Monthly Archive for February, 2009

Real Life. (with furniture)

Published on February 28, 2009 in News. 0 Comments

The reason for the lack of updates, despite plenty of material, is good old Real Life. Between my stupid turtle (who managed to hit his nose and had to go back to the vet), going to the doctor, and helping our good friend Ivo move to his new place (spent almost the entire day transporting stuff from IKEA), not to mention work, there has been little to no time for anything creative. And I must admit that I’m still wildly jumping back and forth between utter frustration with game development and the desire to make more games.

I’ll try to update later tonight.

Gnargh.

Published on February 26, 2009 in News. 2 Comments

Problem with clogged pipes. Water damage to flats below. Why now? Why always when we just seem to have some free time? Also, turtle with unknown eye problem. Not a decent night’s sleep in days. Cannot write coherent sentences.

Gnargh! Gnargh, I say.

And now sleep.

Projects page up

Published on February 24, 2009 in News and Projects. 0 Comments

It doesn’t contain all that much info, but from now on it will always be updated when something new is added or something old is finished. I will also add a “finished projects” page at some point.

Review. Things that will be.

Published on February 22, 2009 in News and Projects. 1 Comment

There’s a new review of Desert Bridge that made me very happy:

On first impression, the whole game feels playful and offbeat. All of the graphics are sketched in crayon with a passion for colour and oddity rivaling that of a six year old. All the characters and spaces are slightly kooky, from the cat who believe he’s an emperor, to the spider-pig, the cuddly dinosaur in the garden, the collection of stoned mushrooms in the pantry, the giant hamsters, to Horaffe, the bionic giraffe. Coupled with all of this, the soundtrack really wouldn’t be out of place in some sort of clay-mation mystery adventure.

To some extent, all of this makes the game seem like it must be targeted at children, but it’s really not. The humour’s quite sophisticated and sometimes subtle, there’s a distinct hint of sadness throughout, and without giving away the ending, let me just mention that the word ’sinister’ in the title doesn’t mean that everyone is left handed.

I was so happy when I read this that I picked up the cat and waved her around a bit. She didn’t mind, but jumped onto the windowsill to demand some sweets, which I proceeded to give her despite having already given her far too many today. (Not actual sweets. Cat treats filled with cheese and chicken. But I think of them as sweets. Or sweeties. My vocabulary goes all strange when I’m talking to the cat.)

In completely different news, I am considering taking part in the Independent Gaming Source’s Cockpit Competition. Maybe. Things are being considered.

Projects page should be up soon.

I have finally, finally gotten all my film-related files onto the new PC. We’re talking hundreds of GBs. Phew! Now to finish the damn thing.

Also in the works: reviews and thoughts about Battlestar Galactica, Hogfather, and Lost. And maybe some podcast-type things.

And tomorrow I get to redesign my aquarium, because my turtles are out of hibernation and coming back from the vet. The land bit will now have a bonsai on it. How awesome is that?

Zero Punctuation

Published on February 21, 2009 in Thoughts. 0 Comments

Most of you probably know Zero Punctuation. It’s rude, it’s funny, and in many cases it’s true.

It just occured to me that despite its widespread popularity, some of you may not be aware of ZP. The internet is like that – it’s surprisingly easy for hugely popular things to just pass you by. In most cases, that’s a good thing. But it would be a shame not to have seen at least a couple of these wonderful little videos. So, if you haven’t, enjoy. If you have, why are you reading this?

That Bug Again

Published on February 20, 2009 in News. 0 Comments

Not a whole lot of people are still reading this, but if you’re one of the people who couldn’t run Desert Bridge because of that strange bug with the resizing – another patch is in the works. Hopefully it will work.

That Weird Desert Bridge Problem

Published on February 18, 2009 in Games. 13 Comments

Some of you – only a tiny fraction, but enough – have experienced a problem with Desert Bridge where the window is resized but the hotspots aren’t. Beta-tester boo_boo recently posted a comment about this, and I thought I’d repost it for everyone to read:

did some research, and found that changing windows DPI setting (http://www.lawfirmsoftware.com/support/change_dpi_settings_xp.htm) to something other, than default “96 DPI” causes “desert bridge” window to be scaled up (including game hot spots), while bitmaps remains unscaled. looks VERY similar to the problem in question!

And indeed it does look very similar, and I believe this may be the solution to the problem. Well, not exactly a solution, more of an explanation really – but at least we have some idea what’s happening.

Foxes!

Published on February 14, 2009 in Misc. 0 Comments

Yes, another damn video. But I promise long and utterly boring posts will start appearing again soon. You know, the typical sort of thing that I write. Complaints about Richard Dawkins, thoughts about game design, incoherent movie reviews, vague stuff about my various projects… that sort of drivel.

For now, here are foxes on a trampoline. Does it get any cuter?

Revolution & Evolution

Published on February 12, 2009 in Thoughts. 0 Comments

More or less exactly 200 years ago, two truly great men were born: Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin. In the modern world, as then, their achievements are attacked every day; but the truth remains the truth, no matter how loudly their enemies howl.

This article at the World Socialist Web Site about Lincoln and Darwin is worth reading. Well, actually, just read the bit about Lincoln – the Darwin stuff is rather mediocre. And ignore the slightly forced references to Marx (also a great man, and relevant, but somehow not correctly integrated into the article).

damn

Published on February 11, 2009 in News. 0 Comments

Something went wrong with the update… trying to get the site back to normal.

Edit: Looks like K2, the theme I normally use for this website, isn’t compatible with WordPress 2.7.1. Either that, or I’m doing something wrong – but I seriously cannot imagine what. It’s not like I played around with any of the code or anything. It just stopped working the moment I upgraded.

Edited again: The latest build of K2 fixed most of the problems. Took some work to get it looking right. I still think the distances between the individual posts are off, but I haven’t yet figured out which bit of code controls that.