The attention madnessMADNESSmadness has been getting is... wait for it... madness

Long blog title. Ah well, it works for me. It summarises what I have to say, too.

madnessMADNESSmadness didn't place in GameJolt's Minimal contest. However, any mild disappointment I get from that (not too much, there were better games entered) is more than neutralised by everything else that's been happening.

For starters, it got featured on YoYo Games. This makes for my fourth featured game (the first three being Elemence AuX, Innoquous, and Innoquous 3). It also a couple of days ago replaced the feature with a YYG Spotlight, the first I've had. Then, and this is to me the most important and pleasing one, it got onto Bytejacker's Free Indie Rapid Fire!

Last but not least, today it entered the GMC Cagematch. This marks the third time I've had a game in the GMC Cagematch. I'm hoping it's third time lucky too, as the previous two games, EverScrollingHue and FKR3, were both knocked out in round one. I've never won a round!

To make matters better, I've had positive comments on the game from quite a few high-up indie developers, including cactus (on YoYo Games) and Joe Larson (on Bytejacker). Both, of course, had criticisms, which I'm seriously considering working on in some sort of spin-offy sequel thing (I won't call it a direct sequel - I'll probably shave most of the name off and re-form the game into something extra. There will still be the ol' get-chased-by-big-wall arcade mode).

I collaborated with Jack Brockley (Broxter) on a game for the 14th Mini Ludum Dare. Having spent three days on an entry which turned out to be far too large, we (mostly he) made something completely different in the last 24 hours. It's called GETSUMCOKE, and can be found on Game Jolt. I mainly did the trippy graphical background and menu design, he did the rest - gameplay, online highscores, in-game sprites etc. We'll be continuing the game we spent three days on whenever - don't know yet.

Anyway, that's pretty much it for now. Until the next, probably-miles-away blog, goodbye!

R.I.P. Fan

The hottest summer in years, and my room fan has just decided to die on me. In other words, until I get a new one, I'm living in a microwave. Great.

The Game Jolt competition results were released yesterday. Neither It Only Takes A Second nor The Hilarity Of Murder placed, but I lost to three amazing games so there's no shame in that. I'm sure, come their third competition, I'll enter again, maybe that time without the added annoyance of Softwrap screwing up on me and losing me over half the making time.

I'm currently at a stage of game making I don't really like - bouncing between a number of concepts until I find something I want to continue working on. This takes a while - I'm very indecisive. Usually, as soon as I start working on something, one of the alternatives seems like a better idea. I have the ground engine of Rotatarama done so that might end up becoming my next active project. However, I'm still kind of wanting to remake or make a sequel to Elemence AuX. I still enjoy that game, and at the time (and for quite a few months after too) it was the best game I'd ever made. The only problem is that it aged badly - looking back, I see some of the design work I put into it and just think "why?!".

I just finished my third shift at the shop I work at (literally, about half an hour ago). I don't have to do another shift until next Monday, so for this week I hope to have something to work on properly.

Despite stiff competition from Sealegs, The Shins' song "Split Needles" remains Song of the Moment. I'm really into The Shins at the moment. Infact, while working, I actually listen to their three albums on repeat.

So, yeah. That is all. Goodbye!

~NAL