What I Bought On eBay /  by Allison James

Firstly, no. I do not condone "Weird Al" Yankovic. While his music raises a slight giggle upon listen number one they quickly grate. There are only so many laughs you can get out of an average vocal talent, an accordian and a list of meals. o.o

But recently I've been hooked on eBay. I had £20-odd lurking in my PayPal longing to be spent. Also, I have a page of games I want (all of which are no longer available generally, a few of which are EXCEPTIONALLY rare - we're talking £400 for mint copies of a couple of these). Suddenly, I had a brainwave - combining the two goals. Crossing off some of the games on the list, and spending the money. So, here's what I got.

Rolling, PS2, £3

One of many "Used to own, wanted back" in the list. To extend, "Used to own when readily available, sold, then it got really bloody hard to find". eBay was a godsend for grabbing another copy of Rolling - on play.com it was being listed second-hand at over £32... in bad condition. Just to make myself look bad when I could've skipped this sentence and covered it up, the main reason I wanted Rolling back was because its soundtrack contains an uber-rare song... called "I Just Farted".

Overboard!, PS1, £5

By far (well, two quid) the most expensive game I bought, but well worth it. I never owned Overboard!, but it induces a level of nostalgia that I couldn't match unless I was sitting in my old house again in a nappy getting scared of the bull in Bullseye (sigh o.o'). Overboard!, a 3D-but-2D-engined pirate simulator, was one of a handful of games a relative leant to me for a few weeks, along with his PlayStation, before I owned my own. That would make the last time I played Overboard! 12-14 years ago. Some things from it I remembered perfectly, others came fast back into memory with a replay of the game. It's not a great game, but somehow it's perfect. Part of the price was probably its intact case with the instruction manual and all the doodads, something most PS1 games I got can't claim.

The Italian Job, PS1, £1.20

All there except a front label. This was bought due to a mix of mild nostalgia and mild bloody good fun. I got it originally the Christmas it was out. Had a lot of fun with it, no idea why I got rid. But yeah. As a random note - when I owned it before I got stuck about two missions in. I spent the vast majority of playtime in the game cheating my way to unlocking Turin and the police car and tarting about with it in there.

Killer Loop, PS1, £1.50

Disc only. Crap WipEout clone. I never owned it but I played a demo of it several years ago and retain fond memories, including a very catchy music track I've yet to locate in the full game.

Urban Chaos, PS1, £1.50

As above - disc only, memories of a demo version of it. Not getting along with the main game though - I'm being forced to do a driving mission (when I just want to toss about and fire weapons aimlessly) and the driving engine is, without a shadow of doubt, the worst I have ever experienced. X to accelerate, fine. Outdated but fine. But down to reverse? Seriously?! And the turning? Jesus. You're either turning too little to do anything or taking 90 degree turns in split seconds!

V-Rally, PS1, £1.50

Disc and instruction manual. Used to own this, it was one of the first PlayStation games I owned. I remember getting three when I got the console - I can remember two but not the third (to great mental agony). V-Rally is the likeliest candidate though I still doubt it was. It was also one of a handful of games I'd played before owning my own PlayStation. Anyways, I have a lot of memories of tarting about in V-Rally, as well as being very, very good at it. As I've now discovered, this skill has seeped away over the ten or so years since I last played. Now I just drive into scenery and run out of time.

Grand Theft Auto 2, PS1, £2.50

The second of three complete games. I think it was my 11th or so birthday I got my underaged mits on GTA2. I'd played it previously, having been friends with someone who both owned it and got me into it. But GTA2 is amongst my favourite GTAs (a group of three - 2, Vice City and IV) for a number of reasons, including its memories, its great exploration (something I wasn't used to at the time, but still great fun), and its absolutely ace in-house soundtrack. I have it on my PC and iPod touch and listen to it often to this day. It's a free download on PC, btw. If you've not experienced GTA prior to its jump to 3D I'd recommend it.

MoHo, PS1, £2.00

Instructions/disc only. MoHo, joining the clan of remember-the-demo-disc games, is one set in the near future in which you play as a robot with a ball where its legs should reside. Throw in a load of deathmatch-like modes, obstacle courses and levels which frequently dynamically warp before your eyes, and you have a game which is still very, very good. If I'm correctly informed it was called Ball Breakers in NTSC territories. Their name may've been more relevant, but ours was totally cooler.

Spider-Man 2: Enter Electro, PS1, £1.99

Instructions/disc. Used to own, got back, still love. Completely playable and enjoyable, it's a game that's aged remarkably well. Having said that, I now also want the rarer predecessor, which to f**k up most hope of finding copies is simply called Spider-Man. Sigh.

Loaded, PS1, £2.00

The final of the three complete PS1 games. This was a game I was given by a relative who had found it sitting in his attic for some reason. Though gruesome and repetitive Loaded is fun in short bursts. This is one of the games I didn't sell, though. I temporary-ish-borrow-traded it with a then-friend for Tomb Raider 2. A few years later, when said then-friend was an arrogant, thick, drug-dealing little piece of scum, I sold TR2, and now I've finally got my game back.

James Bond 007: Agent Under Fire, PS2, £2.63

Played this game before I owned a PlayStation 2. Was in Big W (which turned to Woolworths, which turned to dust... RIP :<) in Norwich if I correctly recall. But one of the best, if clunkiest, FPSes I know of. Got a lot of multiplayer fun out of it and went through the first half or so of the game several times (I got stuck as I'm bad at FPSes :P).

Metal Arms: Glitch In The System, PS2, £2.70

Really quite nice 3rd-person-FPS-controlled game which, despite ripping the vast majority of its elements out of more popular games including a blatantly huge influence from the Ratchet & Clank series, manages to be a very solid, enjoyable bit of gaming. Includes an addictive offline multiplayer mode which I got several hours out of. Coincidentally I got this first from Big W in Norwich - I remember it was with a friend. I had £15 to spare and wanted to turn it into some gaming, but couldn't decide what on. He pressured me into MA:GITS (yeeeah), and turns out it was a good choice. Sold it because I got stuck. This time I'll simply keep it and slap it until I complete it.

WWF SmackDown!: Just Bring It, PS2, 99p

I like WWE/F, as you may know. The games induced my interest in wrestling, starting with a copy of SmackDown! 2 on PS1 that I bought a long, long time ago for £5 from a car boot sale. This was bought simply because it was 99p and I don't have it yet. It's not very good, but there's always the novelty of pitting Eddie Guerrero against Chris Benoit and simply telling the game it doesn't matter who wins. Heartless, I know, especially since Benoit's death was... well, less than calm... but eeh.

The League of Gentlemen Live, VHS, 16p

Presumed to be absolute crap. I've no intentions of watching it. But 16p with free P&P? Sold!

Anyways, I'm now also in possession of £30 from an old bank account I initially opened to store PS3 funds a few years ago. I'm tempted to shove it in my PayPal and cross a few more games off my list, but I think I'll save it. There are better things I could use it. For example, in a diverting topic...

I found a really old friend on Facebook and we got chatting! When I say really old, I mean it's been years since I spoke to her, not she's in her 90s or something. Must be around eight years. Prior to that we were barely separable. Oddly, we dove straight into conversation and it was like the gap hadn't existed. She's only 5, 6 miles away so one day we'll probably hang out for a while, catch up etc. Now that WILL be strange (for me at least), but worth doing, especially given the possibility of buggering off in a couple months.

Guess I'd better update on the GM status. As mentioned in the last post, I'm taking a hiatus from mad game creation/releasing. This is for a few reasons. Firstly, I'm currently inspirationless. Everything I have ideas for has a 2, 3, 4 or 5 on the end. I really want to cut down on sequels and try to make some genuinely awesome original games. SohoPogoHo, 1n23g4r and La Rolloux fell well short of that. mMm's the only success story in the past year that's not a sequel, and I'm still determined it was a fluke. I cannot get addicted to it, I get bored after the three minute mark and quit out!

What I have been, and plan on continuing, doing though is learning more. I've been using Maya lately, which I crafted a sparse speedboat .obj out of and developed a dodgy Hydro Thunder engine out of. If you want to give it a try, http://tr.im/QKee to download. It contains the Game Maker 8 Pro editable, the .obj, and an executable if you don't have GM8P but are still interested. I tweeted about it but didn't go in full - you're welcome to use parts or all of that engine, including the speedboat model, as you please. It was a learning process for me, feel free to benefit from it too if it's of any. It's far from perfect but it just about works. I chose LiQid as a name because it describes the stuff the boat floats in and could be turned into an ananym with a logo.

Anyways, I intend to swot up on my GML, learn stuff I didn't previously know and get better on stuff I'm shaky with, as it would be beneficial in the future. Also means I can improve my own personal output too. As good a year as 2009 was for my own creations (I3, NTP3, mMm, mMm's explosion, I3's smaller explosion, also IOTAS which was a public failure but I still like it) I really don't feel like I learnt much. That kinda frustrates me - once upon a time I was learning at least one new technique, be it big or small, with every game. Now it's once every five-ten games. Perhaps learning 3D modelling will let me get better with realistic 3D. DoE looked crap, I'd quite like to work on its sequel and make it less laughable.

One final topic - 750 (ex 1001) Freeware PC Games is coming along slowly. I'm currently filling in the author, genre, link, screenshot etc details for all the games. This is long-winded and repetitive. If you want to help, feel free to let me know and offer your services. I could do with both cell filling in ( http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AkcsqZag4d-xdExPc0h0aHNGZ2I5Qlp6eWp5Z2JmQ1E&hl=en ) and screenshots for each and every game, which two people are already kindly helping with. If it's any incentive, you'll get your name in a book and if you help out a substancial amount, a cut of the profits.

Anyway, that's all for now. See y'all in the next blog!

750 Free PC Games /  by Allison James

Hello all, I have a favour to ask.I'm compiling a list of 750 freeware games for Windows systems and I would like as many suggestions as you're willing to give. I'd like to keep my reasoning hushed for now, but let it be known that anybody that helps won't go unnoticed. You'll be credited for your contribution if all goes as planned.

Please see this Google document for the list I have so far. http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddg6wwzm_0fd889dhg You may suggest games already shown there as it'll reinforce their inclusion.If you want to help out, please leave a list in a comment below. Games should be separated with a line break and no other separators, with the names cased/spaced as their creators do so. Games starting with "The" should have that word put at the end separated with a comma (eg The Game becomes Game, The).

On another note, SohoPogoHo is now complete. You can play it on Game Jolt or YYG. I will likely be taking a break from solo game making - I've a couple of duo projects on the go. Otherwise, I've lost the desire to make games myself. It'll come back one day I'm sure, but for now I'm done.

Last thing: a friend have almost finished writing the third instalment to her unpublished book series Jocasta Lizzbeth Moonshadow, and is contemplating changing its subtitle. Its current one is "The Secrets Were Spilling at the Seams" but she is thinking of shortening it to "Secrets". If you have any opinions on the matter, please leave a comment on her journal here: http://rebeccaclaresmith.blogspot.com/

Anyway, that's it for now. See y'all next time. Please, please, please leave a comment with as many freeware PC games as you know!

Integers, Nostalgia & Gitaroo /  by Allison James

Quite possibly the oddest blog entry name I've ever extrapolated from the murky depths of my brain.So, anyway, part one. Integers. Yesterday I participated in NT in a friendly "make a game within a set hour" competition. Amazingly, he actually bloody finished. His game was a jet pod-esque game by the name of Poorple (a portmanteau of his opinion of the game and the colour of the majority of objects in it). Mine was a game originally to be called 1234. I decided against that, it was boring. So I made it rhyme: "1234 LMV in Ecuador!". It's a kinda outright lie, I lost it in some empty village, but eeh.

Anyway, I liked the concept of the game but wanted to make it just a little bit bigger. So I made it longer, added a tutorial/title and a finish, and a speedrun mode. Accompanying this, I renamed it to 1n23g4r - 1234 embedded near-legibly into the word "INTEGER". You pronounce the game name "Integer", not "Onentwothreegfourr", by the way.

Part two - nostalgia. This is a short bit. I just find it odd how certain songs trigger an overwhelming feeling of nostalgia, even if they're not really tied to an event. Tracks that do this to me include Kasabian - LSF, Deepest Blue - Give It Away, Jamelia - Thank You (you heard), Dodgy - Good Enough, and the song that triggered it today, one of my all time favourites - Portishead - Sour Times. If Dr Horrible's freeze ray was a real object, then he must've shot me in the back as I listened to it. Odd.

Part three - Gitaroo. About a week ago I got hold of a copy of Gitaroo Man on PS2. I have spend six goddamn years trying to get hold of a copy of this game, and it finally happened. As a direct result, I did the impossible. I broke my sleeping pattern even more. I was up until one in the afternoon playing the bloody game. (Subsequently I was down until seven in the evening eating pillow as my poor, decrepit body desperately tried to refuel my energy.) Now I'm stuck on it. God, Japanese studios really don't hold back on the difficulty of their games. Katamari Forever before it was one massive difficult pain in the arse.

NALGames.com V4 is finished. Sean Buller finished it off and fixed a few of the bugs, and I've filled in everything I could find. Unfortunately I've lost all trace of the two fonts I made, but they weren't very good so I guess it was just my computer doing me a favour. If you've any bug reports or want to see an editable up that isn't yet, comment with it. I'll forward bug reports to Sean, and I'll be 99% okay with adding pretty much any editable you want to the site.Also in website-related news, me and Sean are creating a website for the somehow-unpublished Rebecca Smith. Her site's been a Synthasite jobbie for a while, and we decided that we'd make her a lovely big custom one to her design. I've also bought a .com domain for it and customised her a Blogspot skin based quite heavily on my own. She's highly appreciative of the work we've done so far which is a great motivation in making it. If you want to see her work, check out her current site at http://rebeccaclaresmith.com/ or her journal at http://rebeccaclaresmith.blogspot.com/.

One more subject to converse about is how Clank needs to go and die. If you're a Twitter follower of mine you may know what that means. Basically, having played all the main Ratchet & Clank games and been in deep love with the series, A Crack In Time is like an OmniWrench to the gut. The platformingy-Ratchety sections were trimmed down in this one. The rest of the game is occupied by space sections (better than previous spaceship levels but there's too much of it), and Clank levels. Oh god, Clank Levels. I've always hated him. His tininess makes levels slow enough as it is, but the fact that all of his levels have the same tedious puzzles, boring location, and mind-blowing repetition just made me go "Oh f***, not again" every time I was thrown into the little isn't-funny-any-more piece of metal's shoes.

But yeah, that's all. I shall be entering the Game Jolt Jam tomorrow/in two days (depending on how you look at it), so while it's going on you should be able to find up-to-date information through:

Livestream (NALGames)
Twitter (NALGames)
Game Jolt's chatroom (NAL)
Skype (NAL-Games)

And that is all. G'bye folks!

NAL

NALGames V4 /  by Allison James

Those of you reading from the original source of these blog entries (I know they sync with Game Jolt so anyone from there won't have seen it) will have noticed that this blog has just undergone a graphical overhaul. If you aren't a Twitter follower of me, it's because my website is being rewritten to Version 4 by Sean Buller (UnknownGamer). Originally this was going to keep with the style of V3 (maroon/beige/black, grungy, stylistic). However, I decided that since it'd be so differently (read: better) made I'd fix up the style and make it, in general, better. So, wanting a change from the grunginess, I went with shiny rainbow-on-blackness. Yeah.

On the topic of the new NALGames.com, which should be active within the week (at the moment if you try to access it you'll get slapped in the face by an Under Construction image), there are a number of lovely changes, most of which I couldn't've achieved, as I despise coding websites. Seriously, changing the CSS for this blog to make it as it is was bad enough. It'd be less hateful if all browsers interpreted coding in the same way... but they don't. Half the time, it's Microsoft's glaringly inferior browser that puts a wrench in the works (most businesses have dropped IE6 support now... why not go one better and drop it for 7 and 8 too?), but even the bigguns like Firefox, Chrome and Opera occasionally screw something up. (Incidentally, I now use Google Chrome. Firefox 3.x has been problematic as hell; all the 3.6 update did was break more.)

Oh right, the new website. The biggest change for you, the viewers, will be that the Games, Archive and .GMKs sections will all be jazzed up and more usable. All items will start off "minimised" - in a normal list. There's a + on the end - if you click it, a game description, three screenshots, and all the details and various links will swoop in with a pretty little animation. The + turns into a -. Guess what that does.

The biggest change for me, which will be passively effective to viewers, is that Sean is incorporating a handy little set of admin tools for adding games, other items, and editing the text on text-based pages like About. Beforehand, I was having to manually alter all the coding on the page then reuploading it. This was a hell of a lot of hassle and meant the frequency of updates was poor. At the time of V3 going down, there had been four games released since its last update. Now, though, I just have to fill in a form and hit a Submit button, which is a lot easier and will mean I'll be much quicker in updating the site.

Other minor updates to the site, ignoring the previously mentioned style overhaul, is that the Links page has been switched with a Coverage page (now I've got just about enough to not look like a shit stain on the underpants of my website), the Game Editable and WIP Editables have been merged, Writings has been added to the Archive (so I can share my crappy poems and WIP short story), and Old Games has been merged into the current Games page. There's a tick box in the "Sort By" dropdown that allows you to filter these out or keep them in, so the few decent games I've made don't have to be drowning in a sea of Gemocides, Fight of the Heights and Blokmans (all three being 2005-or-before games).

Game-wise, I've nigh-on stopped working on Innoquous Hand Held/The Flip Side. I still plan on making Innoquous 4, but this won't be yet. Due to possible complications (if I take the YoYo Games job I won't be eligible for any of their competitions from then on) I doubt entering it would work out at all. A little disappointing, but I'd rather have a job than a public thrashing by at least 20 people that are better than me!

Anyway, that's the news of the NALworld. Some time soon I expect to make a blog entry listing my all-time favourite 100 songs. This is requiring me to scour my entire brain, as well as my tracklist, for those I know would make the list, and some others which I'll have to process-of-elimination-ify to get it to the hundred. Also, process-of-elimination-ify is a word now.

Let me know if there are any graphical glitches on the blog or, when it's out, the website. Screenshot would be preferred.

Until next time!

FKR4, Points of Interest etc /  by Allison James

The first bit is, incase you're unaware, FKR's yearly update for 2010 has arrived. FKR4, made for the Game Jolt Rogue contest under the idea that the game itself is the rogue, is a bizarre, bizarre game. Many people don't seem to be able to understand it. Here's a quick explanation:

The room will fill, initially, with red and aqua, with a small amount of green. The colour coding is the same as the other FKRs - red = you, green = your "trojans" (what you hit enemies with), and aqua and other colours are enemies. You'll notice that these colours, bar green, comprise of a number of "stars". The central point is where the actual enemy/you resides, so you must target there. With that in mind, the rest of the game is FKR at heart. Different points are awarded for different enemies, with more for higher-up ones (order: aqua, yellow, magenta, orange, blue, green). So yeah.

I thought I'd add a little point of interest to this: a list of games that started off with different names, either as codenames or genuine names I later decided to change.

F**kfreak ==> Back in Time to Annihilate People of Past Times

Originally named as the game is pretty f**king freaky, changed because I couldn't be arsed with bleeping it out and inevitably suffering a slew of YoYo Games reports.

A Stupid Attempt to Win $1000 ==> Zyousbox

With the name change came an orientation change. The game that became Zyousbox was originally to be an old-Celtic-themed exploration game for the second YYG competition. It didn't go well but I didn't want to ditch the engine. Zyousbox was born

Wolley ==> La Rolloux

Originally Wolley because a) the player was called Wolley and b) it's "yellow" backwards, which is the colour of 70% of the game. Altered it when I gave Wolley a wacky hairstyle which reminded me of Ellie Jackson from La Roux (a band I like, and a band name I like too). Inserted "roll" into it and huzzah - a game pronounced "La Roll-oo" but frequently mistaken as a number of daft, Englicised alternatives (one of which rhymes with "bollocks").

NAL ==> madnessMADNESSmadness

Partly a codename (I was expecting to change it), partly an ongoing desire to create an eponymously-named game. Changed because, having mentioned "madnessMADNESSmadness" in the Game Jolt chatroom as what a mad person might describe their predicament, and consequently being recommended to give a game that name. Turns out it was a wise decision, though I still catch a few too many people calling it "madnessMadnessmadness", "Madnessmadnessmadness" or, worse, "Madness Madness Madness".

Elemence Passion Matrix ==> Elemence Switch

Mildly irrelevant, changed just before I canned the game. Changed because, as was informed to me, "Elemence Passion Matrix" sounds like something out of the Kamasutra.

Lite Town Wars ==> The Hilarity of Murder

Originally "Lite" was included to make "lite" of the fact (sorry) that the game was made in the unpaid version of Game Maker 7, changed when I decided to stick it in the Game Jolt Axioms contest by bolting a gimmick onto its arse and wanted to reflect the new gameplay element in its title.

L'oiseau ==> Ne Touchez Pas 2

"L'oiseau" being French for "The bird", "Ne Touchez Pas 2" being French for "Mooching off the plays the first one got and being a far more obvious sequel. Oh, and not pronouncing the 2 as "deux" but as "two"".

Puzzle Valley ==> Welcome to Puzzle Valley ==> Puzzle Valley

...Yeah. Puzzle Valley initially held the same name as it does now. Upon upgrading it, adding several features and removing a few bugs, I added "Welcome to" to its name. Finally, seeing that it was a stupid name and preferring the old one, I changed it back.

Infidel ==> Infidels

Initially, you were the infidel. When deciding to switch the roles round and subsequently realising more than one infidel existed from then on, I pluralised the title.

I'm edging towards ditching The Flip Side. My main reason for wanting to enter the fifth YoYo Games competition was for the sake of publicity. However, if I ditch TFS, when I'm more in the mood focus on making Innoquous 4 a smashing game, then advertise the crap out of it, I could hopefully achieve it by myself.

Lifewise, I'm doing okay. Still thinking about the aforementioned job offer (am seriously leaning towards wanting it), waiting for a little more information which I was told would be given to me at the end of this month. I think, pending the answers, I'll know near enough 100% if I'm going to take it or not.

There would be other advantages to doing so. For starters, it'd help my confidence and independence out. I'm too clingy, really - being by myself would hopefully get my head straight and help nail the reality of life into my brain. It would also probably help with friendships and (dare I say it?) relationships. Where I currently live, chavs have basically overtaken. In a 20 mile radius there are about ten people I would befriend. With a move I would (possibly) refresh that, and meet new people. I could make at least two/three met-in-real-life friends if I stopped by in Yorkshire on the route from Redgrave to Dundee (and vice versa). I plan to do that at some point, I've known all three of the people there for more than a year. It'd be odd, but definitely fun and well worth doing.

Anyway, I think that's enough for one blog entry. I'd quite like to start doing these weekly again instead of fortnightly, as I have a lot I could say but don't, and as I've learnt from a friend over the past couple of weeks, it seems to be beneficial in letting out all these little tidbits of information instead of bottling them up.

Until next time!

32 Things You May Not Have Known About Me /  by Allison James

I don't have a vast amount to write about, so I thought I'd stray from the norm a little. In this blog, I'll share some stuff about me that you may or may not know. Hopefully it'll be interesting to y'all.

1. My nationality consists of around 48% Scottish, 48% English and 4% Irish. My surname is Irish.

2. I consider myself agnostic (I do not stick by a religion and am not entirely convinced on the whole "God" thing), though was baptised, so am listed as Christian.

3. One of my bigger traits is curiosity. I've frequently found myself in a disadvantaged state because I had to go out of my way to find something out.

4. I'm not afraid of death. This ties in with #3. What happens when you die is of huge interest to me, so to me death will be just another question answered. Having said that, I'm unlikely to go out of my way to find the answer out.

5. I was born (well, once I'd grown hair) with a "dirty blonde" hair colour. This has slowly changed to brunette. I've never dyed my hair and have no plans to do so.

6. Having spent three years single, I miss relationships. However, I do enjoy certain aspects of single life, and try not to dwell on it.

7. I'd consider myself pessimistic/realistic. Despite trying to look on the bright side of things I always convince myself that in the end they won't work. Which leads into:

8. I lack self-confidence. Although I eventually grow into the feeling and loosen up, if I walk into a crowd I will suddenly become very shy and try to find somewhere to hide. My quietness in these situations is a contrast from...

9. In familiar company, I'm loud and talkative. I often try to crack jokes, with varying success.

10. I find life, specifically other people, interesting. I will frequently see strangers and wonder what their life is like.

11. I'm a daydreamer. I must spend at least an hour each day thinking about certain people, places and things. I also like thinking about what my life would be like if I were an [insert career].

12. My brain is bursting with ideas that I know will never come to fruition. These aren't just for games - I have a plethora of ideas for movies, concept albums, and books (though most of these transform into movies as my mind likes to picture everything).

13. I have a tendency to be able to remember things of no importance, while useful knowledge is quickly forgotten. In particular, I'm good with remembering numbers (I was once able to tell a friend his mobile number, having only seen it once about a month beforehand) and pictures/scenes. I actually have a memory of a discussion between my parents from when I was one.

14. I began school life excelling, I ended it failing badly. Before I was two I could spell my full name unattended. Before I was three I could look at signs and read their text. I hit the 15.6-year-old maximum level in a continuous spelling test when I was 11. I also, on several occasions, corrected teachers in primary school. However, though I passed all 10 GCSEs, some of which were scraped passes, A-level went downhill. In Year 12 I got a C and three Us, in Year 13 I got a D and two Us. After the A-levels were finished (last May) I left education for good.

15. One day I want to see the world. Particularly - Tokyo in Japan, Machu Picchu, Coober Pedy in Australia, and Easter Island. I would love to film these adventures too.

16. I had wanted to become a video game creator since I was five, though back then wasn't aware I would be able to do so by myself. I had many drawn pictures of mock screenshots of games. So far, I've only actually gone on to make one of these - 2004/5's "Fight of the Height".

17. Although I discourage the use of "Nal", it's how it began. I made it up at the age of six as my fictional development company. Aged 12, I decided to use it for old time's sake on the back of a geography essay, though decided I should make it stand for something. "Notalot" became that something.

18. I dropped usage of "Notalot" in favour of "NAL" toward the end of 2006 when I decided it looked better on a DVD cover. It came into use as the insignia for a printed-out cover I made for a game dedicated to my then-partner. The game is called "Rabbit Escapade".

19. I consider 2006 to have been my favourite year so far. Not only because of the aforementioned relationship (though it played a big part in it), but also because in August I went on holiday with a friend called Tyrone McKenzie. This holiday holds many memories for me (including one of walking five miles back to our resort from an amusement park because we spent the bus fare on the rides without thinking). Shortly after the holiday he moved away with his dad and we lost contact - avid attempts at finding him have proven moot.

20. I'm accident prone. I've fallen for plenty of stupid things in my time - slipping on banana skins, walking into French windows, hitting my head on the car door frame as I enter it, stubbing my toes more times than countable, etc. Some of these have resulted from my daydreaming - in Year 13, I caused a horrific, three-day headache when I lost attention to where I was walking and took a metal pole to the side of my skull.

21. I consider my two favourite videogames of all time to be Psychonauts and Canis Canem Edit/Bully. The former was simply stunning (particularly a level called the Milkman Conspiracy), the latter was one of the most refreshing experiences I've ever had. This one, in a broken-record-like turn of events, was acquired at my time of being in a relationship. The game deals with high-school relationships so it was incredibly relatable. The game I've probably clocked up the most hours on, though, is Mashed: Fully Loaded, purely for the fact it's the best party game in the world (bollocks to Guitar Hero, Singstar, EyeToy, and anything with a motion-sensing controller).

22. My first ever relationship lasted around seven years (though they were young years). I decided to call it a long day when she refused an invitation to my 12th birthday party on account of it clashing with trampoline class. Charming!

23. I have been accused of robbery and arson in the past. I committed neither, and luckily neither saw me in any lasting trouble.

24. I've been grounded for a total of one day in my entire lifetime - it was for telling somebody to "f**k off" and attempting (but failing) to get a branch into their spokes as they were riding their bicycle. My motivation - the person in question was, at the time, incredibly annoying.

25. I've been in love with two people in my life so far - one became a failed relationship, the other never got that far.

26. I've been in hate with absolutely nobody so far. Though I've disliked hundreds of people, I've not ever absolutely hated them. Leads onto:

27. I cannot hold a grudge. If somebody's rattled my cage, I will want to be pissed off with them for life. It just won't happen. And this, in turn, leads onto:

28. I like being at peace with people. I've been into plenty of arguments in my time, some major, some minor. But my reason for calling the argument off is almost always that I simply don't want it. I respect others' opinions; I'd rather shake their hand and make up with them.

29. I've never been in hospital for my own medical needs. Doctor's clinic - many times. But never a hospital. I've never broken a bone in my body (at least not to my knowledge, I was once told your little toes break five times a year without you ever knowing - I don't believe it).

30. As much as I try to hide it, I'm a very emotional person. Though only two films have actually had me in tears (The Green Mile, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), there are plenty of others that have me fighting it back. I also tend to share other people's emotions, particularly pain. If I see someone upset, even if I dislike them, I instinctively want to help them as I feel bad for them. Connected to:

31. Of all the things that make me happy, making someone else smile, laugh or even just smirk, will make my day. In a world where "life is meaningless" (a philosophy I personally find bullshit) and sadness is abundant, making people happy, even if just for a few seconds, is immensely satisfying.

32. I deal with stress and sadness badly. I've, in the past, used the metaphor of storing stress and sadness in a tanker inside me. When the tanker overflows, I generally break down uncontrollably.

I've tried to cover a piece of everything in writing this. I also thought it would be nice to out a side of me you wouldn't normally see, as my games generally tend not to cover any kind of emotion.I'd also like to take this opportunity to offer an ending to any curiosity about me. If there's something you'd like to know, leave your question in the comments. I will likely answer them all, unless they're serious or they hit a genuinely massive nerve (which is unlikely, I'm open about myself). They can be about anything you like, personal, game-wise, whatever.

So, yeah. Thank-you for reading, both this blog entry and my blog as a whole. I appreciate it!

Innoquous 4: Early Stages /  by Allison James

A blog post about my current active project, Innoquous 4, and some information on it.

Firstly, it's initially aimed for YYG Competition 05. It's going to undertake the alias Innoquous Hand Held for this. Innoquous Hand Held will lack online functions, be capped to 480x272 as its screen resolution, and be slightly fiddlier than usual. This is a direct result of the competition restrictions. What it will contain will be 100 levels (40 new, 60 from Innoquous 1, 2 and 3, many of which will be tweaked to accommodate the faster controls). There will also be other obstacles - I'm aiming for timed-shooting guns and pushable blocks, that will debut, and make appearances in both new and old, tweaked levels. I'm looking to add a level editor - this may not make IHH as the control restrictions would make it difficult to implement.

Once IHH is released, I will upgrade it to Innoquous 4. This will be the full-on game. 800x600 resolution, mouse-controlled, easy to use level editor (mouse-controlled), improved menu, plenty of customisation options (complete control over block colours, a choice of characters - play as a fish!, and other options), etc. I'll also poke UnknownGamer into making the online for it, which will build on I3's site - you'll be able to make an account on it, share statistics, see your rankings, upload levels you've created and download others', with level ratings etc. Depends on how much he can do.

Now, cost-wise. I initially said I was going to make Innoquous 4 my first commercial game. However, with the need to make IHH free, this is now unlikely. What I am edging towards is making the game DONATIONWARE. This would mean you could pay $/£20 (madness!), $4 (what I would've initially charged), or even 1p/cent (*stares*). The reason I want to charge for the game is because I'm about to jump into the world of work, and in all honestly I'd quite like to be able to jump out of it ASAP into commercial indie game production. I know it'll probably be a few years before that provides any kind of income, but hey, the sooner I start making this damn game, the better!

Yesterday I released a trailer for the game, showcasing its new IOTAS-style graphics and mentioning some of the planned features. If you're interested, here it is:And that's pretty much it, really! If you have any comments, suggestions, or anything else, don't hesitate to comment. Even if I don't reply to them, I certainly read them and take them on board. Thanks!

Until the next blog entry.

~ NAL

Merry Christmas, All! /  by Allison James

Merry Christmas or whatever other December holiday you celebrate!

Since I'm likely to get asked, here's what I got:

WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2010 (PS3)
Midnight Club Los Angeles Complete Edition (PS3)
Smokey & The Bandit Trilogy (DVD)
Jackass Film Trilogy (1, 2, 2.5) (DVD)
Bruno (DVD)
Dara O Briain: Tickling The English (book)
Big Beastly Book of Bart Simpson (book)
Half a kilo of dry roasted peanuts (food)
Thornton's Toffee & Fudge collection (food)
Arse/Face soap (novelty)
Gaydar (novelty)
£80

So not bad at all. Feel free to comment with what you got, what holiday you're celebrating, etc!

In related news, I've made my first project with Game Maker 8 Pro: a game called La Rolloux. This also implements Game Jolt trophies. You can download it here.

So that'll be it for today - have a good day, and enjoy the season!

~NAL

The Unfinished Archives of NAL 2004-2009 /  by Allison James

This is a blog entry mainly to mention that, on Game Jolt, I have released a compilation of 40 unfinished games from between 2004 and 2009. They can be found here. Some information on each game in the pack, pulled from its description on GJ:-----I've dumped a hell of a lot of games in the past. From 2004-2009 (nothing from 2003 worth seeing), I've collected 40 (count 'em) unfinished and (in most cases) abandoned games that are at least in a playable state, and .exe-ed them into one big 60MB zipped folder. They're dated so you can quickly predict how crap they're gonna be.

2004 -----

Retroform

A jetpack shooter. Was dumped because my skill at the time was awful and I couldn't get anywhere near what I wanted.

2005 -----

Defrag

Platformer styled on the defragmentation graphics on Windows' defrag tool. You have to turn all the undefragmented blocks green with your progression item. Was very dreary - didn't complete much.

KOed

Poor excuse for a beat-em-up. Never tried making one since.

Lost Jewels

The only time I've attempted a movie in GM. This is like one big, naffly-made cutscene lasting about two minutes and erroring at the end.

Penalties

Penalty shootouts. Badly made but kinda works. But badly made. This one's near enough complete, though it never got released.

Primitivity

Game set in the past. You have a spear. You can throw it, but then you have to get it back to throw it again. Boring.

Rigmorol's Platform Adventure

Another that was near enough finished. Might actually be short enough to be tolerable throughout. You get turned into a ball and have to... get yourself turned back into a human.

Shotgun, Baby!

Not very done at all. You can run about in a single area and shoot a woman bloodily. Understandably, I dropped work on it very shortly after.

Tracker

Basically, GTA1 with awful controls, nothing to do, and nothing much to see. Kinda funny watching your guy get run over though.

Vakioum

Pretty much finished, designed as a minigame to a crap, released game. Collect all the hidden coins in an area before time runs out. Again, short enough to be playable, since there's only one level and it takes about half a minute to complete.

Way State

One thing I've learnt in my years of game making: I can't do adventure games for shit. This was one I started, got about an hour into then stopped. Has an alright parallax thing going on though.

Yarat

More clichéd than a chocolate teapot having sex with a sleeping, lying dog on a blue moon while someone allergic to apples is pursued by a doctor, Yarat was a platformer all about the key-opened gates. About 1/6 of a level finished before I realised it was gonna get crap, fast.

2006 -----

Dafyddylle Violent

If it wasn't so pathetically slow this could've worked. Alas. It's a game in which you join the military and go to war. The game includes the enrolment process and training, along with a couple of empty levels in which you blast some enemies with AI less intelligent than a plank.

Evaders

Two-player dodgem wars with guns, Evaders tried to be innovative, but ended up a bit meh. First game I ever made to incorporate game options, though, and some things worked okay.

Ovmira Racing

Closest I ever got to making a racing game. Not very good. One level, one path-scripted AI car, one wasted minute of your life.

2007 -----

Desert Game

Yes, that's a temporary name. Desert Game was my first attempt at a self-made FPS. It never turned into a game but it's alright for titting about in. The engine later formed a city game, which later still became Dreaming On E.

Festival For Under Fives

A shooter with nothing to shoot. This came about me editing the Mingitilla engine to try and incorporate weird model distortion. It worked, but it sucked.

Nails

Holds a place in my heart. It's a difficult shooting game that I spent a lot of time on before scrapping it heartlessly. To this day a part of me wants to finish it, but then I see all the horrific D&D and run away.

Notthemostoriginalgamenamebutupthere

A game designed for a mouse-only contest. Wasn't great so I scrapped it and started a new game instead - Rockit. Never looked back.

Robotreq

Yet another platforming game that (for the time) wasn't badly designed, but was axed on the basis it was blander than a piss sandwich.

Va

Isometric detective game with two missions made. If I'd applied myself a little more I'm convinced Va could've worked. But I didn't. So it didn't.

2008 -----

Cartoon K

Always wanted to make a cartoony game. Cartoon K was satisfaction, as well as realisation that if I wanted it to be fun it would require a lot of work. A lot of work? *chop*

Don't Let That Guy Get You Down, Man!

Name is unexplainable, but the game is a 2.5D game that aims to mess with your prespective senses while being a generally spooky game. Got bored of making it.

Elemence ZII

One of several (in this pack one of two) games with which I attempted to reinvigorate the Elemence series, a series that carried my best game until I got better, Elemence AuX. ZII was 3D, not very Elemencey, and, to summarise the game in four words, "a bad Ballance ripoff".

Flat

Arcade game with flat characters. And flat gameplay. But I made the music for it, so that was a plus! And the blood effects, I've yet to replicate.

Halcyon Days

Trippy and crazy, this was my attempt to throw myself back into 2D games after the Febmar Trilogy. It got junked when a Jet Pod contest made me decide to make NAL's Jet Pod instead. Incidentally, this was also to be my first game made 100% in code. NJP took that liberty as well.

NeonX

Me playing about with GM7's (I was a late adopter) new effects, specifically draw_line_width. I ended up using draw_line_width in FKR2 and dropping this on account of not being able to find a way to incorporate gameplay without ballsing the graphics up.

WTFPMSL

What The F**k? Pissing My Self Laughing! Well... the game has a skateboarding grandad. Not really the high point of hilarity, but it had a nice greyscale aesthetic.

2009 -----

Classical Castle

My attempt at laid-back gaming, this featured classical music, simple graphics and puzzling mixed with platforming. Halted when I ran out of puzzle ideas about three levels in.

Elemence: Switch / Elemence: Passion Matrix

The other Elemence in this collection. This one instead was 2D and had a lot of bevelgasms. This is one of the games I wouldn't mind finishing - it had a presentation to it I've still not really matched since, and despite only having two levels, was well built and kinda fun.

Gamanstake 3D

As with Elemence, this was an attempt to bring an old series into new territory. I made Gamanstake back in 2006 and wanted to turn it into a respectable game. As a note, the title was temporary. I despise putting "3D" in game titles. The planned title at time of axing (though I may still finish this one) was "Hell Has Brick Walls".

Lyghtgryd

Ever played the game Aargon Deluxe? Guessing that was a "no", since despite being one of the best puzzlers I've ever played, it was hugely underplayed. I don't like remakes, but this was to be a remake of Aargon Deluxe. Unfortunately, my skill collapsed on me and it was left half-made.

Monobrow Cat

A collaboration with Broxter. He wanted to keep this one secret. Bugger him. :D This is an exploration game featuring your friendly neighbourhood |:3. Another one that may well be finished in the future, either as a continued collaboration or with just one of us continuing work on it.

Nightmare In Pixel Width

Fake 3D, presented with a limited colour pallette. Looks kinda nice, actually, but suffered from "implementing gameplay into this is gonna be a pain in the arse", which ultimately meant demotivation and death.

Polybiius

If you've never heard of the urban legend "Polybius" I recommend you go and look it up. Summary - it was a game, created by the government, found in arcades that induced numerous bad effects in players, including nausea, headaches, epilepsy, and narcolepsy. This was my attempt at doing the same thing, though it quickly descended into "making things flash a lot" so I stopped work on it.

Rockit 2 (R2CKIT)

Sequel to Rockit. Lost motivation very quickly - some games I can sequelise, others I simply can't. Rockit's a can't, despite numerous requests to.

The Hilarity Of Murder Pro

FPS version of The Hilarity Of Murder. Looked crap, wasn't very nice, but here's the basics if you want to see life in the player's eyes. Was also to include online deathmatches and similar, but my online crew bailed.

The Inverse Man

A cross between Innoquous, Jumpman and anything with little men and monochrome. This was ditched because of GM's annoying outlines drawn around sprites. GM8's alpha support may end this problem - if so, this could be released in the future.

So, yeah. That's all of them! I will willingly give out source codes to any of these games if you're interested in finishing them or pinching bits of code (with credit of course), lemme know!

-----

It's a 60MB download, so have fun with that!In other news, I've also released a new game, Rainbow Planet 2, a sequel to the predictably-named predecessor from mid-2007. That marks a NALRecord for longest time between two instalments of a series!

You can play Rainbow Planet 2 on YoYo Games, the special edition Rainbow Planet 2.1 on Game Jolt (which includes online highscores and a Twitter feed that automatically tweets new winners), or if you're interested in its history, the original can be downloaded from MediaFire.

The game itself is nothing stunning, but in a small way this was since I wanted to make it true to the original, particularly with the controls, which may be considered awkward.I've noticed YoYo Games have reupdated the Game Maker 8 logo. Although I liked the original new update, I think I slightly prefer this one. I like the slight reduction in saturation from the original version, and this one seems like it would scale down a lot better to a 32x32 icon. It's still just an icon though. YYG will have the £20 thrown at them for the overdue Game Maker upgrade regardless of whether its logo is a Pac-Man in a G, a communist hammer, a smiley face, or a bell-end with clown make-up on.

Anyway, it's currently 8:10am. I've been up all night, and plan to see through the all-nighter. Already rather drowsy and keep getting dizzy spells, so I'm guessing in a few hours I'll probably keel over and sleep on whatever happens to be beneath me. But for now, I'm done writing, so I'll see y'all in the next blog. Thanks for reading, as always!