Scaling down

As much fun as doing daily blogposts has been, I think it's best to make them regular but not every-day regular. 

So like...certain days for reviews, certain days for gamedev, certain days for just about anything. I'll formulate a proper schedule in the next day or so - currently a little stressed and annoyed over Nominet.

Restarting hobbies

I used to do a lot of circus skills workshops and spent a great deal of my time juggling, stiltwalking and generally breaking myself in new and inventive ways. I stopped going so regularly in 2010, went sporadically during my time in uni (drunken juggling was entertaining) and when I moved back in with my parents, went back to my old group once and never returned.

But now, I'm thinking of getting back into it, gradually. Juggling at the least calms me and gives me something else to do with my hands and reflexes while I just let my mind wander. I miss doing more physically demanding things like poi and staff-spinning.

So I'm going to work it back into my life, probably just taking advantage of the nearby park when it's sunny. Hopefully dragging my best friend with me every now and then for the company.

It should do me good (and gets me out of the house).

PSP Emulation

In this case, I am referring to emulating other consoles on the PSP, not emulating PSP ISOs on a computer.

There is a curious emulation aberration I've noticed in the 5 or so months I've had CFW (custom firmware) running on PSPs. SNES ROMs don't run particularly well on a PSP. Not as bad as my long-ago attempts at running a SNES emulator on a DS Lite, but still not really at PC standard.

Yet, in comparison with the PC, the PSP runs GBA ROMs much better. It's very strange.

However, I don't think I'm going to complain too much. I can still use my PSP to play the games I missed out on as a child/teenager, plus with any luck/perseverance I'll even finally finish LeafGreen!

Premium accounts!

I finally have access to the Patreon funds, so I went ahead and bought monthly memberships for DevArt Premium and SoundCloud Unlimited!

Which has been pretty good so far. With DeviantArt I took advantage of the fact I could now link up my Twitter into a widget, so have some activity on there.

SoundCloud Unlimited has revived my interest and ability to produce more readings of Pride and Prejudice, which I'm very happy about.

So all in all, hurrahs!

Split Beginnings post-mortem

Split Beginnings

As you may remember, it was my entry for #genderjam, a gamejam about (surprise, surprise) gender! Using it as the theme, we had to make a game around our experiences of gender. I wasn't going to participate...but a conversation with the jam's curator, @deviever, made me reconsider this stance.

I decided to use this opportunity to get my story out there, show what non-binary folks go through, but more importantly, show that no matter the choices you make, you can't really help but go down the path you really want - whether it's gender or something else.

Eventually you'll crack and rethink your life, or even a tiny part of it. When that happens, you'll work out that it's best to be true to yourself, no matter the obstacles.

I hope, with all my heart, that my little interactive story has given people a new viewpoint on my life, and on that of other people like me.

Classical Music

I go through phases with music. My core loves are symphonic powermetal, chiptune and punk, with some intermingling from other stuff like ska, nu-metal and some "emo".

Currently, I'm in a massive classical phase, inspired by...believe it or not, my love of Pride and Prejudice fanfiction. One in particular put in actual songs, like Boccherini's Fandango, Beethoven's Fur Elise, plus others. I'm a little bit obsessed with Boccherini's Fandango at the moment - mostly because it's a beautiful quintet that includes a guitar and castanets. As one may expect, castanets don't pop up much in classical music...

I hope, at some point, once I've got somewhere with learning music, I'll be able to translate pieces like the Fandango into chiptune-style and use them in my games, or have other devs use them. I'm not picky.

Classical music is beautiful. In a different form, I can't imagine it would fail to be still beautiful - just different. Some of it would be lovely music to go with a game. Again, using the Fandango as an example, I can imagine it being good as a fancy battle theme.

Of course, I could be very wrong, but who knows? Maybe others out there agree with my idea.

Temporary halt

Now I've taken a bit more time to think about how the state my room has effected my work and mood, I'm taking a few days out to focus on sorting it all out.

The paperwork was only the first step. I need to clear out stuff I never wear, stuff I never read...all sorts. I have a huge stack of gaming magazines I need to get rid of, for example. A load of media I don't really need any more. I just need my room back so I can work again.

I'm going to try selling off some of the decent stuff, otherwise it's going to be a lot of stuff being recycled/binned. If I -do- sell stuff, I may open an eBay account as an easy way of getting rid of it all.

I'll let people know if that happens. Anyway, I hope you all understand why I'm doing this.

Burn out

It's a major problem I keep having. Regulating time for when I work and when I don't is difficult, particularly when I have bursts of inspiration at weird times.

So I regularly get burnt out and completely unproductive. I'm hoping that sorting out my room will help with this a bit (It's an unorganised chaotic mess with quite a few tripping hazards).

Room organisation and watching Digimon are my tasks for the weekend. I need a little break from the gamedev stuff - by the time Monday rolls around I should be back to my dev-tastic self!

ComX 2014: Syndaver

Made by dPiction Games, Syndaver is a psychological thriller set in an English hospital. There's a better summary of the game than I could hope to create myself on the dPiction website.

Anyway, it's an FPS along the lines of Killing Floor or Dead Space. Syndaver has procedurally generated levels and the option of entering seeds to generate known levels. Aesthetically, it's very well done - dark, with vibrant colours in the lit sections, there is a general feeling that something unpleasant will leap out at you, and it often does.

I can't comment on the sound much, as I only played the game in a loud room so couldn't really tell what was coming from the game and what was general event noise plus other people's trailers.

In terms of gameplay, it was a very solid FPS. I have a few issues with the build I played, but I hope by the time they bring it to commercial release (which I believe is their intention) these problems would have been corrected.

One majorly confusing bit was when I couldn't move the character much beyond a point. Eventually I looked down and found a rat blocking my movement. That was quite frustrating. There's also a lack of feedback that one would expect from an FPS: the enemies just vanish when they're killed, they don't react to being shot. The build I played also lacked any animation on the gun, which was disconcerting.

All in all, it's a good game - one I look forward to playing once it's been polished up.

On pixel art and sketching

For a good while, I did everything pixel-related in Aseprite or the GIMP. I never really thought about trying my hand at sketching it out on paper or anything like that.

Until I had to design my screens for #lowrezjam. I got stuck trying to make them in Aseprite. I could not see the full picture well enough.

So I bought some graph paper and sketched it out today. I can safely say I know how I'm using what little real estate I have on the 32x32 screen well.

I also experimented drawing out some other stuff as pixel art, I'm rather pleased with the results. I'm going to have to draw them all out in Aseprite/GIMP and upload them soon.

ComX 2014: Keeper City

And so begins my look at the games I got to see at ComX 2014!

The first is the one I originally went to see (because my friend was one of the development team): Arrowhawk's Keeper City. Here's one of the trailers.

It's a 3D hack'n'slash class-based RPG with bits of RTS elements, written in Unity3D. I got to play it briefly at ComX, I also have a copy to try at my leisure...when I remember.

What really struck me at first was how many elements I recognised from games I played with my friend or we'd both played separately. The art style reminds me a lot of the Borderlands aesthetic, the main character model is reminiscent of Caim from Drakengard 1, the gameplay also reminds me of the hack'n'slash games we used to play together.

And yet, it's all melded into something new and fantastic. It's not perfect, it's in serious need of a bit of polish (I get majorly irked by tiny problems) - but I'm still incredibly impressed with what they've managed to turn out.

The controls are pretty robust - I have slight issues with the fact the walk/run transition isn't as fast as I would expect, but overall it still works.

Team Arrowhawk did really well - I wish them every success possible! Check out their website as well - from there you can contact the team.

Instant cheerup music...

Everything Is Awesome - LEGO Movie

I can't help it, it's catchy and hyper. It helps to listen to it whenever I'm feeling a bit out of sync and unable to get going.

I got a few others, like Reel Big Fish - Cheer Up! and Fall Out Boy - I Don't Care (Machine Shop Remix) but right now my leaning is to Everything Is Awesome.

Serious Sam Classic Co-op

I don't play much co-op outside of PvE MMOs. I used to play a lot on consoles, like Secret of Mana and Jet Force Gemini (Floyd is invaluable) but once I moved onto PC I tended to play MMO's and occasionally Counter Strike.

Yesterday I got the chance to play Serious Sam Classic: The First Encounter with my partner...most of the way through. I was flagging by the mission before the end, but it was still pretty excellent.

Serious Sam is great for both PvE and PvP, but there's definitely something much more fun about tackling Mental's hordes with other people. If I remember correctly there can be around 12 people on a Co-op server? Which, considering the enemy count increases with the more people there are...could be manically entertaining. I think Serious Sam will become one of the games I'll stream with other people on a regular basis. 

My only gripe is that I had a tendency to blow myself up with rockets/grenades. Or blow up the other person.

...I'm not designed to pay attention to fellow players...

Ideas for Comics

I've been getting little ideas for comics, mostly exaggerated versions of scenes in Pride and Prejudice (I may be a bit obsessed with that book, I apologise...) plus some of more ridiculous moments in gaming.

The regularity of these is very questionable, so having a separate site for comics is not likely. They will most likely appear on DevArt and Twitter, on the former with an option to buy them as prints.

Also certain frames may be made into t-shirts, if suitable. We'll have to see what my mind churns out into comic form.

#Lowrezjam

May also brings #Lowrezjam - another made by @deviever.

The idea being that we limit ourselves to a 32x32 screen for the entire game.

My current idea is a Hero Tamagotchi - like the tamagotchi pets that were fairly prevalent in childhood, but instead of a little bird or some other animal, you're caring for a little hero making their way about the world, fighting monsters and saving people.

I may need to expand on the idea, but so far it seems sound. Just need to spend some time making up the assets and learning Construct 2 to make it.

1GAM May

May's theme is Money.

I'm liking this theme. The extra encouragement to make some money out of our games, or even some out of the stuff surrounding it (merch, assets etc) is really quite nice.


I'll be taking some time this weekend to think if there's anything I can do for that theme, or even if I can integrate money into my #lowrezjam game (which I'll talk about tomorrow)

ComX 2014

It's an event in the University of Gloucestershire's Park Campus, in Cheltenham Spa for the Interactive Media and Business students. That includes their Interactive Games Design students - a very old and good friend of mine is a final year student and was showing off his group's game, Keeper City there - which I will review in an upcoming post.

There was a nice mix of games and apps made by mostly final year students, though there were a few talented 1st and 2nd year groups who were displaying work as well. I got to play nearly all the final years games, plus one other that I think was from a 1st or 2nd year group, a rather good alpha build of a fps/hacking game (again, will review soon)

It was really good to see all this up-and-coming talent - most were using Unity and outputting low-to-high poly games with fairly solid gameplay. Some required a bit of polish and such, but all in all it was a joy to see all these talented people displaying these 6-month projects.

I think out of them all, I have 4/5 games to review now? Even better is that I have contact details for all these people so I can let them know when the blogposts go up.

These are the teams from ComX 2014, in particular you should all check out Shogun, Eternal Resonance, D-Piction Games and Arrowhawk. (full disclosure - my friend is in Arrowhawk)

There are trailers for the games on the ComX site, which I will link directly when doing my reviews.

All in all, it was a good event and one I may have to return to.

South Wales gamedev meet

Tonight is the night and I'm kind of nervous. I'm also a little disappointed I'll be missing out on #IndieDevHour, but physically meeting some gamedevs might be better for me. 

There's two talks going on in Porter's in Cardiff, then a drink and talk afterwards. So I may be gone a while. ;) Can't be out -too- late, I have to get the train back home and get some sleep before ComX tomorrow.

S3 Mini Review

I don't get new hardware much, so I feel giving this phone a review is a good change from the usual game/software reviews.

There are 3 major reasons why I got this as opposed to a Moto G or other more up-to-date phone.

• Has a removable battery
• Has expandable storage
• Wasn't overly expensive

I use my phone as a social media device, email client, camera, music player and ebook reader: for the last two having expandable storage is essential. I transferred the 32GB microSD from my old ZTE Blade into my S3 and it's been fine.

I can also now do the magical and wonderful thing of playing games on my phone! I have Pixel Dungeon on there now (reviewed yesterday), sometime soon I will be putting on the Humble Bundle app so I can put on the Android games I have from bundles on this and try them out...finally. 

So that means more things to review in the end, which can only be good! 

On the general performance side of things, the dual-core means that 4.1 runs well and the UI is smooth. The only problems I get are usually with Baconreader (reddit app) but then it is loading a lot of data - text and images so I can forgive it.

Pixel Dungeon review

Since getting a new phone, I've started indulging and downloading various good Android games that I wasn't able to play on my old phone.

Pixel Dungeon was one of them. I love roguelikes, as you're all probably aware. Having one I can play anywhere is rather nice for me, as I do travel a lot. Even better, I can play it one handed while I make tea. (has been done successfully several times)

Pixel Dungeon is not easy. I struggle getting further than the second floor as a wizard, I can get to the third easily with a rogue or a warrior. But often I get ganged up on and die horribly. :(

Aside from my dire skill at roguelikes, it's a good game. The badges (achievements) are a nice addition - even if you die horribly you still managed a small lasting legacy. I've only picked up a few, like 100 gold and not killing anything on a floor, but it's still exciting to see "oo, I've done that!"

The controls are good - I have a tendency to miss enemies and walk off, but that's getting less of a problem as I play it more often. All in all, Pixel Dungeon is the first game I play if all I have on me is a phone and a few minutes to wait for a kettle to boil. Or I get an urge to explore and die and I can't be bothered to fire up DCSS.

Much recommended for the casual and experienced roguelike player alike.

Harvest Moon: A New Beginning review

As you probably would have seen on Twitter, I've been playing Harvest Moon: A New Beginning fairly obsessively.

Let me preface this with the fact that I have played quite a few Harvest Moon games: Friends of Mineral Town/More Friends of Mineral Town, A Wonderful Life, Island of Happiness, Sunshine Islands, Magical Melody, and the Rune Factory Frontier game. Rune Factory is a fantasy spin off, that combines dungeon crawling with farming - It's pretty well done.

But my point is that I've played a fair number of the series' titles, so anything I may say could be classed as bias for the "good old days" of Harvest Moon incarnations. But I'll do my best to be fair.

One objection I have to this incarnation is that it seems a bit more shallow than its predecessors. Versions like Mineral Town and Sunshine Isles have extensive mines that run for hundreds of levels. This one has 3 mining points you can access on entry to the Forest Mine. Similarly, Mineral Town had 7 levels to most tools, A New Beginning has 3 for the Hammer/Axe, 4 for Scythe/Watering Can/Hoe and 2 for the Clippers/Brush/Milker.

There are a lot of different things to do in this one though. It follows the restoration/buildup of the town thing that's been pretty common in recent Harvest Moons, but instead of gathering stones or notes to restore things, the farmer follows restoration plans. It's a lot more fun to slowly build the town back to a glorious state - quite literal on the building thing, instead of a carpenter getting hired to build stuff, the farmer does all the building with the help of blueprints!

The other thing is you get to customise the placement of everything on the farm and in the town. Even paths and roads can be changed around!

All in all, despite the "easier" factor, it's a lovely entry into the Harvest Moon roster. That will probably keep me entertained for quite a while.

On Past Reality and old ideas.

So I put this up last night - about my upcoming episodic cyberpunk-leaning interactive story.

It was an idea for a RPG, in the style of Secret of Mana. However, after I used Twine to make Split Beginnings, I decided to move development of Past Reality to Twine instead. 

It should work better - I think of it more as a story than a true roleplaying game, so it's more suited for the interactive story format.

The public domain novels I intend to use as settings are:

Pride and Prejudice

Frankenstein

The Three Musketeers

These are the definite, there may be the chance to add more.

There will be a lot of art to go with this - I'm drawing all the backgrounds, characters, items...It's going to be hard work, but I'm pretty psyched to make it all!

The first episode should be out sometime in mid-to-late May.

Patreon updates

It's been a busy 24 hours, I don't think I've been happier in a while.

But anyway, a few good bits of news from Patreon so far:

• Already hit my first 3 milestones: Funding DeviantArt Premium, SoundCloud Unlimited and my webserver payments
• Put up a sort of roadmap post of what's going to be happening over the next few months (thanks to Patreon and hopefully, game sales): post
• On top of that, posted an update this morning about my financial status and possible hiccups with bank transfers and whatnot: post

Big thank you to Mike Sheldon, Alex Haslam and James Ravenscroft, you three are brilliant people for supporting me. <3 

On Split Beginnings, I've already hit 40 views! Which is great, I am so pleased that it's got this attention. I hope that if you enjoy it, you'll contribute via itch.io, or share it with other people.

 

Patreon, itch.io, and the release of Split Beginnings

So, big day.

I've finally launched my Patreon page, my itch.io page and my genderjam game, Split Beginnings!

Everything's probably going to be a bit hiccup-y - I don't have my PayPal verified -yet- but that process is starting (and may be mildly manic while I'm trying to move my accounts as well)

So yeah, my timing could have been a bit better but oh well, it's out there now.

I'm also slowly setting up Stripe payments as an alternative to PayPal (which also requires verification!). Bear with me guys, it's a lot to get done in a short space of time...But it will get done.

Please, if you enjoy Split Beginnings, MiningRL, my art, my blog, my Pride and Prejudice series on SoundCloud or even just talking to me on Twitter - donate to me via Patreon or itch.io through my game(s).


Thank you all. <3

WINE compatibility

It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that a Linux user sometimes has a need to run one or many Windows-only applications and the solution can be found in using WINE.

Which is not an emulator per se, it's a compatibility layer. I've used it on and off for many years, mostly to try playing a Chinese F2P MMO called Perfect World International. I've recommended it to friends and even used a Linux build + WINE to try and curtail a friend's sister's gambling habit without compromising his ability to play Steam games.

I am considering installing it again to run tests on whether Twine works on WINE, so I can do most of my interactive story development on something with a non-dire keyboard. My Windows laptop is nearly 3 years old - it's been wreaked through gaming, working, travelling around the country, back and forth from uni...all sorts. I don't have the money at the moment to really replace it or put Windows on my tower on a separate drive.

If I can do some of my game development on Linux rather than Windows, I will be a happy Goggles. I honestly struggle to use Windows, it takes too much control away from me, it's a processor and memory intensive mess and there's no such thing as a proper terminal.

Slight rebranding plus musings

As you may have noticed, I'm making sure all my usernames are 8BitGoggles now, just to reinforce that the username is me. Which has unfortunately meant that my One Game a Month profile got wiped, but never mind, that's recoverable.

There will be some new pictures to go with the rebranding once I plan them out...keep your eyes open!

Also I've been thinking about writing a load more Twine games from my old RPG ideas. They're all easily convertible to interactive stories, which helps. To make conversion even easier, I'm thinking of making it all episodic (one episode == one mission, or thereabouts), with plenty of pretty still art depicting areas/characters etc. While it's in development, I'll probably go the "pay what you want" model.

When I actually finish the entire story, I'll bundle them together and offer it for a minimum price with a chance to pay extra. Seems like a reasonable pricing model to me...I could be wrong though - feel free to let me know if you think there's a better way to do it.

Oh, and when Split Beginnings gets released, it will also be going on the "pay what you want" model...for at least a little bit.

Breaktime + Split Beginnings update

I'm pretty achy and tired from yesterday's trip out, so I won't be doing much on anything except my farm on Harvest Moon today. I have a sheep now. :D

Also, I owe you guys a little update on Split Beginnings. Yes it's finished, no it's not up anywhere yet. Two reasons why it's not up: One, couldn't get itch.io to accept it. Two, after allowing my partner to play it, realised that yes, there are few bits that could require some polish before general release.

So I'll be working on that...not today, but hopefully tomorrow.

Temporary absence

Today, I won't be online much. 

I'm going into Cardiff to a thing called Judgement Day, where there are two back-to-back rubgy matches in one afternoon. I'm going to be spending about 5 hours in the Millennium Stadium with my parents, watching rugby for the first time in a fairly long time - I don't think I've been to the Millennium Stadium for about 6-7 years!

Also, afterwards, we're eating out. So who knows when I'll get home.

I thought I'd better explain my Twitter absence. But I will have fun away from my usual spot in front of my desk. Have a good Easter Sunday everyone!

Lego, Technic and Meccano.

I just watched this fabulous video of a massive Lego robotic contraption that transported balls around a circuit. It's a beautiful example of the complex amazing things that can be built with Lego.

It also reminded me that I still have all my Lego, Technic and Meccano up hidden in my cupboard, fairly untouched for a few years. I'm kind of inspired to start collecting Lego again, if just to make epic things again.

I think once I tidy my room up so I have some floor space again, I may have to try getting it all down and building stuff again. Of course, it will be shared if this happens.

I have the severely large urge to make something vaguely useful with Meccano. No idea what but I'm sure I can work something out...

Starfox 64 3DS review

Lylat Wars (or Starfox 64, depending on region) was one of my favourite N64 games as a child. It still has a hold over me now - I replay it every now and then on emulator.

So when I found a cheap copy of Starfox 64 3DS in Reading CEX, I though, "hell why not."

What surprised me was how much the graphics have improved. I felt a strong compulsion to go to every single area to see it all anew. Even hated places like Sector Z, Titania and Solar. It is a beautiful game. Many of my misgivings about the graphics in the original when it came to places like Aquas have now been corrected.

There are two different modes for control - Gyro and the original N64 controls. Gyro mode uses the gyroscope in the 3DS to control the ship. It's not practical for strong movements unfortunately - I'm too used to being able to zip around the screen.

The voices haven't changed much, but there are some additional phrases from your teammates when you shoot them accidentally and the Star Wolf guys when you evade them.

All in all, I recommend it whether you enjoyed the game on N64 or never played it before - it's short but the replayability factor is extremely high.

IndieDevHour

For those who do not know, #IndieDevHour is an hour between 7-8PM GMT on Wednesdays hosted by @LunaRose13 and @Sllayt3r. It's held on Twitter and gets used for a variety of things:

• To promote games in development or already out there
• To encourage more indie devs to connect and talk
• As a opening point for people to ask questions about common problems/tools/etc

I've used it for all three, the last point being the most useful. Last night I used #IndieDevHour to talk to people about some of my hangups on using tools like Construct 2/Twine/GameMaker Studio, when I feel like I should be making stuff by hand (a carry-over from meritocracy snobbery that tinged a lot of my interactions at university, which has affected me far more than I realised)

Hearing from other people that yes, using stuff like GameMaker is -not bad- is rather nice. After two years of meritocracy that ground me down, to suddenly hear that these tools are worth using is an absolute blessing.

So to everyone who takes part in #IndieDevHour - you guys are awesome. To every other indiedev, it's worth taking part in!

Split Beginnings

It's a working title, but one that may stick.

Currently I'm working on my interactive personal story for #genderjam. It's harrowing, it's interesting working out how to gamify it and it's a minefield trying to work out what can and cannot be said in the name of protecting certain people. 

A lot of details will probably be left out/modified/made fairly abstract, but it will be a fairly faithful telling of bits of my life that are relevant to the gamejam's theme.

It's good from two points - one, I'm spending time thinking about things that have already passed, getting a better idea of what happened and how to tell the story from a slightly different viewpoint. Two, it's getting me to think about what could have happened if my life had taken other turns. Which is interesting from an introspective look at myself, as well as from the "would it really affect what happened" view.

This is definitely a more "artistic" game than a "gameplay" game. I'm pretty okay with that.

On the subject of gamejams

I'm having serious trouble being inspired by generic words and themes like water and loops. Which leaves me in a bit of a quandary when it comes to One Game a Month themes.

Yet, through sheer accident, it seems I've found a bit more of a haven with Deviever's current #genderjam. Suddenly inspiration! Suddenly stories! Suddenly...I feel driven to tell stories, rather than gameplay for gameplay's sake. Which seems to be my most recent problem. I'm utterly struggling to make almost generic games in the name of technical exploration and skills, yet I can easily think of a story to tell and how to do it interactively.

I think I shall take the hint that my mind is giving me and settle into making interactive fiction. Better to do things I can make rather than struggling along in areas I'm less than confident in. As long as I keep my hand in with the normal programming for interesting/useful gamedev utilities, I should be perfectly fine.

DeviantArt Muro

It's a tool that's been on DeviantArt for a while, but I've only been able to use it properly recently (what with the whole "getting a graphics tablet" thing). 

Muro is a digital painting program that sits in your browser. It's tied to your DeviantArt/Sta.sh account, so you can save your work to Sta.sh and submit it to DeviantArt with no hassle.

Despite the fact it's in a browser, it's a pretty well-featured digital painting program. It's been a nice tool for getting used to my Wacom without being overwhelmed by the options that are available to me in Krita or other digital painting programs.

An added advantage is that on Muro you can load in your DeviantArt submissions/Sta.sh files as a new layer, or even pull them up to work on them as a file. Which is really good! I like the idea that work that's been made, that is already out there can be used again in this.

Krita

Krita is an open source digital painting program that used to be part of the KOffice package - now it's split off into a separate thing.

It's got a lot to it. It's trying (and succeeding) to be a professional painting program. It offers a lot in the way of brushes, provides templates for various things (comics, movie stills etc) and has more modes and options than you can shake a stick at.

I'm pretty in love with it. It's powerful, but not as intimidating as something like Photoshop. It's also theme-able, which I like. I put it to the darker mode, because it looks the nicest. The colour-selector is very powerful - as well as the colour-wheel, triangle shade-picker, there are gradient/contrast/hue bars underneath. Makes it so much easier to adjust the colours.

Unfortunately, I can't wax lyrical about it much more, as I don't -know- much more. I'm kind of limited in my experience from only doing one drawing in it. I'll post about more features as I find them.

Wacom Intuos

I received a Wacom Intuos Pen Small a few days ago as an early birthday present from my parents. This is the first graphics tablet I've ever owned, so it's all a bit new to me.

One of the main reasons I went with Wacom (aside from it being a popular brand) is that they support cross-platform usage - as well as the included drivers for Windows and Mac, Wacom give support to Linux driver developers. So with a little poking and building an older driver, I got my Intuos to work on my tower and my laptop.

It is a dream to use. Takes a little while to get used to, but after a day to adjust, flying around the screen(s) seem second nature to me. Using it on a dual screen setup was a bit bizarre at first, but now I'm pretty happy with it.

Jay Townsend's Trigger Warning

The game itself.

Jay Townsend is a gamedev I follow on Twitter. He's a pretty cool guy, says good things and is generally someone I enjoy interacting with. So when he put up a link to TW: Trigger Warning, I instantly clicked on it to check it out.

First and foremost, this is an artistic game. It's less about the game mechanics and more about the message that's being conveyed. Some people don't like that kind of game, so I guess avoid in that case.

For those who are more interested in the artistic applications of games, read on. Don't read on if you haven't played it and plan to, there are spoilers ahead!

It deals with depression through a game of Space Invaders. First the colours dim, then the shot speed goes down, then movement range decreases, until pretty much all you can do it await the slow approach of the wall of enemies.

All through, messages pop up. I really recommend playing it just to get an idea of what someone who suffers depression can feel like. 

As someone who has been there, I appreciate what Jay's made. It clicks with me, I'm glad he made it and I hope that other people get to play it as well.

April 1GAM ideas

I have a few, I'll lay them out.

1: Rainy setting for pretty much anything. April showers could be a theme or a puzzle-solving mechanic.

2: Water as a weapon. Water gun against sludge enemies or something.

3: The sea/a river as an environment. Boating,  flying over the water, something like that.

Those are the main few. I think I'll be writing it in PhaserJS, but I still need to look at the physics stuff properly. Maybe I'll change my mind, who knows.

MiningRL postmortem

I thought it best to get it done now rather than trying to think about it a few months later.

There were two main aims when making this. The first was to learn more JavaScript, which I have done. I'm also a lot more confident when debugging my js as well, so that's a major plus. 

The second aim was to learn different PCG methods - instead of just the usual dungeon generations I've done before, I now know about (and get terribly happy about) cell automata generation, for making caves and other organic structures.

I missed out on making some features like an online scoreboard and proper randomised cave-in/gemstone mining points, but I'm rather pleased that I got it finished and playable to count as my March 1GAM, despite two bouts of illness and a lot of travelling around for interviews and the like.

Overall - I'm rather pleased, could be better, let's see what I come up with for April! :D

Soundcloud

I've got a Soundcloud account now!

I'm not uploading music though, I'm making various noises that can be used for games - I have announcements and some spells up now, plus some example readings of Pride and Prejudice to attempt to show off my voice.

Though I'm having so much fun with the P&P readings that I may do the whole book and put it on YouTube or something. (SoundCloud only has room for 120 minutes of audio on a free account)

So anyway, here's my SoundCloud account, I hope y'all enjoy what I've put up! (maybe even use some of it)

DS Colors update

I've been working on various drawings, getting used to 1.11beta (last version of Colors I used was 1.06).

It's pretty good - despite the limitations. The size of the DS Lite screen is indeed a problem, though I might buy Colors on the 3DS store so I can use it on my 3DS XL.

I wouldn't use it as my -only- digital painting program, but it's a pretty decent stopgap until I get a graphics tablet. Hopefully I'll be able to transfer some of these skills to proper digital painting and I'll have a little less to learn.

Kittens in a Blender

Yes, you did read that right. Last weekend I got a card game called Kittens in a Blender (you may have noticed it on Twitter).

Despite, or because of, the questionable morality of playing a game where you save your kittens and try to blend your opponents, it is very very fun. I fully recommend people find it and play it.

If anyone's in the same country as me and I happen to meet them, I will play it with them to spread the weird joy of this game.

Evoland

Okay, I haven't got far beyond acquiring 3D mode, so this isn't an entirely complete review. I will make a follow up if I need to comment on the rest of the game.

As for the amount I have played, I really like it. After playing DLC quest, the idea of collecting gameplay features is not a new one, but still a somewhat novel idea of doing things. Even if it is just a Zelda/Final Fantasy mashup-parody thing, it's rather good at what it is.

Another good point is that Evoland is written in Haxe - a cross-platform language that I need to learn at some point. So automatically it can run on all three major systems (or it would, if there weren't a particular library issue with Linux)

Annoyingly, I don't see that it's something I'll be replaying anytime soon - it's nice but as a single experience only. I'm also quite glad I got it in the Humble Bundle - doubt I could have justified paying full-price. It's pretty fun, but I try to pay more for games that I'm likely to play more than once.

DS Colors

If you ever spent a few minutes in the DS homebrew community, you may know of one of the most popular homebrew applications - Colors.

In my current absence of a graphics tablet, I'm going to start some digital painting with Colors just to keep in practice. Plus, with Colors, I can doodle pretty much anywhere! 

The nice thing is, that all of the drawings I save will be put on the SD card and then I can simply transfer them to one of my PCs and upload them to DeviantArt. Nice and easy. \o/ A few are already up on DevArt, so feel free to check them out!

A personal challenge

Using sites like Seventh Sanctum and other generators has given me the idea of a little personal challenge I'm going to set myself.

I aim, at least once a week, to use a character or race generator and draw something from the description. I want to do it as a regular thing just so I'm always exercising the creative muscles on something new rather than being bogged down in the usual things (fantasy/cyberpunk/sci-fi/modern).

Who knows, maybe a usable race/character will come from it. 

Upcoming fanart.

I've been doing lots of Binding of Isaac fanart lately, but I need to change it up and do something different. I'm starting to backtrack through my old Pokemon savefiles and find my old teams.

In some cases, this means reaching back into my memories - because my Pokemon Silver cart doesn't have a working battery and my old save died. But the rest are on DS carts now, so much easier to recover.

As I haven't played Black and White, I'll be doing 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 6th gen. 6 should be fun, I'll also have to draw my trainer in all her customised glory.

As always with my art, it'll end up on DeviantArt.

Card art

I've been contemplating making a series of Tarot Cards for a while. Just because it would be an interesting project to do, that and to have a series of artwork seems like a nice thing for one's portfolio.

Not entirely sure what style I'll end up drawing them in. Tempted to go for a chibi-style. Comedic Tarot Cards kind of appeal as an idea to me. Whether it would to anyone else is another matter, but I'll just have to see.

As with all my art these days, it'll end up on DeviantArt.

Side note: this is past 12 in my timezone, so definitely nothing to do with April Fool's Day.

Character Building

Finer detail than world building, but also necessary. I need to start making up decent generic bases for characters. But before that I need to start researching mythical creatures again. Humans are all well and good, but if I start on fantasy or sci-fi, I'm going to need some ideas from the myths and legends of the world.

Like, I have ideas for a Naga-like race, but need to draw Naga's to help develop the idea.

Thankfully, I have a small book by one of my favourite artists, Finlay Cowan. The book in question is Fantasy Artist's Pocket Reference: Incredible Characters. It has a large number of characters and different ideas - I find it very easy to get lost in it. It's very wide ranging, taking ideas from Western, Eastern and other mythology. The variation helps, I've been stagnated in Western mythology for a while.

So I'll probably get stuck into that and come up with a few character/race ideas.

World Building

I'm looking at trying some proper world-building. Of a Sci-Fi or Fantasy setting, I haven't picked yet. I have a few written ideas for Cyberpunk universes, and bits of concept art for one, but I want to try something else for a change.

If I went with fantasy, I would try not to go Tolkien-esque. I have some old ideas for a very dragon-centric world that I may revive. Otherwise I'd probably try to aim for more "gritty", little to no magic and intrigue-filled universe. Lots of warring noble families...this is possibly heading into Game of Thrones territory.

Sci-Fi is a little harder. I've spent a long time developing Cyberpunk universes that I haven't really thought about straight sci-fi in a while. I may go the Firefly-esque route of a ragtag society with two very different faces, or I could go more along the lines of Star Wars/Warhammer 40K and try and build a few/many different alien species, heavy military, etc.

I need to settle down and write out some ideas in the next few days...

ROM hacks

Lately, I've been drifting back to the modding and ROM hacking scenes, just to see what's going on. I stumbled across some semi-decent Sonic ROM hacks - one of Sonic 2 where Sonic is now Shadow, and Tails is a Chao. The Shadow sprites used are pretty good! The Chao is good as well, aside from the times it doesn't have a suitable replacement and switches to a blue Tails on certain frames...

I also found a version of Sonic 1 where you played as Amy instead. I liked it aside from one problem - most of the game now had a fairly horrific pallet set. The lava is now yellow, the sky is often pink and I weep at the awful colours.

That aside, it still plays as well as normal Sonic 1.

I do recommend looking around at ROM hacks. There are a lot of terrible ones (which at the very least will amuse for a while) but hidden among the unfinished and the terrible there are some real gems.

Desura

Slowly but surely, I'm broadening my profiles and trying to get to a point where I have places to distribute my games other than Github/my site.

Now I'm getting my Desura profile sorted out (very slowly). It's 8BitGoggles on there, the profile picture is the same as my Twitter one.

I'm hoping to have stuff on both Desura and Itch.io eventually. It may be a while, what with this "making games" thing, but I will let people know when it's all finished.

Demakes and remakes

The LudumDare mini-jam has the theme of De-make. De-makes, for those who don't know, are games remade in the style of an older console - for example, @deviever is making an Atari version of the NES version of Legend of Zelda. Sticking to the old sprite size/pallet conventions, people hope to capture the spirit of the original game in an older format.

It's fascinating. Some pirated clones do this - there is a SNES version of FFVII out there somewhere, which is actually a fairly well done de-make (for a cheap Chinese knockoff...)

Then there are things that straddle the line between de-make and re-make, like the project I most remember - MP2D. A group of Metroid fans were trying to remake Metroid Prime in 2D. It was kind of de-made, as in regressing a dimension, but the sprite style was so beautifully done and detailed it didn't feel like a de-make, more like a very beautiful re-imagining of the original.

There's also stuff like Counter-Strike 2D, which I have yet to try.

I'd love to make a de-make or a re-make, but at the moment there isn't anything I'm inspired to convert. I'll have to keep de-makes in my mind as a possibility.

The myriad of things I'm planning

A more comprehensive plan for stuff to put on OpenGameArt might be a good idea.

As well as items and enemies and the usual fare one would find in a sprite-laden RPG/platformer, I also want to make characters for visual novels. There doesn't seem to be much out there, which is both understandable and slightly disappointing.

So I'd -like- to plug the gap there and make up some characters. May take a while to get them to the right standard - they'd either have to be pixel-dolls (which would take a mild age) or get my skills up to scratch and get a graphics tablet (which I need anyway)

It may take a while until I get to making Visual Novel characters for open use, but I'm fairly determined to make it a reality.

Otherwise, it's mostly sprites and UI elements.

OpenGameArt

It's rare I sprite these days. But I think if I had an aim, I'd make more. I want to contribute stuff to OpenGameArt just to get my stuff out there...

So I'm going to try and make little things. An enemy sheet here, some items there. Maybe I'll have enough that I can start giving out huge packs of worlds to people.

I need to have -something- out there because I really don't have much that is completely original content. To have it out there and being used is just a bonus.

MiningRL update

Not really -much- of an update. I've been ill over the last few days (as those on Twitter would have seen) so haven't really been up to much since trying to implement flood-fill and mining points.

I have had some progress though. Generation of caves is reliable (though should probably be rolled back to the more extensive generation I had), mining points are being placed in the walls. I had no luck with flood-fill as I went with a far too recursive method that FireFox cried at.

So next is player addition, movement, being able to interact with mining points and generate a result (jewels or a cave in).

I'd say I'm a good third of the way to being done. Not sure whether there will be a scoreboard now, maybe if I have the time (MiningRL is my 1GAM after all)

Storycade

I found Storycade by total accident a few days ago. I do love my interactive fiction, and to have a site that's dedicated to several facets is pretty awesome.

http://storycade.com/

For instance, it has lists of games on all sorts of platforms - mobile, PC etc. Plus a load of resources - tools and tutorials. I could spend a while just looking through the site for new stuff to go through and learn.

One thing that does kind of disappoint me is that it doesn't seem very up to date with HTML5 tools that are starting to emerge. I mean, it has Twine, but nothing that's cross-all-platforms. I'm finding stuff out through Twitter about such tools which is good, but places like Storycade should have a bit more up-and-coming tools. I may construct a list of tools that should be included and send them to Storycade someday.

That's my take on it anyway.

Less games, more other stuff.

I really need to start building some commonly used things. Like map generation + flood filling, puzzle generation, all sorts of little useful programs and modules that I'd find really helpful yet have to re-write a lot.

I'll make a list of things, then start on them slowly. With any luck I'll have a nice little library of my own of gamedev tools.

I've also got a few little projects I need to start working on, like a webapp and a pattern conversion script for US > UK crochet terms.

Shapeways - tutorials

The more I look at Shapeways, the more I'm impressed by what they do.

They have a whole host of tutorials here, for people wanting to make stuff to be 3D printed. As well as that, they have a pilot print service, where you can do several iterations of a print to see if the design works/is strong enough.

All the 2D -> 3D stuff is brilliant as well - the flat designs given a thickness for depth and the online ring designer are great just to play around in.

I -really- need the time to settle down with Blender and start making stuff.

New RL project: MiningRL!

I've been looking at "coffee-break roguelikes" - 5-10 minute play-to-completion rather than half-hour/hour epics (or repeats)

What I've come up with and will implement, is a little single-level cave in which the player needs to find as much gems and materials as possible before they either empty the mine or accidentally die by a cave-in. There will be a little leaderboard, so it's quite focused on the idea of "get more than your friends!"

I'm using rot.js for this - I'll also host the scoreboard. Eventually I may put in some form of social sharing integration thing if anyone wants that sort of thing (some might, I dunno)

Shapeways

3D printing has fascinated me since it came into existence. The advent of commercial and home usage has just further ignited that love for what can be done.

Shapeways is a brilliant place where you can sell your designs. It's a little more complicated than that in reality (I believe you give Shapeways the right to sell your work in return for royalties/markup and they also handle all the customer side of things.)

More importantly, it's a potential source of revenue for me. I need to learn 3D modelling -anyway-, so trying to make things that can be printed as well as making worlds in Blender would be great - particularly if anyone likes them enough to buy them! I have a few little ideas after looking around some of the sections, however I won't be able to do much until after I've played with Blender a bit.

A ClassicFM program featuring Video Game music

You may have seen me mention this on Twitter a couple of nights ago, but I wanted to write a post on it now that I've listened to it all.

Link to the episode on ClassicFM player.

It's 2 hours long, and there's a fair mix of pieces. The first three are Final Fantasy - Aerith's Theme, the intro of FF8 and To Zanarkand. All of which are the beautiful orchestral renditions. Then it moves off to Nintendo, with an orchestral melody of Super Mario Brothers main themes, then Mario Galaxy's Gusty Garden Galaxy.

They look at modern games as well - there's tracks from Remember Me, Bioshock Infinite and Thief. There is a version of all three Tetris themes done by what I think is a string quartet - I remember being utterly mesmerised by the skill of the cellist and violinist. One of the last pieces was Simon's Theme from Castlevania, plus Dracula's theme. Both were amazing to hear in orchestral form - I'd only ever heard both as chiptune.

The program itself was well done - though the first half hour of "this is coming from a game, believe it or not!" was a little bit grating. It moved past that thankfully. I was quite pleased that the presenter themselves was -not- a gamer, but had an appreciation for music in gaming. It gave me a little bit of hope that some of my favourite music can be appreciated by more people.

Open for Commissions!

DevArt thread.

If anyone's interested in some art from me, then feel free to message me on DevArt or comment on that thread. 

On the off-chance you're wanting something embroidered, sprited or written up, throw me a message anyway - particularly for anything embroidered or sewn, I charge money for those.

Adoptables and other DevArt things

In an attempt to get a load of points and premium membership on DevArt, I'm looking into making adoptables to sell. For those who don't know what adoptables are - they're original characters that you sell to people for points or Paypal donations. They can be in any medium, animal or original species.

I may also be looking into making designs for things I can sell on the DeviantArt shop, like mugs, calendars and other things. Just another potential money-making method...Even if it's a few quid here and there - it's a few quid I didn't have before.

Moving away from DevArt a sec, I may look into starting a Folksy store soon - again, just so I have some place to sell things that I make. I need some form of income, and I'd love to be able to make some off of my own creative abilities (aside from, y'know, the whole trying to be an established indie gamedev thing)

Digital Art tools

I'm heavily considering investing in a Wacom Bamboo tablet for drawing and digital colouring. Plus, the fact I have a non-working scanner is limiting my opportunities to colour my current art (I have no colour pencils or Copic Markers...)

Bamboo for two reasons - 1, they're good quality tablets, 2: most importantly, they're Linux-compatible. I really need something that's cross-platform, as I do most of my stuff on Linux anyway, I'd rather not be forced to use Windows as a working OS, it's fine as a gaming OS for now.

I just need to work out -which- to get. Choice is sometimes a terrible thing.

Massive DeviantArt update

I re-discovered a load of drawings in two different sketchbooks that never got uploaded, so I uploaded them to DeviantArt over the last few nights in an effort to expand my portfolio.

As well as that, I've also categorised some of my art and pondering embarking on theme challenges for writing and drawing in order to broaden my skills further. I've already selected a writing challenge to start, I have yet to look for a drawing challenge. Hopefully I'll find something. For the writing challenge, I'll try basing it off a few universes/characters I've created, but I may decide to veer off and try using these themes to build worlds and new characters off. Who knows, a few may end up as games!

Following a themed drawing challenge would probably head off in similar directions.

Making up cross-stitch patterns

I have a great deal planned out, but I've actually recently selected sprites and arranged them into suitable patterns for making up - I have a whole list of ideas that I've been meaning to sew up for a couple of months now, so to have the patterns ready is a big step forward. 

So I've made up the following today:

• Second Gen Eeveelutions (Pokemon)
• Sonic, Tails and Knuckles (Sonic The Hedgehog)
• Will (Illusion of Time)
• Hero (Secret of Mana)
• Kirby (Kirby's Dream Course)
• Mario, Luigi, Peach, Toad (All Stars SMB2)

Expect more cross-stitches in the future!

YouTube possible channel?

Yup, YouTube is looking more likely as another place for me to put stuff up on. Now I've discovered guvcview, I have a semi-decent recording program. Just need to find a screen recorder (I have a few to test) and I should have a decent way to record playthroughs of roguelikes and other games, as well as talk about games and other things that strike my fancy, which is pretty awesome.

I'll be planning what to do for a while, then as soon as I set it up, arrange a schedule and post the intro video, I will link to it on here and on my site.

More patterns coming up

I've made a Cave Story cross-stitch pattern (featuring Quote, Curly Brace and Misery) and a Final Fantasy 1 Four Fiends line-up pattern.

So Lich, Kary, whatever the Water Fiend is called I don't remember, plus Tiamat. NES graphics, rather than say, Dawn of Souls (GBA) or FFI for PSP level. Those may be a little beyond me right now. After blasting through Blaziken in about a week and a half, I'd rather make up some simple ones, with 3 colours plus black.

Binding of Isaac fanart

Judas vs Mom's Heart!

I drew this over the weekend, took about 2 hours to draw and ink - but I took my time as I was trying to do a few other things at the same time. 

With any luck, I'll have some time in between other commitments (eg NeonRL) to draw some more stuff for DeviantArt. It's a nice break from coding.

Other RL ideas

I often have flashes of inspiration while playing games, of ideas for games I can make myself. So for instance, when playing Lego Marvel Heroes, the idea of a superhero Roguelike came to mind. Where a generated hero has to use their powers to help or harm, meeting their end either by an overpowered hero/villain, law enforcement, or an angry cat at the top of a tree.

It could take Yet Another Stupid Death to hilarious proportions.

Mining/looting-based roguelikes also feature pretty heavily in my mind lately, after blasting through 10,000,000. I may spend a few months writing Roguelikes just to get these ideas out of my system...

Research?

I will be doing a lot of it over this month. I'm making an effort to look at retro games in places other than the beloved consoles of my youth (SNES, Megadrive, Gameboy) and looking at DOS games, with the emulation help of DOSBox.

I've already downloaded a load of RPG's (including the first two Elder Scrolls games) - some well known, some less so. Even found an interesting Final Fantasy spinoff.

If anyone can recommend DOS games I should look at for ideas or even just "This was the haven of my childhood!" do feel free to let me know.

YouTube

I've been thinking for a while about opening a YouTube channel, for a place to host some video tutorials, maybe speed-runs, let's plays and other things. Since getting a new video card and finding a screen-recorder, I'm more tempted.

I'll spend a bit longer pondering this, hopefully I'll come up with an answer (and a channel) soon!

DeviantArt Updates

A lot of my artwork is getting put on Twitter, but more importantly going on DeviantArt as well. At the moment, I've been drawing Binding of Isaac fanart and concept stuff, but hopefully I'll be able/inclined to draw more.

I'm also considering doing more sprites that end up on DeviantArt and eventually have the majority of my portfolio sitting on there. Maybe some day, I'll even have prints to sell - after blasting through Romantically Apocalyptic in 2 days, I'm considering making printed mugs (Zee Captain's mug has inspired me!)

Neon RL - March 1GAM

I was torn between a visual novel game and a Roguelike for this month's 1GAM, finally I'm settling on the roguelike.

Since I found out the word for this month - Neon - the idea for a roguelike centered around collecting colours and using them to fight and progress through levels came to my mind.

It will be expanded upon, but I believe I will be making a little mutil-level roguelike, probably with libtcod unless I find another library that I fancy learning.

Blaziken Cross-stitch

I've uploaded the pictures to imgur, finally. So now the progress of the whole thing, as well as the final image, are available for all to view!

The album will also be linked to on my website. The final image will end up on my DeviantArt profile as well.

The next sewing project

Blaziken is done! There will be a progress album and the completed picture up in a post coming soon - just need to move the photos off my phone first.

After my recently discovered love of Street Fighter, I decided that I should next sew up a Cammy, as she is my favourite character so far. Also, in order to pay a little homage to my first loved side-scrolling fighter, I'm planning to make up a Blaze as well.

So keep your eyes open for some classic fighter goodness appearing on your screens soon!

Post-Comic-Con review!

I spent most of Cardiff Comic Con wandering around with a sing proclaiming "Praise be the Helix" in honour of the Twitch Plays Pokemon Helix Fossil religion. Enough recognised it (and took pictures) that I may end up internet famous, who knows.

Aside from that, I got to take part in the Retro Game Challenge qualifiers that were happening in the Con, which was quite fun - got to play Super Mario Kart, R-Type, Kaboom, a pinball game for Megadrive I can't remember the name of, and Super Street Puzzle Fighter. I was around 20th overall, which I'm pleased with.

There were other games around that were not challenge related, like Street Fighter 2, Mario Kart 64, Goldeneye 64, Pokemon Stadium and bizarrely, Ikagura(GC). Which I am now pretty in love with and need a copy - it's a beautiful bullet-hell game.

March 1GAM - ideas

After playing Long Live The Queen, I've been thinking about writing a Visual Novel game, possibly Cyberpunk in nature.

So I now have to look into both Visual Novel game structures and the framework RenPy in order to get an idea as to whether this is a good idea.

Otherwise, I'm sure I could try writing a Roguelike again, which is always good fun.

Mint 16 - the final update

If you follow me on Twitter, you may have seen the liveblogging of my fight with Nvidia drivers and dual monitor setups.

I'm happy to report that I did fix it in the end, and now I have a lovely 2-screen setup! It's not perfect (resolutions are a bit of a pain to work out with different monitors...), but it works!

Binding of Isaac

I've been playing it quite a lot lately, at least a few runs a day. Progressing quite far now, I'm on 6 completed runs as of last night.

I like games like BoI for many reasons. The morbid, gross humour, the dark story, the simple gameplay, the often-evil levels of difficulty and the massive surge of pride when you're able to survive harrowing boss battles with nary a scratch.

My favoured characters are Samson and Judas, because I'm better at low health/high attack than high health/low attack. I'm hoping to unlock ??? in the next few days, maybe complete the game with Eve and Maggy just to get the achievements.

I'm also looking forward to Rebirth - if just because Flash is a sometimes temperamental medium that has a tendency to overheat my laptop.

Mint 16 - update

It turns out that by default, Mint 16 doesn't have access to the unstable packages. Which is supremely annoying, but easily fixable. So now the only thing I have to make sure works is dual-screen monitors - which should be relatively simple now that the right drivers are installed and there seem to be no major glitches when booting on the video card.

Then again, my optimism will probably be unfounded and I'll have to spend a few hours fixing stuff. We shall see!

Mint 16

This update was fairly smooth, but has also been a pain.

Steam won't install properly because of a lack of curl, and I can't find it anywhere to install it. Will resume search at a later point. In fact, there are a lot of dependency problems that I need to fix, which is incredibly annoying.

Back to it I go!

Feb 1GAM failure/March planning

I'm not going to be able to complete something for February, which is regrettable. I'm struggling hugely with JavaScript, and could do with learning it properly rather than hacking away until something kind of works.

So I'm going to re-focus my efforts on designing a Cyberpunk Visual Novel game for the upcoming Cyberpunk Jam. Hopefully I'll be able to come up with something interesting for that.

Feb 1GAM: Slow, slow progress...

But I'm getting there. Loaded all the assets now, and the scores are up. Just need things to move and things to bounce.

Hopefully I'll have it all done in time, as I have a roguelike to make next month!

The beginnings of Pong

Retro Throwback: Super Street Fighter II

I always knew Street Fighter existed, but never really paid attention to it. I didn't really get into fighting games until I was 12, with Super Smash Bros Melee, then proper fighting games at 16 with Soul Calibur 2 and 3, rapidly progressing onto Tekken 5 and various Guilty Gear games. But Street Fighter I never touched.

Until now, where I decided to try one of the SNES ones. Now I wish I'd picked it up a little sooner. I still prefer Tekken/SoulCal/GG, but Street Fighter can still have a place in my fighting game repertoire.

I also have a growing love of the character design, mostly the female designs. Chun-Li and Cammy both have visible muscles! I'm way too used to seeing the slender-but-strong characters like Tira, Asuka and Millia, that to see a strong and muscled female character is slightly bizarre, but not unwelcome at all.

Long Live The Queen

I got this as a Valentine's day gift from my partner and since I got back, I've been playing it a few times.

You play as 14 year old crown princess Eloise, who's mother has died unexpectedly. She will be crowned at 15, but the player needs to guide her and get her to learn the necessary skills to survive, as well as make decisions that preserve Eloise's life. You also need to manage her mood in order to get bonuses for learning, earn outfits that boost skills and no doubt other things I've not noticed.

It's hard to know what to train up. A lot of skills seem to be mere fluff that add to the presentation of Eloise as a wise and just future queen. But some, like Lumen(magic), Economics, Military, History, Intrigue and Weapons are much more useful and may save Eloise's life and reign.

So far, I've only managed to survive up to half-way through the year. I will persevere though, I want to get her crowned at least once!

A new activity

I've been considering taking up a dance class of some variety for a while now. I'm now looking for a Lindy hop class, so that the next time Vintage Night rolls around, I may be able to dance with a small amount of skill.

Hopefully there's one local to me, otherwise I'm going to have to check in Cardiff.

An idea

I've been thinking of mashup games - the one that's sprung to mind recently is a combination of dress up games and roguelite.

So conducting many dungeon runs and retaining outfits and accessories that you get to dress up in between runs.

It seems like an interesting idea, plus a really good way of upping my art skills. So I may have a go at this.

Cardiff Comic Con: update

It looks like I'll be attending Cardiff Comic Con with my best friend, and we're going as Pokemon trainers! He's already pretty set for an Ash Ketchum outfit, I'm still undecided - but I may go as a variation of a Lass or a Pokemon Ranger.

I've already made one pokeball, gonna make another tonight. My little Pikachu backpack may come out for this as well, just to add a little extra to the outfit.

New Cross-stitch project!

As a present for my partner, I'm making a cross-stitch of Blaziken that will be framed and able to be placed on his desk in work.

Selecting the colours was a pain, but I have them all separated out now and they came with me to Reading so I could get more done while I was away (and show my partner the progress so far)

As I did with the Link/Nayru cross-stitch, I will do a progress album.

Feb 1GAM change

In fact, a major change. I don't feel capable of making a scrolling platformer in any way, and various emotional factors are halting sensible levels of creativity.

So instead I will be making a Phaser-based clone of the Mario Bros game. Not the platformer affair, more like the platformer-battle game. I enjoyed it as a child, and I feel it would be a simple game to clone and implement in Phaser. I may end up making something totally different of course, we'll just see what's implementable without too many issues.

Don't think I will be able to incorporate a loop theme into it, which is a shame...but never mind. Planning for next month's endeavor is far more important, but getting something done for February is essential.

Sewing update: clothes

There's been a bit of a lull recently what with other things going on...panic not! I just finished altering a dress I found in a charity shop for £1. It was a straight clingy stretchy dress - horizontal white and navy stripes with some stenciled on roses on one side. I decided to make it a little more open and versatile...by making two side-splits up to the hips.

It's a small alteration, but has such a good effect. It's wearable with leggings or even jeans - with easy pocket access!

Hopefully I can find a few more dresses to make into this style, I really love it.

Telford MCM

Unfortunately, I will not be attending Telford MCM - I have other things demanding my time, and the one person I was meant to meet at Telford is now not attending - so it's fairly pointless in me going now.

At least this means I can put a bit more time into sorting out a cosplay for the next event (which should be Cardiff Expo next month)

10,000,000

10,000,000 was cheap on Steam a week ago, so I bought it with the last bit of Steam Wallet I had left from selling Trading Cards. I'd looked at the game vaguely a few times, thinking "oh that looks cool, I should buy it sometime."

So when I did finally buy it, I didn't anticipate that I would spend 7 hours on it over a 24 hour period.

It's a little dungeon-running game with the match-three gameplay to do everything. Reminds me a lot of Henry Hatsworth, particularly the buying upgrades bit.

It has really hooked me though - the difficulty of achieving the objectives plus defeating monsters before time runs out is aggravating, however upgrading your equipment and skills gives you more incentive to try again.

...I wouldn't recommend playing it for 3 hours straight though, I lost focus towards the end.