Happy Halloween! I'll focus on the spooky stuff first...

Hellzy, Jack or John, and MinkoedZamorVedro has been given a special tag and DC points in honour of their participation in the Halloween Revamp event for their games Behead Reanimated, Creepy Tower 2, and Fresh Bacon BETA!

UPDATE - NOW ADDED TRICKY TREATS (SEE BELOW)
UPDATE 2 - NOW ADDED ASHLEY EVENS, THE HUNTRESS OF THE MONSTERS (SEE BELOW)

Behead Reanimated - Trailer

The trailer for the updated TDC 2023 Halloween Competition winner is OUT!

Click here to download the application and read its comments

Fresh Bacon BETA by MinkoedZamorVedro

Rather than simply being updated, last year's Halloween Boss Battle by MinkoedZamorVedro has been transformed into a full game under a new name.

According to the author: "This game has been made for the Revamp Rumble. I have worked all that night, so the description can be unreadable...

Story: Well, another year in a row, that pumpkin wants to prevent our friend Golden Pork from living his ordinary piggy life... Actually they just gave me a second chance to make a game for the halloween competition.

Gameplay: This game is a basic platformer where you control a Golden Pork. Use arrows to move, shift to jump and Z to shoot. You can collect different bonuses, that can help you defeat enemies. Also you can collect power-ups, which will upgrade your damage. Last but not least, you can collect money, for which you can upgrade your max health, attack power and attack range."

Click here to download the application and read its comments

Swipe-o'-Lantern by Joshtek

Because I wasn't running the competition I ended up taking part this time... enjoy my entry for Fusionween 2024!

Acording to the author: "Swipe your mouse to launch your pumpkin across the screen to collect as many candies as you can before the timer runs out.Swipe your mouse to launch your pumpkin across the screen to collect as many candies as you can before the timer runs out. Hit anything too hard: YOU EXPLODE! Hit the bomb that looks like an orb: YOU EXPLODE!
Run out of time: YOU EXPLODE! Hint: For a long life, please try to avoid exploding."

Click here to download the application and read its comments

Tricky Treats by Jack or John (and SpleenRcool, BigAl0104 and CavernCroc)

A bit of a collab this one. Jack or John sure has been productive lately!

Acording to the author: "How much candy can you collect from competing in 20 microgames? The only way to find out is by playing now!"

Click here to download the application and read its comments

Ashley Evens, the Huntress of the Monsters by  Indigo Steel Shield

A game that is all about learning and countering the attack patternd of a variety of enemies, here is a Halloween game from the creator of games such as the recently updated Circle of the Shadow Wraiths.

Acording to the author: "This is a VERY simple game that I have submitted for the 2024 Fusionween contest. It is an action game with several stages. It is all over-head, top-down action. You can move in four directions as you shot blots at the enemy. The goal is the defeat all of the enemies during each stage."

Click here to download the application and read its comments

Play and rate the entries to Fusionween 2024

There have been eight entries to the Halloween game competition ran by Toby Davis other on itch.io.

Check out the entries at https://itch.io/jam/fusionween-2024/entries and vote over the next fortnight.

TDSE Online Beta Build 1.00 by Zet Hell

Not made for Halloween, but its always a good time for online games. You might remember this game from its project page covered in the previous news post. Help test it out! 

According to the author: "TDSE Online is an open-source & free top-down shooter engine with support for 8 players. This is only the Beta Build of the Engine for play-test purposes!TDSE Online is an open-source & free top-down shooter engine with support for 8 players. This is only the Beta Build of the Engine for play-test purposes! This Beta version currently only supports Free-For-All Deathmatch mode with 8 players per match. I will attempt to keep the server up as often as I can, but I'm running it from my PC for the time being."

Click here to download the application and read its comments

Halloween reminders

• As usual, you can check out old free Click Halloween games on Kliktopia.
• Go to https://create-games.com/skin.asp to set TDC to the Halloween theme!

Some variety in the games this week. Enjoy!

New game: Stage Tower 3 by re15ster

The third in the Stage Tower series continues to build upon and improve from the previous games while also bringing something new to the table. It's still a tricky platformer, but benefits from smoothing out a lot of the rough edges of the earlier games to make a much more refined experience. From the mesmerising sound and background effects to the improved feel of the gameplay, there is a lot to like about this third outing. Check the others entries out too, though!

According to the author: "A short and difficult platformer game."

Click here to download the application and read its comments

Project: TDSE Online

I've always been fond of an online Click game, and this online variation on the Top-Down Shooter Example is taking an open-source approach to the genre. Back in the days people used to run their own forums for those testing games, but the future is here and now everything is running through the project's Discord, from build downloads and server status to the change log. Help support this project's development by helping to test the necode!

Acording to the author: "TL;DR: I'm working on TDSE Online and I need testers soon: https://discord.gg/PCFVVCtdMF. A while back I was working on a project called TDSE, which was released on the Steam Workshop...now I'm working on TDSE Online, a fully open-source and commented "online" version of TDSE, supporting 8 player deathmatch, but I'm considering adding Team Deathmatch as well. I desperately need testers to help me figure out if the netcode & server stability is actually working as intended. And I would greatly appreciate anyone who joins my discord for the project. Help test the project, hang out and share ideas/feedback/criticism."

Click here to visit the project page

Revamped Game: Creepy Tower 2.1 by Jack or John

This platform game from The Daily Click's Replayable Boss Battle Halloween Competition has been updated as part of our re-vamp event, including altered level design, a new boss attack, and unique music for every character.

According to the author: "Phil has invited Gavin to a Halloween party over at a haunted mansion, but the twin of Phil would like to have a talk to Gavin once he comes over...."

Click here to download the application and read its comments

Revamped Game: Behead Reanimated 1.0.4

The original Behead won the top place in The Daily Click's Replayable Boss Battle Halloween Competition last year... and now it's back with new boss attacks, new player movement tech, key rebinds, a secret game mode, tweaked graphics and sound effects, and more!

According to the author: "This game does exactly what it says on the tin, allowing you to... behead yourself. In this bone-rattling adventure, you play as a headless skeleton, dubbed 'The Fleshless' by the nefarious vampire lord/terrible punster Dragh Kyllah.
Forever confined to his idle frames, Dragh Kyllah is envious of the Fleshless' ability to have different animations. You must combat the salty bloodsucker's countless minions, including zombies, bats, goblins, and ghosts, and eventually, the man himself. But you also come prepared, albeit against your will, as various objects are hexed to become your surrogate head/weapon."

Click here to download the application and read its comments

Halloween reminders

• As usual, you can check out old free Click Halloween games on Kliktopia.
• There's 10 days left in Toby's Fusionween 2024 Game Jam.
• There's just over a week left with TDC's Revamp Rumble & Trailers of Terror.

New/upcoming commercial releases you might find of interest

• Derek Yu and Jon Perry of Blackeye Software, maker of Click games like Trigger Happy and Eternal Daughter (and non-Click games like Spelunky) are back with PC title UFO 50, a new commercial game (or more precisely a collection of 50 non-Click games made for a fictional 1980s gaming console). 
• Sam Beddoes of FreakZone Games gave us free Click games like Project Nebula and commercial projects like the AVGN games. FreakZone are now working on the upcoming licensed Rocky Horror game due out on Steam later this month. Add it to your wishlist now!
• W3R3W00F, who created Click games like 2010's Overkill, has told us on the TDC Forum that they have a Kickstarter for their graphic novel SEE YOU NEXT YEAR: The "Halloween-est" Story of All Time 🎃
• The ClickStore might still be down, but we're continuing to get updated from The Reactor Patreon run by Clickteam. The latest entry from 5 days ago is the Firehawk Rescue example that uses a pseudo-3D engine.

No new platform games for ages, and then two come along at once from some familiar names. And fun ones, too!

Sir Hickrey by The MPP

This is an action platforming game with fun graphics, a sense of humour, hidden secrets to find, a variety of worlds with their own themes, a number of different weapon types, and a variety of movement and attack patterns for enemies. What's not to like?

According to the author: "In a far away land a single small castle remains as one of the last kingdoms standing against a great threat. The villianous Kaiser Bloodmoon has conquered land after land and has assigned his monstrous Counts to govern them. In a panicked frenzy, the King of the small castle picked Hickrey, a short and inexperienced fellow, to put on a suit of armour and venture for the Castle of Calamity to take down Kaiser Bloodmoon. Will Hickrey be able to save the lands?"

Click here to download the application and read its comments

JJ in Super Mario: Multiverse Chaos by BigAl0104

A Mario-esque game with a variety of cameos along for the ride. The screenshots pretty much tell it all: We get a fun intro, an interesting mishmash of graphics and some familiar mechanics like coins, blocks to smash, and a time limit to work within. Check it out!

Acording to the author: "JJ has gone out for a walk around the park on a very beautiful day, until suddenly she gets sent to the world of Super Mario through a mysterious portal that appeared out of nowhere. But it's not just the typical world of Super Mario, it is also infested with a bunch of enemies from other games. Who would be responsible for this? Can you help JJ escape this "Multiverse Chaos"? The game consists of only 4 levels of jumpin' and stompin' action. You know, typical Mario shenanigans."

Click here to download the application and read its comments

And now for some old games...

The third update to Kliktopia this month brings us another 21 entries, including the The return of Fishhead by Hayo van Reek:

P.S.Don't forget TDC's Halloween events: Revamp Rumble & Trailers of Terror!

TDC will not be hosting a conventional game-making competition this year (if you want to do that then check out the Fusionween game jam by Toby Davis). However, to celebrate the spooky season we are running two different events for you to take part in: Revamp Rumble and Trailers of Terror.

Dust off the cobwebs on your old games, because this is an opportunity to perfect your past projects.

Everyone who updates their Halloween game before 31 October and posts a link to the new/updated TDC entry as a comment to this news post will get a special tag and some DC points for having brought their creation back to life. The updated download entry should let people know what has changed (e.g. is it bug fixes or new game plus?).

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then how much is a TRAILER worth?

This is a competition to make the best trailer for a Click Halloween game. It can be for any Halloween game old or new made using Clickteam's tools. If it is one of your games, it can be any game that you have either already released or that will be available by this Halloween. However, you could alternatively make a trailer for someone else's game so long as it is an existing game and you make the author's identity clear.

To take part you must post a YouTube link to your trailer as a comment on this news item on or before the 28th of October 2024. Please specify any assets created specifically for the trailer (music, etc.). The YouTube video should include a link to where people can (or will be able to) download the game in the description, ideally linking to the game's entry on The Daily Click (or, if it is not on TDC, then Kliktopia).

HALLOWEEN THEMED GAME JAM

Want to take part in a Halloween-themed Click games competition and potentially win some prizes?

Check out the Fusionween game jam by Toby Davis.

According to the organiser: "You will have 30 days to make an entry with Clickteam Fusion starting on October 1st and ending on October 30th. Let's see what spooky and spectacular creations you can cook up in that time! This jam's theme is simply Halloween. There are no mechanical restrictions or requirements, just as long as Halloween is incorporated into your game in some way, you're all good!"

...If you're taking part then don't forget to post a copy of your entries to good ol' TDC!

I WANNA TRY: DEMO

The latest game to be submitted to The Daily Click is I WANNA TRY: Demo version by DorimecHouse.

According to the author: "A High Difficulty Platformer you need to Try! Complete levels, lefeat bosses, find Secrets and much more on this Demo."

Click here to download the application and read its comments

UPDATES TO GAMES FROM INDIGO STEEL SHIELD

If you've been keeping an eye on The Daily Click's forums you'll now that following August's update to Shimmering Celestial Orb we now have updates to two other games from the same author: The action game Crystal Cannon Combat (a simple 5 stage overhead view game with tanks) and Circle of the Shadow Wraiths (a platformer where you are a battle mage who must bring the one who killed all of the unicorns to justice). Now's a great time to check these games out!

KLIKTOPIA GETS TO 3,689 ENTRIES!

...Meanwhile, another 8 games have been added to Kliktopia:

KILL THEM

Finally, we have a new game from re15ster (author of Ultimate-Multitasking, Stage Tower 1 & 2, etc) called Kill them.

According to the author: "The game is noisy. Kill all enemies with your mouse pointer!"

Click here to download the application and read its comments

Nine games have been added to Kliktopia that use its online hi-score system. This includes eight games from the V-Cade of old. Check them out at https://kliktopia.org/Vitalize.html 

The page includes instructions at the bottom of the page abot how to download Yxkalle's Vitalize! Launcher Tool and modifying their HOSTS file to get Vitalize! games to run now that they are no longer supported by modern browers.

To celebrate these new games, I have begun a tips and tricks forum thread for the various V-Cade an other hi-score games on Kliktopia. Check it out for some handy advice, and if you impart enough of your own wisdom you might even get a nice little TDC tag!

...In other news Indigo Steel Shield posted to the TDC forum to let us now of a made a major update to their 2013 RPG the Shimmering Celestial Orb by Indigo Steel Shield.

According to the author:

"This is an action RPG that is set in a palace. Your goal is to destroy the object that makes intergalactic space travel possible so that an intergalactic empire will cease to EVER exist. The palace has about a 12 locations.

This game has undergone a MAJOR update!
1. The screen resolution is now about 1300 c 700
2. Your character's hair no longer disappears into her neck as she walks.
3. Your character moves quite a bit faster.
4. There is now EPIC music at the end of your journey.
5. Just a few very small changes."

Click here to download the application and read its comments

New poll for you to answer: How long did it take you to complete the last game you posted to TDC? 

Was the gap between the start of development and submission weeks, months, or years? Or have you yet to sublimit something to TDC?

If you want to start making a game but don't have the tools then you are in luck as Clickteam are running a Summer Sale on Steam, the Clickteam Web Shop, and Itch.io until the 11th of July.

Oh, and Switchy Train is now available on The Reactor and looks pretty cool:

In other news, I added 50 English and French games to Kliktopia that were contributed by Capitaine Caverne:

Oh, and in a forthcoming post post to The Daily Click I will include a round-up of project updates, so now is a good time to update us on your progress!

And the results are in... people's favourite Click & Create / Multimedia Fusion demo game is.... Magic Maths by Merlyn Lear!

Merlyn also develoepd Magician's Lair (which you might remember from my interview with Ishmaru inspired the art style you see in his games such as Synthetic Onslaught) and the Vitalzie! Bat & Ball and Fruit Machine games.

The votes were pretty evenly spread, with Magic Maths getting 3, Chocobreak and Urban Attack Force each getting 2 and Orbit and Solitaire each getting a vote.

You can download all the games as part of Kliktopia's Clickteam Game Demo Collection. Thanks to Clickteam for allowing us to release them all!

Speaking of Click & Create, over on the forums long time lurker Silver has posted on the forum to share a fantastic photo of their collection, which includes a copy of Klik & Create box by Europress:

In other news:

• Ishmaru (the guy who I interviewed, see above) has recently put out Ruby: Huntress of Vale 2.0.2
• UrbanMonk and Clayton havereleased Rodent Rush 2.0, a iOS port of Rodent Rush made using C++ & SFML
• Kliktopia now has over 3,500 games. Additions from this month include Sylvain Seccia's 1996-2000 collection (with translations from French to English).

XtremeSkier 21 by danjo

danjo of Acoders released Xtreme Skier back in around 2002 and Ski Xtreme in around 2004. Now it's time to return to the slopes with XtremeSkier 21, originally from 2021 but tweaked in 2022 and now put on The Daily Click in 2024. The demo is available for free with the full version (which unlocks the multiplayer mode amongst other things) sold for $2.99 USD (or more if you're feeling generous.

According to the author this game is: "Skiing Xtreme Style in retro pixel heaven."

Click here to download the application and read its comments

THE CUSTOMER PACK - Three Shovelware Games! by CoolPatilloGuy and CustomerOn

I kind of slipped this game into other news in the last post, so I thought I'd give it a proper write-up for this news post.

According to the author: "Another joke game featuring a friend of mine as usual. This is a compilation of three lame minigames where it has a shooter, a goofy CD-I Link The Faces of Evil/The Wand of Gamelon clone (even with cutscenes!) and a third minigame and if you have a Game Jolt account you can log in to get trophies!"

Click here to download the application and read its comments

I've been going through the Game of the Week entries, fixing the links for games that still have entries. I've got through the oldest 50 games so far, and this resulted in my adding a number of games to Kliktopia so that I could then fix a broken link at TDC. So, now's a great time to check out the back catalogue on the last 4-5 pages of the GOTW section!

To celebrate this process, let's take a look at the first five games to win GOTW.

GOTW #1 - Teen Squad 2 by TeenSoft

"STORY: After saving the world so many times, Teen Squad became really famous. Jake became a superstar, and was corrupted by fame. Now a really arrogant and selfish guy, he spends all his time giving interviews and showing up in all the tabloids. The squadron, once united, is now separated. And,of course, Robotech will take some advantage of this! With a new robotic army, the evil robot captures the Teen Squad members, one by one. Will our heroes be able to save the world this time? The answer depends on YOU!"

Click here to download the application and read its comments

GOTW #2 - Gravitorb by Duncan Fenn

"Gravitorb is one of those gravity-affected space shooter games. It involves navigating a little spaceship around some planetary landscapes, shooting turrets and baddies, collecting gems/powerups, while constantly fighting against the force of gravity. You can land your spaceship on any flat surface, provided the angle and velocity are just right. The gameplay is difficult, and frustrating, but masterable in such a way that you will (probably) really enjoy yourself! The game features 15 puzzly levels (with a save feature), and also a two player deathmatch with 10 arenas."

Click here to download the application and read its comments

GOTW #3 - SimSheep 2.2 by Stian K (Insane Arts)

"SimSheep2 is a game which let you take control over the life of a sheep. You have to make sure that your sheep is living a good life by providing him food, giving him friends and much more. The game is very advanced, so every action you perform, will have effect on your sheep’s life."

Click here to download the application and read its comments

GOTW #4 - Bamboo Dragon Warrior by Ben and Seth (Mouldy Old Productions)

"SimSheep2 is a game which let you take control over the life of a sheep. You have to make sure that your sheep is living a good life by providing him food, giving him friends and much more. The game is very advanced, so every action you perform, will have effect on your sheep’s life."

Click here to download the application and read its comments

GOTW #5 - Alien Apocalypse 2 by Nocturnsoft

"Space Shooter Action at it's best like you know it from those famous 'R-TYPE' or 'RAPTOR' titles.

You are called for help in order to prevent Earth once again from being invaded by an unknown bizarre and nasty alien species."

Click here to download the application and read its comments

In other Klik news:

• CoolPatilloGuy has released THE CUSTOMER PACK - Three Shovelware Games!
• More people have posted their stories to the How I got into Clickteam article started by CoolPatilloGuy
• Eveh more games have been added to Kliktopia, including a great looking but difficult shareware Klik & Play game: Gravity by Imperial Games.