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theonion770
Web developer who makes the occasional game. My proudest achievement is OngoingWorlds.com, a website for people to create & play text-based roleplaying games.

David Ball @theonion770

Age 41, Male

Web Developer

England

Joined on 9/29/03

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theonion770's News

Posted by theonion770 - March 10th, 2021


I've added a new version of my Zombie Wasteland game to itch.io, you can play it on Android here: https://davidonionball.itch.io/zombie-wasteland-adventure


I've decided to release this game chapter by chapter, & Patreons will be rewarded with the very latest chapter. 


The game so far: 

You've travelled North & found Kevin's young son Cameron alone in the woods. Can you find his sister & get them both safely to their Dad?


You meet Janet, who takes you on a dangerous journey to Camp Woodside.  


New - Chapter 16

You meet some inhabitants of Camp Woodside, but there's something they're not telling you.


Download the full game (so far) here: https://davidonionball.itch.io/zombie-wasteland-adventure


Or play the demo on newgrounds here:


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Posted by theonion770 - August 10th, 2020


I recently released a new version of Zombie Wasteland on Google Play (It's the same version as is currently on Newgrounds, but you can get it here).


The recent chapters mostly involve getting to know the Martin family, & depending on the options you choose, you can get them to trust you... or not. 


I had to write this a fair few times: 


iu_153895_630262.png


The story stays with them for a few chapters, before... well, you'll see. 


There's an option of romance too, although fleeting. 


I'm hoping this will be the last update before the big one, where I actually finish this story off. 

I played this through today & actually it took a lot longer than I expected, over an hour from start to finish. Although I was editing & making notes I suppose. 


If you play this through, let me know how long it takes you, at a normal reading pace. 


I've also added a link to the feedback form at the end, where I'm hoping people will help by providing ideas, & pointing out bugs I need to fix. The feedback form can be found here: 

https://us1.list-manage.com/survey?u=47b13cf1c95f1e5d37b420f94&id=e52eaf27ad


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Posted by theonion770 - August 4th, 2020


In my Zombie Wasteland game you'll encounter characters, some of whom are temporary, & will die or leave pretty quickly. But some of the characters are more permanent. 


I've allowed you to interact with these characters, and in some case, start a bit of a romance. 

Yesterday I wrote an ending for one of the characters, which includes a grizzly death. 


Like every part of this game though, I've kept the details very short & concise. I want this game to require as little reading as possible, & get to the point really quickly - which is why I'm being really careful with not making each sentence too wordy. 


So the character you get to know, and perhaps start to get fond of.... dies. 


But as this is a game, they might not die. It depends on the decisions you choose. 


But even still, it's surprisingly difficult to write! 


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Posted by theonion770 - July 29th, 2020


So I've had this game listed on itch.io for a couple of weeks now, & added it to Newgrounds yesterday.


It's absolutely great that people have been giving me feedback! 


One of the pieces of feedback from Itch.io was that people wanted the story to include a romance option. 

A zombie romance? 😄 


I'm assuming that the person giving feedback wanted a romantic storyline set in this zombie wasteland world. 

After all, aren't zombie stories & films really more about the survival of the characters than the zombies themselves? The best zombies stories that I love are ones of people pushing themselves to survive in a harsh world. 

I think it's interesting to see how people live their lives in extreme circumstances. 

So maybe, yeah, a romance story would work in this game. 


However, I'm not much of a romance writer, so I'm not sure how this option will go! 

Let me know below if you think this zombie game should have a romance plot. 


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Posted by theonion770 - July 29th, 2020


Inspired by finishing Telltale's amazing Walking Dead series, I started working on a text adventure in Twine. 

Twine is a great tool for visualising the multi-threaded story needed in a text adventure. I've probably only unlocked a tiny fraction of its power so far. I wanted to create something super simple & story driven. So used my HTML & CSS skills to style up the interface to be something I'm pleased with, & also super simple. 


Twine exports to HTML. Most people seem to export their games to the web, I've seen a lot on itch.io, but not all that many on the app store. Although there are some, and probably loads more that you won't even recognise as having Twine behind the scenes, because of how powerful it is. 


So I needed a way to convert my Twine HTML into an app (iOS & Android), that's where I used Phonegap Build. I'll write more about this another time, but it's simple online application which takes your project (I've got it to pull mine from a github repo), & turns it into an app you can use for testing. 


You can then upload that app to the Google Play Developer Console, which is what I've done, & the process is almost done... it's almost ready for distribution on the Google Play app store. 


Obviously there's more to it than that, like understanding the application keysigning, which is a confusing nightmare. I might write a tutorial about that, even if it's just for the purpose of my own documentation! 


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Posted by theonion770 - September 24th, 2018


My BotSumo game is now available on Amazon / Kindle Fire tablets. Here's the link:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/David-Dick-Ball-BotSumo-2-player/dp/B07H7VY4RC/ref=sr_1_1


Posted by theonion770 - September 4th, 2018


My BotSumo game is now available for the iPhone! Download it here: 

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/botsumo-for-2-players/id1376842951?mt=8

You can also get BotSumo on Android here: 

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.DavidDickBall.RoboSumo