The Cat Lady and Christmas

Seasons greetings! I just wanted to write a quick update, sales of The Cat Lady have started, Screen 7's first major release. It can be bought at http://www.thecatlady.co.uk

It's been a long, tiring process but I am glad it's finally out in some capacity. We still have a couple of weeks ahead getting it sorted for DVD's, Desura and some other places. I've learned a few things along the way.

2012 has been extremely productive for me, but it's also been tough. I haven't been out in daylight most of this year because so much has had to be done on the PC. Updating a website might seem like a simple task but it can turn into a 6 hour stint. Setting up a game for distribution isn't the click of a button, it takes weeks of preparation and beyond especially if you're doing it for the first time.

But there's been a lot of support and things definitely look positive for the near future. AdventureX is running again this year which is going to be interesting - as I didn't have as much time to organize it as I did last year, but there seems to be double the interest there was 365 days ago.

Next year will be thrilling, Ravenwood moves along in leaps and bounds and from January I will be able to concentrate fully on Kinky Island. Didn't holiday this year, so you may not see/hear from me between AdventureX and the end of January, I need to put my feet up and give my eyes a bit of a rest, and get thoroughly fucking drunk...

I'm not going to admit everything went perfectly this year, but it certainly went in the right direction. There is lots a lots a lots more to do before the church bells can really start peeling - but thanks again for reading and keeping an interest in what I do.

Have a merry christmas!!

ML

AdventureX 2012 update

We're getting close to our funding goal, but there's still a way to go yet. Almost all of our schedule slots are filled with feature presentations, special guests and informative talks. Those who contribute to the campaign will get updates and a special AdventureX newsletter.

You can read all the newsletters from the previous (first) event here! Thank you to everyone who has contributed so far, taking us over the halfway mark. We appreciate you spreading the word, and the love, and the adventure...

20 days left to help with the fundraiser, even if you only have a few dollars, you'll be kept in the know with updates, the newsletter and a live video link to the event.

Show your support for the adventure game scene - visit our fundraiser now and help make it happen!

University of East Anglia, nr. Liverpool St, London - Sat 15 and Sun 16 Dec. Free entry, disabled access, refreshments available.

Suck my summerbatch

We're about to hit 700 copies sold, thanks to everyone who has bought it, shown support or just been curious about it and slagged it off! It was great to get a mention on PC Gamer, Adventure Gamers and a few other awesome sites, like:
Jay is games yes he is
Wraithkal's retro games and haircut
Focus for me now is on The Cat Lady and the voice production, lots to do but it edges closer every day. Must download the new build now :) BJ:MD is almost complete, and although I had sworn away movie making, it seems a potentially massive project has fallen into my lap. More on this soon, but I'll say it involves a Hollywood writer who's made a bunch of well known sci-fi films and....the Ben Jordan franchise. Go figure :D Work also continues on Kinky Island, Camp Ravenwood and FoY. That's all. The only other thing left to do is....Suck my summerbatch! --Mods

Summerbatch is available now!

Volume 1 aers released and already it's stirring up a mass debate! People are annoyed with the delivery format (EXE installer download), there's a huge OT discussion about sexism in a Nancy thread, the off-putting low budget website and the cobwebs in their PayPal account - but so far there's been a lot of positive feedback about the games. We have to start somewhere :) Thanks to those who have bought Summerbatch and helped support the developers, Screen 7 and charity. People who have blogged about it (Spanos) and those who've posted it as news on great websites (Gnome, Jack and others). summerbatch.co.uk

How long til Summerbatch?

Let's ask a cheap digital themed countdown clock: See you there! Don't forget - Ben Jordan 8 is released (and free to play) on Wed 8th August!

Summerbatch pre-post

Summerbatch, a collection of games for the summer is almost ready for release. I wanted to post a quick update about some of the material within the collection. We've had to extend the deadline for developers a couple of times, but still very hopeful that it will be ready for the end of the month.

Additionally, 2 games will unfortunately not see the light of day in this edition so the total number of games is 6 this time round, however they WILL be included in the followup collection, which could possibly be in Winter (some have speculated Winterbatch, I am up for it - but only when this one is out!!)

So this week is an important week for beta versions and testing. I've been lucky to have a go on 4 out of the 6 games, with 2 others hopefully presenting their beta editions today or tomorrow.

Nancy The Happy Whore by Technocrat is a quality retro looking game that can take up to about an hour to complete. James has mastered another medium length game and had it finished well in time for the Summerbatch deadline, in fact, his final version has been available for almost a month now. A slightly different angle for James perhaps, to go with a comedy about a whore - but the writing is witty, the characters are funny and the atmosphere has a great vibe. I admit though, I haven't actually beaten the game yet!

Patchwork is of higher resolution and is made by Ilyich. I HAVE completed this game and enjoyed it, it took me about an hour and a half in total. The back story may seem a little cliché at first but the world you're thrown into is magical, whimsical and a nicer side of the "transported to a parallel universe" cliché. No snorting horrible aliens trying to eat you - a fun bunch of local characters and spirits. You can control two different characters which works nicely, and undertake puzzles for the both of them. I really enjoyed the puzzles which are not just inventory based. It's a lot of fun and it's finished and ready for Summerbatch!

Barely Floating by AJA is another higher resolution game that features a whole cast of characters and is reported to have a play time of 2 to 3 hours! I'm progressing through it but haven't beaten it yet. The design is slick and there's an interesting feature when it comes to talking to other people, you can also ask them about anything in view which is a nice touch. There is some advanced scripting in other areas that help create a wonderful atmosphere inside the ship. Lots of music & incidental sound effects add to the puzzle solving, playing the role of an old man has never been so fun!

PISS by Ben304 is a game that presents an above-usual quality by said developer, known for his work various successful free adventure games. In fact, he's even stated lately that this is probably his longest game to date! I've been playing but have no indication on how long it is, as I have only tried the early beta at this point. But seeing some of the screenshots recently posted it appears the explorable world really opens up later in the game. With some neat effects, lots of character animations and some clever little features - PISS appears to be everything a point & click fan could want! Again a fantasy setting, a quirky mission but most of all a wonderful thing to play!

Jailbreak is a top down stealth game by Rocco. We're waiting on the beta, expected today or tomorrow - all I can say is I'm intrigued!

BioFactor by LocutusOfBored and Babar began life as an arcade game when it was designed many years ago - but the idea has been resurrected for Summerbatch and re-made into a point and click. Yet to play the beta, so little is known about this game right now.

Teardrop and Lycoris have been hit by development hell and will not be released until the next collection. However, you can certainly still support developer Creed Malay with his project The Big Sheep in the meantime, and tell LimpingFish you want to play Lycoris very very much!

The next post should be a release announcement! The website should be up and functional at Summerbatch.co.uk this coming weekend, and don't forget I've recently updated the main Screen 7 website with a new look! iPad users, it turns out, won't be able to listen to the (Flash) radio player. Sorry about that!

Thanks for reading :)

chim chim cheroo

The new s7 website is delayed a little bit but rest assured it'll be up at the end of the week! The Olympic torch passes through town at 8am tomorrow so I will be going to watch that. I'll write a full post soon :) In the meantime you can watch my project showcase if you haven't already...

Come rain or shine

Thought I'd write a bit of a progress report, especially so that when I'm 80 I can log on and remember what I was up to in June 2012. But also because it might interest someone like Jim Spanos, or his grand-kids, when he has them, and teaches them to re-post articles from the 21st century in 2112 (that son bitch will get the last laugh, I know it!!) ;)

Ben Jordan must f***ing hurry up and exist
The movie sequel is just about done. We have one scene and a couple of shots left to take but the weather has been ridiculously bad the last month, the final location has been flooded, dangerous and such so we just haven't been able to do it. I'm waiting on some voice files and graphics but I still have every intention of releasing the video around July 7th. Promo video below!



July 7th is Screen 7 re-launch day
This is the day the new website goes live. The content has been somewhat cut down as I intend to shift all my personal stuff (my own games etc) to my mods.agser.me account. Anyway, from this day, you'll be able to see the new website, and some others, including:

Summerbatch (summerbatch.co.uk)

Kinky Island (actually already online at www.kinkyisland.co.uk)

The Visitor

Sub-sites that will not be quite ready by that date but will follow soon after:

The Cat Lady (thecatlady.co.uk)

A Night at Camp Ravenwood (ravenwood-game.co.uk)

Summerbatch 8th July release
The developers have been working their pants off to get their games ready for July 8th release. The batch will be on sale for 3 months from July 8th to Oct 8th 2012. You can pay what you want. PLUS I've just been told an 8th game is also in the works, after some debate and problems, but that's great news. Not just 7 games, 8 now! Lots of talented people working on their games and I'm excited to see how they develop. Games include:

Nancy the Happy Whore (Technocrat)

PISS (Ben304)

Teardrop (Creed Malay, Denxil Quixode)

Barley Floating (AJA)

Jailbreak (Rocco)

Lycoris* (LimpingFish)

Patchwork (Ilyich)

Unknown title* (LocutusOfBored and Babar)

* Title may be changed

I've played Nancy the Happy Whore and it's a very slick retro point & click with excellent humor, satisfying graphics and animation and the soundtrack is funky to boot!

The Cat Lady
Currently in beta testing and voices are being recorded. Still quite a bit to be done, but it's looking great. Scary game though, even I can't handle playing it late at night :P But I'm a pussy. Still, hope to get it out sooner than Halloween 2012 but that is the "max" deadline for the game.

Other news
- Still working on Camp Ravenwood music, having fun :) Here's one of my earlier tracks, Where's Smoky? You may be wondering how did I come up with such a stupid melody? Well I was thinking the words (and syllables) "Drin-king lots of be-er on a tues-day day!" because I was drinking beer at midday on a Tuesday and that melody popped into my head. Try it, you'll hear those words and never look back ;) - Kinky Island exceeds its funding goal, I've started gathering photos of pledgers to turn into characters and am currently writing the second draft of the story - FoY will be recruiting new writers very soon, progress on the game is good

Thanks to everyone who's supported these projects recently, no matter how, by blogging it, by pledging to it, by simply keeping an eye on it. Last month was pretty slow AGS wise but this month sees Resonance come out and at the beginning of next month Screen 7 present 8 new games with Summerbatch. So SOMETHING is certainly going on. I'm also in the process of arranging AdventureX 2012. Watch this space!

That's all I can think of right now. Have a nice June!

Mods

BADGER!!!

As requested, here are the two sounds from the judge fight of Poacher supplied by Yahtzee - who says:

"Trivia time: It's me shouting! With a pitch shift and reverb."

judgegreet1.wav
judgegreet2.wav


All the best, Mods

Poacher soundtrack

Full soundtrack for Poacher by Yahtzee Croshaw is below! Thanks to Simon Love for all his help composing it, and of course to Yahtzee for letting us get involved :)

Includes some bonus tracks and concept work that I did before passing the task onto Simon. All in OGG format.

Of course the music is available in the BGM folder of the game but this collection includes the titles and an order for your music player!

Poacher OST SE (75mb)

The game has been well received and seems to have been enjoyed by most. Some nice comments about the music to, which is great - thank you!

extra extra!

First update of the twenty-twelve, two months have passed and it's been quite a ride. Since the last post a fair amount has happened especially in the world of AGS.

I managed to complete my game 11-11-11 and release it and got some good feedback from players, even some good reviews including Adventure Gamers and it even made Best Free PC Games of the week with PC Gamer, so that made me proud!

Since then I've updated the game with more sounds and more cutscenes so it's even better than before, if you haven't played it, give it a go! It even takes about 2 hours to complete so I'm glad it panned out to be quite long. I personally can't finish it in less than 30 minutes and I know exactly what to do.

11-11-11 official page

Things are moving in terms of Screen 7 becomming more than just a hobbyist website with games and stuff, yep, it's finally time to take it to the next level, form a legal company and focus on selling great games. Of course, if that fails, it's time to officially stop pissing around with AGS and game-making and go get a real job :P

Here's how the new site is looking, which will be focussed entirely on games and services for game-makers. I'm wiping out the film section for the time being as it's no longer my focus for the company.



So if you have a game in production of any scale get in touch because I'm looking for games to sell. You can expect to see info on that in public on the AGS forum pretty soon.

That said plenty of people want to go it alone and I don't blame them. So it's going to be a very testing year for me and this business, fingers crossed, it will get somewhere :)

Beyond that I've been doing more editing for BJ:MD and it is in a very sweet state, but still not completely released. I've put the first 26 minutes online even though it's got some errors and is missing a few shots, for people to preview. But the weather has prevented me from filming the final scene but hope to tackle that this weekend.



Still waiting on Unga Needs Mumba a game I wrote music for last year. But it's undergoing some voice acting stuff, can you believe one of the chaps who wrote Ben There Dan That is providing the voice for Unga!

I've been working on test music for A Night at Camp Ravenwood, and that's been cool - I don't know how else to describe it. I'm having fun, and I'm happy with how it sounds.

Kinky Island is now looking for your help for funding, though the funds are half for KI and half for the setup of Screen 7 as a proper online publisher. You can help out at:

Kinky Island @ IndieGoGo

What else? Oh yes, organising a music gig, just a couple of weeks away now. Do you like rock and metal music? Feel free to come along, you can even get a discount ticket online! But if you're reading this, you probably don't live anywhere near Wallingford :P

Wallystock

You can probably see I'm in creative/do stuff over-drive. It feels like I am in a way but thats great, things feel achievable and it feels like there is a clear goal ahead of me for once, rather than uncertainty.

My friend Simon Love continues work on the soundtrack for Yahtzee's new game Poacher, it's very nearly done, just 3 tracks left to finalize. So as always Screen 7 is holding up Yahtzee's game :P Nothing new there, but I can assure you, it's very close.

I sent all the completed tracks to him last night and Simon has promised he will get the remainder done asap. He's been uber busy with 3rd year uni work. He also recently won and then set a new AGS tune contest and announced the winner the other day.

Fountain of Youth team are looking at ways of getting things done even quicker, we need artists - if you are one or know any, get the hell in touch, we need you to help us share the workload! Passage of Saints was released over Xmas and also went down well, thank you everyone who played it!!

There were a few errors and I don't want to be the ass that says they will never be fixed, but they probably won't until the end of the year, we all have so much else to be getting on with in the meantime.

Gonna leave it there before my computer crashes (which it WILL do in the next few minutes, regular as clockwork!!!) - but thanks for reading. It's pretty much just been an update this time round. Hopefully it's shown you that things are still full steam ahead this end.

Oh, and Summerbatch is still underway nicely - people seem to be working on their games and the list is looking nice!! More on that in a future update :)

BE GOOD!

let it snow?

I read today about a drought apparently sweeping the lower regions of the UK. We've certainly had very limited rainfall in my hometown this year. I keep an eye on the weather and have noticed no more than 7 days of rain since the beginning of the year.

We didn't have any thunderstorms either - unless there was one for the one week of this year that I've not been here... But the news article confirmed my curiosity - there has been a significant lack of rainy weather, and unless it picks up this is going to put strains on the water supply into early next year.

So where did all the rain go?

There have been some fairly freak weather incidents around the world this year. Off the top of my head I can recall the hurricane in New York, the recent floods in that city whose name I can't remember - and perhaps we can even include the Japanese tsunami (triggered by an earthquake). On top of that we also have El Hierro's volcano rumbling steadily at the end of the year, with claims it is forming a new Canary Island!

The Canary Islands and their volcanoes play a significant role in disaster predictions for the future. I enjoyed reading the one about a megatsunami that would apparently destroy the East American seaboard.

That said - there is no evidence as far as I'm concerned to say these things are "happening more often". I think myself and others are just reading about them more often, there are more reports on them and the Twitter age means we know about any fairly small event very quickly and from multiple sources.

So yeah, weather... Rain... We need some :) Obviously it's evaporated here and gone and been a freak event elsewhere in the world this year. Glad to know Oxfordshire could help on that one.

I am phasing in and out of creativity. My game is being tested. It's a phase I definitely missed out on with my last game (testicle) that I finished in April this year. There was no testing on that one but I can't remember if it was my incompetence or just no interest in beta-testing it.

During the testing stage - error hunting aside, I think it's just great to get some feedback prior to release to help you on your way. It's a key bit of game making motivation, and it can trigger new lines of conversation in your mind - ideas which you may have missed completely because you were never seeing your game from that angle before. Here's the trailer:



I want to make a short Xmas movie. But I am too busy getting AdventureX prepped and done, Passage of Saints and my own game above finished. And doing whatever I can on BJ:MD to finish it. I am pushing this old computer to its limits. So I'm posting this now before it crashes (which it does every 56 mins).

Thanks for reading, take care, and here's to some snow this year!

do not disturb

The last few days have been manic. The idea was to have 11-11-11 (new game by me) ready for the 11th Nov. Sadly that wasn't possible, despite a 30 hour stint (with a funeral in the middle) I still had some way to go. And now people are pissed off cos I'm not emailing them back because I'm too busy working on this!! But it will be ready by Monday or Tuesday at the latest, just a few more puzzles to make, and then of course the "final stages" of getting everything nice and trimmed - which ultimately takes ages in itself.

Dualnames has been hard at work on Passage of Saints (our Indy xmas game) and along with miez has made some excellent progress. Everything is looking good there for a December release. AdventureX is still umm arr as not many people have bought tickets.

That's about it. I have work to do. Don't forget to visit the AGS blog (ags-ssh.blogspot.com) to read the old ezines I used to make with Yahtzee and other AGS folks. For me at least, it's fun to step back into history and see what was going on back then :)

Thanks for reading! Now go away. I don't need disturbing :P

un-convention-al

Well AdventureX is gearing up to be pretty cool now - lots of AGS folks have kindly said I can show their games at it, many of them have never been seen/played which is very exciting! Also glad that C. Bateman and A. Beckett are still happy to give a little talk about making games :)

Also securing a bit of a deal with Lace Mamba Global who will hopefully supply a few demonstration copies of games and prizes so that people can take away some of their latest published titles. No word from TellTale Games yet though.

And, a few tickets have sold. I've also noticed a few other people kind of pre-empting their attendance to the event, so to those people I say - get a ticket! I will make a decision around the 1st Dec whether it will officially go ahead or not. If I can't cover the venue hire, or only five people have bought a ticket - it just won't be worth it. But if it does happen, it will most definitely be worth it!

I found a cheaper hotel - Ibis Hotel in Reading, 2 mins from the station. So anyone coming and staying I would recommend that place, its 40 quid for 1 or 2 nights. You would however need to get a train to Didcot from Reading, but that's literally five pound single or ten pound return. And the offer is still open to my closer AGS friends to stay on a sofa at my flat...lol!

So exciting stuff... My game 11-11-11 is nowhere near being complete, for its deadline this Friday. But I will have it ready...fingers crossed. Actually I can't not have it ready, otherwise there's no point :P Work behind the scenes at FoY has picked up as Spanos comes on board to help code the Xmas mini-game. Poor Jan had a biking accident and is unable to code for a few weeks. We wish him a quick recovery. Miez continuing all the lovely background art for the full-game.

Oh and I am very soon going to get this device that will let me get Lost In Paradise off the HD I cannot put inside this computer. Yay!

I worked in a Chinese takeaway this weekend, and it was fun. Basically just grabbing the food orders and packaging them, with some nice people to work with. Also some funny co-incidental names that mean nothing to anyone else but me on the orders like "Bateman" (AdventureX) and "Sinclair" (BJ:MD) made me chuckle. Simple things!! It also meant I could eat pretty well and cheaply over the weekend which is great. This is not a permanent job though (maybe in the future?) so money is still very tight.

Sadly my grandpa died last week so I have a funeral to attend later this week, which will be sad. But I'm glad I had a nice dinner with him just a week before his death, and he certainly had a good life (and a long one). RIP Harry Carr

Other than that, not a lot. It's Sunday morning, I haven't been to bed yet - today I'm just going to slob out, do a bit of programming and watch a bit of TV. After a spliff and a sleep that is.

Ciao for now! :)

X marks teh spot

A small update. My main computer blew up last week which has left me on my reserve old IDE machine. Thank hellfully I backed up just about everything. So the BJ movie is safe, Lost in Paradise is safe as is my latest soundtrack. However it is more than likely going to cause a few problems in terms of editing the BJ movie, as the PC I'm on now struggles to run Notepad. Add to that a few busy weekends - so I would say a delay on the movie is inevitable. Which will surely annoy some people as I have been aiming for Halloween.

That said, and it was probably the fun of Mittens that made me do it, I've returned to trying to organise AdventureX, which is a kind of show and tell on a public scale for amateur adventure game developers and fans. I'll have the website online very soon. And I'm excited that a chap who designed Discworld Noir is coming to the event!!

I've just read a Czech review of my game Night of the Testicle - it made me chuckle! They gave it 60% which is very pleasing for such a time-waste of a game. The player rating of 18% is probably more accurate ;) But that along with other comments here and there have inspired me to get on with the final (body) part - Back to the Bollocks!!1

Misja has been posting updates to backgrounds he's working on in facebook for Fountain of Youth and the team are making sure our Xmas game Passage of Saints is ready in time for Christmas. Also - my team of Kinky Islanders are working hard on some amazing work. The assets are building, it's going to be a very sweet looking game.

I've recently finished a preliminary version soundtrack for Unga Needs Mumba which is a new AGS game in the works by Koodn. It appears he's had it in the works for quite some time now, it's a superb little adventure and I'm really pleased I was able to write some music for it. As I write this paragraph I've just had a PM from the man himself saying he's finished implementing the music, so I should have a preview tonight or tomorrow - woot! Work continues on my Living Nightmare: Freedom soundtrack. And as mentioned earlier Passage of Saints for which I wrote music for a year ago will hopefully be out this Xmas with that old but still unheard soundtrack. Once the game is out I'll also put up my ex-Primordia soundtrack here, but will wait til it's out as my soundtrack's track names may give away the story/puzzles.

So in the gaming world things are going nicely. Lost In Paradise the second version has been coming along well - I'm really pleased and actually quite happy it's gone a second time, it's given me a chance to re-work certain puzzles, knock out a few crappy camera angles and enhance animations and characters a bit more. Also been proof-reading a game called The Visitor which is a cool tale of an alien and I highly suggest checking it out when it comes out over at AGS in the next couple of weeks!

Got a couple of job applications on the go (online ones, that take ages to write) so I'm hoping I may have a career of some sort in the near future (and moneys!).. Other than that there's not much else to tell. I used Tesco online delivery for the first time, it's pretty damn cool :D Online grocery shopping can certainly be added to my list of random chores I like doing online.

That's all. Thanks for reading :)

Updates

Just a quick one to say Chance of the Dead was well received which is great news! I'll put up the music on s7 very soon. Also Kinky Island production continues and the guys are creating retro wonders! Mittens is just around the corner so I've been working on Ben Jordan Must Die to give the folks a preview before its release around Halloween.

I recently added "A Christopher Jones Adventure" to the AGS DB which was a test game from many years ago - the first time I tinkered with including speech. It's barely worth the download but if you use AGS and you want a quick chuckle..

I also found out last night of someone that contributed some stuff to s7 website - drinks at the pub! He submitted some flash games a few years ago and I always assumed he was just some random guy from Lithuania or something...haha :D

That's all for now..

no-more-dia

sadly my involvement with Primordia has been terminated. A publishing deal with WEG has proven my music to be non commercially viable. So i am sad now. Its production has helped me through some tough times. a great game - the team did everything they could to keep me on board but in order to get the deal dave has requested a new composer. I owe it to victor cos he's really been a dude. but anyway yeah shit :'(

Mods' Top 10...APPLICATIONS

Firstly, some great news for fans of Kinky Island - we now have a resident background artist meaning the team is once again 100% in-tact :) You can expect some full news on this soon. Our new background artist for the game has a very impressive talent with retro point & click backgrounds - you will not be disappointed!

BUT NOW - TEH MAIN EVENT. MODS' TOP 10 APPS! I'm afraid this WILL lead to disappointment :P

At number 10: Sound Recorder (Win 98/XP)

Where would we be, or have been in the early millennium, if clicking a button to record your voice had not come any simpler? Gone are the days of classic sound recorder, which was in time replaced with some shit alternative with one button only, the record button. No sine waves, no simplicity - just shit. For that reason, original Sound Recorder is in my list of top 10 applications :D

For number 9 it's: Windows Media Player 6

Again it's a simple edition of a media player that was mandatory through the Windows 95 and 98 period, until the all new media player came out which just sucked balls. Alright, MPC6 didn't have a mixer, nor could you slow WMV files down to 50%. But there WAS a time when MPC6 found the needed codecs with ease, and it always loaded within 2 seconds of double clicking the shortcut, not 10, like all versions since.

At number 8: mIRC/MSChat

Basic chat applications don't come more basic than mIRC. It's quick, simple, free, easy, ASCII-y and useful. MSChat on the other hand added a whole new element - cartoon characters in a comic strip that looked weird. The days of what character was used for which chatter are long gone, but they were good days indeed.

So then my number screen 7: Pazera (Free) Conversion Tools

Whether you want to convert a wav to mp3 or flv to avi or any number of different settings, Paz tools remain my favourite. They're simple and quick - they don't look like some programs that spice up their interface to hide very crap functions - Paz tools do what they say on the tin and you know what you're getting when you use it. The conversion quality is brilliant, and I highly recommend them for anyone tackling multiple conversion tasks. Pazzzahhhhh!

Numero 6: Calculator (Windows)

Self explanatory. Without a calculator, my brain would need to resort to maths, so I'm glad it's always there, and functional. Nuff said!

Halfway through, my number 5: AVG Free Anti Virus

It's almost cool to have AVG Free Anti Virus, especially if you're a cheapskate bum like me! The term free-loader has never been so true with this software - the best of the best free anti virus, that uses technology you would usually pay a monthly fee for with Symnatec or Dr. Nortoid. Even McAffee have come back from the dead to plunder your cash for a service AVG can do just as well -- for free!

At lucky number 4: GetRight

The days of dial-up would never have worked out for many of us without an application like GetRight. Designed to resume downloads, it meant a feeling of safety when you knew connection problems would be a-foot. I still use it today, and I'm glad it still exists - in fairly simple form (it hasn't been Vista-ized yet). GetRight is really GoodMate and its ability to resume downloads is as amazing. In fact, it's like magic right in front of your eyes. Except when the server in question says NO, PISS OFF - you are NOT resuming that file!

So I reach my top 3. And speaking of number 3, its: Google Earth

It's a bloomin' map of the world that you can scale to about a hundred feet. Free information doesn't come any better than that. Everything it stands for is brilliant - that is our world, in an application. We can find anywhere, and street view will let us get a feel for a location - people also find oddities within the map which adds a new element. Live weather radar makes it a must for checking the immediate forecast, and renders weather reports on TV useless. All ship wrecks are listed, and so many other wonderful things...So much to explore. This is hands down one of my favorite applications of all time!

Number 2: Outlook Express

I don't know why, but without it, I just wouldn't exists as a modern man. Sure, it's not perfect. Sure, it's fucking annoying when you have to re-install Windows and all your emails & contacts have disappeared - but providing you've got the mail server, Outlook will be your friend in times of email need. Outlook has seen me through many correspondences, from game deals, to famous people, to getting myself fired, to friends, to appointments, to worldly issues... All manner of things pass in and out of Outlook, so I can't really be anything other than thankful for that :)

And finally, TEH NUMBER 1 APPLICATION IS....... NOTEPAD!

Notepad is the unsung hero of applications in my opinion. It's the one place you can write and write and never worry about file size. It's a copy and paste haven for serialz, draft letters and game designs. Notepad is often the middleman in my life. Something I will have written in a notebook usually gets transferred into the textual black and white goodness of Notepad, before becoming the product of whatever the idea that is written, is. Wordpad never caught on, and people produced only shit documents in it. MS Word didn't even come with Windows unless you bought a bundle. But Notepad has been there, through and through, since Windows 3.1 - and has never changed. Simplicity to write and re-arrange - here's to you, Notepad :)

And that's it. The important part was about Kinky Island :P

Breathe

Had a bit of a breather this month, in terms of games. It would appear NOTT was received well, although the comments have been far and few I can happily report Steve Brown from Adventure Gamers wrote "Screen 7 have provided a truly strange experience in their latest offering." whilst Andrew MacCormack from the AGS community defines it as a "scrotal masterpiece" :D They are right, it is both strange and scrotal.

The soundtrack is available, for a dollar, dollar, cos dollar's what I need. See here. I'm having some FTP problems preventing me from updating any websites til the turn of next month, (or ditching my current ISP and joining another one) but that's just as well - like I said, it's breather month. The last 4 months were pretty intense game making times :D

However - things have not suffered in the least. Luckily, I've been able to concentrate on Ben Jordan 2 movie. And in the last month we've shot some great chase sequences locally. A special preview of an early draft scene in the movie, which happens away from the action in Italy can be watched here!

With literally weeks before Mittens begins, the time from now til then is going to be filled with all the final scenes needed to complete the 70 minute movie. I'll be taking it in draft form to Mittens and hopefully having the characters record various dubs to fill the awful gaps in sound produced by me using Long Play recording on camera at the time, (I was warned!). I also have to ask Grundy to make a special "in-game sequence" for the movie. He's also agreed to direct a BJ short at Mittens...maybe...

May not have been using AGS recently, but I've begun patching up the holes in design for Fountain of Youth and making sure the story is entirely complete. I know work continues on the game itself, but that's not something I see much of personally right now with my limited internet set up, but Paul is happily coordinating the development and utilizing the other team members very well, giving me time to focus on the story & design, and puzzles...uh oh! ;) Use Indy with Toilet.

Lots of exciting stuff, and production is generally steady. We realized 200 rooms was over ambitious, but Misja has been keen to push for 150. Who knows :) Thanks to everyone who's recently donated and continued to support the project! It was also great to get some feedback on Jan's arcade fighter - with one AGS member called Progz saying "What ze herr Hitler is thiz! Zis is ze stupid!" or something. :P

After a several month dry spell - I finally saw the latest working version of Primordia and have been able to write a couple of brand new tracks, including my first ever 10 minute background piece. Considering all the music I've done in the last two years has pretty much been through inspiration from working on Primordia, it's great to get back into the project that's been a real eye-opener in music making for me.

The game itself looks great - and much more polished than ever. The music works and I'm thankful to the team for being supportive about it! Be sure to try "Beacon" by Pinback over at AGS to get a feel for the style up-coming in Primordia. I also got the OLD video back online on my alternative youtube account. Search "primordia game" on youtube.

Well - that's all the stuff that matters in the internet world. In the real world, things haven't been quite as perky. But things to come are still very intriguing :)

Thanks for reading!

New game of the Testicle

I finished my parody piece of shiz! It's here:
http://www.bigbluecup.com/games.php?action=detail&id=1430

You never have to admit to playing it, but if you do - have fun!

Now to get to work on the next adventure! Wait, no, I mean finish the BJ movie and FoY... :p