Walaber History
"Walaber" is the online name for me (Tim), a solo game developer. I've been making games since high school, mostly simple freeware games over the years. Here's a look at some of them, in rough chronological order.
** All download links on this page are "AS-IS" from the original release of the game, they may not work properly on modern versions of Windows, etc. Install at your own risk!**
TI-85 Calculator Games
I made a handful of games for my TI-85 calculator in high school, This was my introduction to game programming!
"Weave 3D"
This was my first 3D game, created using the Dark Basic engine. A simple "avoid the walls" game with an outer-space theme.
"Ragdoll Monkey Bowling"
This was my first game after discovering the beauty of physics engines, in particular the Newton Game Dynamics physics library, which I connected to Dark Basic to make this silly little game. Also, coding proper bowling scoring was harder than I anticipated!
"Stunt Playground"
A much more ambitious game, this was a sandbox for car stunts. Set up obstacles and ramps, and then drive around in a variety of vehicles. It featured an interesting "physics always enabled" editor, and a full replay system.
"Walaber's Trampoline"
A fairly detailed and ambitious "action trampoline simulation". Complete with a campaign, leveling up your gymnast, multiple environments, and a (quite buggy) multiplayer mode!
"Aerial Skiing Prototype"
This was a prototype of how to map input from a gamepad (both analog sticks, both analog triggers to directly pose a live physics "puppet" character. I was pretty happy with this test, but became busy with other things and never turned it into more than a tech demo. The ideas here eventually did find their way into a completed game in Gymnast (below), although it was simplified to 2D to be a bit more reliable and playable.
"WiiSticks"
This was a physics toy prototype using Nintendo Wii remotes as input for "devil sticks" juggling toys. It was one of the early demos using Wii remotes on PC combined with physics.
"Gymnast"
An acrobatic "platformer" of sorts. Designed for a dual-analog-stick game controller: left stick controls the arms, right stick controls the legs with direct control. This allows for lots of expressive movement for swinging on the bars and flinging yourself across the levels to victory. A level editor was included, and a small community thrived around the game making custom levels. Once again, a full replay feature was also included, which even displayed the controller inputs along with the playback- this also came in handy for the in-game tutorials.
DOWNLOAD HERE (Windows Installer)
DOWNLOAD HERE (No installer, may require prerequisites to be separately installed)
"JellyCar"
Probably my most famous freeware game. Initially started from messing around with a custom soft-body physics engine in C# / XNA, it turned into a demo which was originally targeted for the Xbox, based on their somewhat short-lived "Creators Club" system for hobbyist and independent developers to release games on that platform. Eventually I ported the physics engine and game to C++ / OpenGL when the App Store was announced, and the game became an early App Store hit. It went on to spawn a few sequels published by Disney.
"3D Soft Body Physics Test"
This was an abandoned attempt at creating a 3D soft body physics system, similar to the 2D system used for JellyCar. Although the basic system worked alright, I never came up with a solid game idea to make use of it, and so that was that.
(at this point in the timeline, I worked for Disney and later Universal for a total of ~15 years, and my freeware / personal game output was quite lacking!
I did create JellyCar 2, JellyCar 3, and the “Where’s My Water?” series of games (among others) at Disney as a designer / lead designer / design director.
"Nice Monster"
An entry in the "Ludlum Dare" game jam, the theme was "you are the monster". By pressing left and right you can move all of the monsters in the level at once. The "player" is just standing still, jumping over and over. The idea is to slide the monsters under the player s he will rebound to the left/right, and eventually bounce the player to the level exit.
"Wall Jump Ninja"
Having made some games for my TI-85 graphing calculator in high school using assembly language, I've always enjoyed learning extremely low-level programming. And after reading Racing The Beam, I got intrigued with making my own Atari 2600 / VCS game. This is the result! Coded entirely in 6502 Assembly, this game fits (barely) in the original Atari cart size of 4K, complete with multiple game modes, an attract mode, music, sound effects, and a special power up. The game is playable in an emulator by downloading the ROM, or you can actually purchase a proper cartridge of the game from AtariAge.com!
"Floppy Frog"
Created for the "Ludum Dare" game jam, the theme was "2 button controls". You try to navigate obstacle courses by extending/retracting the muscles of a "floppy frog" using the "F" and "L" keys only. It's quite hard, but you can get the hang of it eventually. Similar to a game like QWOP, but with multiple levels.
“Graph Ball”
This game was created for the Game Maker’s Toolkit jam, the theme was “Only One”. You get 1 parameter of the level that you can adjust with a graph, and by manipulating the value over time you must solve the puzzle of getting the ball to the target area.
“Torus The Dolphin”
Created for the “Ludum Dare” game jam, the theme was “Stuck In A Loop”. You p[lay as Torus, a dolphin who is teleported to a strange donut-shaped world. To pass the time stuck on this loop world, he swims around and tries to collect rings and do other achievements.
“Basic Replicator”
Replicate voxel objects by writing BASIC code.
Entry for the "Zachlike Jam".
“Balloon Out”
My entry to Mottzy's Jammy Jam.
Control a squishy balloon in this unique take on a classic arcade format.
“WORDZILLA”
My #ChainLetterJam entry "Wordzilla". Play the game here
I was nominated by Simpathey, and her game "World Fall", Check out her devlog