samuelvictor

@Salnax Very true! It's a shame EA lost the quality they uses to be known for. I've heard good things about EA FC though, considering jumping back in for that one 😀

@Sonicka Couldn't be more hyped! 🤩🥳

@Sonicka The spoiler you posted makes me really happy - I've not seen it and won't seek it out but as I wasn't sure about that design at first, that sounds like I'll love her 😀

Physical Sonic for me, obviously. Im interested in Dino Ranch and Asterix & Obelix though, will be looking at reviews and maybe buying later on sale 🙂

@Salnax Oh, that's really interesting insight, thank you! So even though sports games are often thought to sell to more casual audiences, the quality drop was still very noticeable. EA really let it slip. Big shame. For me, the PS2 era is the last one where I really paid attention to any of these games except FIFA. I wasn't aware of this slow decline.

@JR150 Someone mentioned the elephant in the room? 😅

@ZZalapski Yeah it seems crazy 😳

@JohnnyMind Yes! I'm still so delighted 😀

The silhouettes of the characters on the bar code are taken from their 16bit walk cycles, and Amy's is from her original Sonic CD frames when she chases Sonic (Not the new Origins Plus walk). That's so cool! 😍

@Nua Funny, I've watched that trailer several times of course, and it's not really registered. My main thought was that I didn't like the way the Switch box aspect ratio cropped the cg art, and I didn't really care about the acrylic stand.

That reversible cover was so small on the screen and only there for a second and I barely noticed. It was probably leaked elsewhere but I've been off social media for months now so wouldn't have seen.

Seeing this photo with the scale of it and how it fits the aspect ratio so much better than the cropped cg one, I love it so, so much 😊

@HammerGalladeBro Yeah I do wish we had a bigger cardboard sleeve and an art book like Mania and Origins Plus. Though I'm over the moon how well the 3 reversible covers will match each other. I display the cardboard separately to the game boxes on my shelf.

@Nua I must have not really twigged that it meant that there was a proper 2d cover for those of us that want it. And it looks soooo good too. I really have mentioned in several threads on this site how much I'm looking forward to this game but how meh I felt the cover was. I'm very, very happy that I love this alternative so much, it will look beautiful displayed with Mania and Origins 🥰

OMG I LOVE the reversible cover art! I mentioned before on this site several times that I wasn't keen on the cgi cover for a retro style Sonic game and wished Sega would include 2d art like the old ones.

I had no idea they were actually going to have a reversible 2d hand drawn cover for those of us that prefer that 🤯

it's so freakin beautiful too 😍

And the spine matches the spine of the reversible covers of Mania and Origins Plus 😭

[Edit] and Tails is carrying Amy?!?!? qjdjfjxkNhysjcbdkkzhegb I'm so happy 😊

@LEGEND_MARIOID Me too! Glad to have physical copies of both Mania Plus and Origins Plus to sit next to each other - each having their own artbook with concept art, models sheets etc is great to be able to see the "real retro" development stuff and art compared to the "modern retro" style material they made for Mania.

The reversable cover for Mania is even styled in the "Megadrive/ Genesis 2" style template, implying that its meant to be a late stage Genesis game, IE coming out right after S&K... whereas the reversable cover for Origins uses the older template used for Sonic 1 & 2. I thought that was a nice little touch 😀

@SailorDonut Yeah I can't even imagine. If I'd have been offered the job to work in the art department of a Disney videogame studio I would have dropped everything and started a new life wherever they wanted me to be! 😍 I'm so sorry that happened to her. Avalanche were a quality studio its a tragedy they were closed. I'm glad she is doing well now though. Thats got to be a good job to have on your CV, for sure.

@LEGEND_MARIOID Sonic Mania is Sonic 4. We don't talk about that other one 😂

@HaileySheridon Ah I see that you were a Master System owner back in the day? It was my first console, it had Sonic 1 built in and Sonic Chaos was the first game I bought with my own money. The main reason I was excited for Chaos was that you could control Tails, and as I was new to videogames, he was like an easy mode where I could fly over difficult obstacles! 😂 (if you want to see how all 16/32bit classic characters look like in my reimagined versions of the 8bit titles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUTkCp485BA )

Thanks for the compliments, I'm actually a semi professional game dev, I've several proper games coming out for Switch and other consoles soon, all made in my own custom game engine I made to streamline making quality retro-style games for modern systems. I'm using the same engine to make the Sonic compilation. I'm very lucky in that when I was very little, even though I didn't have any consoles and wasn't allowed games, we had an old commodore and my dad taught me to program, so I've been making games for fun since the mid 80s!

My main job is being a movie producer, and as I like to work on a lot of indie projects that are lower budget, I often end up doing the editing, making VFX shots etc myself, so I'm pretty handy with compuetrs and stay up to date with technology. It does get harder the older you get though, I definitely agree!

All the retro games you mentioned are great. I actually went back to replay DKC 2 just last week and it gets pretty tough so its impressive you managed to beat it that quick!

And of course I'd absolutely love a compilation of the early 3d Sonic games! I thin kit seems more likely that we will get remasetred versions of Adventure 1/2 and Heroes than have them in a compilation, from what Iizuka and Kishimoto have said... that could be really good if they iron out some of the quirks like the cameras and wonky collision detection. Unleashed is excellent on Xbox Series X, its basically entirely remastered with higher resolution and better framerate etc! 😀 I'd love it to be available in more places though, its not even on PC, let alone Switch.

I was today years old when I discovered Madden is not on the Switch. No NHL or PGA either? Whats going on? 🤯

I assumed they at least released legacy editions like with FIFA. While I've been annoyed at legacy editions, that's at least better than no option at all! Are those series not a big sellers anymore? I assumed they were big as ever in the States, just as FIFA is in Europe.

@SailorDonut Oh really? I stand corrected, boo Iger as well then. What with all the absolutely horrendous choices Chapek made in his short tenure I assumed this was anotehr one of his choices. I definitely remember it being mentioned at a shareholders meeting and thinking it was a bad idea, but I must have conflated that memory with the disapsterous one where he essentially massacred the themeparks infront of my very eyes. Being I'd litearlly only just moved into an appartment right next door to Disneyland, this made me more than a little upset with him. 😂 Also, I'm in the movie industry and my goodness, if I could tell half the things I heard without getting sued... eesh.

Thats so awesome that a friend of yours was working on the Moana game. I really loved Ininifty and was all in as far as buying every figure, playset, expansion etc. Some of the 3.0 content was the best stuff they ever made, and I was SO annoyed when it got cancelled, especially with so much cool stuff on teh horizon and so many essential Disney characters and properties not covered yet. Now my collection feels somewhat incomplete. Was your friend at Avalanche? If so I'm sorry if they lost their job, they were a fantastic studio.

@HaileySheridon Yes its absolute insanity that we don't have a proper Frozen game. As you said, maybe we'll get one once Frozen 3 comes out. Elsa was really awesome to play as in the Infinity toybox challenges, but the effect isn't half as fun without her being in Arandale and surrounded by snow. I can't believe they are making a "live action" Moana. Is nothing sacred? lol

@HaileySheridon Unfortunately, Frozen, Moana and Zootopia (all of which I think would have made really good games) were released at the time when Disney was pushing Disney Infinity as a unified platform, and rather than releasing new standalone games, they would release playsets (essentially full games) that you could play in Inifinity instead... you just would have to buy 2 of the figures in each set to have a crystal to unlock their full game.

This wasn't necessarily a bad thing, I personally really enjoyed many of the playset games - Cars, Pirates of the Carribean, Toy Story, the 3 Star Wars games were all really good fun. However, because of the unwise way they handled Infinity by splitting it into 3 parts which confused which characters could play in what game, and also releasing too many characters too fast, the quality dipped, and sadly even though we got characters who played really well in the toybox levels, they didn't have the budget or time to release full playsets for their figures.

This was really frustrating, as in some ways, Infinity got better over time, but also it was clearly dying by the end, and it was cancelled early, so many Disney characters that you'd assume were a given (Goofy? Pluto?) never came... and many other playsets just never materialised.

For me, Frozen is the biggest crazy casualty of that. We got Elsa, Anna and Olaf figures, but no playset for them. This means the 2 highest grossing animated Disney films of all time never even got their own game... unless you count the portable or educational titles. Either a standalone game, or an Infinity pack in for a full playset with all 3 characters would have sold like hotcakes. How we got stuff like The Lone Ranger but no Frozen, Moana or Zootopia makes literally no sense... they obviously planned them but started to run out of funds.

@HaileySheridon Amy and Tails is my favourite combination for playing Origins Plus 😀

There will 100% be DLC for Superstars, it specifies on the box that there will be in app transactions. However, whether its just more skins/costumes/items, or more substantial style content with extra levels and characters remains to be seen - I'm sure if the game is a success, they will make this kind of bigger expansion.

I'd love the addition of any of those characters you mentioned! I don't know if you've seen me mention it before, but for SAGE 23 this year I started to build my own expanded version of "Sonic Origins" that includes remakes of the games Sega missed out, like Chaotix and the 8bit titles... but also a big motivation for me is making sure all classic characters are playable (and chosable as partners) in all games - Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Mighty, Ray, and all the Chaotix. I hope to have the full game finished for SAGE 24, but you can follow progress here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvTiAmOH8MM Of course, once its complete, I'll add the most requested other character to expand it even more over time 🥰

@jowe_gv "Noone is complaining about this and there is no reason to imagine someone in your head that does that."

Sadly that is the bread and butter of many people on both the left and the right nowadays. Best to not encourage either of them in their quest to create problems that don't exist so they can doomscroll a never ending echo chamber of outrage-p**n.

That said, had Bowser been repulsed by elephant peach I probably would have been a little offput by it, snowflake of the wokerazzi media that I am. 😂

@Supaguy Thanks so much!

Yes I love Yahtzee, he very often references both Fantasy World and Treasure Island Dizzy during the "Slightly Something Else" livestreams, it always makes me smile that he remembers them so fondly. These were probably the 2 most critically acclaimed Dizzy titles for the 8bit home computers and both were #1 sellers in the UK. They are essentially platformers but with Resident Evil style inventory puzzles, and stories based around traditional European folk lore and fairy tales.

Fantastic Dizzy was the first Dizzy game for consoles, and therefore had a higher price and higher expectations, so they made a much bigger game that was sort of a "greatest hits" all all the best ideas, puzzles and characters from all previous games into a large open worldish map, plus they added minigames which each cover completely different genres and styles. Its worth checking out (strangely, the excellent Master System version is the most fully featured, rather than the 16bit versions which are missing some stuff).

@Supaguy Thanks for the feedback, in many ways you are right. However, my main focus is on 2 big games which will be worthy of full physical releases and have loads of replay value. I already have publishers interested in both. I'm also going to be doing the same as Shovel Knight, Stardew etc all and regularly releasing free dlc that significantly expands the story mode and content over time. This is where my real interest is, in creating long term experiences for players that become fans of the IPs so that eventually when a sequel is released, there is a fanbase and reputation of teh games being quality and worth supporting.

Also bare in mind that my main job is producing movies, tv, animation and comic books, and promoting them at comiccons, selling merch etc, so having substantial story content for the new characters and worlds we create is very important, and to me is the most fun part of my job 😀

However, each one has around 20 minigames that I think could genuinely have been standalone arcade / console titles back in the 80s. Its certainly occured to me that I could also release them as $1-2 standalone digital only titles, and perhaps also as free mobile games with ads. No extra work, and these titles will act as advertising for the full games. 😀

My childhood example of Fantastic Dizzy is an interesting one, as it was a multiformat console release (albeit with budget prices for £15-25 depending on format) but several of the mini games were popular enough to spin off into their own standalone £2.99 budget titles for home computers. Thats a fun equivalent of me putting the minigames out for mobiles and eshop.

@PinderSchloss How is it body shaming? If anything, he prefers her elephant form as he gives her more flowers. Or he likes her either way but is trying to be respectful of giving a more appropriately sized bunch to go with her larger outfit? I don't see anything negative about his reaction to her change. Anyone would be shocked to see someone change into an elephant infront of them, but he's not repulsed.

@KingMike Chapek decided to shut down all of their first and second party studios and no longer publish games at all. He told shareholders this was a no-brainer as rather than have to pay employees, and risk money developing games, they could just charge other studios to use their IP and take on the risk of development costs, and then take a cut of the profits. Very stupid short term thinking that damaged the business, just like every single other "short term profit, long term damage" decision he made for the theme parks, movie franchises, animation studios and Disney Plus. He turned around quick profits for a single year to give the impression he had weatehred Covid better than other studio execs... and tanked their stock prices and consumer confidence for the next decade in the process. They should have sued him into oblivion, instead they forced him into early retirement with a golden handshake of tens of millions.

Sigh.

Disney literally used to own several videogames studios, making excellent products. Then they decided it would be more profitable and less risk to shut them down and license out the IPs to other developers to take the financial risk with - no upfront costs to Disney, just take a cut of the profits. Bonus! Except the quality tanked and they killed successful IPs and bankable studios in the process.

Now that their movies and theme parks are absolutely haemoraging money, suddenly they are looking to the videogame space again. Recent Disney management flip flops all over the place to make very short term profits and damages its long term prospects. In the last 4 years I can't think of a single positive change they've made for the longterm future of the themeparks or movie franchises... and they also seem intent on ruining Disney+.

As both a genuine fan, and someone who has loved working freelance for them in several capacities over the decades its really painful to watch their current downward spiral and see everything they touch getting actively worse. I can actually forsee a future where they sell their movie/animation business to someone like Apple, and if that ever happens, it will be a very, very sad day.

To put a positive spin on it, perhaps this is just Iger trying to reverse an obviously stupid decision that Chapek made?

Further to what others are saying, yes its a shame Famitsu seems to no longer be the reliable authority it used to be. Having 4 separate people review the game should lead to an overall decent picture of if the game is good, even accounting for differences of opinions.

But the fact Sonic Mania and Sonic Forces recieved the same score shows somethign is objectively very wrong there... Japanese audiences have never really "got" Sonic the way the rest of the world has though, its fascinating how they really don't seen to really understand the appeal more than "its a cute character" and they usually classify is as "an easy game for little kids", so the nuances between what make a good and bad Sonic game appear to get culturally lost somehow.

[edit] obviously I'm just being very general in how I'm interpreting the reviews, sales and responses over the decades, not actually trying to make any sweeping and potentially offensive statements about the Japanese people! I love Japan. But it does seem a genuine mismatch of design sensibilities somehow that means the small but cruicial differences get lost or aren't as appreciated. And of course I know there are hardcore Sonic fans in Japan - just far less than in other territories.

I'm confident that this game will average 7s and 8s with most reviewers, and for Sonc fans will be 8s and 9s. For me that's more than enough to be my most anticipated game of the year, which is saying something considering how much I love 2d Mario, Mario RPG and TTYD. A brand new 2D Sonic is just a really rare occasion and I love everything I've seen of this so far.

@JohnnyMind There was some initial understandable resistence to the change of pricing model - mostly for fear of what happens if the company shuts down, subscriptions are no longer available, and you can no longer use the language you've been learning?

The blow was very much softened by how Opera/YoYo handled it though - they added a compeletely free tier with no feature restrictions, they have no minimum term for subscriptions (so you could realistically make a project for free, then just subscribe for a single month for $5 to export it), they gave some lip service at least to the thought that if the company ever were to cease to exist they would release a final executable that doesn't require subscriptions, so it would become free to use, and (crucially for me so I didn't get mad) they stated they will honour all previously purchased lifetime licenses in perpetuity.

As far as I'm concerned, you can't say much fairer than that. And considering the subscriptions are very cheap (even if you want the full licenses to export for all current consoles, pcs and mobile platforms its only $60) and they don't take a single penny from your sales, its definitely the best deal from a major engine. Massive games like Undertale, Hyperlight Drifter and Hotline Miami have been made with Gamemaker and never paid any royalties... had they been made in unity or unreal the developers would be down literally hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of dollars.

[edit] AFAIK Unity Technologies have only ever made one commercial game themselves, GooBall for IOS. Basically, Unity was the engine they created for GooBall, and when the game failed, they started licensing the engine for other mobile games to try and make their money back. Turned out to be the best early attempt to make a multipurpose engine for IOS games, so Apple bought/heavily financially supported it as an engine for making both iPhone and Mac games... eventually it expanded to support Android, Windows etc.

@MonsignorBapadopolis Yes both languages are comparitively similar to C++ in code and by being object oriented. Once you are proficient in either one of them it would be quite quick to move accross... though only a sadist would attempt to code their own 3d engine in C rather than use one of the existing solutions 😂

GML is more accessible for absolute beginners, whilst absolutely being good enough to make commercial games - many big titles have been made with it (Hotline Miami, Hyperlight Drifter, Undertale etc)

But GoDot is definitely one to watch and hopefully can expand and improve into a true competitor to the bigger established engines. My personal politics lead me to always want to support open source software where possible.

"Sony's diskless PS5 offers exactly the same specs for $100 less than the $500 version with the Blu-ray disc drive." haha unfortunate timing... the newly anounced replacement models for the PS5 have the digital only version at just $50 cheaper. Madness!

Absolutely not. 😤

...well, ok if it was the only option available, I wouldn't abandon Nintendo altogether. But I'd be really annoyed (as I also will if its not backwards compatible with all my Switch games) to the point that I'd probably say I wasn't going to buy one... and then finally give in a year or two down the line and get one second hand or on sale... but I'd still resent it! 😂

They are very cute. As others have said, reminiscent of Fabuland in their simplicity, which does suit the characters.

I was personally hoping for slightly fancier and more elaborate buildings, the fan made example in the tweet included in this article is still in a scale to fit the minifigures, but closer to what I was imagining. But I absolutely don't hate this, and I am still completely in love with the minifigs. My wallet is relieved that the preices are relatively lower than if they'd have gone the whole hog.

I'll buy Tom, Isabelle and Kapp'ns sets, the villagers so far are not ones I have a particular attacment to, I've never had any of them live on my island.

I'm baffled that we have no Town Hall or Museum... hopefully they are coming soon if the range does well?

@Supaguy Haha yeah! I personally lean more towards making games that I feel will give good value at around the $15-25 mark, and have a decent length story/campaign mode for people to play with.

But I also personally really love early 80s Namco style arcade games, and early 90s style puzzle games, the kind of short pick up and play experience that you can come back to for a few minutes and try and beat your high score.

So rather than make loads of simple arcade like experiences that I would either give away free or sell for $2 each, I like to include multiple mini games with different playstyles in my bigger games... and then have an unlockable mode where people can play a full dedicated version of that mini game with multiple levels, endless high score chase modes etc. Perhaps the reason I like this approach better is as a kid I adored Fantastic Dizzy - a platform game with 5 different arcade style minigames along the way, and to me it felt like I'd got really good value for money as it was like several games for the price of one!

However, that does mean it spoils the chance of one of those minigames accidentally going viral like thais one did!! I'm slightly sore that I never had enough confidence in my little game that I made back in 1995 to ever release it publicly - its crazy that such a simple game is making millions. Congratulations to them I guess! 😂

@Maxz Absolutely agree with everything @MonsignorBapadopolis just said. Even though I feel very experienced in many languages I still pretty much have to google stuff constantly. Having a good base knowledge and understanding of the language, and programing in general, makes it easier to google for precisely what you are trying to achieve, and also means that while you may not find the exact answer you need, you'll find 2 different answers which give you a new idea of how you may tackle the problem, that you wouldn't have reached without reading that experience of others tryign to do something similar.

The reason I recomended GameMaker over GoDot is siomply because as an absolute beginner, there is excellent documentation, decades of people making in depth tutorials, and the official forums and Reddit are so active that if you get stuck, someone will help you almost right away. However, I definitely agree that GoDot is a fantastic project, and growing every day. For a 3d indie project it would be my first recomendation withoput a doubt. For 2d, I'm not convinced it can do anything gamemaker can't do easier, and almost as fast performance wise... but thats just from my experimenting with it - its growing all the time and as I said before I genuinely hope that it grows into an/(the?) industry standard. The fact its open source and therefore 100% free to use forever is amazing and I aplud everyone involved. If you learned GML and got familiar with how programing works, I think it would be easy enough to graduate over to GoDot later once you wanted to work in 3d or just go completely independent of paying any corporate overlords to make your art! Once you understand the genearl cadence of how programing languages work, its comparitively simple to learn more, especially as both GoDot and GML are object-oriented.

@Pod Yeah I agree with all of that. Its a really shame, but I am biased as I tend to lean towards prefering 2d to "3d" CG art. I trained in traditional animation for 2 years with Don Bluth and some other ex Disney legends and to me, well crafted hand drawn work (obviously nowadays included digitally painted 2d) is just so much nicer than anything "3d"... but of course 3d stuff CAN absolutetly be beautiful art too... its just that a lot of stuff leads towards a more bland corporate look where everything is sterile and evenly lit and they re-use the same models and assets over and over...

As for Sonic's ingame graphics, for the 3d games, yeah thats a problem. The YouTube channel Splash Dash (the Sonic themed 2nd channel of animation channel LS Mark) has recently pointed out how the Sonic models are getting actually worse with each game, and that the cutscenes in particular nowadays actually look worse than games from 10+ years ago. Frontiers is a pretty good game and I liked the writing and voice acting for the new cutscenes for the 3rd update, but they were really poorly staged, animated and lit. Theres reasons for it (for example, having a day to night cycle and the cutscenes being able to start at any time means you can't dynamically light them) but the final result not good.

On the happier side, while I personally would have prefered a new pixel art or hand-drawn style for Superstars, I think the style they went with looks really, really nice. I wouldn't be mad if all future side scrolling games were in that style.

@romanista Haha thank you! I'll let you know if I have a project that needs promotion 😉

@JalapenoSpiceLife I have heard that they are well liked and very well connected with a lot of people in the industry. They also currently run a videogame industry podcast so presumably are still connected and speaking to people despite leaving Nintendo. I have experience with them personally though I remember the Nintendo Minute videos being popular.

@Princess_Lilly Oh I completely agree that the 90s and 2000s are the golden age for videogames. And don't get me wrong, the Dreamcast/PS2/Gamecube/Xbox era is one of my favourite generations. As you mentioned, a huge amount of extremely creative, artistic, unique titles in that time period.

Several other of the games you mentioned were the previous generation - ps1/saturn/n64. Notice that I said it was the late 90s and early 2000s where the push for graphics became a problem for me persoanlly to catch up with, and it stopped being fun, or even realistic for me to continue professionally.

I grew up in the 80s, and my dad taught me to program when I was a young kid, in single digits. Back then in the UK, the predominant games systems were the Spectrum, C64 and Amstrad CPC. Every one of those systems allowed anyone to program their own software and didn't require development kits. Pretty much ALL of the top selling games had a single programmer, and often these games were literally created by kids and teens in their bedroom. My favourite game series (before Sonic came out!) was Dizzy - there were 12 games released in about 2 years and each one pretty much always topped the charts... Dizzy was created by the Oliver Twins, 2 kids not much older than me.

Of course, once the 16bit consoles became popular in the early 90s, graphics became more impressive. But if you had an Amiga, Atari ST or DOS PC it was still perfectly possible for a single dev in their bedroom to make a 16bit game that could approximately rival the AAA Megadrive and SNES games.

Then in the early 32bit era, when things started to go 3d, comparitively basic games like Doom or Ridge Racer were possible to erpluicate my yourself, if you worked EXTREMELY hard. But it took a long time, and you were bascially having to learn an entirely new skill, not much knowledge transfered.

But by the end of the 32bit era, and especially once dedicated 3d cards and aengines became a thing for PC games, and consoles started moving to the "128" specs, new technologies became overwhelmeing... brand new engines, shaders, software needed top be mastered every month! Often these had their own unique scripting engines, so you had to learn new languages constantly too, not to mention the ever evolving 3d modelling software.

This was a very exciting time for gaming, but essentially made it impossible for a single person or even a small team to make a game by themselves atht could compete with the latest releases. By the time you'd finish your project it would look a generation out of date as everything moved so fast... there just wasn't the commercial interest in 16bit style 2d games, or 3d games that weren't pushing the hardware. I've always been very artistic and wanting to have as much control over the tiny details of my games as possible - fully designing everything, making all the graphics, music etc myself. That stopped being possible, and becoming a small part of a big commercial project (like your example of someone responsible for making nice looking grass) where I had no baring on the final result just wasn't inspiring to me.

Over the years I've been very happy to see more and more "simple but fun" games come back into fashion - first with the mobile market, and nowadays with some really amazing "retro-style" indies like StarDew Vally, Freedom Planet, Shantae etc... as welll as more "modern" but fun simple unique games that can be released for free or very cheap and potentially go viral with streamers etc, like Trombone Champ, Fall Guys or whatever. These types of games are far mroe realistic to be created by a single dev, or a small team of friends to make, and its obvious that nowadays there is potential for teh best ones to be commercially viable. This is why, during lockdowns, I decided to learn a modern programming language that is compatible with all current consoles & PCs, and start making games again. 😀

The perils of a single dev trying to create a more "modern" game and being compared with AAA products with $100 million budgets and teams of hundreds of people was very clearly visible in teh reaction to the cowboy game on here recently, which the article compared to RDR. Its not possible for a single person to make RDR in their bedroom. Actually, what that dev managed to achieve is very impressive and they worked very hard amking all the graphics themeslves and not usign any stock assets etc... but the game still is not actually very good, because you naturally compare it to the "real thing". This is a good example of the feelings I had in that late 90s early 2000s period. No matter how impressive the result for a single person, it was impossible to compete. You might be interested in reading the comments on that article: https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2023/10/guns-and-spurs-2-attempts-to-give-red-dead-redemption-some-cowboy-competition

@mereel Thanks! Kinda surreal to have someone from this site where I come to talk about games now looking into me in that much depth, not because I'm uncomfortable with it, just because I don't think I'm that interesting. I ramble on in podcasts even more than I type! 😂 But thank you again!

@solidox I think I accidentally turned it into an advert for myself 😳 that wasn't my intention. I was just trying to give insight or context on things people were asking about. Sorry Kit and Krysta, you guys are awesome and I've bookmarked your consultation company to reach out when our games are ready to start coming out! ❤️

@mereel Thank you!

The question "who are you" might imply that you think I'm someone especially famous or important, and I can assure you I'm not. 😂 Just one of thousands of tiny cogs in a huge machine. But the answer to who I am is look at my username! I don't hide behind a pseudonym. Same name on Twitter (though I don't use it much nowadays) and on IMDb... IMDb has a pretty good written biography covering how I got into the entertainment industry and my path through it, and some notable stops along the way through music, television, animation, movies and videogames. The filmography is far from complete as much of the work I do in guiding or helping films is uncredited or credited to one of my production companies instead of me directly, but there's a decent selection of things there and also lots in the "upcoming" section to prove I'm actively in the industry 😉

Earlier this year I did and AMA on the official Star Wars Reddit about my work on Rogue One and it went unexpectantly super viral (3.2 million view in 2 days) so I stuck around and answered pretty much every question anyone asked on there, and since then I've been on countless Star Wars and Disney podcasts, if you want to deep dive on my career there's literally hundreds of hours and reams of text out there of me talking about myself and my opinions about the state of the industry and whistleblowing some bad stuff and repeatedly getting myself in trouble by doing so 😂

My most famous line "Just Let the Girl Speak!" from Rogue One became co-opted by the MeToo movement and since then I've been using my small but slowly growing power and influence to point out systematic problems, flaws and inequalities in the film industry and advocating to make a safer, fairer, more ethical, more representative environment for all people, and one thats more welcoming and safe to talented newcomers from all walks of life, and especially helping women and underrepresented groups get their start, and give them a voice.

Since 2014 I've been helming a huuuuge superhero project encompassing several films (& comics & videogames!) which is being announced later this year. A part of that is starting a new production company which is literally making studio style blockbusters with major talent infront and behind camera, but with all the ethics and intentions I mentioned above, and showing a new way forward to reinvent the old studio system for the new generations.

This entire process is covered in my upcoming book "Just Let the Girl Speak!" - part autobiography, part manifesto for tearing down and reinventing the entire entertainment industry, part mission statement of intent so that when the superhero stuff is all out and I'm potentially suddenly richer and more well known, I will be held acccoutable by my own words to do good with this new found power and not sell out to the evil corporate greed 🤣 It was meant to come out in August but of course with the 5 month writers strike and ongoing SAG AFTRA and VFX unions strike, I decided to delay it to cover exactly why this all happened, what the "resolutions" they have reached are, and what the fallout SHOULD be, and what it will probably end up being. Also, to be clear, I'm not making a penny from the book, its all going to the same good causes I donate all money I make from Star Wars related appearances, conventions etc.

I know some of the above may sound self important but I promise you that's not my intention. I genuinely want to be one of the good guys. I don't want to be the center of attention, I want to make big projects with hundreds of friends collaborating together for a common goal. I LOVE making art of all kinds and I hate that there is so much corruption and greed and that its currently an unwelcoming or dangerous working environment for people I love. I want to inspire and encourage as many passionate and talented people as possible to be able to have their voice and platform and rise up and make a new, better film (and games!) industry. The current system is broken beyond recognition and everyone can see its dying and in dire need of reinveention, innovation and new voices. I just want to be one of the people that helps it happen so people of my kids generation and can shape the future to be the one we'd all wish for them and their own kids. 😀

@LXP8 Hey, thanks so much, that's very kind! 😀

There are a lot of cliches and formulas in the building blocks of making a good trailer - these two videos are extremely worth a watch - they are funny, precisely because of how true they are:

Blockbuster: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAOdjqyG37A
Indie/Oscarbait: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAG9Xn5bJwQ

However, despite the fact there are clear formulas if you break it down to brass tacks, there is definitely an art to making a really good trailer. Its a very labourious process but I find it extremely satisfying. I actually find editing trailers (and music videos!) far more fun than editing entire movies or shows because you are trying to tell/show as much as you can in a short amount of time, and you can enhance the emotional impact and percieved quality so much with how you time the shots and cuts to the music. It can take weeks to cut and then slowly refine a trailer from the entire movie down to not only choosing the shots and the order but agnonising over literal single frames of exactly how long to hold, when to switch etc. to get the best possible impact. I also love making overly fancy 3d company logos, title/tagline/credits stuff etc. Its so satisfying to me, because you only need artistic talent and spare time to make something that looks like a blockbuster movie, even if you have literal zero budget.

Thats really cool that you were at Celebration and saw Gareth Edwards! He's someone I've met / worked in the vicinity of a few times and is someone I admire a LOT. I think what he does with his lower budget sensibilities is incredible, and his journey should inspire that almost anyone can make it in hollywood if they have enough talent and are willing to do literally everything themselves to prove their talent and dedication first. Nowadays almost any independent person can make a movie with their phone / dslr and a consumer pc and make something approaching hollywood standards (Edward's new film, which is an incredible sci-fi blockbuster, was shot on a consumer camera - the Sony FX3, which only costs $3750 and is widely available to rent for only $30 a day... you can shoot a 90minute film in a weekend if you prepare and rehearse enough!). And as I said, take that to a film market, you'll sell it for up to $200K. Hire a celeb or two for a day (not as expensive as you think) and you can up that to a million, easy. If the distributor makes a profit with it, Hollywood come a knocking, because you have proved yourself bankable.

I was lucky enough to be at Celebration this year! It was extremely surreal, I signed so many autographs and was even interviewed on camera for Lucasfilm, which was so amazing. They are skipping a year, but I'll be at Celebration 2025 signing copies of "Just Let the Girl Speak" - its in Tokyo! 😍 Can't wait!

I'm also really happy to hear you have watched and enjoyed Rogue One so many times. I've had countless people tell me its their favourite of the modern era Star Wars films, and I have to agree. I think even people that don't like the sequel trilogy can get a lot out of Rogue One, both for its quality but also for how it joins the prequels to the original trilogy so perfectly.

Oh good lord. 😣

I've never heard of or seen this game. However, there is literally a mini game (which then unlocks a full game of it as a bonus mode!) which is EXACTLY the same as this in my Hazel Witch game... except instead of small fruits turning into watermelons its different colours of magic bubbles that grow bigger when combined.

The reason I added this mini game is that this is an original game that I literally designed and made in the school holidays circa 1995. Genuinely thought I invented a unique puzzle game.

I'm not saying they copied me, its a coincidence some japanese person obviously had the same idea. I never uploaded the game anywhere in 1995, and my Hazel game isn't out yet, and only a small handful of western publishers have even seen it. Now I'll have to alter the game mode so it doesn't look like a straight clone of this! lol

That said, I'm not mad that so many people are enjoying "my" game. It really is very fun! 😂

@Anti-Matter Yes I've been on this site for years, I know your taste!

Like you, I also really enjoy colourful, fun, cute and creative games. In fact that's my preference! I also can get a lot of enjoyment out of childrens games, or very simple experiences, if they are high quality and fun. I also really like music and rhythm games like I know you do!

Personally, sometimes I don't mind adult or violent subject matter in games or movies, as long as they are well made, creative and fun. I often find AAA stuff boring and unimaginative, but this isn't always the case... even though it usually is, especially the "big" non-Nintendo AAA franchises. When I was younger I really enjoyed "gory" fighting games and first person shooters... but that was in the 90s and 2000s when the graphics on these titles weren't realistic and there was a lot of humour and creativity in them, and the violence was really more like a cartoon. Nowadays most games like that have become too realistic for my personal taste and while I'm not offended like you sometimes are, its no longer fun for me to look at or play.

Sometimes I see people criticise or make jokes about your taste, and they shouldn't do that. I like that you are personally so clear and unashamed about what you enjoy, that's a good quality. Just be sure not to judge or criticise others for what they like, just as they shouldn't judge you or me for what we like. 😀

@Princess_Lilly There certainly are such unofficial blacklists passed around the film industry about individuals and companies to avoid, but sadly its an industry so many people want to work in, that its very easy to find talented young people desperate to get their first break in the industry because there is an infiinite stream of them, new ones born every minute. I'm sure its the same for games.

I won't go into my back story again as I've done it several times on this site and its too off topic here anyway, but that push for everything being 90% about graphics and the latest technology was the exact reason that dispite being taught to program games when I was very little by my dad in the 80s, I stopped working on games in the late 90s and early 2000s and pivoted hard into music, animation and film. Professional games work was not creative or rewarding enough for me when the flash was all people cared about. I've only very recently gone back to games development (at the same time as producing movies of course) because nowadays there is a market for artistic or retro-style indiegames from solo devs and small teams, and I can make creative, fun artistic projects I actually care about.

I personally have close to zero interest in AAA games, as you said, the quality has dipped so low over the years. I got to the point where I nearly stopped playing games altogether - but the big Nintendo (and Sega, Capcom, a few others from the old days) titles, along with fun and creative indie games are what keeps me invested.

Similarly in my personal taste, there aren't many blockbuster movies or shows I enjoy, but I love creative indies and fun b-movies. I think creativity and artistry is the most important thing. Sadly, once you get to a certain level of financial success and stakes, the industry is no longer compatible with that. But I'm happy where I personally am.

@JalapenoSpiceLife They used to present the "Nintendo Minute" videos for Nintendo of America and make promotional material for Nintendo systems and games during conventions etc.

@Princess_Lilly Thanks. As an artist myself (as well as producing and sales/marketing I write, direct, act, compose for movies, also make indie videogames and comic books!) I can promise you that no one individual working on a project purposefully sets out to make something bad. Neither does any high up executive suit - obviously its better if the finished result is good! Then you don't have to spend as much money advertising it, and it will be an evergreen product that lasts the test of time. Also, don't think for a second that the individual who made that texture or shader for that blade of grass didn't work super hard, whilst being under paid, because they want to make work they are proud of, and hope that the finished game will be something they can be proud to say they worked on, then are kinda crushed when everyone hates it, despite it not being remotely their fault.

But the reality check is that its "show business" not "show art"... "games industry" not "game artistry". These products cost a tonne of money to make, and the companies that make them need to turn a profit (or at least minimise their losses). So if a product turns out to be bad, this is why they still release it to great fanfare, rather than scrapping it or hiding it away.

The "exceptions" you hear of sometimes where it appears movie/game studios are spending tens of millions to make something then not release it are tax write offs, and the people saying "why don't they just release it, if they've already spent all that money" sadly don't know that in most cases, virtually no money was ever spent - it was theoretical money that never existed, the movie/game was a separate ltd company / LLC set up by the studio, which went into debt for the cost, promising to pay it back on release... if they cancel the project, they can write off that debt. Pretty neat!! Trouble is, what that means is everyone who worked on that movie/game hasn't actually been paid yet. Poor man who made that awesome blade of grass loses 6 months of wages and the subcontracted company he works for goes bankrupt so he loses his job. But the major movie/game studios get a big tax break, so that's all that matters. Yay unfettered late stage capitalism pushing for infinite growth.

@ZZalapski @Princess_Lilly As someone who's been in the film industry a very long time and been at least privvy to and often responsible for the sale of well over 100 indie feature films to publishers (who then market them), and also who more recently has been on the perifery of the business side of some massive major studio blockbuster flops as well, I can tell you that when a studio/distributor knows for certain that a movie is bad, but they need to make their money back on it, they pay an absolute fortune to market it and make sure as many people have heard of it as possible, get tv commercials, Youtube adverts, posters on billboards, logos on busses etc to try and fool the public into thinking it looks cool, must be a big deal, and hope that they will get fomo to watch it and see what its all about. I could name several recent films that the studios knew were going to flop but desperately either bribed or pulled in favours from very well respected or famous individuals to say nice things about them before release, both to use as quotes in the advertising, but also to drum up more "news" stories on blogs, websites, social media etc. The general public works mostly on "social proof" so a quote from someone they respect holds a lot of weight, when really it shouldn't if its tied to a studio backed project - they know what side their bread is buttered on so want to keep in the good books of the money men.

This happens on a much smaller scale for low to zero budget indie movies too. For my sins, one of my "skills" in the industry is to take a bad movie that the producers can't sell to anyone, then rebrand it and make it look better than it is - often changing to a more catchy name, making a very fancy upscale looking poster, cutting together an exciting trailer of all the best lines and best shots (even a terrible movie can get 30 seconds that makes it look ok if you are a decent editor and do some heavy lifting with sound and presentation of quotes and logos inbetween them). Another common tactic is to almost literally BUY awards from film festivals so you can mention the awards in the trailer and on the poster - there are quite literally thousands of film festivals that happen every year, and you have to pay money to enter them. Many of the festivals don't really exist other than if you pay them enough money they let you "win" a "prize" (for example, its $100 to enter, then if you "win" you pay another $100 to use their logo, and $500 if you want a physcial trophy to pose with on social media. Vain filmmakers will happily do this to brag that they are "award winning", so these "festivals" (many of which are online only, streaming on discord etc!!) keep multiplying.

If you take a movie to a big film market like AFM, but it has an eye catching poster, exciting trailer, easy to remember name, a few "best picture" "best actor" laurels... as long as you are not expecting more than about $200K you can easily sell it to a distributor for a chunk of change, without them ever even watching it. They don't care if its actually good, because they know they can throw it up on streaming services, VOD, late night TV and DVD/Blu-Ray and people will watch it because it LOOKS good from the poster & trailer. Marketing is far more important than quality, sadly.

I know you asked about games, not movies, but its the same thing, rinse and repeat for all mass media. Its to the point where I actually get VERY suspicious of a movie, game, forthcoming album release etc if I see it advertised so much I'm getting sick of it... it reeks of desperation and needing to make your money in the first week of release, as you know that once word of mouth spreads about how poor it is, its game over.

I've never watched the anime nor do I know much about it, other than that it exists, but seeing that trailer in the Direct had me very interested. Anya and her doggo are adorable and this looks really fun.

@Woderwick Rik was an absolute gentleman. I won't mention exactly which project I met him on because I don't want to speak badly about something i know many people worked hard on. It had a strained production and post journey and the final result was a mixed bag shall we say. I declined to be credited on it and a handful of other projects made at the same time for reasons to legally messy to get into. Fun memories though and I learned a lot... and got to meet Rik Mayall!

Was just a pleasure to meet him and tell him what a legend he was. Similarly I briefly worked with Mark Hammill on a very small obscure project and again, we were all buzzing round like fanboys, and again he was more than happy to stay long to talk to everyone, take pictures, sign stuff etc. All of teh crew on both projects were all our age, so both of them were such heroes to us all growing up and they both seemed genuinely touched that every single person on set was an actual fan since childhood and the excitement was palpable in both cases.

I always prefered Young Ones to Bottom, not that Bottom was bad, I think I just prefer surreal writing to slapstick. Mayall and Edmonson are always electric when on screen together no matter what. Lord Flashheart is FANTASTIC! WOOF! I remember being so delighted when he came back in Blackadder goes Fourth, probably my favourite of all the Blackadder series. A similar trope taken in a different direction was Chris Barrie's "Ace Rimmer" variant in Red Dwarf, again always a highlight when that character turned up.

"The Big Silence" sounds like something I should definitely check out! Very interesting concept and I love the genre, for all its sins.

For me, there have been very rare occasions when I've played a character in a film that gets released in multiple countries - I always get a real kick out of hearing the different voices they give me! 😂 People have sent me probably more than 20 variants of my "Just Let the Girl Speak!" from Rogue One and I'm sure there's even more than that. Blows my mind how far that one specific line I wrote travelled and what it became for so many women co-opting it for different purposes, both serious activism, and also just for the meme in their everyday life. At Celebration I met many families where the parents would tell me they yell it at their young boys if they are talking over their sister, and couples who have an injoke of quoting it to each other... and even heard the same annecdotes from people in different countries who say the equivalent in their language. Really cool and very surreal.