Introducing: FEAST OF THE MAGGOTOID

Getting closer to the remake. Another dev and I are currently hard at work on our Unity game - 'FEAST OF THE MAGGOTOID' at present. Insanity Remake is next. I thought I had mentioned it before on the blog (but apparently not) - but I unfortunately had to put the brakes on the project due to well, basically not having the chops at the time to do a proper version that could do the game justice, but now after a couple of years of exhaustive training and working with coders on other projects I'm fully confident I've reached a level where I can claim I'm a fully-fledged game dev capable of modelling, animation, c# scripting, and I now know my way around Unity like my back garden.

FOTM started off as what was supposed to be a tiny game, but the project got a little more complex as we fleshed it out. The good news is that we're about 70% of the way through the game now, so release will not be far off. We're also planning an early access release soon, likely on itch.io, so you'll be able to play around with it in it's current demo state.

FEAST OF THE MAGGOTOID 

THE PROJECT   

An action run-n-gun game where you play as the bad guy; a despicable, brain-eating, slimy, ravenous body-snatching alien “Maggotoid” that has descended from the cosmos and invaded Earth- and more specifically- the “Pochiri Mall”- a shopping center in full Xmas swing. Yep, the snowy little town of St.Cumbold is getting a special visitor alright, but baby, it ain’t Santa! 

As the eponymous parasite Maggotoid you must fight for survival and maintain an ever-diminishing vitality/HP base by capturing victims and exercising complete control over their bodies via a neuralink, driving even the sweetest old dear into an expletive-yelling, murderous genocidal maniac. Either consume your captives immediately to replenish lost sustenance or symbiotically utilize their bodies in order to eliminate all the other shoppers until there are none-- which is the ultimate aim of the game by the way. Feed, little Maggotoid! Kill ‘em all using melee, handheld weapons, and firearms and explosives, until none remaint. A gory, grizzly game with flesh and bone dissolving in toxic gastric acid, organs exploding and bones cracking, shoppers fleeing for their lives. All with a dash of humour, of course. 

This is a small project that we’re hoping to get wrapped up before Feb 2021. We want to first release an early alpha, or a Minimum Viable Product, get some playtester reviews going and (fingers crossed) build a fanbase. If all goes well and players are hungry for more Maggotoid then the final step will be a plan to market it on steam and itch.io at indie prices, at the $15 mark.  

So what makes Feast of The Maggotoid unique? One point is that each agent has a level stat and this will have an effect on their performance - the Maggotoid is able to  augment their physiology, making them naturally more powerful than regular humans- but their speed, aiming ability, and melee power will still be contingent on the base level they are. Mastering how to subdue and entrap the more rewarding high-level agents will be an essential component to completing the game. Random agents will also come with special skills that will grant access to various items and handy abilities that regular agents do not possess, ranging from having more expertise at firearms or having gymnastic abilities amongst others.
Another USP we have is the advanced AI we plan to implement: the enemies (victims?) agents go from easy pickings; a frenzy of the panic-stricken running for their lives- to eventually organizing themselves into units with team leaders, and launching a variety of battle strategies to pin you down or lead you into an inescapable trap. 

That’s right, Maggotoid is the plot of a cheesy B-movie in a game- and that’s precisely the vibe we’re aiming for. think ½ Aliens, ½ The Thing, with intense action, punishing difficulty, luck, and some roguelike elements to add replayability. Bit of an 80’s Troma movie vibe is the goal. 

  

TOOLS

The project is being made using Unity, Blender, and Gimp, and Visual Studio. We collaborate via Trello, Discord, and the project is maintained on a GitHub repository.

THE INSANITY REMAKE: ProjectK Stalking the grounds outside WishingTree P...

Still alive!

Sorry for being so incommunicado lately! Lot's of background stuff going on with the game and not much to show for it, as with building a house we are reaching the point where many of the foundations have been laid down and soon every update will have something appealing to see. 

I'll admit I took a brief respite from hard dev'ing in order to play The Last of Us 2 recently, which was the sequel to my favourite game of all time. I had been highly excited to play it for the 7 long years Naughty Dog took to make it, but found the game to be ..well...sadly quite dissatisfying. Graphics, audio, gameplay etc all setting the bar for other PS4 games to match, but I wasn't happy with the 'brave' direction they took the story in at all. I always feel that at the end of the day making games- even horror games, is certainly about giving the player pause for rumination and provoking them into questioning the meaning and justifications for someone's actions under a given set of circumstances-- but boy oh boy does that game takes a deep and highly questionable dive into misery for the sake of subverting expectations, and almost approaches a snuff-movie level of distastefulness with the excessive gore and cheap shock deaths. The fanbase seems divided which was something the writers said they were expecting and saw from their focus tests prior to release. I think dividing your fanbase in order to stand out from the crowd is absolutely bananapants- from a business perspective if nothing else, but also- why the hell wouldn't you want all your poor fans to enjoy all the fruits of your labour? And why is merely giving the fans what they want such a crime these days? Anyway, label it the cost of high art or reinventing the whell or whatever, but I know I'm not alone in thinking the game was a bit of a catastrophe. A damn shame. Anyway, the newly releaseed Ghosts of Tsushima is looking like a nice palatte cleanser and here in Japan where -funnily enough- I'm roughly only 60km from Tsushima, the promo bandwagon is in full swing. Seeing people gush over the game's pretty aesthetics has given me a renewed love for the beauty of the countryside I live in over here with my Japanese wifey, and I can't help but think what a good life decision it was for me to come over here 15 years back.   

Ok back to the game. As I've said, sorry for the lack of updates, but it takes forever to get anywhere in Unity development as a one-man team, and so much more work to put in than a simple Flash Point'n'Click. Hurdles every step of the way. This time it's appropriating bones and their weighting for the armatures of some of the characters in Blender that's giving me headaches, plus coding some of the activation events/triggers such as a doors opening and camera angles.  I'm working on some simple cinematics, one at the moment where The Bandaged Man looks out of the window of his makeshift prison to see Project K patrolling the estate. In Flash that would be a couple of measly hours of artwork but in three-dimensions I have to rig Project K and The Bandaged Man properly, keyframe some animations, create forest terrain, rain pouring, fog, baked lighting, mipmaps...ugh...

.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm not nuts doing all this, but you know, what the hell right? It's a hobby.     

THE INSANITY REMAKE - ADDITIONS

How's it going fam? 

Whew, game is starting to take a little more form, but still a long way off from being a yummy splatter dish that people can't wait to get their teeth into. Still, seems to be running well so far. Everything is very low poly and most of the textures are only 256x256.Amazing how things look with careful unwrapping and normapping. That's about as optimized as I can get away with before it starts to look like a PS1 game.

This is a lot of work for one guy to handle, I've been busting my arse over it for months now. Thankfully I don't have kids nor a ton of responsibilities and can afford a few hours a week to manufacture this puppy. It is very much a hobbyist piece of work though, and there's no way in hell I'm going to be able to complete this entire game by myself in short duration and so - what I'm thinking of doing is releasing it in episodes. This will have the benefits of a) giving the fans something b) garnering interest in the project from sponsors and new fans alike and c) catching the eye of other potential devs that might want to jump on board and give me a hand getting this game out for a taste of the rev share. 

Of course around the same time I'll open up a Patreon and itch.io Name Your Price to try to secure some funding through purchaseable downloads, and if that does well it'll have a tremendous impact on the dev time of the game, essentially freeing me up from some of my day jobs-- which revolve around hourly contracts anyway. Every hour I can cover the salary I'd get through doing my day job online is and hour I can stay at home and devote to the game.

THE INSANITY REMAKE- PHYSICS

MORE OF THE INSANITY REMAKE...

a) The first room you start in. Got a bit of moody lighting going on now. The new game has physics, and getting through locations will usually involve searching up and down to find the appropriate items to move on. The new game will also make use of a VIGOUR meter, which increases when you find food. As it goes up you'll be able to move heavier furniture and break doors to get access to new areas. You'll also use items to throw at and slow down enemies so that you can make an escape when they're after you.
b) Testing Lawrence Elk. Got the IK on his creepy little 'nose' working to my satisfaction. Smooth sailing with the coding so far, but I know down the road there will be some near-insurmountable issues- the ones that always come up when you're as lame at coding as I am. Still looking for a real Unity c# programmer btw- hey if you're out there, mail me?

More of the game environment...

Just another run through the first few rooms with some more added visuals. Unpolished. Lighting is almost non-existent. Some normal mapping applied to textures now. No characters in there yet but there will be on the next update.

Google drive archive


Getting there...looking for new team members soon.

How's it going duders? Been a while. 

One good point about the rampant COVID pandemic is that it's given me plenty of time to work on the game, and I've been working on it pretty much full time as of last week. I'm not unemployed exactly, but as I've probably mentioned before- I'm a private ESL teacher in Japan, and most of the classes were group lessons, senior citizens and such and they'll all bailed on me (understandably) until this thing blows over. I even had to cancel a trip back to the UK. Bit bummed about that. But tbh it could be a blessing in disguise as I now get to put a solid eight or nine hours into the game each day, and progress has been constant.

I've been mostly working on the graphics using Blender. I only started Blender last winter but thanks to my knowledge of other similar software, I've been picking it up fast.

Anyway, here a bit of a prototype: 

Don't get too excited - very early days yet. There's not even lighting in this scene and the textures are placeholder. I'm still weighing up whether to make the game first person or third, or perhaps a mix? I'd love to have Hitchcockian fixed cam shots that bewilder the player and add tension. We'll see.  

It would be great to find a collaborator or two to speed up this process, but man, without offering cash upfront it's like asking someone to sell their kid. 
Obviously, most people want to work on their own dream projects, not another's. 
If you can code in Unity, why not come on board? I'm not fussed about people having a ton of past experience, but you'll need a portfolio of course. 

Guess I have to keep plugging away until the game looks juicy enough that people don't mind a rev share deal. Later ;)

Low-Poly. Getting there folks. Tough slog doing all this on my onesies, but I've finally gotten to a level in Blender where I think I can do the full pipeline to game engine pretty quickly. Done alla of the major characters already, Geedy (Edgar Friendly), Elk, Project K, now Beak. Will work on Tracy Takaki soon.

PART 3- A PRELUDE

Nathan Langdon, Peter's older brother- is the perpetrator of a DUI vehicle crash involving himself and Edward Geedy as well as his younger brother Jonathan Geedy, and this is the primary catalyst that thrusts everything into motion.

Years before the timeline of the games...

Night driving in the countryside are Jonathan and Edward Geedy. Jonathan is in the midst of confessing to his older sibling a sinister revelation-- he has killed a number of women.

Jonathan (later known as Project K) is not entirely at fault for his actions of lunaticism. He is the survivor of a self-inflicted suicide attempt, one that left him mentally disabled with serious neuroticism and OCD-like repercussions that materialize in extremities of personality- from being kind-natured and timid to explosive hysterics. His excessive anxiety disorder that is largely relieved by the pet cat that is always on his side, an animal that is used as a therapeutic instrument by Jonathan's carers to lessen the negative psychological survival trauma and evoke a childlike feeling of security and peace within Jonathan.  Edward, upon hearing the confession is frenzied, his mind beset by the thoughts of the many eventualities that will occur once the news gets out, should he let it. 

Nathan Langdon, coming in the opposite direction, drinks from an open bottle of Jack Daniels (200cc) resting on the passenger side while driving a second-hand F-Type convertible Jag, opening up in the summer night, murmuring complaints to himself about a former colleague, a comrade who is refusing to conspire with Nathan in accepting bribes and has threatened to blow Nathan's cover. His concentration at an equal deficit to Geedy’s, he 
 shoots down murky country lanes oblivious and with little care to to his surroundings.
As Nathan switches channels on the radio, a local lady stumbles on the street ahead. In riddles of a fragmented mind, she talks to herself; she has developed dementia and walked away from her place of care. Langdon, who is highly intoxicated by this stage, collides with her, the effect causes his vehicle to zigzag across the lanes in a sine wave. His Jag  smashes into the oncoming Land Rover Discovery Sport 2.0 TD4 that Edward and Jonathan are in, fishtailing the Land Rover off the road and flipping it past the side jettison, then catapulting down the 30ft plummet. It appears improbable anybody would survive such a drop, Langdon considers, but as he peers over he sees; a) the life-devoid elderly woman’s body caught in a shrubbery of hawthorn, spilled organs and broken appendages spread at unnatural points and b) the two occupants of the Rover out within the open, slithering in anguish, bloodied and both with serious damage. Jonathan Langdon expires shortly after. His brother Edward reaches out to touch him, but his hand instead falls upon a copy of the book he had that was within the car- "The Island of Dr.Moreau"

Nathan Langdon surges down the bank. His cop instincts kick in to initially rescue the duo, and he tries to awaken Edward. Edward appears to be semi-docile but mute, he gazes at Nathan and blurs out once more. At this point Nathan reconsiders the scene, letting everything sink in. He predicts the catastrophes that would happen for him ought to he call it in and other members of the force come and discover him there intoxicated. And as a figure of authority, he knows it’s a career killer. With this in mind, he makes a choice, putting his foot on the back of Edward's head and forcing it into the slime until he's certain Edward is dead. Nathan then  gets back within the car, hurling the bourbon bottle out, foolishly leaving prints on it that are afterward used for identification, and drives off. 

Unbeknownst to Langdon, Edward Geedy miraculously survives the accident and the murder attempt. He endures outwardly only physical harm. The irreparable cracks of the neurological mirror will make their appearance later.


 “Not to go on all-fours; that is the Law.  Are we not Men? 
 “Not to suck up Drink; that is the Law.  Are we not Men? 
 “Not to eat Fish or Flesh; that is the Law.  Are we not Men? 
 “Not to claw the Bark of Trees; that is the Law.  Are we not Men? 
 “Not to chase other Men; that is the Law.  Are we not Men?”

Amid the months of recuperation that follows, Geedy becomes exceedingly fixated by his last recollections, a read through of ‘The Island of Dr.Moreau’ - the book he was just wrapping up as Langdon’s car hit his and sent him and his brother off the gorge. Geedy’s harrowed intellect turns profoundly into the morphia, indulging in fantasies of men and beasts grafted together and advanced into more superior, more purer species or “Vivisects”- as they were named within the anecdotal H.G.Well's tale. Edward’s mind obsesses over bringing them to reality.

Nathan Langdon is soon identified by highway camera and affirmed to be at the source of the occurrence through the fingerprints on the bottle. He is forced to hand in his badge, yet his connections keep him out of prison. He becomes unemployed, skeptical, bitter,  and self-destructive.

After the events of THE Insanity 1 & 2 

It is a mystery how Edward Geedy and his associates were able to vanish after the Wishingtree affair with Peter Langdon, whose remains were also not recovered. Years pass,  and the case is dropped.  The OR recordings that Geedy famously uploaded stopped abruptly. 

Then one day, Nathan Langdon is personally sent a vellum-print letter from Geedy, shedding light on the whole affair. 


On the ocean...

Next is the scene of Nathan and another man on a power boat, wrapped up. It’s winter. He pulls out part of a letter he has gotten from Edward Geedy. "Nathan THE CONDEMNED. YOU KNOW WHERE TO Discover ME After You ARE Prepared TO Atone FOR THE Offenses OF THE PAST. COME ALONE, to SEEK REPRIEVE. You KNOW WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO NATHAN." 

The protected (fictional) Shipman Isles and the main island of Weasel Bog have a modest archaic populace that get by as primitive subsistence ranchers- surviving on an agrarian culture, and are akin to Quakers with little to no utilize for power or present day hardware, and with the Act of 1956[11] that disallows travel to the island and any approach closer than five maritime miles (9.26 km), outsiders are prevented from any contact with the inhabitants in order to terminate the spread of remotely contracted infections, and protect the culture of the islands, in other words, they are totally closed off from the rest of the world. The region is watched by a neighborhood naval force also composed of inhabitants who will oust or even attack interlopers on sight.

Langdon will later discover that Geedy is not merely hidden within the Shipman Isles- the islanders are in truth supporters of Geedy and his despotism, impressed by his success with the operations his doctrines fall closely in line with the chapter of Paganism they mirth themselves in. To them his success with the vivisections shows him nothing short of a revered saint, and evangelist of their belief, a savior, the personification of their prophecies  of leaders arrival. Having been contacted, and welcomed to live within the island a long time earlier, Geedy was able to move there and found an HQ, feigning greatness and benefitting from the total support, worship and compliance of his followers, advancing their otherworldly body of religious practices through his own lecturing, expressing his own twisted elucidations of ethical instruction and moral coding, joining them in song and ceremonial event, reflection, transition, and more horrendously, utilizing them as manikins to perform his vivisections on. The honour & blessing of being rendered into a 'totem animal' is seen by the islanders as a prestigious gift to aspire to.


As the ships docks having maintained a strategic distance from the coastguard Nathan disembarks and left alone when the ferryman he believed would take him to Geedy takes off abruptly. It’s daytime but the climate of the Shipman is the same perpetually; dim, overhung, drizzly.

Far away is Geedy, looking through binoculars from a veranda distant within the slopes, he’s been watching all along. We see the shadow of an colossal monster move at the calling of it's master.

Nathan thumbs a Glock 22 Standard, checks extended floor plate (mag), clicks it back in full mag, puts it in a holster on his coat. What Geedy doesn't know is that Langdon himself is more mentally unsteady than ever. He figures it out the tip was a set up and being caught on the cold island with small hope of getting away undetected, continues on a travel to discover his brother and protect him from the hands of the psychopathic host, and he's prepared to dispense with anybody that stands in his way, guiltless or guilty.

This game faces the twin concepts of choices and redemption; will you drive Nathan over the edge of rationality and into the darkness, or discover a way to lead him to the light, and back to the way of the lawful and the good?

First Practice Model

 

Milestone first low-poly first attempt in Blender, at under 8k poly count.

LAWRENCE ELK

would make a good model to cut my Blender teeth on, I figured, as I already had a 'fat guy' obj model to reskin and resculpt, downloaded from somewhere long forgotten on one of my old backup CD's, and here's the result.  I didn't apply a normal map in this case but will do tomorrow. Found a great online mapping customizer NormalMap-Online here, a super handy tool I'll be using plenty in the future no doubt.  Normals? what- if I'm speaking Chinese here this link will explain everything about mapping.  

Here's another render with a gloss shader on the bug and a displacement map in place of the missing normal. It's unlikely I'll ever bother with doing high-res sculpts as it's too much work for one person. Instead I'll likely paint height-maps and convert to normals directly in Blender as demonstrated in this tute. 

Loving Blender but lord almighty what a struggle to wrap my head around all the zillion controls and shortcuts, everything from the modifiers and UV wrapping, getting to grips with Cycles Rendered and it's 'circuit board' Node system, to just getting the cam position to look like they do in the UI- it has taken many hours of my time.

Still, it's almost worth it for that moment when everything falls into place, and next time will be a doddle.

Personal

----------------

So, still living in Japan of course, and VR is hitting the arcades in a big way over here. Costs $8 a go and so it's definitely for novelty alone but man is it fun flying around mountains on a winged bike, or riding on a chopper whilst Godzilla incinerates Tokyo. I had the creepiest experience ever with this one game, where you go around on a wheelchair trying to navigate your way out of a type of zombie lair, it's cosplay and so I could see my wife (or her avatar) riding around and something about the avatar waving at me and knowing it was her freaked me the hell out. When we both lost to the timer and it went to a cut-scene where she got the head of her virtual manifestation cut off by a giant pair of scissors I genuinely felt distressed for a couple of minutes after, lol. 

Yikes- 7 sinful years since I last visited this blog.

And there I was was thinking "Hmmmm, back into the fray of game development, best get a blog going"- and was hunting around for a suitable spot when I suddenly remembered this one that I'd already created aeons back, lol what a shitty memory I have. And here we are again, back in the field, phoenix risen, passions reignited and all that. 

To address the question that I get asked the most, yes, I will be working on "The Insanity 3" eventually- though I'd like to revamp the first two games (extended versions) in all three glorious dimensions first, as a practice exercise if nothing else. The actual story for The Insanity 3 game has been written (vast majority of it anyway), but don't start tapdancing just yet- I'm still very much getting my bearings with the new development environments I've been adapting too, mostly Unity and Blender. I'm taking to them like a fish to water though and so there isn't much of a hurdle to leap over-- once you have the fundamentals down these game engines/modelling kits/programming languages- they're all alike. Actually Unity and Blender have come a long way since I last used them, and Blender in particular is light years superior than anything it used to be. I thought I'd have sprinkle some $$$ sugar out there to get Maya or Max but after a couple of days of piddling around with Blender I was impressed enough to scrap that idea.

Now, being honest- EvilKris is not a huge aficionado of blogging and the precious time it eradicates, but there's no wealth like knowledge, and if everybody else out there was equally compelled to keep their methods to their chest then none of us would get anyplace, and so I feel obliged to at least give a little back to the community, and hopefully grow a buddy network in the process. It's unlikely I'll make any actual tutorials like back in the old days but I will do my best to be diligent and not only post game updates but also the occasional tasty coding snippet or art tip, along with assets (see below) and links to other realms of online education I deem recommendable. 

So what does the crystal ball say for the future of the EvilKris gaming *scoff* empire? Well, here's my current train of thought: 


MAKING $$$ 

Back in the grand old yore of Flash, us devs could make a few quid/bucks through the CPC model or via company sponsorships, but this is the modern world of Patreon and Early Access models and so there's a good chance that's I'll be taking that route. Thankfully I have a day job that pays the rent, so lack of funds won't be the rain on my parade any day soon. 


PLATFORM 

PC downloadable. Would I make a mobile game? Not interested at the moment, but I'd certainly license my games out to be made on mobile though. VR? Abso-fricking-lutely. In fact, it's not too much to say that eventually I will veer towards VR stage development as it's clearly going to be the next gen zeitgeist to ride on, and once everyone and their mother has a VR headset for the latest PS5 or whatever then the indie world is going to detonate with cool VR demo's and I'd love to be one of that lot. Needless to say VR is the ideal medium for horror games...I mean- just imagine The Insanity in VR? Goosebumps right? You bet. For the time being I'm thinking the games or betas I make will be downloadable either directly from this or whatever page I transfer to, or if I can I will make them accessible on Steam. 


ASSETS

Do not expect jaw-dropping graphics while it's only me on me onesies as sole dev, sorry. Although I enjoy drawing and modelling, creating graphics is the most tedious, collosal task ever, and I'll simply have to find whatever ways I can to get around that fact or the peeps will be waiting forever for every release, and you'll have to promise not to be fussy. Anyway, with karma on my side the games will eventually attract some potential teammates for recruitment, or even make me enough cash to hire a couple of bonafide pro's to help out, but for the time being the graphics will be mostly legacy low-polygon bollucks with lots and lots of post-pro fog to cover up their ineptitudes; think PS2/PS3 quality models that are between 10-30k polygons with a bit of normal mapping thrown in-- and yeah, that's the best I can promise to start with. It's sort of advantageous that retro is in these days, lol. 
Most of my stuff won't be made from the ground up either, but more likely ripped from old games and tweaked enough to bypass the copyright laws and into 'transformative work' territory. Just being honest, lol, please pretend you didn't read that. Again, things are better than a decade ago and so there's almost any obj imaginable out there available for royalty-free download, very useful. 


PROMOTION

Experience has taught me that quantity with some quality works better than high quality and low quantity, (?) and that consistency and community are actually the keys to getting things going. I mean, look at Puppet Combo, this guy squirts games out his backside faster than Stephen King writes novels and though they aren't visually exquisite and a bit flawed they do something that 99% of horror games do, scare the fck out of people. And they do have style in buckets, I'm not afraid to admit I'm jealous of the talent this guy and his team has, nice! But more than that I appreciate that he's raising the bar a bit for other horror devs and spawning copycats, which is awesome.

Indie game developers are doomed to repeat the same mistake, they dive straight in early with their best game, spend years polishing their baby without getting it properly gametested right off the bat, thinking it's going to make them richer than Trump, and then *poof* the way of the Dodo the minute they release it. The internet is aflow with the carcasses of materialized indie dreams that were pushed from the nest without anyone to catch them. This transpired with one of my Flash games Sunken World, which although I'm proud of in terms of graphical achievement, gameplay-wise was a stone-cold turd..and I knew it early on and yet chose to ignore my gut like a fool. Wel, never again. Getting the 'hook' is imperative from day one. My motto; if I spend a month on a game and nobody is telling me how awesome it already is, I'm scrapping that putana. I'm thinking I'll just throw some work out there and see which venture sticks, launching pre-alphaware and seeing which project begets the best feedback- and those will be the ones that I'll put the most exertion into fleshing out. Naturally The Insanity games are a solid that I'll be working on in the background, but alongside those I'll be releasing a bunch of mini-tasters, small games swimming around my noodle at the moment which will probably never finish completely but will be entertaining for what they're worth.
That's where you folks come in.  Something I do want to do which I don't see other devs doing is to arrange a more collaborative and open-source framework, a place where you -the guys with talent anyway- can add to the games yourselves. I'll be uploading (some) assets for people to toy around with, to work on, improve on, and will also be releasing all my blueprints, project concepts, designs, menus, texture maps, models, anything preproduction, and let you have at it, to edit and tweak, remap, remesh, subdivide, bump map...whatever. And then you can upload it and we'll all see what you come up with. It'll be fun and of course, if I do decide to put it in the game then credit will be given, and dare I say even a share of whatever the game makes. Which leads me to the next point- 

PARTNERSHIPS

As always, I welcome potential team-mates wholeheartedly, however skeptical I become. So far I've yet to meet a collaborator that worked out but hey, I know, you get what you pay for right? Anway, if you think you have the chops then mail me. 

Alright that is it for the time being, tara.

Insanity 3:Gallery

This is where I'll be posting the artwork for 'Insanity 3'-


















The prettiest guest room in the world

Sprites Are A Go! (plus minor Insanity 3 update)

It has been a busy early November week and I've had almost no time to spend on the games. Also had put a chunk of my time into making a couple of flyers for a club-owner friend who threatened to take away the free beers I get every time I visit his bar if I don't help him out. I did however start spriting the new game, Angry Girlfriend, or Nagging Wife or whatever I'm going to call it. Check it below. Nothing much has changed gameplay-wise but you can see I've started the spriting process on the main character. Not the best artwork in the world I'd quickly agree, but it still took ages to do. Feel sorry for guys who have to do that all day long, and I'm glad I can hope between coding and spriting on my own projects.


Next up is 'Insanity 3'. As I have mentioned, I'm working on the game at the weekends. So here's what I roughed out last chance I had.


It's a demo of the manual reload part of the game. I wanted to find a way to add extra tension when you get into gunfights, and suddenly thought it would be fun and kind of original if you had to actually reload the gun yourself. I can see people getting all panicky and messing up the reload- kind of like real life, right? But not to worry, they'll be a duck-hunting practice zone in the game for people to sharpen their skills. --------------------- And as for other news, tomorrow November 6th is my B-day is tomorrow. 35 years old. Emphasis on the 'old' part. Ouch.

Sunday update-

Not much to report today. Started a bit on the Insanity level for Angry Girlfriend. Play it here. Flying kick works a bit better now. It's now also possible to be grabbed by an enemy, and you can use the LEFT/RIGHT keys to wriggle free.





Started spriting the main character a bit for a laugh-

Last but not least here's a look at the Insanity 3 first screen (very rough)




Sunken World has not gotten any bids yet, Gah!!

 

Insanity 2: Fan-tastic stuff

YouTube member(s?) Zeroellet - have done a short parody based on 'Insanity 2'

Buckle in for this one-





Goooood work guys, love it! Felt quite thrilling to see somebody enjoyed (or despised?) the game enough to bother doodling out an animation for it with voice acting. The Evil Dude here is mighty impressed. 

Having just also reread 'The Silence of The Lambs', you could say I am most certainly feeling inspired to scrub back in with Edgar Friendly once more and get the next Insanity installation out pronto- if only my broke ass could afford it. The chunk of moneyless time it would take to code, *sigh*- barely paying the rent as it is. Still, Insanity 3 is a steady ongoing weekend project- no changes there! I actually was working on the manual weapon reload system last Sunday, so panic not- Insanity 3 is slowly but surely on the way. In fact, you'll probably be getting a peek at some demo work here on the other side of Halloween. And of course, there's the secret Insanity level for Angry Girlfriend *doh* did I just say that? :-)
    
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While we're on the subject- another piece of fan affection has come to my attention recently.  

THE INSANITY WIKIA 

Not sure whether it'd be a good idea to endorse this wikia due to the inauthentic liberties some of the contributors have taken ie. the inclusion of unheard of characters (Kitty Friendly? Adoptables? Hmmmm...) 

But what the hell, it's still quite a body of work and a good start, and I wholeheartedly appreciate the love some people out there have for the game. Don't hesistate to contribute if you're a fan. It is truly the fans support and encouragement alone that gives me that motivation to make those games at the end of the day. 

Feel free to pass along any ideas you have.  

"Angry Girlfriend" v1.0

Day 5: 

OKAY, so here's an update to the new mini-game I've entitled 'Angry Girlfriend'-- Basically the story is about a guy who get's so sick of being nagged to death about being a broke loser that he goes on a 4 level the rampage. 

My wife asked me-
 'Is that anything to do with me?' 

No dear, of course not.  I'm elated that you feel you exist on this Earth to give me a hard time.


 Anyway, I thought with this game I'd explore my comical side for a change. 

This is a first level demo- needs maybe some variety in the enemy types or a couple of hazards, no dialogue yet, but even so it's good enough for a start- and even features 'PADGE THE INSULT BUM' as the end of level baddie; an extremely rude homeless guy who loves to incite passers-by with revolting and vicious comments. His special moves include throwing sardines & cats from the trashbag at you, whistling for his mutt, and a spinning rotten gut fart attack when you've reduced his health to below %50, and he's just dying for you to beat him lovable. 




WASD- MOVE. J- PUNCH ATTACK. K- KICK ATTACK
Feeling pretty good about this game already, which is an auspicious sign. Geez, maybe action games are the way to go after all, should've followed my gut.

New Strategy:Mini games

OK, so first some news: 'Sunken World' is complete and on the market for sponsorship as we speak. Early reviewers have given it a 7/10, not the best score in world (thought it was worth an 8 at least). Still, I'm happy with it- the game runs smooth, and utilizes a lightning-fast linked-list particle system that was quite an achievement to code. It's fun to play IMO, so who knows how the general public will react. 

I did have one major issue though prior to releasing though due to a mysterious  game lag glitch, that kept appearing after uploading it to a server and viewing it online. We found out that it only occured in certain versions of Google Chrome. I spent days thinking it was a bug and trying to isolate the issue- only to discover that it was a known complication with the actual Pepper-based Flash Player that's inherent to the Chrome browser alone. In other words it wasn't a coding bug at all. Sucks. But ah, at least it's good to know. The dude here always stays positive. Anyway, hopefully Sunken World won't be another turkey like 'Chronicle' which was, err, a chronical failure, making $0.06 a day for me as we speak on MochiAds (woohoo!). Yes, nobody is going to retire on that. Also, this game marks the last time I code a shooter. I'm done with blasting games. Daft as it sounds, I'm actually not a big shmup fan myself- I just was curious about coding one or two for the shits & giggles of it. Now that I've gotten that out of my system I'm going to focus more on making games in the genre I worship and adore, more specifically the BEAT-EM UP genre!

Yep. And with that being said, let's talk about the next project I have in the pipeline. 

Vigilante



Or more precisely, a remake. Or even more precisely, a remake with alternate sprites and a tweaked fighting engine to the 1988 Irem arcade hit. I can't just clone the game entirely or it'll never sell- but a tribute with a couple of extra attack moves, yeah what the hell. Fans of the original will enjoy it, and I'll get the smug satisfaction of knowing I did a remake of a fav game of mine as a kid.

As you can see, the new strategy I'm adopting here is to do more 5-minute lunch break style games until I start making the cash to get onto bigger things. Games that are fun for a few minutes. 
No more 5-8 month development times with these things, I'm done with that. I'm also feeling that the market is moving away from online games and more into mobile. Sponsors know that the big bucks are from throwing their lot in with the guys that are doing iOS games with microtransactions, and diverting too much of my time into games that might not be worth anything in a year or so is a bad idea. 

But don't worry, I'll finish Insanity 3 for ya, if nothing else. I'm working on it from time to time. Slow and steady on that one. 

As for work on Vigilante, it's been 3 days in. Here, have a chalkman preview. No real sprites in there yet. 


This time I'm going to allow you guys to see the work-in-progress (WIP) on a regular basis. Feel free to leave feedback. I'm certainly not against the idea of implementing some new concepts, and you come up with something fun enough. If I do you'll get your name on the credits. 

Random Post

My newest game Sunken World's is now weeks away from being finished. It's been through a multitude of revisions, and frankly I'm not sure if it's a good game yet or not- I wonder if the developer ever does. At least it looks quite magnetising visually, has a good story and compliments my fetish for quick-action shooting games. I'm done with schmups now, any games I release in the future with either be horror/zombie adventure games or beat-em ups.
What to work on next is the question? Insanity 3 is ALWAYS on my mind, yet I know it won't make zip in terms of sponsorship money, so it's fallen back on my 'to-do' priority list. I will work on it on weekends consistently, and we'll see what progress happens as the weeks pass.  The good news is that I will be releasing regular demo's of the game so that I can get feedback from you, the fans, in regards to what you think of it's progress, unlike before when I would show maybe 1 demo alone before release.. Limitless effort will be put into getting the game out one day, but finances have to be the top of my agenda for now. Or at least if I can't make a hit game I should be creating some mini-games that can be coded entirely within a few months, not 6 or 7- the duration 'The Insanity' games take.

Anyway, here's a little DARK SOULS inspired prototype for you to have a chuckle at: