Category Archives: Thoughts and Opinions

Halloween was Yesterday

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.

Happy Halloween!

EBF Collection: Mechs and Apples


Hey guys, I’m almost finished Mecha Dress Up Game v2.

I completely remade the interface, and it almost feels like a new game.
A lot of sounds are new, because the old ones were painful. There’s a couple of new parts and backgrounds. An export to jpeg button. A bunch of pre-made mechs to give you ideas and help you find some cool color schemes. And a new soundtrack with 4 tracks!

EBF1 and 2 have sequels, so there’s not much I wanted to add there, and Brawl Royale is such a simple game that there isn’t much you can change. But Mecha Dress Up definitely had a lot of stuff I’ve wanted to add ever since I first published it.

In other news, Epic Games are suing Apple for having a monopoly on their devices, and not letting developers sell software directly without giving Apple a cut. I’m rather excited about this. No company should be able to dictate what you can install on your computer, and where you’re allowed to buy software from. PC operating systems have been open forever, but for some reason people think smartphones and tablets are an exception – they’re general-purpose computers and should be open just like PCs!

Oh, and I feel the same way about consoles too. They’re all general-purpose computers, and there’s no technical reason that exclusives should exist – only business reasons. When I was a kid, consoles could only play games specifically designed and programmed for that console – but that’s not been the case for a few console generations now. Oh well, at least we’ll always have illegal mods and emulators.

Anyway, if Epic gets better terms for developers and customers, or even just pushes the conversation in that direction, I’m all the way behind them. Let the legal battles begin.

Free your computer.

Newgrounds Podcast

Hey guys, a few days ago I was on the Newgrounds Podcast with three other Flash game developers: Psycho Goldfish, Tyler Glaiel and Steve Castro. We talked a bit about how our careers started, how cool Flash was in the 2000s, and how Adobe dropped the ball in recent years.

Give it a listen, and maybe some of the other episodes too, if you’re interested in the history of Newgrounds. Being on the podcast actually motivated me to stop playing video games and get back to work making them.

RIP Kongregate

Hey guys, it’s the end of an era.

Kongregate.com is going into archive mode and no longer accepting new games. A lot of the main staff already left a while ago, but there was still some really good web games being published there, so I’m a bit surprised that it’s no longer working out for them. They were even doing the monthly cash prizes for games up until the end, which I appreciate. I guess now they’re gonna be focusing on publishing mobile games, and on their store, Kartridge.

When I published Epic Battle Fantasy 3 on Kongregate 10 years ago, it got a million plays in the first week, and eventually 11 million in total. I think that was the biggest long-term boost to my reputation and career. The people at Kongregate were a lot of fun to work with, especially Greg the badge guy, and I don’t think any indie game platform today has anywhere near the same influence. I’m glad I published Epic Battle Fantasy 5 on there while I still could – it’ll be one of the last games to ever get badges!

Personally, I’m gonna keep checking the site every once in a while. There’s still lots of fun badges that I’ve missed. Even when the Flashplayer plugin is disabled, there’s still browser extensions to get around that.

A lot of the popular Flash games I’m sure will eventually make their way onto other platforms like Steam, but there’s also preservation projects like BlueMaxima’s Flashpoint to keep these games alive.

Anyway, you should go have a browse through Kongregate’s badge categories. I’m sure you’ll find something fun to play every time you have an hour or two to spare.