The Endless Forest

One IGF entrant I was surprised to see on the list was an experimental MMO called The Endless Forest. I first found out about it last year, but it was too weird for me. But now it seems to have acquired a stable following of seemingly sane fans, so I am giving it a second chance.

Basically it's a game where you are a magical stag with a human-ish face, with a glowy pictogram between your antlers that serves to differentiate you from the other players. You walk around in a mysterious forest, where you may find other deer to play with. There is no chat though - all communication must be done with body language.

There's some weirder stuff too. Apparently there exist "pagan souls" that you can convert to Christianity by touching them. At the end of the day pagan souls turn into pagan idols while Christian souls turn into gravestones with crosses on them. Not only that but there are plans to add computer-controlled female deer with which you must mate.

So naturally I suspected that it was part of an evil plan to brainwash players into joining some sort of strange and dangerous cult. :p However, after reading through the forums, which are full of innocent discussion among players, as well as friendly and sane responses by the developers, some of my initial suspicion has been lifted. I have even downloaded the game and created an account!

(to be continued...)

Independent Games Festival

I'd heard of the Independent Games Festival before, but I didn't give much thought to it until today. I had never really entertained the possibility of myself being a contestant. But I came across the list of entrants, and was surprised to see so many familiar names. Plasma Pong? Ragdoll Masters? Even Stick Arena? They're fun games, but they're not epic. If they can enter, well so can I!

Unfortunately, I discovered that the main competition deadline was September 8th (which is presumably why the list of entrants was up in the first place). But there is also a student competition (free to enter!) with a November 10th deadline. Since I happen to be a student, that sounds like a good opportunity for me to potentially win $2,500 or at least get to attend the GDC for free.

So I have about two months to make a good game! I'll probably just submit Braids or make a special version of it. Though it would be cool to make a completely new game for the contest! :D

I'm back!

It's been almost a year since I started this blog. Now I am finally going to use it for something!

The reason for this sudden reappearance is that I'm nearing the final stages of my first full Flash game, Braids! I need a website to link to in order to take advantage of the tremendous popularity ;) that will no doubt surround the game, so I figured I might as well turn this blog into my central base on the Internet. I will post my thoughts and responses to various books and findings, as well as use this as a sort of development blog for my games.

I have already put links to most of my online identities on the side bar here, as well as linked back to this site in each of my profiles. I also intend to replace the links on the side with links that better reflect my current online identity and activities.

Thanks to all of my nonexistent fans! :D Hope to see more of you around here soon!