Baby Factory

Baby Factory is a sick and twisted product from the brilliant mind of Charles Forman, of Setpixel.com. The object of Baby Factory is to bounce the little babies, being jettisoned from the factory, into a giant blender by maneuvering two trampoline-carrying factory workers. The trick is to avoid letting them fall on the ground and go boom, er... I mean splat, as the pace picks up with each level. That's it really, there isn't much more to the gameplay than that. And while it isn't the kind of game that usually gets me excited, what I am crazy about is the technology that Charles has put into the game.

Right from the start—as you can see from the splash screen included here—the graphics look sharp, crisp and clean. He has no doubt either toiled for hours creating all those marvelous tiled graphics, or he borrowed them from places like here, here, here, and here. Regardless of how they were acquired, they look amazing in this Shockwave implementation. Tile-based graphics, if done right, can make your games shine like a Mario world.

Also, his use of graphic transitions, particle effects and parallax scrolling techniques are all very well executed. For example: the liquid blood dripping down the screen when the game starts, and when you lose; the in-game fog and smoke engines; and the blender shaking between levels. These are not easy effects to implement, but they all add much to the overall presentation when done right.

Such a very simple game to design, and so much sophisticated technology incorporated into it. That's what I'm excited about here, not babyshakes. Click.

Update: Charles has taken offline most of the games files he had on his SetPixel website. There were many things on his site to learn from as game developers, in addition to his excellent games. His research into collision detection for Marble Madness type games was especially helpful. He's presently working with various types of media in South Korea, and with any luck, he will return to games soon and make his files available once again.