What i've been doing lately

I don't have any big news this time, but I tought to just post another blog here, to keep people informed of what I'm doing. Also because the feedback I got on my previous posts here turned out to be of great value.

Anywhere here's what I have been doing the past month:

Magic Pearls 1.1
I made a new version of Magic Pearls. You can download the demo here: http://www.firstrategames.com/gameinfo.aspx?id=1. It still doesn't have everything most people asked for, but it does have some nice things added to it:

* A-star pathfinding:
You can now drag/drop the player. Using A* pathfinding it then highlights the path it will follow to get there, and once you drop the player, he goes to the assigned location. This should help people who play using the mouse. The next step would be drag and drop the shells. But I'm still struggling with that algorithm, so I'm not sure I'll be able to do that anytime soon (if people implemented something like this before, let me know. I think its possible by extending A* to check if the box can be pushed in the direction, and doing this each time you open a square)
* 200+ extra levels added
I added over 200 extra levels. Only available in the full version though. I will probably add more over the coming month, to make it more interesting for people to buy the game.
* unlimited undo levels
The number of steps you could undo where set to 20. I removed this limit, don't know why I put that limit in there in the first place :)
* Addedd sound for undo
* ...

Here's a screenshot of the pathfinding in action (I'm dragging the player here, the highlighted tiles are the path the fish will follow when released):


New game
I started working on a new game. Didn't make much progress yet, so nothing to show for now. When i have something to show I'll post another blog. I'm thinking of using the art assets from Magic Pearls. Mainly becuase right now I don't have enough budget let someone create new art. Do you think people will notice the artwork (background drawings) are the same? Do you think that will bother people? Its not like MP is a big succes. The demo was downloaded around 400 times this month, so I think there are few people who would know. But... it will be released on the same site (firstrategames.com).

Free mini games
I'm also working on a series of free mini games for firstrategames.com. The idea is to make a section with free flash games, and promote our games on the side. We hope this way the advertising costs will go down a bit.