Shoobop / Blog

Super Meat Boy!

Fri, 22 Oct 2010 19:25:18 +0100

So with Shoobop down I needed to unwind so last night I picked up a copy of Super Meat Boy for 800 MSPoints on Xbox Live and began playing. Now I’ve seen all the hype, and to be fair in the indie circles there is a LOT of hype for this game, I must admit I found it if anything a turn off when I logged into Twitter to find my feed spammed with links to 10/10 reviews of SMB, but with pickings on the XBLA being slim this week (as I don’t care for Sonic 4) I went ahead and downloaded the surprisingly small game (only 100mb or so, not much considering most arcade games struggle to stay under the 2 gig file size limit). 2 Hours later I noticed it was 1am! The game draws you in with almost instant action and fun but challenging levels. The controls are so responsive you can only blame yourself when you die and the addition of unlockable characters from other indie titles is beautiful, each having their own advantage yet somehow never breaking the game, a sign of VERY good level design!

The soul issue I have with SMB is in it’s presentation, not the graphics, although they feel like they are lifted directly from the Newgrounds flash game, they fit in well. The cut-scenes on the other hand feel rushed, which is odd for a game that has been worked on for quite some time. Now I don’t know how small the team is, maybe the guy making the graphics simply didn’t have time to work on the videos as much as he’d like too and that would be fair, but they did feel lacking.

BUT A GAME IS ABOUT THE GAME! Am I right? Hell I’m right! And this is a damn fun game! Got a few quid in your bank account? Got an Xbox 360? Get this game! Hell look at it this way…can it be worse than Sonic 4?

Shoobop Got Broked!

Fri, 22 Oct 2010 19:13:27 +0100

Hey-ho-hum Hello!

So in true Timbo fashion I broke shoobop.com…again…like the retard I am. This wasn’t whoops I deleted a theme file’ kinda screw up like before though, no this was more ‘whoops I removed large chunks of code in a mad frenzy thinking I could simply put them back if it didn’t work and OH NO! The site has locked down!’. Alas I had to remove everything and begin rebuilding again, which begs the question…what should Shoobop be this time? Hmmmm…Ideas on post-cards kiddie-winkles!

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Tue, 12 Oct 2010 20:33:31 +0100

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Tue, 12 Oct 2010 20:32:08 +0100

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Tue, 12 Oct 2010 20:30:10 +0100

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Tue, 12 Oct 2010 20:28:51 +0100

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Tue, 12 Oct 2010 20:26:32 +0100

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Tue, 12 Oct 2010 20:25:34 +0100

What's This?! A Timbo? In your Tumblr? Ooooh Yes!

Tue, 12 Oct 2010 20:24:19 +0100

Hello peoples! I know I’ve been AFK for waaaa-haaaaay too long, I do apologies for thing. To prove I am still alive I’m about to do an art dump…HERE WE GO!

Dungeons are a bitch...

Wed, 22 Sep 2010 14:00:08 +0100

So recently I’ve been a busy bee working on Dungeons and Towns People. The design document is about 95% done. All monsters have been written up, as have all key characters, and the dungeons, but now comes the tricky bit! Dungeon Puzzle Design!

I never thought it would be so hard to come up with creative puzzles, sure I can come up with “push button to open door” but that’s a mechanic not a puzzle, currently the most creative one I have is “light the torches in the right order”…yeah that’ll push your brain a? ahem

But I guess the big question is should the puzzles be tricky? The whole point of D&TP is a Zelda style rpg you can finish in a short afternoon, it is a flash game after all! If puzzles take a while to solve we are departing from that notion, we already made that mistake once and ended up cutting about 50% of extra content!

Anyway, just needed to babble and had a lunch break with no lunch (thankyou empty wallet) so yeah…there we go…MORE NEWS ON D&TP SOON!

Stuffs going down?

Sat, 18 Sep 2010 22:28:06 +0100

Hai!

Right, anyone who accesses this site normally via shoobop.com may have noticed it’s re-opened as a blog, but fear not! This is still my blog! Shoobop has now become a games article place…thingy. I wanna try my hand at video game journalism so thought I better make it look fancy and all, that way I can show it off more than a free tumblr blog…no offence tumblr.

Also if your bored why not check out weplay.shoobop.com! An in development website for holding my and my friends failed Lets Play’s! FUN FOR ALL!

Anywho, busy busy busy but just wanted to let you all know whats happening. <3

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Sat, 18 Sep 2010 00:34:34 +0100

Let's Fail At Pokemon!

Wed, 15 Sep 2010 00:31:13 +0100

Hello boys and girls! Me and my friend Freebreezey arsed about on Pokemon today, check it out if your bored…I should point out it’s horrid and a total train wreck but you may find a lol or two hidden in it :-)

VIDEO!

Wake me up when September ends...

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 20:35:47 +0100

Welcome to September! Wehay!

I have a bad history with the month of September, so if there is ever a time I’ll drop off the radar it’s now, this isn’t my plan though cause I have something sexy in the works with a mate of mine :-D yes it’s time for another issue of “Timbo refers to a project that never gets to see the light of day!” Yaaaaaay! But seriously, I’ll be trying to update this place a little more, I’m also gonna be appearing in live Let’s Plays as a commentator along side my friends Febreezey and MattyFTW, links when there are some! I’m also looking into launching a PodCast, I don’t know the angle I wanna take on it though, Retro Games, Indie Games, or Games in general…hmmm…

Oh and a heads up for anyone who gets to this via shoobop.com, this weekend I hope to get the site redesigned, if so it may mean some down time so update your bookmark if you wanna continue to check for a total lack of updates here :-D

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Sat, 28 Aug 2010 12:37:20 +0100

123 Blast On - Choose Your Own Adventure

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 22:36:00 +0100

1-2-3 Blast On! by 1-2-3 Blast On!

This is truly an amazing retro-8bit style album, from the sexy guys who gave us Icarus Proudbottom. I’ve had this thing on loop all day while doing pixely work and it just wont get old. It’s free although if you can afford it why not throw them a little moolah, or if you don’t live in Oddworld, whatever cash you have, they deserve it for the hard work!

Ps. Yes in the first publish of this article I was retarded enough to title it ‘Cheese Your Own Adventure’, snazzy typo a? =D

some gif animations to pass the time...

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 22:59:16 +0100

These all work as MSN Display Pictures :-D

In my little world Death is more cuddly than...

Tue, 17 Aug 2010 22:33:34 +0100

In my little world Death is more cuddly than scary…admittedly he’s much more evil than our poor death who seems to get all the blame for just doing his job, poor thing :-(

Stuff for Making Games...Epic Games!

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 22:57:35 +0100

Hehehe! Look at him run!

*ahem* Right, as I’m getting another sleepless night cause I live next to some grade A cunt I thought I’d update the blog with a post!

I don’t have much content for the site right now as my days consist of work and sleep (I take all the sleep I can get when I find 5 minutes of silence). So as a mate of mines little bro has taken an interest in Game Making I thought I’d do a list of useful sites and tools you should check out if you wanna get into the fun world of indie games too :-D

1. Game Maker
Game Maker is one of the most well known tools in the game making world as it’s the first step into coding for most people with the use of a drag and drop interface and a huge community of helpful people who write tutorials and give out copies of their basic source for their own games so you can pick at it to learn how it ticks.

2. Adventure Game Studio
A tool designed specifically for making First and Third person adventure games like the classics of the 90s (Monkey Island, Broken Sword, and Space Quest to name a few). This requires some code but there are some very handy video tutorials on youtube as well as websites that’ll guide you though the process to making a basic game.

3. RPG Maker Series
The RPG Maker Series has been running for a looong time with new installments from time to time adding new basic systems and features to improve your games. The interesting thing about RPG Makers recently (such as XP and VX) is the addition of a powerful coding system that can be used by more advanced users to totally customize everything in the engine from top to bottom allowing for some very creative games. Oddly this series isn’t about picking up a copy of the newest tools, each one feels different, RPG Maker 2003 used a side on battle system much like Final Fantasy I-VI, but XP uses a First Person battle system more in tune with Dragon Quest. XP Allows for the use of much larger character sets but VX limits you to much smaller sprites in return for additional map editing features. It’s really about trying them till you find one that fits you, the down side being most of them never (legally) made it to the western world.

4. TIG Source
TIG (The Independent Game) Source is a website known for it’s awesome Indie community who are very accepting of newcomers and always encouraging of peoples projects. This is where I started my indie life and I’d recommend you do the same, it’s an awesome place to meet fellow game makers as well as team up with people who need your skills while you need theirs.

5. Indie Game Blog
A blog dedicated to following the news of the indie game world, always a nice place to check on to see what others are up too as well as a handy resource for launching your games as they love to support the indie devs!

6. How to Record your Game
Finished your game or feel you are far enough in to make a trailer to stir up some interest? Check out Pixel Prospector’s guide on how to record your game-play and edit it into a trailer :-D the site it’s self is a VERY handy resource too and worth checking out, I just felt this was an article not enough sites have so it should be the key thing I link too there.

7. The Idiot’s Guide to Marketing Your Indie Game
The clue is in the title. This is very handy and highlights things most would over look however simple it seems.

8. Flixel/Flash Punk
These two cover the same thing in two different ways but both are very handy, it’s all down to personal preference which one you use. In basic they are libraries of code for Flash to allow you to make a Flash Game muuuch easier than doing it solo. Their sites come with handy tutorials and they even recommend some free Flash tools so you don’t have to go blowing all your money on Adobes version :-D

Now obviously this isn’t the ultimate list of tools, hell if anything I’ve left out quite a few, but for a starting indie dev it’s pointless getting lost in a sea of different tools and sites, these are the basic starting points I’d recommend, from there the path you pick is up to you :-D

Could this possibly be the best video game known to man? I think...

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 22:21:39 +0100

Could this possibly be the best video game known to man? I think so!

You can get it on Mac and Windows HERE