can reload the level after Game Over.

In order to run the game, download and unzip the .rar file. Then, in the destination you unzipped it to, look for the "Mana Clash v.0.6.exe" file and simply double click it to run. Feel free to rename the file in order to make it easier to find, but do not remove it from the folder with the rest of the files. The .exe needs all of those other files in order to run properly.

Future releases will see all of the additions you would expect such as scaling difficulty, level progression, score keeping, and other assorted UI improvements. Ultimately, I plan on adding controller and Multi-player support as well.

Enjoy!

Introduction

Welcome everyone! My name is John Gall, and this is my Development Blog.

More than likely the majority of the people who come here will be my friends, family, and other assorted people who know me from somewhere. However, there exists the possibility that some unfortunate souls I don't know might stumble upon this so before I get into the good stuff, I thought I'd take a moment to explain a few things regarding this blog.

I'm an amateur video game programmer, writer, and all around awesome guy. I've been programming off and on for roughly six years now, but I only just started to get serious about it in 2011. Most of the games that I program are done in Python utilizing pygame, but I do dabble here and there in Flash and C++. Not all of the games that I make wind up here, but a fair amount of my serious projects in the near future will. I'm treating this blog as sort of an interactive portfolio that I'm building. I make a game. You play it and tell me what you think. I fix up the game a little, and the process continues until I'm satisfied with the end product.

I should also take a moment to mention that I have never actually blogged before. So, this whole thing is treading new ground for me. Don't expect daily, or even weekly updates to this blog. Right now my focus is on improving my programming, and you know, actually programming the games I'm inevitably going to upload here. Despite this, you can be assured that I will be checking the blog daily for comments and critique as well as uploading the latest builds of any of my games the moment they're ready. Eventually, I do hope to figure out how to add more features to deliver a proper experience to all of you readers.

Also, in case it wasn't obvious, all of the games I upload here are 100% free. You don't pay money to watch the local team practice, you shouldn't pay for any of the games I'm using to learn - even after they're done and complete. There is a Paypal donate button on the side of the blog, and this is probably the only time I'm going to mention it because I'm not here to get donations either. That's there mostly because a few people requested that I put one up on my Blog when it went live. I don't expect to make much from it, but any thing I do make will only be spent on assets to make better games or improve the delivery of said games. The only thing I expect out of any of you is to let me know what you think of the games you play and if you encounter any problems. I test and re-test everything before I upload it to make sure it works flawlessly on my system, and I clean out any and all bugs I find (unless I list it on the release notes). Each system is different though, and just because it works on my computer does not mean it will work the same on yours.

Finally, let me explain "GBIT". Because I suck at names, I spent months thinking up a name for my one man amateur indie studio, and finally settled upon the acronym of GBIT. Whether I actually came up with something that makes sense with that acronym is irrelevant. Back on point to explain the name, if you know me, you know I absolutely love and adore classic games, especially NES era. "8Bit" games are what they're commonly referred to, and I fell in love with the idea of using "bit" somewhere in my studio name. Thus after mashing a whole bunch of nonsensical words together that I liked, I came up with GBIT.

In today's gaming industry, it's indie devs and studios who are really moving things. New indie studios are popping up left and right. Some are seeing a level of success that makes the big name publishers envious, while other kind of just peter out and die a quiet death by the side of the road. While I am not sure that running an indie studio is the path I will necessarily take with my career, I won't rule out the notion either. Eventually I do hope to find some other talented individuals to work on games with me and see where our passion takes us. That is why this blog isn't simply "John's Games" it's "GBIT Games"

So, without further ado, welcome to the site and I hope you enjoy my games!