Jay Tholen

Not a rec, but I really hope the new MST3k episodes are less tied to contemporary referential humor than the original series. It's really hard to watch any of that with my wife because she's from Germany AND 5.5 yrs younger than me, so she gets very few of the jokes. Not holding my breath, but it would be nice.

Wikipedia says that it was a series! I Found 3 different episodes of Liquid TV with Brad Dharma featured. I must hunt this down.

Holy moly that is fantastic! I need to find the whole series.

he already backed

I feel a tiny bit bad because I haven't been posting as much lately, but I just launched a Kickstarter for my game Hypnospace Outlaw. It's a weird future-OS simulator that takes the idea of an ~information superhighway~ and builds a world around it. Here's the KS video in youtube form:

Sorry about the bump, but yeah, the Klik community was how I got started making games way back in 1999 or so. I still use the newest incarnation of Clickteam's software for my personal projects. I've been collecting games/old website data from those communities and I hope to start a project to document/archive that whole little era of ultra-independent game development. The community was most vibrant from around 1998 until 2003-4ish, and any record of it is being lost slowly as the internet trudges on. Some of my faves: Eternal Daughter by Derek Yu and Jon Perry back in 2002 blew everyone away. David Saulesco's OST was great too: The Spirit Engine 1 & 2 by Mark Pay were also brilliant: is currently being made in Clickteam Fusion, and looks amaaazing. Alonso's been working on it for almost a decade.

Thanks guys! Aw man, I've not heard of this. What OS/computer are you running it on?

Thanks all! That article was fantastic, he seemed to understand exactly what I wanted to express through the game. Seeing worth in people in spite of our horribly arbitrary value systems (beauty, usefulness, etc etc.) is at the heart of the whole thing. Still got a few nasty bugs to fix and achievements to add and stuff, but I'm happy it's been so well recieved. For all the testing we did, I still had very little idea how much people would resonate with it. A lot, as it turns out. Also we have a fun optional beach area + more dreams coming soon in a free update. >: )

Buzz Buzz in Earthbound really hit me. There's just something rad about a little two pixel sprite embodying a powerful time travelling being. Even if he did die by being slapped. :3 The accompanying music also helped. I think this probably subconsciously informs a lot of the choices I make while working on my game. I find myself thinking about it often.

I'm super duper enjoying Hawaii: Part II. Stream here: http://www.hawaiipartii.com/music/ Listen if you dig Lush psych pop with Mellotron, theremin, moog, oversaturated vocals, space echo, and good bass bits. It's lightly proggy.

I love this. I dig it when electronic musicians actually give a crap about composition. Before it gets a bit prog organ/drum heavy it evokes a Spirit of Eden era Talk Talk vibe. What software/plugins/hardware/sound sources do you use?

If all goes as planned I'll be there at the Devolver booth showing Dropsy. :0) It'll be my first big festival thing, can't wait!

Finished the tutorial. I love the fire/water mechanic in conjunction with the stealth elements. There are tons of clever things you can do with that. My only criticism right now is the jankyness of the movement engine. The jumping gets a bit sluggish if you're near an obstacle. It frequently took me 2-3 tries to jump out of a pit. I'll play more later in the week and report back.

I don't particularly need to get strict with the logical cultural stuff, I just think it's neat as part of worldbuilding. I loved how Fallout: New Vegas provided believable food/water sources for each area, like the NCR sharecropper farms, brahmin pens, etc. 'World' was just in reference to explorable in-game area, sorry about the poor phrasing there. The latter option is correct. It can be assumed that the world in this game shares earth's pre-1990 history and culture, but there are no specific references to real existing countries or cities or anything. It's also geographically different.

I don't mind at all! This is my favorite part of development and it's fun to yap about. They're on a peninsula, so they do a ton of fishing and grow their own fruit/vegetables. A lot of their history is going to have to be deduced through environmental clues since it's an adventure game with no text. I'm packing in as much as I can fit because I suuuuper dig the whole iceberg effect with game lore. This place is the least traditionally ~American~ area in the game. The gameworld is an alternate earth version of the USA, and the tech is similar to what was prevalent in 1990-1993. If you take the small town supernatural mystery thing Twin Peaks had going and combine it with Earthbound's weirdness, I think that sums the vibe up pretty nicely.

I've asked myself this SO much while working on my game. It has quite a bit of commentary on race that sort of organically grew from planning the history of the world. A lot of the people groups are based on combinations of real world cultures. One area in particular borrows heavily from Rastafarianism/Ethiopian history, liberation theology, and scandinavian mythology. The group's religion was formed as a response to economic oppression they experienced at the hands of another prevalent group in the gameworld. It served as a catalyst for a small revolt which resulted in them forming their own self-governing community. Things are getting better, but their past was definitely pretty bad. It is a fictional culture, but there was no way I could've made them caucasian. It just wouldn't feel right in any regard. I'm trying to portray this with gravity since it's cobbled together from things people have really experienced and deeply believe, but I do sometimes feel like I shouldn't have included the area at all. It's an immense responsibility, and while I don't feel entirely qualified in terms of life experience, I think it's a good thing to at least attempt.

I don't know how old you are, but my life between 22 and 26 felt like this. I got to a few points where I had negative dollars, no college, and zero prospective employers. I also lost almost all contact with friends. It was a pretty dark time. Rural living sucks. Things got a lot better and completely flipped around in like one month. Hang in there though, you're obviously talented and I'm sure you'll be able to succeed if you keep at it!

It could be a nice alternative to slippery ice levels. Nobody would get it, but dang I wanna see some of the weirder prog subgenres (Canterbury Scene, Zeuhl, etc.) represented. Canterburyville would be all shire-like with teapots and gnomes and other british crap. Zeuhl is volcanic and culty. Also, metal land would have like 30 states representing all the styles who only agree on one thing: the exile of nu-metal to a distant island. Butt rock land would be rad too. Protein powder is their main source of food. Babies emerge with long hair and a scott stapp voice. It's perfect.

I love GGJ. Gonna be at the one in Orlando this year. The facility has a green screen and pro recording equipment/sound booths. I'll probably just do music for various teams since I do pixel art like 10 hours a day. Nice little break.

I shamelessly dig the films Uncle Buck and Plains, Trains, & Automobiles. Little else from that family of films strikes me as funny or interesting at all. Am I missing anything decent from the era with a similar vibe?

I really wish there was a game about music that took Brutal Legend's ~album covers are REAL~ worldbuilding thing and widened it to every genre ever. The possibilities are endless.

We're in the Devolver booth, so I didn't technically have to pay for it. Nope. Good news though, he returned my message and is working on it! I was SO close to doing this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=dU95v23MQ4c#t=90

Howdy guys. I'm incredibly stressed right now because I'm leaving for PAX in 10 days, we have a lot of work to do on our game, and my programmer keeps disappearing and/or ignoring me. I've stalked him a bit on certain forums and I'm pretty certain that he's playing MMOs or something. Just thought I'd share that because I need an outlet don't want to blast that all over social media.

They just updated Gods Will Be Watching with a few additional modes if you'd prefer to just enjoy the story and not lose 20 times before progressing. I dug it much more as an experiential thing - but I can see how the incredibly tense feel of its vanilla systems would appeal to folks

I am going, but I will mostly be at the Devolver booth showing my dumb clown game. I'll try to make a thumbs meetup if you guys nail something down. This will be my first ever large convention of any kind so I'm pretty pumped.