I have made a ton of progress on Meteoroids in the past week. I was sick for almost all of it, so it was slow moving progress, but progress nonetheless. However, with my friend Don in town (one of my oldest friends and collaborator on many a project), I’ve decided to take a bit of a left turn and let Meteoroids percolate for a week or two.
I’ve been back in full swing for the past few days, to the point where Meteoroids should have a beta release shortly. Hooray! Meteoroids has been an interesting project. Over the past year, my lack of planning for what is, essentially, my first game (I’ve made others, but never released them), has led to a much longer development time that I’d anticipated, in addition to some severe coding headaches. However, I believe I’ve hit a milestone that is allowing for rapid completion: I actually legit love the game now.
When I first started this endeavor, I promised myself one thing: no half-assing it. I was going to write a dev log weekly, slowly building up an audience. Eventually, I’d release my first game. One-man-banding an entire startup is rougher than I thought.
After three days of gaming insanity in the city of Boston, I’m finally home. This was my first PAX, and definitely not my last. My feat hurt, my back aches, I’m tired all over, and it was absolutely worth it.
As it currently stands, I have a collection of about 20 or so odd games that I have yet to play or finish. Some aren’t even opened yet. For younger gamers, this tends to be a non-issue. Either they have the time to get to the games they have, or they don’t have enough games to create a backlog in the first place. As the gaming landscape changes generationally, those of us who started gaming in the 70s/80s have found our lives evolving into new routines. This can cause a buildup of the very media we use to thrive off of. Along with the expansive length of games today, this causes a monumental backlog of “to-do” games that can, if left uncurated or ignored, lead to piles upon piles of unplayed games that can drive our spouses and significant others up the wall.
The release of a new Nintendo console has always been a very special time for me. I got my first NES for Christmas in 1986, and it truly changed my life. Nintendo has had its ups and downs, and its most recent down was the release of the Wii U. Although I am firmly in the minority, I actually really loved the Wii U. It has some of my favorite games of this current generation. So, when it failed to find a sustainable market, I was devastated, but not surprised. Now, with the release of the Switch, their newest console, Nintendo is attempting to right the ship, with what is essentially a DS/Wii U hybrid with better technology. It released yesterday, and I got mine right after a very, very long day at work.
Get ready to return to the realm of Middle-earth in order to KILL EVERYTHING. Ho-ly-crap, does this look good.
In eight days, I’ll be boarding a plane to Boston in order to attend my first ever videogame con/expo – PAX East 2017! To say I’m excited is a serious understatement. I’ve been making a checklist of the things I need to bring with me. Clothes: check. Toiletries: check. Nintendo Switch (presuming Best Buy actually effing ships my pre-order): almost check. And those badges, those beautiful badges…
After almost a year of combing through files and stripping out malicious code, I have finally migrated all of my videogame posts from my other site, The Ramen Stand. Now, I can finally use the URL I bought over a year ago: punchbunny.com! Welcome to the site!
Many moons ago, when Rise of the Tomb Raider was first announced as an XBox exclusive for Microsoft’s then-new console, I proclaimed my outrage at the inefficiencies of a “paid exclusivity” model. I promised that not only would I never get an XBox, I would never get Rise of the Tomb Raider on that particular platform, instead waiting for the inevitable PS4 version. Well, that all changed when I received an XBox One pre-packaged with Rise of the Tomb Raider. It’s not hypocrisy if you don’t buy it yourself, right? RIGHT? Whatever. Anyway…