Adventure Gamers Article

The wonderful people over at Adventure Gamers have written a very complimentary article on the Sapphire Claw game.

As I referenced earlier in the week, I've been very busy lately. Now you know what I've been working on. :)

Press Release

Juniper Crescent – The Sapphire Claw

DANGER! MYSTERY! INTRIGUE! FUR BALLS!

Introducing a new hero for today’s gaming generation – he’s bold, he’s daring, he’s oh so smooth, with a sense of self-preservation and leadership that makes him unafraid to delegate when deadly peril rears its head. He’s Scout the One-Eyed Cat.

Juniper Crescent – The Sapphire Claw is a cartoon escapade that sees our hero forsake his beloved pastime of lying in the sun to take up the challenge of finding the Sapphire Claw, a fabled cat artefact that few even believe exists.

Steve Ince, writer and designer on Broken Sword – The Sleeping Dragon, creates a wonderful game based on his popular web comic, Juniper Crescent, bringing to life a rich cast of animal characters and interwoven with varied and challenging gameplay.

Juniper Crescent – The Sapphire Claw is a globe trotting mission in which Scout – armed with his wits, charm and a loyal band of animal friends – must deal with a continuing series of obstacles, a host of dynamic characters and danger at every twist and turn. Travelling through a range of exotic locations, the team’s various skills and abilities must be fully utilised if the player is to help them achieve their ultimate objectives.

Beat the boss... find the treasure... save the dog!

Juniper Games – Steve Ince has over twelve years experience in the development of quality, groundbreaking titles such as Beneath a Steel Sky, The Broken Sword Trilogy, and In Cold Blood, among others. He formed Juniper Games to continue that excellent pedigree in richer, more inclusive escapade games, with a firm commitment to giving the player high interaction density throughout.

Publishers: There is significant interest in Juniper Crescent – The Sapphire Claw and Juniper Games is in discussion with a number of publishers. All interested parties should contact Juniper Games to set appointments at E3, time permitting.

Further Details:
Website: www.juniper-games.com
E-mail: info@juniper-games.com
Business and Marketing Agent: Laura MacDonald, lauramac@juniper-games.com

Neglectful

While I was angered by the rude comments of Beatnik (see previous post), they did touch a bit of a nerve as I'm fully aware that I haven't been posting very much just lately. I realise that I've been neglecting the blog a little and the short postings are a little reaction to that. However, in my defence, I have been very busy in both the work I'm doing during the day and the stuff I'm doing on evenings and weekends.

Though I'd normally love to come on here and tell you all about it - risking self publicity - for the moment it's something that I'm keeping under my hat for reasons which will become clear at some point in the future. Whether you'll find it as interesting as I hope you will is another matter entirely, but I live in hope.

I realise that this post is little more than a rambling excuse, so I'll pad it out even further with some personal news:
My granddaughter, Caitlin, was rushed into hospital last week, but is fine now.
My son, David, was out in the sun too long on Sunday and collapsed, but is now fine.
June, my partner, has just gone swimming.
It's raining.
Our cat has gone blind and it's really upsetting to see her bumping into things.
There is a new, small fish in the garden pond - it must have survived past the fry stage.
I've been having blood tests, but so far nothing serious has been found.
I've taken up cycling again in the hope of getting fit.

Insightful? Me?

At the request of Beatnik, I'm going to try to offer up something insightful - as difficult as that may be.

People who post rude and abusive comments on other people's sites will only ever create feelings of anger and irritation. Constructive, reasoned criticism will always acheive a much better response.

Another Code release date

According to this news item over at Adventure Gamers, Another Code for the Nintendo DS is coming out on the 3rd June.

Excellent news! I'm really looking forward to seeing how this game is being handled.

Mr. Smoozles 50

Today sees the publication of the 5oth Mr. Smoozles strip.

Oddworld goes to Hollywood

This article over at GameDailyBiz makes me wonder if it's indicative of something larger. Is it a sign, written large, that the next generation consoles are going to be filled with safe bets, lack of originality and creativity and will tend towards a blandness that will drive away the gamers?

Protect your rights

GameDailyBiz has an interesting article which illustrates how important it is for creators and license-holders to protect their rights. Things must be bad when the FBI is involved...

About genres

What are you like? by Tom Bramwell over at Eurogamer is an interesting read. Are the attitudes he highlights a danger to gaming development as a whole?

Mr. Smoozles - a new schedule

Due to the many things going on in my life at the moment, from now I'm only going to be posting new Mr. Smoozles strips on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Sorry to all those who come for their daily dose of comic fun.

Talented young musician

Josh Winiberg is a talented eighteen year old who has already released two CDs of piano music under his own steam. All the tracks are his own compositions, so if you like the sound of solo piano, take a trip to the site and listen to some excellent samples.

Ignoring the feedback

This article on When to Ignore the Readers is an interesting one to draw parallels from. :)

Art Pad

Art Pad is a cool little web-based bit of art fun. Go and be creative. :)

Coming soon...

Mr. Smoozles 40

For those who like to keep up with these things, today saw the publication of the 40th Mr. Smoozles strip. A little bit of a landmark...

Ernest Adams on The Act

The Act - Emotion Control with Single-Knob Gameplay is a piece by Ernest Adams on Gamasutra about a coin-op game called The Act.

While I think that the principles behind it are an excellent idea, will such a one-trick pony have long-term appeal? Also, I can imagine that a player is going to spend an awful lot of money simply getting used to the way that the input works, the amount of twisting of the knob they need to get the reactions they desire and so forth.

Wouldn't it be better to include something like this as part of a bigger whole so that you might have action, exploration and puzzle-solving and use this for when you interact with the characters in the game? This way the player would get the feeling that they were still in control, yet have a richness to the gameplay that doesn't exist at the moment.

I also can't help but think that the costs of the multiple animation "routes" will make the animation budget pretty prohibitive if applied to a long game.

It will be interesting to see how this develops.

KOTOR 2 woes

I'm 34 hours into KOTOR 2 and I've come to the conclusion that it's only a shadow of the first one. What's really bugging me at the moment is that I appear to have come to a complete dead end and can see no way out of it. What it really comes down to is that there is a really bad balance in some of the levels which shows an inconsistency on implementation and this is the third battle I've been forced into where my party has been way outmatched.

The first time it happened I simply played for an hour until the random numbers fell in my favour. The second time I kept hiding and waiting for my force points to recover. Very unsatisfying in both cases. Now I'm at a point where no matter what I try to do I'm beaten every time. Well beaten, too. Every time I try something different the outcome is the same - my party dies and the three opponents barely have a scratch.

I am so disappointed, particularly as the first one was such a great game.