Hello reader/s. Been too long since the last post. (I know, I say that everytime) Lets go through all my stuff chronologically. Earliest thing I worked on was a review for the CrispySinger site.

It’s not a new game by any means, but it’s hella fun. I just had to rave about it.

I was certainly rusty to writing reviews after such a long absence from the site. But Grip is a well worth reviewing. Anyone who liked Rollcage (PS1) from back in the day should definitely pick it up.

And on the other end of the gaming review spectrum, we have the latest installment in an acclaimed horror franchise.

I do enjoy a good spook on occasion.

Amnesia Rebirth was a good time also. Looking back on it, I feel I was a bit too generous at the time. But I’ll blame my enthusiasm on coming off a horror-high.

And last review is for Replica. A modest phone hacking simulator.

Played on Switch.

Replica has you emulating a hacker being coerced into unwillingly hacking a suspected terrorists phone. It’s small but perfectly formed.

And now onto arty stuff! So since about the last blog post, I’ve been working on a UI asset pack for the Unity asset store. I’ve tried submitting it twice now. First time it was rejected with no feedback, and the second was because “It’s not complicated enough”.

So currently I’m working on adding a lot more into it. Here are some of the initial promotional images for it.

I’m aiming to have an extremely large amount of objects to pick and choose from. Every type of button or slider you can imagine is likely in the pack.

It’s finished yet. If Unity for some reason in all of their wisdom decide to reject me again for another inane reason, I’ll just upload it on other storefronts. I need to research where exactly. But that’s a task to do once I’m done drawing them all.

Cant wait to be finished with it. Will certainly be useful to have such an enormous and versatile UI asset database for future use though. I’ve barely worked on anything creative or arty because this project has grown so out of control.

Although on that note. I managed to render a new episode of Bowiecube glitch plays!

Bet you thought I had forgotten all about this channel!

Faisal still has a lot of footage of Assassins Creed Valhalla for me to work with. Those games are always an entertaining glitch fest. I think I’d like to work on a new Legend of fail episode before then however. The last session we uploaded was December 2020. & we lost the footage for 2 levels after that. There’s much catching up to be done! At this rate, one of us is going to kick the bucket before we complete the game. (Likely me)

So one thing I had wanted to do for a few years was a Gameblast charity stream. It’s a yearly event where people will stream games usually with some kind of endurance goal. Mine was 24 hours of Splatoon 2.

Thankfully it was a huge success.

I surpassed my £300 quid goal, but I only survived 20 hours. Infographic below which goes into the juicy details. It was a hell of a lot of fun. I got to muck around with Twitch setups and OBS software. I had adverts running in stream when I took a break. There were lots of goal overlay visuals such as donations, timers etc.

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Was very sweet of them to post me a thank you card.

Enjoy some stats.

Funnily enough, I think I’ll use Gameblasts as an opportunity to plough through my Vidya backlog. I have my eye on finally tackling Wind Waker HD!

At my job, a co-worker of mine is retiring. So I made a goodbye card for him jam packed with in-jokes.

Went for the cartoony Beano/Dandy aesthetic.

Working on this, it reminded me I used to draw cartoons of sheep a lot when I was in primary school. Must be a Northerner thing.

Here’s the picture from inception to finish.

And last, and most glorious of all. I did a gamejam session last weekend. Entirely different to a Gameblast. (confusing right? the word Game is getting thrown around a lot this blog) Me and 5 others all worked on a game in the span of a weekend and submitted it to Ludum Dare 48. A bi-annual event.

I’ve done gamejams few times in the past (as cataloged on this blog) but we had a different team composition this time. We were dubbed “Fundee Squad” and the game is titled “Sweet Lies”.

“A sweet-themed mystery, discover the source of the illicit “Sugar High” sweeping the city in the form of the highly addictive substance known only as “Sherbert”.
Play as the Detective to navigate a web of lies and deceit, investigating the prime suspects Sugar Daddy and Jawbreaker.”

So as you can likely deduce, its a point and clicky visual novel with a kick ass theme. A mix between Lethal Weapon & Willy Wonka.

I worked on the characters & the title screen.

The submission/contest page is here.

And the title is playable (in a browser) here.

Spent a lot of time honing the candy/cop fusion aesthetic.

The player character “Detective” has 2 expressions, as does the 3 core cast members. Default & accuse. I have some colour tests in here also.

My favourite feature is his cartoony jaw. Accidentally drew inspiration from Astro boy/Dandy. The peppermint buttons are a sweet touch aswell.

Jawbreaker. The dirty cop. As you can probably tell from the shape of his head, I really leaned into the jaw aesthetic. Eagle eyed viewers might also appreciate his candy heart knuckle dusters.

Sugar Daddy the mob boss. Notable easter egg you might miss. Red liquorice belt.

Commissioner Sweetmann. Very clearly inspired by Gordon from Batman.

Wew. And thats all! It feels as though the bloody Unity project has been my entire life for the bulk of the past year, but I had a fun variety of things to blog about here.

Once lockdown restrictions are over, I’m hoping to get more Legend of fail filmed, edited and animated. Wish me luck!