Monday, September 28, 2009

Game update, travel update

Oh man, it's a busy Monday. I've just released a game patch for Onslaught of the Electric Zombies, have tried in vain to pay proper attention to various writing commitments, and am now preparing for an overnight bus trip to the noisy ol' province of Gauteng. While I'm no stranger to such journeys (heck, I got pretty deep about them once), I still can't say that I'm looking forward to it.

I obviously need to train up more and get a taste for travel again. Being lame and nest-ish in Grahamstown has its perks, but I'm steadily losing my vagabond mentality. A pity. Maybe hitting the rAge expo this weekend will do something for me.

Hawright!

For those of you who aren't familiar with rAge: well, it's a bloody big game/tech expo -- at least by South African standards. Fancy overseas buggers may be taking a freaking slice out of the moon to hold their own showfloors, but I don't really care as long as I'm surrounded with bright lights, loud noises and lots of like-minded people. Which kinda describes the average student party except for the fact that people aren't, you know, fall-on-your-face drunk. It's quite novel in that respect.

I'll try write a bit more about rAge if I have the time: it's starting this Friday and lasts for three days, so I'm quite sure that something newsworthy can come out of it. At the very least, I'll have an opportunity to flog my- OH YES, GAME UPDATE BY THE WAY! ONSLAUGHT OF THE ELECTRIC ZOMBIES NOW HAS A GLOBAL LEADERBOARD! Check it out now and upload your scores: if you get to the top of the leaderboard, everybody will think you're totally awesome and stuff.

This guy is riding a freaking dragon, and even he isn't as awesome as you are.

Unfortunately, that's all I can afford to write for now: my remaining time in Grahamstown is ticking down, and I don't really think that I'll be able to get everything done in time if I spend too long on this blog post.

Cheers for now. And try my game if you haven't done so already.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Liberation!

See this? This is the INTERNET:

Sneaky advertising, free of charge.

The reason why I find this so special is because one of my regular Grahamstown haunts, Cow Moon Theory, has just gotten itself some sexy wireless access, meaning that I don't have to rely on my bloody unreliable cellphone to get basic chores done. Makes a nice change.

Sorry, Mr Cellphone.

No longer do I have to crumple my face when somebody sends me a paltry 5 megabyte file. No longer am I doomed to turning down Gtalk links just because they happen to be made of videofailure. No longer am I forced to wake up horrifically early (read: pre-noon) every single Tuesday just so that I can make sure a tiny article submission gets uploaded to my editors over at NAG Online without the file mysteriously breaking down and flipping me the bird halfway through.

Seriously, that damn process has taken HOURS sometimes.

Of course, there's a flipside: if I screw up from now on, I probably won't be allowed to blame my cellphone connection. A pity, but it's a sacrifice that I'm willing to make in interest of totally sweet Internetlands.

Kinda hoping that this new development sticks. It's pretty novel being allowed to enable browser pictures again ...

Monday, September 21, 2009

Onslaught of the Electric Zombies: RELEASED!

Hey, remember that post I made a few weeks ago before disappearing? It had something to do with zombies and videogames and crap, and I was muttering a bunch of excited things about finishing it off and updating my blog more often and stuff.

Well, hey, I wasn't lying:

My artist pushes this sort of thing pixel by pixel. He's clinically insane.

So yeah. The game's out of the door, and due to certain marketing obligations, I pretty much HAVE to update this blog regularly again. A good excuse to get into writing again: I've been in a bit of a work rut these past few weeks. Cool game project aside, of course.

For those of you not in the loop: Onslaught of the Electric Zombies is a bit of a cross between Roguelikes and Minesweeper. A typical game session consists of a randomly generated 'dungeon' (16 levels deep) which you have to navigate in the same way that one would typically solve a Minesweeper board. The difference here is that you actually have to fight monsters, manage health, pick up items and level up skills in good ol' RPG fashion.

It's really fun. You should try it.

Head on over to this page for the game download. I hope y'all find it fun: I also hope that you decide to go off and show it to all your friends (though not me, because I kinda already know about it and stuff).

Post some high scores if you want: I'm keen to hear what people think of this little bugger!

Also: this is my 100th blog post! This calls for a celebration.

TOGA PARTY!

I'm off to find a pizza and eat it. Laters, fellow people!