Made in Photoshop in 1998/1999 or so (the first couple of years at secondary school). So there you have it. Proof!

SO HERE WE GO. Be prepared for sneak peaks at things that never made it into the final game, early concepts and unrefined silliness from the Really Big Sky and Big Sky libraries!

Also one random commenter who correctly points out the ONE picture in this post that doesn’t have a link to a larger version will get a Steam code for Really Big Sky!

Ends this Friday

The ship is born!

Alex Adventure.

http://tomvert.free.fr/

Without dissecting it too much I want to just switch off a bit. Ok?

I love this game!

It’s fun.

It’s wacky.

It’s outrageous!

I fell in love with the total throwback charm. Unlike modern day retro-styled big hitters (such as VVVVV (not sure if that’s enough V’s)), it focuses on something that other games don’t. Growing up on the Amiga and Spectrum I found most games to have a total lack of direction. Games like Popeye and Ghostbusters on the Spectrum were a hammer to my little 6 year old brain.

Alex Adventure transposes that feeling to adults. It’s something that commercial games don’t do. It’s risky and out there. Something I think I subconsciously tried with Lunnye Devitsy. The “levels” are labyrinthine with enemies that have strange movements.

However it was composed I found myself going back until completion.

You know it’s 11pm and I’m going in too deep here. It’s just a fun game yeah. If you played lots of real, old games then you might like this. Or you might not.

www.indiegala.com

It’s really quite mad. This time last year I was trying to get a job as a freakin TESTER!

In other news I’m now a lecturer on a game art+design course. Crazy times.

Here are some stories of me and Turrican-

When I was 6 years old and had just got an Amiga, I routed through my parents room and found Turrican 2 in their wardrobe. I played it and confessed when my dad came in from work. They weren’t mad, it was what I did back then (I also used to break out of my crib as a toddler… somehow. The metal bars under the mattress would end up bent and I’d be freeee. No idea how I did that).

Age 7-8 I used to load up Turrican 1 and eject the disk just so it would stay on the loading screen for ever. I think I drew pictures or read magazines with it on loop, can’t remember!

Age 15 I tried to make a Turrican fangame using some concepts of the original-

• Large, semi-linear levels
• Upgradable weapons
• Swarms of enemies/enemy generators

… but it was only a little demo.

Around this time I ripped the Turrican soundtrack myself using my Amiga and PC. It’s a wonderful soundtrack.

The new blue ball top and shaft. This thing catches light so well.

Steep angle shot of the buttons. The blue ones are by far the best. I’d love to make a black+blue stick at some point.

Better shot of the front. Can I stress again how lovely those blue buttons are? I can? Good.

Infront of my 27” iMac (to give a sense of the size of the stick). Pinball buttons for all to see.

The pinball buttons were the hardest part of all this.

An electric drill was used to make several pilot holes that would eventually be cut through, making a rather ugly looking hole. Then, and this is quite silly I think, a soldering gun was used to melt through and create the shape. This left loads of residue which, and sillier still, was removed with a Dremmel recently discovered in a cupboard!

Another hard part was cutting out the artwork.

It wasn’t technically difficult, it just took a while. Used a guillotine whenever I could and a scalpel for the rest. It does work too. The button lips cover up any flaws from the cutting process.

And because I like you so much you can also see my new carpet.

And speaking of awesome things being made, MrPineapple’s supercool sister is crocheting some characters ‘o mine. I’ll post my own photos when I get them!

1. 1. Simple controls
2. 2. Hybrid gameplay
3. 3. Purposeful lack of explanation of gameplay events
4. 4. A background story that isn’t directly explained

1

I like to build games with simple foundations and controls. In Big Sky I removed as much as I could, boiling controls down to just two analogue sticks and a button to flip the drill. Wake is probably our most complex in terms of manoeuvrability, which really is as close to the original Tormishire as you’re going to get.

All my games are built to use controllers, since I make games in genres that use them better than keyboards+mice. And the great thing about controllers is how simple you can make them.

2

Once the player has grasped the controls, gameplay is slowly fed to the player;

• Lunnye the player is free to explore and do whatever they want, free of consequence. They can learn the world at their own pace.
• Wake has a totally different tone to Lunnye. There’s an urgency in the gameplay, but there is only one way to die – drowning. The player is free to roam around the ship with only a slight threat of being knocked out. Difficulty modes are also unlocked by completing the previous one, so the first mode any player will see is Easy, where water rises at a very slow pace.
• Really Big Sky has that tutorial. But tutorial sections are not cool, so we built notifications in, spent a lot of time crafting readability and created a scalable difficulty. Gameplay starts off basic and slowly introduces the different threats.

3

And then! Then you’re treated to something I value a lot – mystery!

In both Lunnye and Wake you have to make your way home, the clues are presented to the player and (such as in Wake) the solution is obvious.
In Really Big Sky there are just so many mad things. All of which were designed to shift gameplay at the drop of a hat or plan quick strategies. The events are random in appearance, scale and design. Most importantly they’re never fully explained… unless you go through the Library. But even that doesn’t offer much explanation.

Even the achievements are left without detailed explanation, offering only clues and references. And then there are the song unlocks which, seeing that they’re just bonus content, have no such clues. Have you noticed that the Options graphic on the main menu has circular notches cut out? That’s your mini notification of how many songs you have unlocked.

4

There is a story to Big Sky. I don’t think anybody knows about it, or cares about it. But there is one and it’s fully explained via the background. And remember the AI is exactly that – artificial.

Going back to my even earlier games, the story in New Satan Sam never explained the meteorites. Totally unrelated but TNSS was inspired by anime I watched as a kid including Dogtanian (art) and Battle of the Planets (story and setting, notably the moon invasion film).

A lot of this comes from my own tastes. I like surprises – I don’t watch film trailers, I don’t watch those “in next weeks episode” sections to TV shows, I rarely watch gameplay trailers or read up on new games. The unknown is cool, don’t you think? LOST is also one of my favourite things ever.

It plays beautifully. I’m totally in love, etc. But she needs to look her best for her wedding.

THE PLAN

I’m replacing the 8 main buttons, the ball top, the shaft (tee hee), adding a custom art to the front (definitely: under the perspex. maybe: on the sides of the unit too), adding 2 buttons to the sides for pinball simulation.

I’ve got the buttons and perspex already. Currently working on the art for the front and awaiting delivery of the materials needed to add the side buttons. For those I’ll just be using the spare Sanwa OBSF-30’s, haven’t decided on whether to use the white or black spares yet. Plan is to snip the wires and double them up using a terminal block or something easily replaceable. The internet recommends soldering. Have you ever seen me attempt to solder?

Oldest to newest

This is the WIP cover, I haven’t done a colour match to the buttons yet, I imagine I’ll have to lighten them just a bit! I might remove the swooping space ship thing, it’s a little nod to Really Big Sky if that wasn’t ultra obvious enough.

If I had thought this through I would have ordered black, red, dark blue and light blue buttons to match an art cover of Lunnye, Sam, Tsol and Big Sky.

Should have most of this done by Friday.

I like games, I make games, I enjoy buying games from shops. Locked away in my head are memories of buying Sonic 2 for the Mega Drive for £7 one fateful afternoon (a game I wanted for years, only ever playing it at friends houses). And on my 16th birthday when I was lucky as hell to find F-Zero X, which had previously been sold out for weeks. AND THE TIME back when I was very young and I nagged my dad to buy me Link’s Awakening for my Gameboy. AAAAAND THE TIME I somehow wanted Golf on my Gameboy and became addicted to it.

Shops are good. They’re colourful and part of the reason why I keep my game collection on show in my house. They encourage me to buy games I normally wouldn’t think of buying, just because it’s infront of me and the price is right. The box for Monster Hunter Freedom alone was the single driving force behind buying a PSP. It’s powerful stuff, man.

But in recent years I stopped buying from GAME. It wasn’t a conscious decision, just an inevitable outcome. And here’s why.

PRICES

I, like most young working people, have jobs and disposable income and I don’t mind funding my pass-time. What I do mind is paying up to double the price. Some recent examples of mine-

HMV- Rayman Origins PS3 £15
GAME- Rayman Origins PS3 £29
Bee- PS3 Controller £29
GAME- PS3 Controller £50 (!!!)

I’ve only recently been purchasing from GAME again because of their fire-sale, knocking prices down to a more reasonable level.

SECOND HAND AS NEW

Buying a new game from GAME is buying a second hand game. The manufacturers seal is already gone, there is no guarantee that you’re getting the game as intended. Twice in the past I bought a “new” game from their shop, and twice I had my Nintendo Stars reward already taken.

SALES ASSISTANTS

I wear glasses, have stubble and long scraggly hair. I mostly wear nerdy t-shirts, jeans and almost always carry an orange laptop bag with me. I don’t need an assistant to ask me if I found what I was looking for. My appearance should give away the fact that I know what I’m looking for. I knew before I decided to visit your shop. I knew before the game was released whether or not I wanted it.

You’re only doing your job, yes, I totally agree. But tell the higher ups that we’re not morons.

Also please know your beans. I once asked an assistant when they’d be getting the new Kirby game (and by new I meant Kirby’s Superstar for DS). They hadn’t heard of it, had no idea what it is or who Kirby was. This forced me to import it and it was released in the UK a month later.

AND the assistant who called it “Meat-roid”… .

—————

Some other things that bug me- why does each shopping complex have 2 GAME stores and a Gamestation? In Manchester after the Arndale was reopened in 2007ish, they built a second GAME shop a minutes walk from another, which was also a minutes walk from a Gamestation (owned by GAME). In Hanley the two GAME shops sit a floor apart with one ontop of the other. Both stock the same titles, the same swath of second hand games.

If I was running the show

My employees would have to be into games. Just like how Apple employees have to be into Apple. They have to enjoy gaming, offer their personal opinions to customers. That would help make connections to customers, which would certainly help with netting a sale or two.

One morning a week; a tournament. A buddy runs an independent game shop in New Jersey that holds multiplayer tournaments or single player challenge tournaments on Saturday morning. The shop is full during these events and he makes a killing. Add a vending machine and Bob is your uncle. I’d attend, in the excitement and atmosphere I’d be more inclined to buy games.

Stock retro games and consoles. Gamestation used to do this and I spent a small fortune there during my student years. I would buy Gameboy and NES games given the chance.

Empty boxes on shelves, once purchased buyer gets a sealed game. Empty box goes back on shelf. Rocket science it is not. You wouldn’t even need that – those like me could just go up to the checkout and ask for the game they want! Wouldn’t that be a fluid sale experience?

Ok that’s it. You’ve had your lot.
Oh and I shop in HMV and Bee.com (great for buying consoles) these days. I browse GAME and Gamestation for reasons I don’t know. Mostly buy from play.com, Amazon, Shopto (best guys around. Always had free next day delivery on my orders).

I bought a few second hand games because they’re cheap and I don’t know if I’m going to like them, or if I used to have the Xbox version and wanted the PS3 version. Other people aren’t as good as me with discs. So here’s a little mini pointless guide!

STEP ONE) Buy a rubbishly looked after second hand game

STEP TWO) Go to www.shopto.net and buy PSN cards. £35 card is £33, £25 is £23. So you’re already quids in.

STEP THREE) Swap everything over

!

Magic! You’ve made your second hand games look a bit newer for the price of NOTHING.

Look at my awesome collection of games.