One of our super-brilliant readers, “AndyGoesToHollywood”, sent over link to Dulldudegames because he wanted us to take a look at Iain Lobb’s simply brilliant game design tool. I am very impressed, especially with the platformer widget. I don’t think there is any way to have it show you the code it is using (which would make is ultimately useful), but as a sandbox is it pretty cool.

After playing with it for a few minutes I took a look around and starting playing the other games on the site. There are 16 games available, some of which I had already played and knew were brilliant (Stacker and Super Stacker for example). Some I had never seen before:

Pop Pirates: I assume the Iain that coded this is Iain Lobb, but anyway it is a very polished, fun “fly up the screen an blast the f*** out of everything” game. It includes bouncy music and has that retro atmosphere that makes me feel like I’m at home sitting in front of my Atari ST avoiding class and waiting for summer to start.
90% Retrotastic

Don’t Look Back: This is a unique adventure  / platform title. It shares elements with quite a few classic games (Pitfall, Hero, Raiders of the Lost Ark etc) but is brilliant in its own way. Each screen presents a challenge to find your way to the exit. There are guns to pick up, enemy/obstacles to blast, jump over, climb over, and more. The style is similar to the Atari 2600 or other very early 8-bit systems.
89% Retrotastic

Hanna in a Choppa: A strange and awesome jaunty little game where you must fly a helicopter trough tunnels and solve little dexterity puzzles with the controls. It is very stylistic and quite s fun time.
89% Retrotastic

There are many other games on the site to check out. I am not sure if they are all done by the same group of people (Iain and his friends) or if some are from other developers. Any case this site has an excellent selection of unique titles to play and learn from.

Simply Brilliant.

(8bitjeff is Jeff D. Fulton)