First, the news:

1. I've now made my submission to join the TDC 'Secret' Santa Gift Exchange. Make yours by 1st December to take part!
2. A number of the recently released Click Halloween games have had bug fix or weak releases. If you downloaded version 1.0, it is worth checking for the latest version.
3. I've made a post on the TDC forums explaining The Daily Click's points and ranks system.
4. It's Black Friday, and that means all our freeware titles are 50% off!

An now some games for your enjoyment...

Enter the Black by Tomssuli and BlackEnter Software

Horror game where lights flicker every ten seconds. Tomsulli also made other games like Volatile Witchcraft that I really enjoyed, so please check it out... if you dare!

Comments from the Author: "You were exploring an abandoned hospital when due to your carelessness you became trapped. There is an emergency backup generator that can open the electrically locked doors but it hasn’t been maintained for years. Lights will flicker on and off every 10 seconds due to the unreliable grid connection. Be aware, there are things that lurk in the darkness. You have to find tools and equipment needed to fix the generator in order to open the doors and escape the hospital."

Click here to download Enter the Black and read its comments

Flan Atrapa Bolas by LucchettiFan

This is a RPG fangame of The Legacy of Flan that you can play in your browser. This is the author's first game!

Comments from the Author: "You have to grab flavor drops and a gun chase you and if it shoots you, you lose. This is my first game and I do this in one day with a youtube tutorial and with the free edition of clickteam, so don't hope much of this, but it doesn't will be my unique game. So i hope you enjoy it."

 Click here to play Flan Atrapa Bolas in the browser and read its comments

Juan's Quest (Spanish demo) by LucchettiFan

Platformer RPG. From the now familiar author of Flan Atrapa Bolas :)

Comments from the Author: "You are Juan and you need to rescue the king of a bad ogres that have kidnnaped him. This is the demo and is in spanish. In the future i will do a version in English, I promise. The full game will be release after christmas because Clickteam 2.5 Developer will be my chistmas gift. But i hope you enjoy the demo!"

Note: To play the game you will need to download the game, rename it .mfa, and open it in Clickteam Fusion 2.5.

Click here to download Juan's Quest (Spanish demo) and read its comments.

To celebrate the festive season I thought I'd import and adapt a tradition I've seen on Glorious Trainwrecks.

The way it will work is that everyone who takes part gives the gift of a level and receives the gift of a level.

Specifically, I mean either a new custom level for one of the games listed at https://kliktopia.org/Custom_Levels.php or a new custom level in one of the gifter's own games.

If you want to take part, just comment on this post by 8pm (UTC/GMT) on 1st December confirming your participation and providing:

• A short name for the level to act as a prompt (e.g. "The Devil's Jump" or "The Last Jump's a Doozy").
• Any other information you think is important (e.g. preferred difficulty, letting people know you are colour blind, etc.)

I will tell people who they have been randomly assigned to make a game for on 1st December as part of a news post.

Participants will be expected to post custom levels made using other people's games using https://kliktopia.org/Custom_Levels.php (for custom games listed on Kliktopia) or as a submission to by The Daily Click (for custom levels from your own games) by the deadline of 23rd December, making it clear who the game has been made for. Please also sent your giftee a DC Mail to let them know that their game is ready to play and how they can find it!

If you are aware of a Click game with custom levels not listed on Kliktopia then let us know. Also, if you want to publish your own Click game with custom editor by 8th December for inclusion as part of the contest then give me a heads up.

Happy Halloween everyone. The Daily Click's 2023 Halloween game jam ('Play, Scream, Repeat! Halloween Boss Battle Game Jam') are in, and the rankings are:

1. Behead by hellzy (GOLD - Winner!)
2. Halloween Rush BigAl0104 (SILVER)
3. Halloween Championship by LordHannu (BRONZE)
4. Halloween Boss Battle by MinkoedZamorVedro and Creepy Tower by Jack or John

Thanks to everyone who took part (as entrants or judges), and well done to winner hellzy.

I asked hellzy to comment on the victory, and his response was as follows: "I'd like to thank everyone who gave this game a chance in the first place, let alone deeming it worthy of first prize, considering this is the very first platformer game I've made ever since i started game dev in 2017 whoever approved of the game must have been a milk lover ;-)".

Click here for all the rankings and comments by the judges (msg, OMC and Joshtek - with the assistance of Robert123).

And the entries for The Daily click's Halloween Boss Battle Game Jam competition are in... all *FIVE* of them. A great turnout, so plenty of spooktacular games for you to enjoy. The games are currently being judged and the results will be announced on Halloween.

In order of submission we have:

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."

According to the author:

"It's the Halloween season once again, and little Billy is going trick-or-treating. After going through house to house for candy, he stumbles upon a mysterious house with an old man living there. He tells Billy about these magical candies known as the 4 Mystical Candies and that with every single one you eat, you get granted one wish.

Meanwhile, a scientist kid named Franken heard the news that Billy got a hold of the 4 Mystical Candies, so he sends four of his monster minions (which are based off classic monster movies) into the neighborhood in search of Billy. While Billy was walking through the neighborhood park, Franken's monsters came out of nowhere, gave Billy a good scare, and take the candy from him. With his state of the art Turf Dart Gun, it's up to Billy to go after those monsters and recover the 4 Mystical Candies. Are you up for the task?"

According to the author:

"You can pick between 3 characters knight mage and archer."

According to the author:

"You have to help your friend Golden Pork defeat The Halloween Geist™, who prevents him from playing with his friend. But it's not so easy to do this, because The Halloween Geist™ is not some kind of sucker, but a powerful boss who has prepared a lot of trials for our hero! And there is another problem: your golden friend is not very friendly to those who cannot help him. In other words, he kills them. Good luck."

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 gets over...."

Last year Kliktopia's Halloween collection consisted of just 37 games, but I've been expanding it and we've now got to 76 spooktacular entries!

I'm looking forward to being able to play all the entries in TDC's Halloween Boss Battle Game which closes on the 29th of October, which will help us expand the collection even further with shiny new treats!

Update from 22 October: I have added games from Clickteam's Weirder Stuff (2016) and Weirder Stuff 2 (2017) game jams, bringing Kliktopia to 93 Halloweeny entries!

Update from 23 October: WE'VE GOTTEN OVER A HUNDRED... IN FACT WE HAVE 110 HALLOWEEN GAMES IN OUR ARCCHIVE NOW. WOOO! THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO HAS HELPED US ASSEMBLE THIS COLLECTION, AND ALL THE DEVELOPERS FOR SHARING THEIR CREATIONS WITH THE WORLD!

I've got a treat for you all... I've granted everyone gets a 1 week extension for the Halloween Boss Battle Game Jam!

So please make your submission by Sunday the 29th of October (or technically 6am on 30th October UTC to accommodate differing timezones).

Speaking of Halloween games, as I posted on the TDC forums I am looking for the following Halloween games previously posted to The Daily Click: Slasher Boy Halloween Competition Demo (PixelRebirth),  Halloween chapter one (final version) (JAY), The House (v2.00) (Ryan Bloom), To Darken My World Compo Edition Demo (Xhunterko), Quarantine (Aden) and Pac Trip  (SoftWarewolf). If you have any of these games then let us know to help us complete our Halloween collection!

In other news, hellzy has posted Welcome to Bullet Hell - Arena Demo which is "yet another older build of my first game, obviously with less features and polish than the final release. But it also includes some cut content as well". The other versions of the game are Welcome to Bullet Hell (2018) and Welcome to Bullet Hell - 2017 Edition. Play them all to compare and contrast!

P.S. If you haven't got Clicktam Fusion 2.5 yet, it is currently available at a 50% discount!

Sadly the CD didn't really sell, but Cobra Blade has now opted to rerelease the puzzler for free, bringing a slice of nostalgia to us all :)

Comments from the Author:
"A Tetromino game I created way back in 2004 using The Games Factory Pro. I often cite it as unreleased, but in reality, 3 people did buy my AnimeVamp CDs I sold on eBay back in the day which included this game along with other projects and demos I was working on at the time. Rather than let it vanish completely... here it is!"

Click here to download the game and read its comments.

To take part of the competition, submit your freeware game to The Daily Click on or before Sunday the 22nd of October. To accommodate time zones, this is being calculated as 6am on 23rd October UTC and make it clear that the game is being submitted as part of this competition within the game description.

UPDATE: Everyone has been given a 1 week extension to Sunday the 29th of October (so get your submission in by 6am UTC on Monday 30th of October).

First place prize is a special tag at The Daily Click, DC Points, listing as a GOTM winner and fully bragging rights.

Other valid entrants will get some DC points and a tag to show that they participated.

Theme and judging

The theme for competition is 'Replayable Halloween boss battle'. Replayable means "suitable for or worth playing more than once". How you try to achieve this is up to you.

Judge(s) will provide a review of each game and rank them. The rankings will take into account gameplay, creativity and use of the theme. The game which the judge(s) give the highest collective ranking will be the winner. If you wish for your game to be unranked, say so in your submission.

You can re-use art assets and engines from previous games, but make it clear where you do so in your game submission. A more transformative use is likely to be ranked higher in terms of creativity than a simple re-hash of a previous boss battle, but creativity is only one of the ranking criteria.

If you wish to make your case for why you think your game should be ranked highly against the various criteria then you are free to make your case within your submission or in a DC Mail to Joshtek. This will be taken into consideration and where relevant will be discussed in the results post.

Standard rules

Within the game itself, please state that the game was made for this competition and list who the author(s) are.

Games should be made using Clickteam software (e.g. Fusion 2.5).

If you wish to request a deadline extension for extenuating circumstances then please let us know as soon as possible. Late submissions can be refused or could be ranked lower due to their lateness.

...AND IN OTHER NEWS

The much anticipated Knight's Quest RPG Beta Build 1 has been released by BigAl0104

Comments from the Author:

"This is Beta Build 1 of the game. More beta builds to come in the future. In a far away land, there exists a kingdom called Damonia. In it, lives a king known an King Dederic, and his beautiful daughter, Princess Amelia. She is desperate into wanting to marry a special someone, so when the news broke on the other side of the land, an evil wizard named Karlov hears about the princess wanting to get married. Karlov plans to capture the princess, and bring her back to his lair so he ends up marrying her. It is now up to Knight Richard to travel across the land to Karlov's lair, and rescue the princess. Throughout the game, you will fight all kinds of monsters in a turn based RPG battle system. Defeat enemies, level up your stats, buy items and equipment, everything you need to progress further to reach Karlov's lair."

Click here to download the game and read its comments.

And for those who want to create something that is not Halloweeny, we have the Old School Fusion 2.5 Game Jam hosted by Martin Frank. The competition opens today and submissions are due in 1 week. 

I came back from a short holiday in Manchester and ended up with a mini backlog of games. Okay, so on with the show...

The first game we have is the action game Death Deliverancy 2 from Martin Frank.

Comments from the Author:
"'Death Deliverancy 2' is an intense 2D action game where you take on the role of "Death Giver", a fearless warrior who was recently captured, you (DeathGiver) is trying to escape. Armed with an arsenal of deadly weapons, you must fight your way through hordes of enemies. shoot down helicopters. and escape using your skills and quick reflexes to survive. The game is made in Clickteam Fusion 2.5, providing smooth and responsive gameplay. With its fast-paced action and thrilling storyline, "Death Deliverance" is sure to keep you on the edge of your seat. Are you ready to take on the challenge and deliver death to your enemies for the 2nd time?"

Click here to download the game and read its comments.

Secondly we have the interactive fiction game Signal Lost: Connected Edition by Ghost Data Media

Comments from the Author:
"A visual novel about a couple trying to find their way out of a forest and finding themselves along the way... Signal Lost was a Game Jam game made November 8th to November 11th. It's now been substantially updated and published officially as a Ghost Data Media game! Signal Lost Connected Edition adds LOTS of changes to a game that was originally completed in just 3 days."

Click here to download the game and read its comments.

Thirdly, we have 8 more games game on Kliktopia, including the abandoned sequel to Peetoo the Happy Dinosaur (which was cancelled in favour of Peetoo's Revenge). The original Peetoo was one of the first Click platform games I remember downloading from the Internet, so it has a special place in my hart.

In project news, Death Deliverancy 3 has been announced by Martin Frank, an update to Knight's Quest RPG  has been posted by BigAl0104, andd an update to Crazy Towers 2 has been posted by Jack or John.

And last, but not least, I wan to give a heads up that we'll be running a spooky competition / game jam next month. I hope to be able to post more details on Sunday 1st October.

We asked people what art style they prefer for indie games and the results are in:

Perhaps unsurprisingly, more than half of TDC's users voted for Pixel Art. A third voted for either abstract or cartoonish, which got joint second. Still, some people preferred Hand-Painted and Realistic which shows that there is an audience for everything!

In other news, I asked on the Kliktopia Discord what poll to go with next and Wacku suggested we ask what Click tool people started with, some I'm going with that. This poll was run back in 2018 so I'll compare the results with the historic one to see how things have shifted.

Feel free to share in your comments your story of how you started Clicking!