00:00
00:00
matt-likes-swords
Blurb.

Matt Roszak @matt-likes-swords

Age 33, Male

Procrastinator

Glasgow University

Glasgow, UK

Joined on 6/12/04

Level:
46
Exp Points:
22,540 / 23,490
Exp Rank:
695
Vote Power:
8.65 votes
Art Scouts
10+
Rank:
Safety Patrol
Global Rank:
27,899
Blams:
171
Saves:
178
B/P Bonus:
6%
Whistle:
Garbage
Trophies:
43
Medals:
3,215
Supporter:
11y 5m 23d
Gear:
4

matt-likes-swords's News

Posted by matt-likes-swords - May 30th, 2022


Hey guys, the Epic Battle Fantasy Collection just launched on Steam!


The EBF Collection includes Epic Battle Fantasy, Epic Battle Fantasy 2, Bullet Heaven, Adventure Story, Brawl Royale, Mecha Dress Up, The Kitten Game, Cat Cafe, a bunch of prototype games and artwork, and a whopping 150 Steam achievements!


All of the games have been updated with quality-of-life features, such as volume controls, new difficulty options, and other cool stuff. Adventure Story has a bunch of new levels, Bullet Heaven has new playable characters, and Epic Battle Fantasy 2 has new unlockable upgrades!


On top of all that, the 65-track soundtrack is included as a free DLC download!


The game is $8, but there's a 20% launch discount that will be active for one week.

It's also part of the EBF Bundle, which means you can get another 20% off if you buy it with the other EBF games (or already own the rest). EBF4, EBF5 and Bullet Heaven 2 will also be on sale for a week - so it's a good chance to grab the whole series.


If you are a Mac or a Linux user, you can buy the game on Itch.io - the launcher only works on Windows, but the individual games can be opened in a Flashplayer of your choice (there's one included in the download section).


iu_652440_877736.webpiu_652441_877736.webpiu_652442_877736.webp


32

Posted by matt-likes-swords - May 5th, 2022


Hey guys, @Ronjaw just wrapped up the Epic Battle Fantasy Birthday Fanart contest!


We received an overwhelming amount of entries - over 60 in total - and picked 5 winners and 10 runner ups. I can only put 10 images in this post, so please see the posts on our website, using the two links above. (you really want to see this art in full-size, some of it would make good wallpapers!)


The top 5 entries won some prize money, and the top 15 got two game/soundtrack keys.

Anyway, here's a summary:


1st place £90

Thirteen Years of Epic Battle Fantasy by Lance

iu_627202_877736.webp

Tied 2nd place £65 & £65

After-Party Gaming by Rocky Birdy

iu_627203_877736.webp


XIII by Troisnyxiu_627204_877736.webp

4th place £50

Epic Battle Birthday by HallowGazer

iu_627206_877736.webp


5th place £30

Cake Sighted by LimeHazard

iu_627205_877736.webp


And here's 5 runner-ups...


Feast for the Eyes by Coldredmeat

iu_627207_877736.webp


The 13th Supper by Zevskiy

iu_627208_877736.webp


Happy 13th Birthday for EBF by Metyuu

iu_627211_877736.png


Happy Birthday! by NaT

iu_627209_877736.webp


Cute 13th Celebration by MrGhast

iu_627210_877736.webp


Tags:

28

Posted by matt-likes-swords - April 25th, 2022


Hey guys, the Epic Battle Fantasy Collection Trailer is up on YouTube and the Steam store page is live.

Please wishlist the game and buy it when it comes out.


The EBF Collection will cost $8 and include EBF1, EBF2, Bullet Heaven, Adventure Story, Brawl Royale, Mecha Dress Up, The Kitten Game, Cat Cafe, and a bunch of prototype games and artwork, and 150 Steam achievements! Each game has been updated with quality-of-life features, such as difficulty and accessibility options, and some of them have new content too.


I'm hoping to launch this around the end of May!



22

Posted by matt-likes-swords - April 12th, 2022


Hey guys, Ronja is organizing an EBF art contest with prizes, so I'll just copy and paste her post:


May 1st will be the 13th birthday of the Epic Battle Fantasy series and we are going to be celebrating with a fanart contest!


To participate in the contest create EBF fanart with the theme “Birthday” and post it to the #contest channel on the EBF Discord server with the name of the art piece, your name/nickname, and a link to your art page. The deadline is May 1st, and remember to tag your entry with “Birthday-Contest-Entry”. You can make as many entries as you’d like, but all art must be new, yours, and PG-13.


There is a total of £200 (~$260) to be split between the top three entries, as well as Steam or Android keys to any existing Epic Battle Fantasy games. Cash prizes will only be awarded via paypal.


Entries will be judged by Matt and Ronja, and winners will be announced a few days after the deadline.


iu_603686_877736.webp


26

Posted by matt-likes-swords - March 25th, 2022


I made a house for my dog!

It probably took around 50 hours. It's built from pallets and other scrap materials, and turned out very heavy.


I learned a lot from this project!


iu_585993_877736.webpiu_585994_877736.webp


68

Posted by matt-likes-swords - March 10th, 2022


Hey Flash devs!


The latest version of AIR/Flash for Desktop has enabled the option to turn off anti-aliasing!

This was a critical feature in the browser version of Flashplayer for improving performance, but for whatever lazy reason, Adobe never cared to include it in the Desktop version. Game devs have been asking Adobe for this feature for 10 years!


HARMAN, the new company which is managing AIR/Flash, added the feature immediately when asked about it.

Flash's customer service has improved dramatically after its death!


Anyway, I'm making this blog post to point out that porting Flash games to Desktop is trivially easy now.

The lack of the "LOW" and "MEDIUM" anti-aliasing options meant that Flash games on Desktop required twice the CPU resources compared to browsers, but now that's no longer an issue. For my games, I had to use very awkward work-arounds to add these anti-aliasing options - it cost me a couple of weeks of work and frustration, and the games still have some bugs because of it.


Any developers following my footsteps will have a much easier job porting their games today.

(feel free to ask me for advice if you want)


Hopefully this doesn't come too late to be useful!


iu_571815_877736.png


38

Posted by matt-likes-swords - January 17th, 2022


Epic Battle Fantasy 5 is up for Early Access on the Google/Android Play Store!


Languages are temporarily disabled while we finish translations, but otherwise the game is 99.9% finished – there should only be a few obscure bugs left, and most languages should be finished in a week or two.


In-app purchases already work correctly. Even the Game Services achievements work!


Save files should persist as long as you don’t uninstall the app – make sure to always update over the existing version. (The current version is 1.15)


You can also transfer your PC save file by copying the contents of a backup .meow file into the password text box. (you’ll probably need to email the text to your other device)


With some luck the remaining stuff will be done in a few weeks, and I can start work on the iOS version.


Please tell your friends about the game!


iu_526799_877736.webp


36

Posted by matt-likes-swords - December 31st, 2021


As is my yearly tradition, here is a summary of important or interesting events in my life this year, including a bunch of news about my games that you might have missed.


• I refurbished my two NES consoles, which included deep cleaning and replacing the silicone springs in the controllers. I bought a couple more homebrew games that were released recently, and tried messing around in NES Maker. Here’s some mockup art and stages I made, that run in an emulator. I also bought an Everdrive, which allows me to put the entire NES library (and cool mods and homebrews too) on one cartridge – and it has save states too! Micro Mages and D-Pad Hero 2 are fantastic modern NES games to check out, to name just two.


• Early this year Flashplayer was finally killed off in browsers, with every website trying something different to keep Flash games running. Ruffle is a Flashplayer emulator that can run many Flash games in browsers without the need for any plugins, and I’ve started hosting a collection of Flash games on my website which show how well it works. It’s still a work-in-progress though, and mostly runs older ActionScript 2 games.


• Newgrounds.com hosted the Flash Forward Game Jam to encourage developers to make new Flash games for Ruffle. I made Bullet Heaven 3 [Prototype] to try out some new art and mechanics, but the reception was a bit mediocre as some features were missing and the controls were not as intuitive as those in the previous Bullet Heaven games.


• Until Ruffle is finished, the best way to play Flash games at the moment is BlueMaxima’s Flashpoint. I’ve been supporting the project with donations and by doing an interview with Blue. I will eventually publish my older games on Steam – that should have happened this year, but it didn’t.


• I’ve started buying high quality furniture that I expect to keep for a very long time, starting with a solid oak bed and sets of drawers. Previously I’ve been buying the cheapest furniture that gets the job done and looks passable. Luckily, our dog is small and isn’t capable of destroying furniture, and we also don’t have kids.


• I bought a few homebrew Game Boy games, and customized my Game Boy SP with a new SNES-style shell. Next year I plan to design and print my own Game Boy shell, and maybe try making a Game Boy game!


• I pushed out an important update to Epic Battle Fantasy 4, which fixed some serious issues such as memory leaks and poor balancing, and added some new quality-of-life features, and a new cheats and challenges menu. If you haven’t played EBF4 in a while, this is a very good reason to play it again. See the link for the full list of changes – there’s a lot! (You have to opt-into this version in the Steam betas tab)


• I’ve been learning a lot of DIY stuff, such as re-doing the silicone sealant in the bathrooms, installing shelves, and building simple garden furniture such as planters and a firewood rack. I’ve collected a lot of power tools, including some that scared me until recently (circular saws), and plan to put them to good use as soon as the sun comes back – I don’t have a garage, so I gotta work outside for now!


• My brother bought a house, so I’ve been helping him renovate it a bit. I helped install new laminate floors and Ronja helped with painting. Next year we’re also going to extend the garden fence – but timber prices are super high in the UK at the moment!


• I went kayaking for the first time! Good thing Beat Saber kept my arms in decent shape this year.


• Speaking of which, I still can’t beat Spin Eternally and Ghost on Expert+, but I’m slowly getting closer…


• A lot of effort this year went into training our new dog, Ethel. She knows a lot of tricks, and is very well behaved around guests. What she fails at is behaving around other dogs, and being walked in new areas – she gets nervous and starts making a scene. We tried to introduce her to my parent’s dog, and she seemed to be making progress until she flipped out and took a nice big bite out of the other dog. We got some personal training lessons for her, and while her temperament somewhat improved, she’s still not allowed near dogs.


• Ethel also had some mysterious health problems for a few months – sudden exercise or excitement would cause her to start breathing strangely and faint for a few seconds. One time she did this and had seizure symptoms, including paddling her feet. The vet couldn’t find anything wrong with her, and the symptoms gradually got milder, and now she seems totally fine.


• I finally started playing Smash Ultimate! I sat on this one for a long time because the lockdowns made it difficult to invite friends around. I’ve got a lot of complaints about the Switch hardware and Smash Ultimate user experience… but in the end it’s still darn fun to play. Another party game I’ve played a lot with friends is Overcooked 2.


• My dad’s car was totalled in an accident! Luckily no one was hurt, but him and his passengers (including my mum) were a bit shaken up. My dad went on to buy the exact same car again, a Seat Alhambra, his 4th one.


• I finished decorating my office, which involved getting an ergonomic office chair, framing some new posters, and building a 220cm desk out of a kitchen worktop. This does little for productivity, but it looks cool.


• I got an ultrawide monitor… and well, it’s great for first-person games, but for everything else it feels like a gimmick, and most people would probably be better off with two monitors instead, which are more versatile and easier to transport. The worst part for me is that it is not curved enough to see the edges comfortably. I might actually replace it sooner rather than later… but it does look beautiful on my new desk!


• I’ve been playing a lot of retro style first-person-shooters this year, including DUSK, HROT, Amid Evil, Dread Templar, and Ion Fury. I got into them thanks to the new Doom games.


• Age of Empires 2 is still taking up a lot of my gaming time. I’ve finished all of the campaigns on hard!


• Got all of my covid vaccines this year, and the booster. So far, only the second dose has had serious side effects, and I was totally out of action for a whole 24 hours, with bad headaches, nausea, and chills. I think we’re all gonna get some variant of covid sooner or later, so getting vaccinated is the best we can hope for when it comes to mitigating the damage.


• Our garden is more or less finished – we finished decorating with some outdoor art and more patio furniture. We bought a gazebo to sit under, and a large firepit, so even if the weather isn’t great, it’s still comfortable to sit out there. I’m still learning how to chop firewood correctly though.


• I spent a lot of this year working on the EBF5 mobile port, but got kind of burned out working on it, so it’s still not completely finished. The game runs quite smoothly now and in-app purchases finally work. I’ve learned a lot about mobile development with Flash/AIR, but Google’s developer console is a nightmare to use, and I hear Apple’s isn’t much better. It’s a shame that the mobile ecosystem is so terrible, because getting games running on mobile devices is very satisfying otherwise.


• I’ve been working with a Chinese mobile games publisher, which is one reason I’ve been focusing on mobile games. They offered me very good terms, and the deal doesn’t affect anything outside of China, so all you guys get out of this is that I’m porting my games to mobile. Working with a publisher has been a new experience for me – I’ve been doing a lot more documentation work than usual!


• I quickly ported and published Mecha Dress Up Game, Brawl Royale, Cat Cafe v2, and Epic Battle Fantasy 1 on Android! They work well but are very simple games compared to my new stuff, so didn’t make much of a splash when they landed. You can’t currently buy them because of some ID verification problems with my Google account – I’ll need to get that sorted ASAP!


• I’ve been going on short road trips with my dad. This year we’ve visited Dundee, Newcastle and Dunbarr. We’ve got to start planning things better so that all of the attractions aren’t closed by the time we arrive. Covid isn’t making it easy either. The most exciting destination so far was the Holy Island Lindisfarne, which is accessed by a causeway road. We went during a storm, and had an incredibly wet and windy time at the castle.


• My brother soon planned a slightly longer road trip – we stayed at The Park Ecovillage near the town of Findhorn, and visited some nearby attractions, including Bow Fiddle Rock (a large natural arch in the sea), the Captain’s Table (seaside bar and restaurant), and Findlater Castle (a cool ruin on a steep cliffside). We stopped for fish and chips in the town of Cullen, which also had some very quirky antique shops. The Ecovillage itself was some sort of spiritual/druid community, where driving was discouraged, waste was recycled, and many of the buildings were hobbit-style.


• Me and Ronja put a ton of effort into Halloween this year. I put up a terrifying scarecrow on the driveway, and bought a ridiculously creepy mask. We’re getting a reputation as having the scariest house in the area, and 100 kids showed up despite covid. Some kids even showed up in Friday Night Funkin’ costumes!


• I started transitioning into being a vegetarian. I started off by avoiding very unhealthy meat like bacon and sausages, eventually realizing that I can probably manage without meat in my diet, and it’s been fun trying new food at restaurants. I think I’ll keep eating fish and other meat on special occasions, but I’ll try to stick to the higher quality stuff.


• Me and Ronja went on a road trip to Glen Lyon, stopping by in Aberfeldy and Pitlochry along the way. We stayed two nights in a small wooden cabin on a farm, which had a very comfy log burner, and three dogs and a bunch of chickens roaming around outside. We did a little bit of hiking, stopped at a garden centre, saw some monuments, and drove on some very narrow and bendy roads. I also played Scrabble for the first time. I can now understand the appeal.


• Christmas decorating got interesting this year, as I tried making wreaths for the first time. My brother joined me. It’s actually not hard and you don’t need a lot of supplies – as long as you have access to a garden. I will definitely make a yearly activity out of this. Christmas Eve dinner with the family was pretty normal – eating fish while dogs made noise in the background. A covid scare stopped us from having more dinners over the next few days.


• This year’s Christmas Steam Key Giveaway was the most popular one ever! I will definitely keep doing these…. even though I skipped it last year. I’ll try to think of other seasonal events too, such as fanart competitions, etc.


And that’s all. Here’s some highlights in picture form…


Happy New Year, everybody!


iu_511326_877736.png


17

Posted by matt-likes-swords - December 17th, 2021


iu_499351_877736.png


Hey guys, as is the tradition, I’m giving out 20 Steam Keys for Epic Battle Fantasy 5 this Christmas.

I assume that many people following this news already own the game, but it could also make a good present for a friend of yours.


For a chance to win, leave a comment on my website about what you’ll be doing this Christmas, and make sure to fill in the email field, which will only be used for sending you a key if you win.

Here's the link: http://kupogames.com/2021/12/17/christmas-key-giveaway-2021/


I’ll be giving out the keys on the 23rd of December, so you have until then to enter.

If you would rather receive keys for Epic Battle Fantasy 4 or Bullet Heaven 2 instead of EBF5, please let me know in your comment.


iu_499352_877736.png


26

Posted by matt-likes-swords - October 22nd, 2021


Epic Battle Fantasy 1 is live on the Google Play Store!

This updated version has a new checkpoint system, a new soundtrack, some modified enemies, and a more user-friendly interface.


Please go buy it and leave a nice review.

If enough people do that, I'll port Epic Battle Fantasy 2, 3, and 4. (5 is almost done)


As usual, iOS versions are coming later - I'm still learning a lot about Android development.


iu_452619_877736.png

iu_452620_877736.png


32