Talast
PLEASE NOTE This blog entry is no longer valid. All Talast posts have been merged into this blog!
This blog is mostly to let you know the reason I'll be blogging less here.
I've started a blog which reviews music, films, products etc. I've done this partly to get paid for blogging. It's already been accepted by a company that pays you to talk about certain products and services, so it's going well.
Anyway, it's called Talast. If you like it, feel free to comment on reviews, either about their content or suggesting games/films to review. I will occasionally look at indie games, though these will likely only be high-profile ones such as Braid, World of Goo, etc.
Why Talast? It says why under the logo - "Taking A Look At Some Things". It was the catchiest name I could come up with while being unique. After all, most well-known sites have abnormal names.
On a gaming note, I released a poor shooter called RKF not so long ago. It can be found on my Game Jolt account and on YoYo Games.That's about it. I'll blog about games and personal life here, but it'll probably be less often now Talast is in my life.
~NAL
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!
999
Had to make a blog entry on the only day of the year where all three numbers are identical. 09/09/09. Might as well celebrate 'em while we can, this is the last year the resulting date has a nice ring to it (101010? Psh), and there will only be three other dates like it in our probable lifetimes... unless we somehow make it to the first of January, 2101.Anyway, anyone that's following me on Twitter probably heard about a new, hour-long game called PixHell. For those that didn't... I made an hour-long game called PixHell. It was the result of a bullet-hell impulse. It turned out to be a very difficult game, but only because I wanted to make it look pretty with its bullet patterns.You can play PixHell from Game Jolt and YoYo Games. Alternatively, if you like chatting and gaming simultaneously, you can play a miniature, embedded version of it on the SigmaNine chatroom (along with a miniature, 45-level version of Ne Touchez Pas!). I'll likely be making mini versions of other games for that chatroom - they're not much effort and pleasant to play.As far as making games is concerned, I've had quite a few people say they'd like to see a follow up to Dreaming On E, a game which I finished purely because I had nothing else to do, and ended up pretty popular. To be honest, I'm leaning that way myself - DOE was fun to make. This time, I'd, of course, put a lot more effort into it. If you have a look at the last few blog entries, you'll see other stuff I'd like to make. Comment if you have any preference as to which game you'd like to see next.Anyway, that concludes this blog entry. See you in the next one!~NAL
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
Unsureness
...of what exactly to make now. It Only Takes A Second and The Hilarity of Murder are both now finished (and Game Jolt's competition deadline has passed - now to see if either of them place).Referring to an earlier blog entry, which mentioned three halted WIPs, the Aargon remake is unlikely to be completed any time soon, Rotatarama never got off the ground, and Innoquous World will be a steadily-made game I'm not going to work on yet.The idea I'm most tempted by is a Pro overhaul of The Hilarity of Murder, with its gimmick removed and online play installed. I'm fairly proud of the engine I managed to make for it, and would like to see it go to better use personally.In other news, I have a job! And it's voluntary! :P I do occasional/frequent (not yet sure) 2.5 hour shifts at the village shop. The village shop in question is tiny. So, yeah. Fun.Last thing: I've changed the Song of the Moment. :)Well, that's all. Frequency of blog entries will probably be slow now, but I aim to get at least one a week written.Byee!
Blog entries only take a second
I finished IOTAS, getting into it everything I wanted!20 levels in four environments, a speedrun mode with no "finish in one second" limit, a snazzy menu, and UG's online stuff! :DCheck out its website, with a link to its Game Jolt page, here.
I got Pro back!
Incase you didn't see the tweet, I got Pro back. Two days ago I sent a helpdesk ticket to YoYo Games about it, saying I'd not had a reply from Softwrap. Not so long ago, I got a reply from the helpdesk saying they'd reactivated my account.You can complain about YYG all you want, but they can be damn helpful when they need to be. As a result of this, I'll be buying GM8 regardless of its price as thanks to the company. I'm so kind.It also means IOTAS is finally back on track. Maybe it'll accompany THoM as a Game Jolt competition entry? (well, I'd be silly not to try it)So yeah. Huzzah!~NAL
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