Announcing Negative Spacecraft!

By Montoli | Published October 18, 2010

New crazy shmups inbound!

Looking at my recent dalliance into games about poetry, you could probably be forgiven if you were worried that I was past my “boss rush” phase, had forsaken SHMUPS and had decided to go play with word games, my new best friend, for ever and ever, from now on.

If you thought this however, you were in err!

I also still make crazy SHMUPS as well!

Behold! A new game:  Negative Spacecraft!

What?  You don’t believe me?  Well… maybe some details will convince you…  after the break!

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Haiku News (Hai-news?)

By Montoli | Published October 11, 2010

So I released Haiku Hero, and then promptly vanished off to Japan to hang out with the cool folks from Nigoro/Asterizm, sing Karoke, and eat delicious chicken katsu.  (I’m not actually cool enough to know them personally, but got a rare chance to tag along when master translator extrodinaire Shih Tzu went a’visiting.  Since him, apparently, I am cool enough to know personally.)

It was a good two weeks!  But now I’m back, and digging out from under all the things I put off in the meantime.  Not the least of which is press coverage! Yes, humble haiku hero has managed to get at least a bit of decent press, thanks to its unusual premise and peoples’ innate love of writing silly things while under constraints.

So!  What are people saying?  Click on to find out!

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Do You Haiku?

By Montoli | Published September 15, 2010

I made a new game!

It’s been quite a while since I last updated.  Longer still since I posted anything that resembled a game.  But today, gentle reader, is the day I remedy both of these ills with a single stroke!  Even so, it’s probably going to be a while before I’m allowed to make fun of friends who don’t update their webpages in a timely fashion, but so it goes.  You’re safe for now, friends with un-updated web pages.  For now.

For everyone else, though – I have made a new game!  It’s called Haiku Hero, and is being sponsored by the fine folks over at Kongregate.com.  It is very different from my last game.  (But fear not, SHMUP fans, I have something in the works that I should be announcing soon, which should be a bit more interesting to you…)  I think it is pretty neat!  I’m fairly happy with how it ended up at any rate, and and I love the music.  (Courtesy of the excellent Kristin Miltner.)  It’s basically a game about making Haikus.  And you can play it right now.

Play Haiku Hero at Kongregate!

Or, you can read on, for a much longer-winded description of what it is and how it came to be! Continue reading »

Posted in Games, Haiku Hero | 7 Comments

Let me tell you why I love Twilight:Eclipse the 8-bit game

By Montoli | Published June 29, 2010
Twilight Title

Game of the year, 2010

This is a headline that I will freely admit I never thought I would write.  But this is too good to pass up.  It is genius.  For a couple of reasons.

Let me list them for you!

But first, here is what it is.  It is a youtube video or several.  Also, the best twilight-themed game I have ever played.  Play/watch it here:

8-Bit Twilight – The game

So let’s get started.  Reasons that I think it’s genius.

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Posted in Cool People, Game Design, Other Peoples' Games | 2 Comments

Escapism at its Finest!

By Montoli | Published May 25, 2010

There is a very nice piece up on the Escapist today, about the role of bosses in modern games.  It features thoughtful insights from Team Meat‘s own Edmund McMillen!  Also, a bunch of random and self-contradictory statements from yours truly!  But then, on the last page, we totally combine our powers for a thrilling conclusion!

Give it a glance!

Posted in Cool People, Game Design, Industry News, Other Peoples' Games, Press | Leave a comment

Haiku time!

By Montoli | Published May 18, 2010

For various reasons that are right and good, today’s update will be delivered in the form of several haiku.

I have been busy!
A new game is in the works.
Soon it will be done!

It’s not at all like
my last humble offering.
It is not a SHMUP.

I am quite happy
with how it is turning out.
You can play it soon!
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My delicate sensibilities!

By Montoli | Published May 16, 2010

Been playing StarCraft 2 beta a bit lately, with the fine folks at Final Form Games.  I had originally been down on it since it didn’t sound like it was going to have a 2 player co-op single player game.  (Unlike Dawn of War, Red Alert 3 etc.)  Being a big fan of co-op, this made me sad.  Then we discovered 2v2 multiplayer, and life became beautiful and full of flowers.  And explosions.  Actually, mostly explosions.  Frequently in my base, but occasionally in other peoples’, which generally makes me happy.

One thing that I’ve noticed though, is that the game features an almost comical profanity filter.  To, you know, keep people’s delicate sensibilities intact in the in-game chat.  Happily it can be easily disabled or circumvented (standard tricks like putting spaces in the word work) but so far we’ve left it on, figuring that most people will leave it on by default, and we’d rather make sure we know when we’re being bleeped out.  Because you see, it is a bit… overzealous… in what it considers inappropriate.  Read on for our inappropriate findings!

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Posted in Industry News, Other Peoples' Games | Leave a comment

It’s Worse to Punch a Virtual Face

By Montoli | Published April 26, 2010

It looks like video games are on their way to court again.  In particular, a 2005 law in California prohibiting selling of violent video games to minors.  It has been struck down once already by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, (on grounds that it violated free speech rights) but is on its way to be heard by the Supreme Court.

All of that is interesting, fascinating and tremendously important for the future of the industry, etc.  As a programmer, the “is programming free/protected speech” issue is naturally somewhat important to me.  I would be saddened to see a law that made it illegal for budding programmers (who are minors) to make crappy remakes of Double Dragon and show them to their (also minor) friends.

But that’s not the part I want to talk about right now.  All of this got me curious enough to look at the law in question, and one part in particular seems really really odd to me.  I realize that reading through legal texts isn’t everyone’s idea of a good time, but bear with me for a moment, and check out this part:

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Fame Through Osmosis

By Montoli | Published April 18, 2010

Neat!  According to this website (Zehn.de) [google translation]  Boss Rush is the 9th most thrilling action game on the internet!  Canabalt is predictably #1, but it’s kind of cool to be mentioned in the same article!

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More Boss Rush Press

By Montoli | Published April 13, 2010

We got another review (and nice placement!) on revlry.com.  They seem to like it!  Awesome!  Thanks Revlry!

Also, somehow we seem to have made it to the top google search for “Boss Rush”!  Which is surprising, but still pretty cool!

Posted in Boss Rush, Cool People | 1 Comment