Magazine Coverage, Part 2

I got a game in a printed magazine again, so I'm happy. This time, I got into PCZone, a UK (again) magazine focusing on - get this - PCs. The game in question was Innoquous 3, my personal favourite creation.

I found out about it via a PDF version of the page in question (which you can read by clicking this), and am now trying to find out if that issue is the current one, or if I'll need to order a back issue. I'd like to get a copy of the magazine, as I did with last year's EDGE that featured the original Innoquous. It's a long shot, but if any of the readers of this blog happen to get PCZone, I'd appreciate a comment on the issue number or date of the magazine with the Innoquous 3 review in (page 96). Thanks!

Not yet touched any of the other videos I got from the charity shops (see previous blog). I doubt I'll watch Titanic or Independence Day any time soon, and I'll be downloading the Indiana Jones trilogy so as not to unwrap them and reduce their resellability when I'm bored of them. I'll watch Harry Enfield's shows, the Connolly stand up, and the Mr Bean episodes at some point, though.

Still not making much progress with game creation, what with the distraction of all the other entertainment I have on offer. TIM is still my active project. I've an urge to make some kind of puzzle game though - kinda like Bust-A-Move/Worms Blast, both of which I thoroughly enjoy (I still have my old copy of Worms Blast. Still play it too). I may end up canning TIM if I can't think of anything awesome to do with it, or going Innoquous 1 and half-ass-releasing it with its source code.

On a different note, my old school rang up yesterday. I failed all but one A Level. They thought my IT was close to a pass, so are allowing me the chance to tune up the work from home and re-entering it. I accepted - I don't have to go back there, and I could get another shiny notch on my slightly grubby education record. Suits me!

All bases covered? Fo sho! G'bye!
-NAL

Charity Shops are the Tits

That sums up what the majority of this post will encompass.

Had to wake up at 8am today (when you've fallen into the habit of sleeping between 6am and 2pm that's a kick to the nuts) to go with my mum to Diss (closest town to here) to withdraw money to pay bills and stuff. Anyway, Diss is a small town, but it has a huge amount of charity shops. Quite a few people no doubt look at charity shops and die a little inside. I know a couple of my friends that won't buy anything unless it's new. I consider myself more sensible, though.

Charity shops, to me, are the key to legally downloading near-free films. Put it this way - I can walk into a charity shop, and pick up five old VHS films for £1. That's 20p each. I then have the license to the films, so regardless of the quality of the VHS, I can download their .avi files legally. Easy peasy. Of course, they're not all 20p - it just depends on the charity shop.

So today, I bought the following from charity shops:

• Little Britain Live on DVD, wrapped, for £3

• Two Mr Bean videos, comprising two episodes each, 29p each

• Indiana Jones trilogy (not the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull shit), £2 - later discovered all three videos are wrapped

• Billy Connolly live show VHS, 20p

• Titanic VHS, 20p

• Independence Day VHS, 20p

• Harry Enfield and Friends, three episodes VHS, 20p

• Being John Malkovich VHS, 20p

The last one, Being John Malkovich, I'd been wanting to watch for a while. I did so earlier today - all I can say is "wow". If you haven't seen this film, next time you see it I'd advise you to buy it. It's stunning.

I'm up to 11 levels in The Inverse Man, but apart from that, no new game making progress to report.

Another story. About ten days ago I went with my dad to a car boot sale. I love these for a similar reason to charity shops, though with a car boot sale you can get ANYTHING cheap. I have a first edition PlayStation 3, aka a backward compatible one. I gave my dad my PS2 when I bought it since I didn't need it any more - I didn't consider errors in running PS2 games on a PS3 because I'd not experienced any problems five years prior when upgrading my PS1 to a PS2. Anyway, turns out there WERE a fair few problematic games:

Ape Escape (PS1): "Press Start" won't recognise the pressing of start
Canis Canem Edit: Occasionally freezes
Metal Gear Solid 3: Frequently freezes
Ratchet & Clank 2-3: Runs at about 15FPS
SSX3: Works for five minutes in-game then freezes

I'd wanted to play all of those for a while now, so when I went to the car boot sale I decided to scout out a PS2.

Got one with two controllers for £4. Works perfectly. I also bought a memory card for it, which amazingly cost £6. Sweet imbalance.

I also got DRIV3R for £4, Ratchet & Clank 1 for £4, the first two then-WWF Smackdown games on PS1 for £1 each, and two live Al Murray stand up shows.

That's pretty much it for this blog. I'll try to balance the game making and life sides of blog entries in the future, though, at times like this, when one is being more dominant than the other, something like this one will appear.

Goodbye for now!
-NAL

Yay, Pokémon Cards!

A while ago I joined a site called Swagbucks, which gives you virtual money for using their search (it's Google and Ask powered so it's not a bad search or anything). They give away a range of stuff. Anyway, I'd been using the site for about a month (total of 46 Swagbucks) when I suddenly found out a lot of the merchandise you can "buy" is US only. I was a wee bit disappointed, so I decided to spend them on something and quit using the site.

I found Pokémon cards. 15 Swagbucks each, though the cards would all be "common". So I got three. Today, I received them.

Anyway, since then, I've regained my interest in Swagbucks. I'm not gonna raise enough to get a good prize any time soon, but I'll probably keep getting weird stuff like Pokémon cards for the hell of it. :P

For those that actually give a shit about Pokémon cards, the three I got were:

Kangaskhan from some weird looking deck with a blue "e" in the bottom left corner
Scyther from the same deck
Machop from the Team Rocket deck

Game-making-wise, my active project is one called The Inverse Man. This is a several-level soon-to-be-artsy game with Innoquous-style level twisting and some other gimmicks, such as the man always being the inverse colour of the background.

A demo, you say? Oh, go on then.

In the land of sequels, Dreaming On E and Rockit are sitting patiently in line as their advanced brothers are slowly developed. Have a screenshot of new Dreaming On N and R2CKIT. TIM is priority at the moment, though, so don't expect these out any time soon.I sauntered over the $1 mark in ad-revenue on Game Jolt a couple of days ago. Only a few more decades and I can afford that car! Or, more likely, I'll cop out in a few months and buy something cheap off Steam with it. PayPal's handy like that.

I think that's all bases covered. Until next time!

LittleWaterPlanet

Yay, I got into the LittleBigPlanet Water beta! I'm not allowed to discuss it with anybody though, so that's pretty much it on that subject, other than you can see a video of it here.

I've started a game... then hit a wall. There's an error which pretty much breaks the game's appearance. I've added a topic about it to the GMC, and am still searching for a solution myself, but no such luck as yet.

I'm going to the dentist later today for a checkup. At the moment, I have a git. He seems to be incompetent. Last time I went for a checkup, for example, he jammed a metal tool into my gum, then told me it was bleeding as if it was my fault. The last dentist I had was Polish, and first time I had her, she told me I needed a "feeling". Scared me for a bit.

Anyway, short blog today. :P G'bye!