Hey guys, I’m doing a quick update on The Kitten Game. Here’s what’s new:
• A soundtrack by Phyrnna, made up from old, unused tracks, including a couple of very silly ones. • 12 new achievements – nothing challenging, but they should add a tiny bit of extra gameplay. • An auto-clicker option that’s enabled by default – no more hand pain! • Volume controls and quieter sound effects – no more ear pain! • Copyrighted characters have been replaced with look-a-likes, as usual.
That’s all. This stuff shouldn’t take very long. I just need to carefully consider how powerful that auto-clicker is going to be, so it doesn’t change the original pace of the game too much.
Hey guys, here’s this year’s pumpkins I gone and made. Ronja made the left-most one. Next year I need to remember to buy a carving kit, as I can only do so much with a knife.
Trick-or-treating was cancelled this year – not only is coronavirus skyrocketing in the UK again, the weather has been pretty stormy. We cooked pumpkin pie, cupcakes, and soup, roasted the seeds, ate cheap candy, and started playing Alien Isolation. The usual Halloween stuff for us.
The government is getting ready for another month-long lockdown to hopefully save Christmas. But unlike the previous lockdown, they’re still leaving schools and some other things open, so it’ll be curious to see if they make it in time. Either way, I’m sure there’s gonna be a huge surge in cases in January.
If you want to hear something really scary, I’ll repeat some doomer thoughts that I posted on Twitter earlier:
2020 isn’t a series of accidents, it’s a series of predictable man-made disasters that we saw coming and did nothing about. This is a sign of things to come, and 2020 could very well be the best year of this coming decade.
Coronavirus may never go way. Climate-change-fuelled natural disasters will become more frequent. More and more jobs will be automated, and young people will either be unable to find jobs, or never be able to retire as pensions are cut. The wealth gap will continue increase and the poor will be blamed for all problems.
We won’t get UBI, or a Green New Deal, or any improved public services. Three or four big companies will own all communications and media platforms, and control information access at will. Propaganda bots will pass the Turing test, and unlimited fake news will be created for free. Governments will fight this with ever increasing surveillance. The trends are pointing towards a Black Mirror dystopia.
Progress isn’t guaranteed. Keeping your rights, privileges and health isn’t guaranteed.
Hey guys, the “Prototypes” section of the Epic Battle Fantasy Collection is done. This shows off a bunch of work-in-progress Flash files. This part basically functions like a file browser, and just launches the files in new Flashplayer windows, rather than in the main window. The upside of doing it this way is that the prototypes run totally independent of the launcher, and can lock up without ruining the user experience. The downside is that the Steam Overlay won’t work on them, so no easy screenshot button.
Making an application that launches other applications makes me feel like a powerful hacker.
As for what’s included, it’s basically anything that I think fans of the EBF games will find interesting and noteworthy. You’ll probably remember most of them from the thumbnails.
On top of all that, there’s a hidden folder containing more Flash files that aren’t as noteworthy.
Hey guys, the Epic Battle Fantasy Collection is going to have almost 150 achievements in total, more than any other game I’ve made! It’s gonna be great for anyone who plays games just for Steam achievements, since it won’t take too long to get them all.
All of the original Newgrounds medals will be in there, plus some games will have a couple of new ones. The Kitten Game has never had achievements before on any platform, so it’s getting a completely new set. Cat Cafe’s in-game medals are pretty grindy, so I’ll probably make the Steam achievements easier than those. I’ll also make sure that you don’t need to beat EBF1 and 2 on every difficulty anymore – Epic will be enough.
You’ll have the option to delete medals for each game separately. I still get complaints about Epic Battle Fantasy 4 not having a simple way to delete medals, so I’m not going to forget that feature again.
I’ve also remade all of the achievement icons in HD! A lot of the icons needed to be remade anyway – some contained copyrighted characters, and some were very low-effort. I’ve kept the spirit of the originals, but many will be shinier now.
The standard size for web game achievements was 50×50 pixels, and Steam uses 64×64, but I figured I would future-proof them and go for 128×128. I’m making the most of this and displaying them quite large in the launcher interface.
Hey guys, I’ve finished updating Sketchbook for the Epic Battle Fantasy Collection. It’s an interactive sketchbook that originally contained 100 pages of traditional drawings, but now has almost 200. I’ve also improved the interface to allow for faster navigation, and added new music by Phyrnna.
There’s not much else to say about it. You’ve probably seen most of the art in there if you’ve been following me closely for 10+ years, and now it’s all in one place.
