Category Archives: Personal Life

Back from Finland & EBF5: New Difficulty Options

Hey guys, we’re back from Finland!
The trip back was a nightmare – I was really sick, got almost no sleep, and when we got home, the internet was broken, and our electricity somehow turned off, creating a swamp in our fridge.

A technician fixed our internet now, but in the 2 days it was down, I still managed to get some work done.

Epic Battle Fantasy 5 will get some new difficulty options in the version 2 update.
Like other difficulty settings, these can be changed at any time, and you can play around with them to make whatever challenges you think will be fun.
Here’s what I’ve done so far:

Resistant Foes: Foes have more resistance to elements and status effects.
(this makes it less likely that all enemies will be weak against the same element, and gives bosses immunity to some cheap status effects)

Evasive Foes: Foes have 10% more evade.
(very simple one, you’ll have to work accuracy into your strategy)

Bulky Foes: Foes have 20% more HP.
(if for some reason you just wanted battles to last longer)

Status Antibody: Foes gain resistance to a status effect after being inflicted with it.
(+10% resistance each time, this will make bosses very hard if you don’t kill them quickly)

Combo Shield: Total damage multiplier from critical hits, buffs and status effects is capped at 5x normal damage. (with elemental multipliers added, this cap is still quite high (around 15x) – but it stops bosses being killed in one hit)

Nerfed Resistance: Equipment gives less elemental and status resistance.
(About 40% less, good luck resisting everything)

Nerfed Revive: Revived players cannot take a turn immediately.
(I don’t know if you can even recover from this…)

Time Limit: You have 30 seconds to take your turn in battle.
(not a lot of time to use Haste – animations don’t count)

Food Ban: Rare food items are banned in battle.
(some people already play like this)

No HP Bars: Foe HP bars are hidden in battle.
(if you want to pretend you’re playing a very old RPG)

Let me know if you can think of anything else that might sound like a fun challenge and isn’t a nightmare to implement!

Also here’s a video of Linnanmäki in Helsinki.
I spent two days alone in the park. It’s actually kind of nice going to theme parks alone, as you get to skip the queues to fill the last seat. And you can talk to random tourists! But I didn’t get any good clips of myself, since I look like a dumbass trying to do a selfie video. Anyway, Linnanmäki has some top-notch rides, with my favourites being: Taiga, Ukko and Kingi. Taiga’s my favourite rollercoaster so far – it’s a long, smooth ride, and the speed is perfect – it throws you out of your seat constantly, and leaves you hanging upside down for what feels like a very long time.

Blackpool Pleasure Beach

Hey guys, me and Ronja went on a short trip to Blackpool. It’s a magical place where seagulls are constantly trying to shit on you. Here’s a video of the theme park.

If you ever go, the top-tier rides are The Big One (tallest rollercoaster in Europe), Icon (very smooth and modern ride), and Valhalla (apparently the best water ride in the world). Surprisingly the airplane ride – Sky Force – was the most terrifying, as you have to control the wings and try to do a barrel roll. There’s also a lot of historical rides that are worth checking out, like the many wooden rollercoasters, the last-of-it’s-kind Steeplechase rollercoaster, and the Flying Machines – the oldest ride in Europe at 115 years.

Photos from Scotland

Hey guys, here’s some photos from sunny Scotland.
We went on a quick road trip from Glasgow to Oban, with Ronja and some of her friends from Finland. We rented a van, and while it was slightly intimidating at first, it was actually nice to drive something that was well-maintained, unlike my rusty old car that could break down at any time for no reason.

As you can see, the weather changed every 5 minutes.photo5785109747446428011D9TMmH5WsAAAVKVphoto5785109747446428057photo5785109747446428025 photo5783175612003889565

Play Expo

Hey guys, me and Ronja exhibited EBF5 and Bullet Heaven 2 at the Play Expo in Glasgow last weekend. It’s a chill, medium-sized event with lots of retro games and a family-friendly atmosphere. We also exhibited last year, so we knew what to expect and there wasn’t really any surprises. But this time we were joined by our buddy Chris Jeff, another Flash game developer who is now working on Squishy Sports.

The expo seems to grow a bit every year, but there’s less and less indie developers exhibiting there. So I’ll have to try to convince more UK devs to come over for next year!

Best quote this year was that Bullet Heaven 2 “looks like Undertale on crack”.

Scotland’s Theme Park

Hey guys, I went to M&Ds on Friday with some friends. It was quite a nice day, so I was surprised to see the park completely deserted. England has a few great theme parks, but this is all we’ve got in Scotland, and it aint much. I made a quick video dedicated to how disappointing it was.

I’ll have some footage of the Play Expo up tomorrow!