http://www.e4.com/game/steamshovel-harry/play.e4

Kevin McMahon – Attitude

Still got it, after all these years. Man, he doesn’t half look old though. Hard to think it’s 14 years since the Prick album and it still sounds fresh as fuck.

RIP Steven Wells

Vegetarians reportedly sleeping more soundly at night. SHIFT-KEYS-TAKING-LESS-OF-A-POUNDING. The universe of musical words has lost one of its greatest agitators. Remarkably prescient final published words too. Must be entertaining up on those clouds this weekend.

Leigh Alexander on Ninty’s Demo Play

Needless to say, I don’t agree.

Polynomial.

Flying inside a fractal is cool. The game is shit. Purdy looking shit though.

Gamestweet

How to shit up Twitter in one easy lesson. Woeful point missing. Still, there’s always got to be one cunt who tries stuff like this, yeah?

OpenEmu – Games vs Midi

Awesome tech stuff via Offworld.

Manifesto closes its doors

I always loved the concept of Manifesto! Games, still do in fact. It’s a big shame that it never quite turned out how I expected it to.

Aleks on Sex and Games

Worth a gander.

Clover Dev Questions “Financial Viability” of XBLIG

…and trots out unthink. I’m sure I’m not the only person more than a little tired of the whinging and total point missing now, am I?

Zombie Cow Interviewed.

Friends of MR, Zombie Cow get the grilling treatment. Nothing revelatory here but worth it for the most exhausting first question ever. TAKE A BREATH, MAN.

And verily, just got the lastest build fired through with my changes in and some sterling changes from Andy and … blimmeny. I think I’ve broken my eyes good and proper. Here’s a sneak peek of some of the visual modes that Andy took earlier:

A lot of stuff is still subject to change, Andy’s being very nice in accommodating my flailing whims and iterative ways here but we’re getting closer by the day.

Oh yeah, and in case you didn’t already know, SYNSO:Squid Harder has been out a fortnight now. Check out the moddb page for more information. It’s already hit 4,000 downloads and seems to be going down really well so y’know, I’m a happy bunny.

There’s not too great a deal of stuff added from what folks have seen in the beta. It’s not that I haven’t been fiddling with stuff and adding it, it’s just that, well, it already feels pretty complete to me (at least, I’m bloody happy with it and most people who played the beta have been so I’m counting that as a win) and I don’t really want to distract from what already feels pretty right.

There’s been a lot of stuff I’ve spent far too much time on that just plain didn’t work out. Y’know, you don’t really know until you try. A couple of ideas for bonus stuff that I added and pulled because it just felt like it was forcing you to play the game a way that was never intended. A number of new enemy types that got ditched just before the beta never surfaced in the end. So, most of what I’ve been doing aside from that has been under the hood things – silly mistakes that hindered playing the game, the infamous blur issues, keyboard responsiveness and a few other tweaks along the way. Hopefully, it should just run better but we’ll see

There is one new enemy, mind. And no, you can’t kill it. It’s an edge skimming thingy to stop those with a want to cruise around the edges making life easy for themselves. There’s 4 of them and they appear on start up. Try not to run into them, there’s a love.

Other stuff that’s made an appearance over the course of the week? Background images, turn on and offable obviously. There’s one for each world to give that “ah, so this is a different world” vibe that a few folks requested. Personally, I prefer playing to a blank background but hey, the choice is there for you should you want it. Closed captions, just to prove it can be done really. They’re quite amusing to have on anyway regardless of how well you can hear. Finally, there’s colour blindness mode, which is precisely what it claims to be.

There’s some other stuff I’ve still got in mind, but I’ll likely save that for an update. I’ve got some work on SYNSO1 to go back to and finish off, so I’d like to take a small break and get on with that before returning to Squid Harder.

What else? Umm, this… it’s by Andy Noble. You might recognise it. Not sure what we’re doing with it yet. Hit the jump to take a peek.

War Twat was part inspired by Terry’s previous shooter “Self Destruct” and part a reactionary assault after increasing frustration with the grind of Everyday Shooter wearing me down.

Bullet Time is inspired, short fuse, crazed retro fun made in roughly the same time frame as War Twat too. I’ve still yet to make 30 seconds and somehow it feels as though the boot is on the other foot for a change.

Play it here.

SYNSO:Squid Harder – Near Final from oddbob on Vimeo.

I’ve not managed to drag my sorry backside to either reading this or posting about it yet, so more than anything this is a bit of a reminder to myself to take a bloody break and go and do something else instead. Loved the first issue and quite looking forward to getting tucked into Issue 2. Refreshingly still free of “In 1984, I wanted a bike. Imagine my surprise when…”.

Evil Lair – On Architecture In Videogames

Seriously, these two things don’t collide in discussion nearly enough for my tastes. Bravo Jim.

Although it’s not mentioned in the piece, Painkiller for all its woes was really the first game to make me realise just how generic and bland a vast proportion of the environments we present are. In fact, now I look back I realise that most of my love for the game comes from the amount of thought that had been put into each and every scenario. The buildings themselves became something to admire, something to fear and something to explore. It somehow managed to tap into that same part of me that was fascinated by exploring derelict sites when I was a teenager (and my home town certainly had no shortage of these, likely more so now).

I also worry that I spent a bizarre amount of time whilst playing Half Life 2 and episodes taking screenshots of the Citadel. There’s something wrong with me, I swear.

The Team Fortress 2 Blog

Bogglingly brilliant series of posts after the accidental leaking of a video where Robin Walker fires everyone at Valve and instates Stavros Xanthris as Vice President. Internet comedy at its finest.

Stalin Vs Martians Interview

I’m getting a bit worn out defending SvM now but in case you need one more reason to love the guys behind it (and you should!) this interview is it.

If the people take Stalin vs. Martians too seriously, it’s their problem. There’s no cure for the idiot, we can’t help it and there’s no need to worry, unless the idiots will try to break our legs. I think it is quite obvious that this game just can’t be serious, it’s like a Troma movie, but with more elements of parody.

Dark Night Of The Soul

Staggeringly brilliant album. May not see release due to record company politics. Available to stream on NPR. Go!

Hard Wired For Gaming

I missed this the first time round (my Escapist aversion coming into play as usual) but well, just go and read it.

Calling It A Day – David Haywood

Sad day indeed, yet somehow not entirely unpredictable y’know?

Activision go overboard

Seriously people, stop with that fucking disclaimer. It makes you look like utter fools. I’m going to bung the full disclaimer in after the jump here so you can see it’s stupidity in all its glory without having to click off here.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-looking Statements: Information in this press release that involves Activision Publishing’s expectations, plans, intentions or strategies regarding the future are forward-looking statements that are not facts and involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Activision Publishing generally uses words such as “outlook,” “will,” “could,” “would,” “might,” “remains,” “to be,” “plans,” “believes,” “may,” “expects,” “intends,” “anticipates,” “estimate,” future,” “plan,” “positioned,” “potential,” “project,” “remain,” “scheduled,” “set to,” “subject to,” “upcoming” and similar expressions to help identify forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause Activision Publishing’s actual future results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements set forth in this release include, but are not limited to, sales levels of Activision Publishing’s titles, shifts in consumer spending trends, the impact of the current macroeconomic environment, the seasonal and cyclical nature of the interactive game market, Activision Publishing’s ability to predict consumer preferences among competing hardware platforms (including next-generation hardware), declines in software pricing, product returns and price protection, product delays, retail acceptance of Activision Publishing’s products, adoption rate and availability of new hardware and related software, industry competition, rapid changes in technology and industry standards, protection of proprietary rights, litigation against Activision Publishing, maintenance of relationships with key personnel, customers, vendors and third-party developers, domestic and international economic, financial and political conditions and policies, foreign exchange rates, integration of recent acquisitions and the identification of suitable future acquisition opportunities, Activision Blizzard’s success in integrating the operations of Activision Publishing and Vivendi Games in a timely manner, or at all, and the combined company’s ability to realize the anticipated benefits and synergies of the transaction to the extent, or in the timeframe, anticipated, and the other factors identified in Activision Blizzard’s most recent annual report on Form 10-K and any subsequent quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. The forward-looking statements in this release are based upon information available to Activision Publishing and Activision Blizzard as of the date of this release, and neither Activision Publishing nor Activision Blizzard assumes any obligation to update any such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements believed to be true when made may ultimately prove to be incorrect. These statements are not guarantees of the future performance of Activision Publishing or Activision Blizzard and are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors, some of which are beyond its control and may cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations.

Pricks.

A 98% complete version of SYNSO:Squid Harder for your enjoyment, ladies and gentlemen. Due to rewriting World 4 from scratch I’ve not had time to throw in World 5 and a number of different tunes for each stage. So, I’ll be doing that over the next day or so. That said, there’s no point me sitting on it much longer – it’s already entered into Indiecade (cross yer fingers for me) and it’s been in the hands of testers for a few days now in various forms, so what the heck, here goes nothing.

Oh yeah, I also broke Bagfull because I’m a twat. So, until I fix stuff up, try here:

http://www.moddb.com/games/squid-yes-not-so-octopus