Yahtzee Croshaw's Blog, page 5

A Promising Post

Oh look, another post on this blog that exists only so the blog doesn't go unupdated for another lengthy period. I'm afraid all I can do for right now is make promises that stuff is in motion. There'll be another Let's Play once Gabriel has levered himself off his fat arse to record some game footage, 'cos it's his turn.

One of the reasons I've been quiet lately is that I have been working pretty solidly on the Mogworld audio book. At time of writing I've recorded all the way up to page 181 and have been trying to get at least some recorded each day. Hopefully I'll have more news on that sooner rather than later.

I guess I've been in a bit of a creative malaise since I released Poacher. My technique for learning a new programming system is to just make a big project with it and pick things up as and when it becomes necessary, and Poacher was that project for Game Maker. And now I'm all to grips with it - I'm realising that a lot of Poacher was pretty shockingly programmed compared to the techniques I've picked up by this point - I've been groping around for a new project to seize my interest. I've a few ideas, a few prototypes, but none have really kicked in yet. And I still get new ideas all the time. I'm disturbed by how my mind keeps turning to Puppies Hugging Things. Maybe it would work as a sort of Binding of Isaac-style room-by-room fighter except from a side-on perspective OH THERE IT GOES AGAIN.

Part of it is that I'm now of a mind to stop faffing about and make a serious go at turning my solo developments into an actual source of income, so I can at least justify the stupid amounts of time I tend to sink into them. What with Steam and tablet/mobile devices it's never been a better time for the small one-to-five-dollar solo-developed indie game to get around. I've been making eyes at this Game Maker Studio thing, lately. It would, however, mean having to get around my non-existent business sense.

Nothin' much

Just a quick update to indicate that I've stuck Jam on the sidebar over there to the right, if your eyes can bear to be separated from this sentence long enough to glance at it. The book's now available to preorder from TFAW.com. Also Amazon and Amazon.co.uk, but they haven't got the box art set up yet, lazy buggers.

Also, since someone asked, no, Jam won't be out by the time of the Escapist Expo. You see, the Expo is in September, and Jam comes out in October, and October is the month that comes after September. Sorry about that.

Future Snores

Time for another Let's Play with me and Gabriel, in this case, 1989's Future Wars, an early game by Delphine Software (of Another World and Flashback fame) that they probably hoped everyone would have forgotten about by now. Here is a quote from our commentary: "Why, that's the biggest another monkey's butt I've ever seen". Why not try to guess what the context for that was, then watch the video and see how close you were?

So there's that. Also I thought I'd mention something that I've been banging on about at the end of Zero Punctuation for the last few weeks, and that's the planned Escapist Expo in September.



Yes, my colleagues are organising a game convention get-together fun times scenario type thing in the city of Durham, North Carolina, where the Escapist offices are based. I've been there once before after I did the GameX convention a while back but it'll be nice to see how massively it's changed since then. I'll be attending along with Graham and Paul from LRR and MovieBob and several other of my Escapist chums, so this presents American readers an ideal opportunity to hang out, get copies of Mogworld signed or perhaps murder me while I've been foolish enough to make my whereabouts publicly known for a brief period.

It's on the weekend of September 14-16, 2012, and here's the site again with more details. Make a note, assassins.

Hugo Girl

It's Let's Play time again with Gabriel's choice of game being Hugo 2: Whodunit, probably the most forgettable of an already pretty obscure adventure game trilogy. On this occasion I'm experimenting with just throwing up the whole video in one big lump to see if anyone really cares that much.

Jam Packed

Well tickle my nuts, because Dark Horse Books has made the announcement that my second novel, JAM, will be released later this year. With slightly less of a video game focus than my work usually is, JAM is a dark comedy in which a small group of survivors is forced to deal with the one apocalypse no-one saw coming: an infinite, crimson doom that smells strongly of strawberries.

In other book news, the e-version of Mogworld is now available for the Nook and Kobo E-readers. Kindle is apparently still being sorted out, but is in the works. The audio book will also be in the works as soon as I pull my finger out and start recording it, which isn't easy when I seem to get a new round of tonsillitis every bloody month.

Dream A Little Dream (Web)

Here's all four parts of the Dreamweb LP. I released them on Youtube but I wanted to keep the Poacher 1.1 announcement at the top of the blog for a bit. Have you got all the achievements yet? What are you, some kind of Southern poof?

Poach Harder

The updated version of Poacher, version 1.1, is now available! I was originally only going to fix the major bugs but the Escapist were away on Easter holiday for a few days and I figured I might as well use the time to put in some new features. So here's the updated download link (updated on the original post also). And if you need convincing, here's what's new:

- Bug fixes, including the crash caused by using grenades too quick, the right-screen-edge exploit someone helpfully demonstrated on Youtube (sorry if you were having fun with that one), an error that occurs when fighting Rebecca's phantom daddy in the Abyss with only three grenades, and a couple of other minor tweaks. I also made some tweaks to one particular bit in the Great Library that was widdling on a lot of pies. Speaking of making things easier, though:

- NEW FEATURE: Optional easy mode! Well, basically you have 5 health at the start, removing two health upgrades later in the game, so it's more like a 'get settled in mode'. But it does also increase the drop rate of pickups from dead enemies and hopefully that'll be enough. You know. If you're a wuss.

- NEW FEATURE: Customisable keyboard controls! You asked for it, you got it. I didn't want to have to put some big artful menu system for changing the controls, so I hit upon a pleasingly retro idea. There's now a text document in the game folder called controls.txt which the game reads the keyboard controls from, and it's designed so that you can edit it to put in whatever controls you please. But back up the original file before editing and follow the instructions carefully because the game is quite picky about formatting. No support for customising joystick/controller buttons at this point, though. Sorry.

- NEW FEATURE: Achievements! Love them or hate them, they at least give you something to do when you've 100%ed with the secret ending. There are 20 in total to collect and after one playthrough the ones you've yet to unlock will appear on the intro screen. Rest assured that there are no mandatory story achievements besides the ones for beating the game, 'cos too many games just give you an achievement for beating each chapter and I hate that shit.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Save games for the old version will NOT work with 1.1. This is unavoidable, I'm afraid, so you'll have to start the game over. Consider this the opportunity you need to shoot for the secret ending. Haven't found that, yet? Well, here's your hint: the secret ending will only appear for the pure of heart.

That download link again in case you missed it: Poacher version 1.1. Some security software apparently has been spreading ugly rumours about it being malware, but they just get uppity about installers that haven't had the thumbs up from the Man. You trust me, right?

If you're not interested in Poacher because you prefer Cooking Mama or games that will work on a Mac, then there's also a new Let's Play from me and Gabe coming soon. I'm going to go upload it now and edit this post when it's ready. Watch this space!

EDIT: Specifically, watch this space. Preferably in full screen:

Get Poachin'

So my latest freeware game, Poacher, an unashamedly retro platformer starring stout Yorkshireman Derek Badger and his trusty shotgun, has been released. The download's being hosted by my good chums at the Escapist. Read the news post about it here or just click here to download the installer. Yes, it's an executable you have to download and install onto your PC, remember that?


I'll have a proper page set up for it soon. Until then, feel free to give it a download and let me know what you think. This is the first Game Maker rather than AGS game I've released and perhaps the most overtly gameplay-focussed I've ever done (I've been trying to move more in that direction since Art of Theft), so I'll be interested to know what lessons I can learn. Also it's freeware, so if you hate it you can't demand your money back. Basically what I'm saying is 'aaah don't hit me'.

Alexander The Grape

And here's the second installment of our playthrough of atrocious retro game Alex Kidd in High Tech World. Tune in to see puzzle design that trolls the player so hard their head would turn into a bridge. Also, to watch Gabriel, in his first attempt editing gameplay footage, somehow manage to splice in the final twenty minutes of the game twice. But that's nothing a pair of seasoned giggle merchants like us can't cope with. Keep encouraging him, he needs it at his age.

Alex The Large

In our second retro Let's Play, Gabriel takes the helm and leads me through the lesser known Master System title Alex Kidd In High Tech World. Be encouraging, he's new to this video recording business.



(news on my other projects shouldn't be long, honest)