Nintendo takes the Wii

There's a piece on the MCV site which says that Nintendo are calling the new consoles (formerly Revolution) the Wii (pronounced "we"). Because it sounds like another word, have they made a mistake or are they, perhaps, taking the piss? :) (Excuse the language, please.)

Nutso Preview at Adventure Archiv

The German site, Adventure Archiv, has published a preview of Mr. Smoozles Goes Nutso. You can read it in both German and English.

I enjoyed reading this - it shows that people are enjoying the game in the way that I hoped they would, which is incredibly gratifying.

Mr. Smoozles Goes Nutso - New Screenshot

I've just posted a new screenshot from Mr. Smoozles Goes Nutso over at the Juniper Games site.

Great graphics... but...

After reading a couple of recent game reviews and chatting with my friend Tony Warriner, it struck me that many of today's games are developed with the ephasis the wrong way round.

When reviews say that a game looks fantastic but that the gameplay is weak, badly implemented or too easy, the only explanation I can think of is that the graphics must have come before the gameplay. With publishers constantly pushing for technical innovation, some developers must be creating their rendering engine, deciding on a graphical style and thinking about the effects and physics they can put into the game and doing so as a greater priority than developing the gameplay.

If the gameplay is created after the visuals, it's going to be severly restricting what the designers are able to come up with, which ultimately makes the gameplay experience very dissatisfying. So we end up with games that look fantastic but play badly, or at best are mediocre.

I find it incredibly ironic that with such games their best feature is actually their biggest handicap.

GameTrove - New Indie Portal

GameTrove is an excellent new venture and is being run completely free of charge to indie developers. The download links connect directly to the developers files, so reducing bandwidth on the portal.It also means that the developer gets the rewards without the portal taking apercentage of the cover price of the game.

Well done to Danimal for putting this together.

Josh's Gaia video

As you may or may not know, the musical soundtrack for Mr. Smoozles Goes Nutso is being composed by a talented musician called Josh Winiberg.

This is a video put together to accompany Josh's piece, Gaia.

Nutso Preview at Rebell.at

Another preview has been posted over at Rebell.at

Though it's in German, the author, Bertold Schauer, translated some of it for me and the best bit was:

"The story of a game and how it's told decides if we enjoy playing it and how it motivates to continue playing. This fact combined with the innovative idea of an arcade-adventure is the reason why you should buy Mr. Smoozles goes Nutso as soon as it gets released, no matter if it will cost ten or thirty dollars. You are going to like it as long as you aren't a graphics-junkie."

Nutso Previewed at GameBoomers

Over at the adventure gaming site, GameBoomers, there is a preview of the game, Mr. Smoozles Goes Nutso.

"This is a fun game ... and then I suffered the “oh no, I've finished, I was just getting into that!” "

The game is very deceptive in the way it pulls you in. :)

Nutso Preview at Just Adventure +

A preview has been published over at Just Adventure +

"Mr. Smoozles Goes Nutso will definitely be a game to watch out for."

Thanks go out to JA+ and Sudeep Pasricha for an excellent, if brief, preview of the game.

Nutso Preview on Working Title

The German site, Working Title has previewed Mr. Smoozles Goes Nutso. Although it's not in English, I used the Alta Vista Babel Fish translator to read the piece and it seems very encouraging on the whole.

Thanks Fabian.

Humour in games

There is an excellent article over at Edge Online about humour in games.

While it's clear that people are trying to put humour into games, very few are trying to make comedy games, in which the humour is a major part of the whole experience. Aside from Psychonauts and Stubbs the Zombie, of course. :)

Preview of Mr. Smoozles Goes Nutso

The first preview of the game has been published on the Russian website, Broken Sword Rus. Because there is no English version of the piece, I put the text through the Babel Fish translator. Although it wasn't a great translation, I got the gist of what was being said and it was very kind towards the game.

Hopefully there will be more previews soon.

Juniper Games Press Release

The following is a press release that was sent out a little earlier today.


Juniper Games – Preview Code Available for Mr. Smoozles Goes Nutso

YORK, UK (April 7, 2006)
Game developer, Juniper Games, is pleased to announce that a preview version of the game “Mr. Smoozles Goes Nutso” is available to members of the gaming press who wish to take advantage of it for their websites or magazines. To obtain a copy of the preview, please contact Juniper Games on info@juniper-games.com

Initial response to the game has been excellent. “After showing it to a number of fellow developers, I couldn’t have been more pleased with the reaction,” said Steve Ince, MD of Juniper Games. Of the many positive remarks were, “Most fun I've had a game in a long time” and “The only problem I see is that it is too addictive.”


About Mr. Smoozles Goes Nutso

“Mr. Smoozles Goes Nutso” is an arcade adventure game based upon the online comic strip, Mr. Smoozles.

Play as Ed and join in his struggles to avoid Mr. Smoozles, who's been turned completely nutso by the evil Goragons. Dark creatures from another dimension, who are intent on destroying reality.

Will Ed defeat the Goragons, free his friends and restore Mr. Smoozles' mind and the world to normal?! And the biggest challenge – will Ed save his valuable collection of Geeks Monthly?! Well - of course he will - with your help!


About Juniper Games

Juniper Games was founded by Steve Ince, formerly of Revolution Software where, among many other things, he was writer and lead designer on the acclaimed game, “Broken Sword – The Sleeping Dragon.

Juniper Games has a number of projects in the pipeline, including Mekapods and Juniper Crescent – The Sapphire Claw and is committed to creating fun, character driven games.


Additional details can be found at the Juniper Games website: http://www.juniper-games.com/

Juniper Games can be contacted on info@juniper-games.com

Waiting for a call...

I've been so busy lately it's insane, but now I find myself with 20 minutes to spare. I've just finished polishing one of the chapters of my book, Writing for Video Games, and am waiting for a conference call to discuss another writing project.

The game, Mr. Smoozles Goes Nutso, is going very well and due to lots of excellent feedback is looking and feeling better than ever. Within the next couple of days I'm hoping to have a version ready that I can send to gaming sites and magazines for preview purposes.

Because of the work I've been putting into the game and the book, my art has been more than a little neglected. I haven't updated the Mr. Smoozles comic strip in ages and any other painting and drawing hasn't even been getting a look in. The only exception to this is the concept drawing I did of a robot, which I passed onto a 3D artist friend of mine. I'm hoping he can turn it into something really stunning as he's such a talented modeler.