Mr. Smoozles Goes Nutso - Special Holiday Price!

To celebrate the forthcoming holiday season, Mr. Smoozles Goes Nutso is now on special offer at the new holiday price:

3.99 USD, 3.49 Euro, 2.99 GBP

The Sapphire Claw

The more dedicated of you may have noticed that I posted a new screenshot from The Sapphire Claw. I've been doing a fair bit of work on this inbetween my other work and have reached a point where I can move forward once again.

One of the first changes is that it's now called The Sapphire Claw - Serpent Eyes. The reason for this becomes very clear early in the story, but is also part of what I'll outline below.

Another big change is that I'm going to split the game up into a number of smaller games. Although they will each feed into a larger ongoing story, each game will have its own story that reaches a definite conclusion. I'll also be fleshing out the game a lot so each story, although shorter, will be longer than that portion of the original game was intended to be. (I think I just confused myself there...)

One of the problems I've been having is of finding funding, which is obviously difficult at the best of times for adventures. So in order to proceed I'm having to make a lot of development decisions and compromises. But it's my intention to work those compromises in such a way that I maximise the quality in the way I approach them.

One of these compromises has been with Scout, who I've pre-rendered from a 3D model. Although it takes something away from the hand-drawn version, it means that animation is a little simpler for me to complete myself.

Another compromise is that I'm going to have to do pretty much all of the work myself as I can't afford to pay anyone and because I still need to earn a living I'll be doing it between other jobs, still. What this means is that I have no specific date to complete the work, but I'm hoping that I can push on at a reasonable speed.

I'll try to keep you informed more fully as things develop.

Something new...

... at least, something not connected to So Blonde. :)


I've been experimenting a little with a new style. Not fully sure, yet, how it will actually work in game and which game I'm going to use it on, but I think it would be fun to do.

New Interview, New Site Design

I've just done a new interview with the GameBoomers site, which has just been posted.

Also, I've been re-designing the Juniper Games website and have posted up the new pages this afternoon. I felt that the previous design was a little too busy and wanted something that was simpler but that still had a colourful feel.

Mr. Smoozles Goes Nutso - a new review

I love the internet! Just when I thought interest in Nutso was waning, along comes this incredibly good review of the game. The reviewer appreciated it in all the ways I could have hoped for.

"The game will get pretty engaging over time (being chased by a cute orange cat with a huge gun can get pretty engaging). The script is peppered with witty repartee and well, just plain insanity. And although the elements of the story are crazy, they're interwoven in a way that makes sense (does that make sense?)."

(Sorry I haven't been posting much lately.)

Project B&P

I posted something on the Juniper Games news blog. Now I think about it, I should have posted it here and then linked to it on the other one. Sometimes I think my head doesn't quite work normally. Not that I'd want to fix it as it may ruin the whole creativity thing I have going on in there. :)

To reiterate: Project B&P is going to be the project that drives my personal focus until the completion of the proposal at the very least. I already have sketches for my two main characters and a strong idea of the visual style I want to aim for, but it's too early in the process to start showing anything. Things have a habit of changing, particularly when talking with publishers. :)

Adventure Developers Online Conference at Adventure Europe

Over at the Adventure Europe site, they are once again hosting and online conference where they pull together a number of developers and publishers to answer questions during allocated slots over the three days it takes place. More details can be found here.

I'm actually going to be doing two sessions.
The first one will cover So Blonde and takes place on Thursday 29th November between 5pm and 7pm UK time.
The second one will be a general one for myself, my projects and Juniper Games and takes place on Friday 30th November between 7pm and 9pm UK time.

I hope that everyone can make it along and join in the fun.

Nutso - New Vista Version - Special Pricing

I have just released a Windows Vista compatible version of Mr. Smoozles Goes Nutso. Players can also buy it at a specially reduced price for a limited time only! For more details, please read the press release here: http://www.juniper-games.com/blog/labels/Press.html

Juniper Games - News and Information Blog

The Juniper Games community forums are closed for the forseeable future. In order to keep you informed of any news pertaining to Juniper Games and to allow you to make comments (should you wish to do so), I have created a News and Information blog: http://www.juniper-games.com/blog/JGblog.html

More to follow...

Juniper Games Forum - Closure

It's more than likely that I'll shortly be closing down the Juniper Games forum. While there are plenty of members, hardly anyone posts anything and the number of spurious members joingin every day is getting ridiculous and I don't have the time to be dealing with this. While one answer might be to appoint someone as an administrator to deal with this, if the forums are not active it's still a little pointless.

However, so that people can still comment, should they wish to do so, I shall replace the forum with some kind of news and information blog, the exact structure of which is still being developed.

More news as it happens.