But YOU get an update for Frustrating Tic Tac Toe!
Look at all the Retina's!
March 29, 2012
Happy Birthday!
It's actually MY birthday...
But YOU get an update for Frustrating Tic Tac Toe!
Look at all the Retina's!
But YOU get an update for Frustrating Tic Tac Toe!
Look at all the Retina's!
March 21, 2012
Bit of War + Passagebalt
Bit of War is the highly anticipated 8-bit God of War demake by my Internet friend, Holmade Games! This has now been released!
I played through it last night - lots of fun!
Really cute enemies, great writing, great soundtrack just like Adam Holmes' other game Hurdle Turtle which you can get on iPhone or Xbox Live Indie Games, nods to the God of War series (yep even THAT feature), plus great boss battles that bring me back to the Mega Man days. Check out Bit of War here!
I loved the ending, but you'll have to play the game to see it, I won't spoil it. It's a theme I appreciated as someone who was raised religious, who is not religious now I'll just say that.
I think my favorite part about Bit of War is, it is a labor of love, it's free. In the gaming industry, it's easy to lose sight of why you love games, why you chose to make games for a living: well here's why! All the fond memories of retro gaming, homage paid to a great game series of today, mixed with a love to "create" something that others can enjoy!
Now for Passagebalt:
I can't help but share this. I have talked about Jason Rohrer's Passage in the past. It's a game where you walk to the right, find a lover, get old, and die. It's a pretentious game, probably worth playing, but enough about that...
Cannabalt is another game where you run to the right, jump from building to building in a daring escape. A lot of other games have copied this theme since. Things get faster and faster, jumps get harder and harder, until you inevitably die.
Well consider this mash-up! I love the concept:
You run to the right, jumping from building to building, you find a lover, she jumps with you (time your jumps so she can make them too!) Except you get older, you can't jump as well over time, and you eventually die haha. I love it, at the end of the game, I fell off a building, died, and it said:
"You ran for 67 years before dying of old age."
Check out Passagebalt here!
I played through it last night - lots of fun!
Really cute enemies, great writing, great soundtrack just like Adam Holmes' other game Hurdle Turtle which you can get on iPhone or Xbox Live Indie Games, nods to the God of War series (yep even THAT feature), plus great boss battles that bring me back to the Mega Man days. Check out Bit of War here!
I loved the ending, but you'll have to play the game to see it, I won't spoil it. It's a theme I appreciated as someone who was raised religious, who is not religious now I'll just say that.
I think my favorite part about Bit of War is, it is a labor of love, it's free. In the gaming industry, it's easy to lose sight of why you love games, why you chose to make games for a living: well here's why! All the fond memories of retro gaming, homage paid to a great game series of today, mixed with a love to "create" something that others can enjoy!
Now for Passagebalt:
I can't help but share this. I have talked about Jason Rohrer's Passage in the past. It's a game where you walk to the right, find a lover, get old, and die. It's a pretentious game, probably worth playing, but enough about that...
Cannabalt is another game where you run to the right, jump from building to building in a daring escape. A lot of other games have copied this theme since. Things get faster and faster, jumps get harder and harder, until you inevitably die.
Well consider this mash-up! I love the concept:
You run to the right, jumping from building to building, you find a lover, she jumps with you (time your jumps so she can make them too!) Except you get older, you can't jump as well over time, and you eventually die haha. I love it, at the end of the game, I fell off a building, died, and it said:
"You ran for 67 years before dying of old age."
Check out Passagebalt here!
March 12, 2012
Spider-Man Total Mayhem
I've bought a few Gameloft games, they tend to go on sale for $1 around holidays. And typically I'm not a huge fan, I think their games are maybe too ambitious, and fall short of the "console experience" they aim to emulate on iPhone.
That said, they get points for Spider-Man Total Mayhem!
It's been on my iPod Touch for a while. Playing it now, I'm enjoying it!
I think I read somewhere that the game is amazing, unlike any other game. It's certainly unlike any Spider-Man game, but it's clear to me that it's heavily inspired by God of War - which if you think about it, is a great fit for Spider-Man. Wall climbing sequences (get it?), the fixed / on rails camera also works especially well on iPhone.
Anyway, I think $7 is a bit steep for this app, but if you wait for a holiday sale haha
I wouldn't say I'm a huge fan of Spider-Man, but Spider-Man is part of my game dev history. When I first applied for a game design co-op position at Vicarious Visions, I reviewed / picked apart their game Spider-Man 2 during my interview, and then was hired to work on their next Spider-Man title. I'm glad they offered me this opportunity, sort of as a challenge, "you think you can do better?" Especially because it showed me, I was 100% hired at Vicarious Visions based on my own merit and game design chops, not based on my online community work on their Tony Hawk's American Sk8land game.
Why I mention that - I never ended up working on Spider-Man! I bought a few Spider-Man games and comics before I was hired... I studied up, which is how I know some things about the license today (like I said, I don't consider myself a fan). But my first day of work, I found out that the Spider-Man project I was hired for got canned. Or that the project shifted to another studio, not Vicarious Visions. My understanding is that the Spider-Man game I could have worked on, but did not work on at all, was eventually released as Spider-Man: Battle for NY. I've always been curious how this game turned out, my birthday is coming up :P
Anyway I ended up working on Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam which was great, a lot of fun to work on.
One last story about Spider-Man though, this game (Total Mayhem) has some great dialogue. It's really, almost uncomfortably cheesy. Spidey says things like (to Rhino), "You should know never to charge a bank, a bank will always charge you more!" Or after fighting Sandman, "Man, now I have sand in my shorts!"
I won't name names but there's one guy I worked with at Vicarious Visions (who is very talented), he actually wrote for Marvel in the past! On my end, working on Tony Hawk, I was in charge of a lot of the dialogue - in-game quips, as well as first pass on the story. My dialogue was this cheesy too, with phrases like, "Calculate my score, I'm too cool for school!"
Well I didn't know that this guy used to write for Marvel, and when he offered some direction for the story of Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam... I basically made the argument that, while I respect his idea of a richer, more cohesive story - I don't think it's a great fit for a fast-paced racing game like Tony Hawk. I think Downhill Jam, you'll likely want to skip the cut scenes! So cheap jokes, Tony Hawk getting served, I think that was all the way to go. And I argued to the guy, not knowing he had written for Marvel, "Look at it like a comic book. I'm sure adults would enjoy sophisticated characters and dialogue, rich themes, but a kid's just going to want to look at the pictures, the fights, etc." This probably came off really condescending to a guy who had written for Marvel in the past, but I had no idea hahaha
That said, they get points for Spider-Man Total Mayhem!
It's been on my iPod Touch for a while. Playing it now, I'm enjoying it!
I think I read somewhere that the game is amazing, unlike any other game. It's certainly unlike any Spider-Man game, but it's clear to me that it's heavily inspired by God of War - which if you think about it, is a great fit for Spider-Man. Wall climbing sequences (get it?), the fixed / on rails camera also works especially well on iPhone.
Anyway, I think $7 is a bit steep for this app, but if you wait for a holiday sale haha
I wouldn't say I'm a huge fan of Spider-Man, but Spider-Man is part of my game dev history. When I first applied for a game design co-op position at Vicarious Visions, I reviewed / picked apart their game Spider-Man 2 during my interview, and then was hired to work on their next Spider-Man title. I'm glad they offered me this opportunity, sort of as a challenge, "you think you can do better?" Especially because it showed me, I was 100% hired at Vicarious Visions based on my own merit and game design chops, not based on my online community work on their Tony Hawk's American Sk8land game.
Why I mention that - I never ended up working on Spider-Man! I bought a few Spider-Man games and comics before I was hired... I studied up, which is how I know some things about the license today (like I said, I don't consider myself a fan). But my first day of work, I found out that the Spider-Man project I was hired for got canned. Or that the project shifted to another studio, not Vicarious Visions. My understanding is that the Spider-Man game I could have worked on, but did not work on at all, was eventually released as Spider-Man: Battle for NY. I've always been curious how this game turned out, my birthday is coming up :P
Anyway I ended up working on Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam which was great, a lot of fun to work on.
One last story about Spider-Man though, this game (Total Mayhem) has some great dialogue. It's really, almost uncomfortably cheesy. Spidey says things like (to Rhino), "You should know never to charge a bank, a bank will always charge you more!" Or after fighting Sandman, "Man, now I have sand in my shorts!"
I won't name names but there's one guy I worked with at Vicarious Visions (who is very talented), he actually wrote for Marvel in the past! On my end, working on Tony Hawk, I was in charge of a lot of the dialogue - in-game quips, as well as first pass on the story. My dialogue was this cheesy too, with phrases like, "Calculate my score, I'm too cool for school!"
Well I didn't know that this guy used to write for Marvel, and when he offered some direction for the story of Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam... I basically made the argument that, while I respect his idea of a richer, more cohesive story - I don't think it's a great fit for a fast-paced racing game like Tony Hawk. I think Downhill Jam, you'll likely want to skip the cut scenes! So cheap jokes, Tony Hawk getting served, I think that was all the way to go. And I argued to the guy, not knowing he had written for Marvel, "Look at it like a comic book. I'm sure adults would enjoy sophisticated characters and dialogue, rich themes, but a kid's just going to want to look at the pictures, the fights, etc." This probably came off really condescending to a guy who had written for Marvel in the past, but I had no idea hahaha
March 3, 2012
Tax Season
Just wanted to make a quick post to say: I got my taxes done!
...which reminds me of this clip from Chappelle's Show:
I'm good at record keeping, but was surprised to see that...
While Google / AdMob gives me a nice tax form that I can just give to my accountant, Apple does not (for iAd or App Sales). I stressed out about it, looked on Google, and saw other people freaking out.
In summary:
Apple's contract says that it collects and remits taxes to proper tax authorities for certain countries, not for others. Yes for the U.S. and Germany, not for Korea, Hong Kong, Brazil. What does that mean? Am I likely to get in tax trouble? There's a huge list of countries, how could I know their tax laws? Should I not sell in Japan? Will I end up in a Panamanian jail?
Fortunately, as I realize I post on Twitter once a year (2011, 2012), I have a great accountant. Just a cool old guy, semi-retired, years of experience, who's willing and able to work out any possible problem I could come up with.
His advice to me:
"Go out and make a lot of money!"
...which reminds me of this clip from Chappelle's Show:
I'm good at record keeping, but was surprised to see that...
While Google / AdMob gives me a nice tax form that I can just give to my accountant, Apple does not (for iAd or App Sales). I stressed out about it, looked on Google, and saw other people freaking out.
In summary:
Apple's contract says that it collects and remits taxes to proper tax authorities for certain countries, not for others. Yes for the U.S. and Germany, not for Korea, Hong Kong, Brazil. What does that mean? Am I likely to get in tax trouble? There's a huge list of countries, how could I know their tax laws? Should I not sell in Japan? Will I end up in a Panamanian jail?
Fortunately, as I realize I post on Twitter once a year (2011, 2012), I have a great accountant. Just a cool old guy, semi-retired, years of experience, who's willing and able to work out any possible problem I could come up with.
His advice to me:
"Go out and make a lot of money!"
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