Jono's game dev blog

I've expanded the horizons of this blog to be about all sorts of media and not just video games because I want to write about that kind of thing as well. I'm going to mainly be focusing on films, video games, anime and visual art because those are thing I have the most knowledge and feel comfortable writing about, I might write about other media but that's not going to happen too often. Currently I'm writing up an article about glaring mistakes I see in a lot of art that is relatively easy to solve.

Sorry for the lack of updates but I've been busy with making a game called the Legacy of Barubash It's an Action RPG primarily for Android phones & tablets and also the Ouya. We are hoping to release it next year and hopefully we can get the beta out sometime in January. I've got a few articles I'm writing at the moment about subjects like realism and boredom in games but it might be a while before they are finished as I'm also working on another game project.

They Bleed Pixels is a rather brutal platformer with a heavy combat aspect, it was released on the 29th of August 2012, I ended up buying it during the Halloween sale because I'd heard good things about it and I wanted a challenging shortish game. It can be bought through Steam . The story's about a girl who goes to the "Lafcadio Academy for Troubled Young Ladies" where she finds a mysterious book which transforms her and causes nightmares, it's told through short pixel art cutscenes which are like an animated comic book. It's not particularly important but it does influence the levels, each dream and the chapters within progress through a nightmare and where the book has been placed in an attempt to destroy it and the journey of ascendancy through that nightmare.

I was meaning to record the 2nd level of R-Type Delta but something is causing that level to have recording problems. Last weekend I got a pair of Logitech G35s which means I have better audio quality and games sound a lot better as well. I also set up a twitch.tv account for streaming which works well and you can see level 2 there http://www.twitch.tv/jondogtv/videos

Formatted and cleared space on my external computer so now I can start recording videos. Need to replace my microphone quickly though because the audio quality is horrible

Blasted through these on the weekend, I'm surprised I managed to beat them after having a hard time getting anywhere in Mega Man ages ago, I think something about timing must have clicked recently.   Mega Man Mega Man is a game I've been meaning to beat ever since I played it a few years ago, I think I got to a boss once but I was so low on health and lives that I died shortly after. The story line is a pretty basic "Beat the bad guys to save the world" kind of thing but it gets the job done because it's much more about the gameplay.

Haven't really finished any games lately apart from Castlevania so I'll just list a bunch that I've played recently. Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale This was actually a pretty cool game to come across after lamenting the lack of current generation JRPGs, I've only played through the demo so far but that gives you a considerable amount of content. The main premise of the game is to run a typical RPG shop selling all sorts of items like armour, weapons and food. How you get the items is up to you but I think the best way is dungeon runs as long as you don't die. Torchlight II The sequel to Torchlight which improves upon everything by giving you a much more open world, multiplayer mode, new classes, new weapons and a great difficulty system. I haven't managed to play this too much because the multiplayer kept dropping out on my but I did play the beta earlier in the year and that was good fun.

Alright finally got a bunch of games written down, have a lot more to sort through but this is a good start. You can check it out here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AgZyuEix3FbvdE5Xdmd4bUtybGJVRGJidUR4WTB0WGc#gid=0

Alright time for a review of the story based RPG To The Moon made by Freebird Games . It was originally released through various digital stores for the PC on the 1st of November 2011 but was recently released on Steam . I really recommend going in to this game not knowing much about the story beyond the short description on Steam or the main website. I believe that's the best way to experience it, so I'll try keep this review spoiler free as possible.  The basic premise is you play as two scientists (Dr. Eva Rosalene and Dr. Neil Watts) who work for Sigmund Corp. who use technology to change memories so people can get their dying wish. Your assignment is Johnny Wyles, he wants to go to the moon but he doesn't know why.

Been thinking of all the times I say "I started playing that game but I didn't finish it." and it kind of annoys me. I think the best solution is to start a google spreadsheet of all the games I've completed, started or have been meaning to play. It may take a while but I think it'll be worth it just so I can keep track. If I have enough time I'll add a few more columns such as platform, if I've reviewed it and when I last played (this column will probably be restricted to steam games). Also sometime soon I'll have a review of To The Moon up.

Haven't finished any games lately but I have been playing a bunch so I'll give you some short impressions of them. Tribes: Ascend A rather fast class-based multiplayer shooter. I'm alright at this but I really need to work on my shooting because I'm not giving myself enough lead time. I am always rather high on the scoreboards when I play Technician which is cool. The Basement Collection A collection of flash games from Edmund Mcmillen + loads of bonus content. Pretty fun collection but getting the all the unlockables is hard because it requires achievement grinding and beating all the games. Some of the games can get very laggy because flash can be quite buggy.

I'm not really very happy with my current writing style, it just doesn't flow well. My reviews are currently in the format of sections dedicated to story, gameplay, design, graphics & art and sfx & music. It may work for some sites but I want to write reviews that will hold someone's attention and don't sound boring and impersonal. I'm working on fixing it but it may take a while for me to work it out.

Time for a review of a game that's a bit more recent and is on a different platform: Super Mario 3D Land! Super Mario 3D Land is a 3D platformer developed by Nintendo for the 3DS and was released in November 2011. It's less of a standard 3D Mario game like Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine or Super Mario Galaxy and more of a mix between the bonus levels of Sunshine/Galaxy and the traditional 2D Mario games. The story doesn't really exist as it's just a Mario game where you have to save Princess Peach from Bowser once again by defeating him a few times along with his children.

Psychonauts is a game originally released for Xbox, PS2 and Windows in 2005 and it has recently been released for Mac and Linux. It's a game I had heard lot's of praise for over the years but for some reason had never got around to playing it. Once again I played this with an Xbox 360 controller on the PC, it is a platformer after all. In Psychonauts you play as Razputin, a 10 year old boy who ran away from the circus to a summer camp for psychic kids. The camp is the main hub where you will browse around and chat to the other kids at the camp, from there you'll go visit Coach Oleander for the first level which is pretty much a training course, all of the levels apart from the 2 hubs are set in characters minds which means every level is very different from the last in terms of level design and gameplay, sometimes even the characters and enemies will look very different.

Recently I completed Costume Quest and it's Christmas DLC Grubbins on Ice on the PC. It was originally released for the Xbox 360 on the 19th of October 2010 a few weeks before Halloween and released for the PC on the 15th of October 2011 and is available from Steam , XBLA and PSN . Once again this was a game I played with the Xbox 360 controller. The game starts out with your typical Halloween night and fraternal twins Wren and Reynold go trick or treating, at this point you get to pick between the two and then go trick or treating. Soon after a monster will grab the sibling you didn't choose because they were dressed up as candy corn. So now you have to get back your sibling from the evil goblins, all while making friends and getting candy. Grubbins on Ice is just an extension of the main quest but obviously set during winter.

I got this game in the Indie Royale bundle sometime last year but didn't get around to playing it. Now that have played I kind of regret it. It's a bit of a throwback to games like Super Metroid and Mega Man X but with better graphics and sound. The story is about destroying the Zytrons who are infecting machines on the spaceship and are planning to destroy the planet, it's very tedious and drawn out in the slow cutscenes and in-game text which will sometimes occur before boss battles making it take longer to retry. They were also obviously rendered for the console version so they end up looking pixellated on most monitors.

Hello I'm Jono and this is my blog about video games, I'll generally be doing reviews, analysis of certain elements that stand out to me and posts about game development and concept art. My favourite genres are RPG and 3D platformers, some of my favourite series are Ratchet and Clank, Spyro, Fallout and Metroid. Most of the games I'll be reviewing are on the PC because that's all I really have apart from my PS2 and Wii. I'll try to be updating at least weekly with whatever comes to mind and hopefully I'll be able to get some screenshots and game footage to add to posts.