Hey guys, I’ve been without internet for over two weeks, but I’m back now. I guess I have to start off with a write-up of the Play Expo.

It went really well! Not a single thing went wrong!

Setting up was easy. I just brought in my computer, two monitors, a poster, an old pile of Kongregate stickers I got from Mochi London, some cute business cards to give out, and that was about it. The venue was conveniently 10 minutes away from my home. At first I didn’t have anywhere to put up my poster, but the guys next to us left very early so we essentially got a 2nd table just for that. Me and Ronja took turns manning the stall, so we didn’t tire ourselves out. (I also got to try some VR stuff on my break, woop!)

EBF5 never crashed. Both days it ran non-stop for 8 hours without any problems, which was pretty cool, but also what I would have hoped for since the demo was just the most basic parts of the battle system. On the second monitor I had my YouTube videos of EBF5 running on loop forever.

The audience was a bit different from what I expected. EGX in England was mostly for gaming enthusiasts, but while this event still had some of those, it was generally much more casual and family oriented. There were a lot of really young kids, but also a lot of parents and grandparents who weren’t even into video games at all. I ended up showing off EBF5 to a huge variety of people, and it was a very educational social experience for me. I learned how to talk to kids, disabled people, and a lot of very socially-awkward people.

I’m glad I had EBF5 configured in work-safe mode, and I’m happy I made that option available in the first place. Bouncing anime breasts were not out of place at the event, but I think it would have been a bit awkward with the game’s default settings, especially when young girls came to play.

A related point that surprised me was the lack of PC gamers! I think EBF5 was one of the only mouse-controlled games there, and a lot of kids were confused when they couldn’t find the controller or keyboard. Quite a few people had trouble using the mouse accurately, and double-clicking when single-clicks were fine. But besides that people picked up the game very easily. I just told them to pick commands and hit the baddies, and that was all they needed to know really. I only intervened to tell them how to heal when their health got low.

Besides all that we also got to know some of the other exhibitors, including Mega Cat Studios, who make modern NES games, Wrench Games who make card games, and Oi Oi Games who are a store for retro games (their Mario Maker stall dominated the area at first and sort of overshadowed us – not fair!). I don’t think there was anyone particularly famous there – there wasn’t even any official presence from the big gaming companies. It was all quite local and modest. A reporter from The Sun talked to me briefly, but in the end I don’t think he actually wrote anything about me.

I had around 5 people tell me they were fans of the EBF games, and another 5 or so who said they’ve probably played them at some point in the past. So that’s not bad – I’m not a total nobody!

Anyway, it was all a lot of fun and I’d love to do it again if I get more chances to do it so cheaply. (Grand total spent on the event: £89 and around 3 days of preparation)

I'm exhibiting EBF5 at Play Expo Glasgow, so if you live in Scotland, you should come check it out this weekend!

They offer free tables to small local devs, so I've managed to get ready for the event by spending just £80. We’ll see if my cheapo stall ends up looking at all professional. It's my first time showcasing a game at an event, so I'll probably just embarass myself, but I'll let you know how it goes.

Also, I own a house now! Me and Ronja are moving in tomorrow!

Hey guys, all the battles in EBF5 have been defined. Most of what’s left to do is stitching all of the parts together, the title menu, tons of testing and balancing, translations, and the final boss. Then after that there’s still some promotional stuff like trailers and store pages etc. But it’s getting there - about 90% done. People who have volunteered to translate are getting a bit impatient, but I’ll get round to contacting you soon-ish. Still need a month or so before I’m ready to organise that.

I was supposed to be buying a house, but the seller is having trouble moving, so that’s been delayed. I’m moving back in with my parents for now – hopefully not for too long, but who knows. Maybe it will be a chance to take a break from work.

But while that’s happening, you guys can tell me what you want from Newgame+ in EBF5. Like usual, I don’t want to put much work into it, but I do want it to be a fun way to replay the game. Did you prefer it in EBF3 where you could just rush through the game again with super powerful players? Or did you like EBF4′s version where monsters got much stronger and you could keep levelling up for longer? If I do that again I’ll have to balance it a bit better.

In other news, I’ve been suffering quite heavily from nostalgia lately, and have been playing lots of games on Kongregate and Newgrounds again – old stuff and new. I’m probably too young to feel this way, but it feels like a huge part of my life is over. Flash games and whatever replaces them will still be around, yet I feel that some of the magic is gone, now that they’re no longer the cutting-edge of the creative space. I feel like the old man who doesn’t like what kids these days are into, because I had better entertainment in my day. Oh well. Maybe I’ll just have to keep making games in my style and prove it.

I read through my EBF4 postmortem, and I really need to update that soon. Back when I wrote that I felt like EBF4 was a failure and that I didn’t have much future making PC games, but since then EBF4 came out and Steam and was hugely successful there. Now my problem is that EBF4 might have been the height of my career and I won’t manage to make another game that’s so successful. That’s a bit silly of thing to worry about, I suppose.

I really need to blog more. It’s very therapeutic and a nice way to connect with people. I’ve got a few long ones that I’ve been meaning to write for a while, so maybe while I’m stranded at my parents house I can write some of those. I know I’m not the best at replying to comments, but I do read them all and appreciate them.

Hey guys, I updated the EBF5 Battle Demo with player dialogue, medals, and a bunch of bug fixes.
It’s all a bit hectic out of context. The demo basically throws you into the middle of the game without any preperation.

Still a few bugs left, but I’m expecting the frequency of reports to be getting lower, or else kill me.
The game's about 90% done, and I'm starting to feel like the end is in sight.



 

I’m heading to London for a few days to attend EGX Rezzed on Saturday.
Keep an eye out for me if you’re also attending.

Here's a bunch of EBF5 battle backgrounds I've made recently.
I'll need to make around 60 of these in total.

The game's 87% finished but it feels like there's still so much left to do...

Hey guys, if you've seen any of my rants on social media, you'll know that I’m really worried about online privacy, freedom of speech, and big tech companies like Facebook taking over the world. Lately I’ve started using Telegram for instant messaging (Desktop & Mobile) in an attempt to rely on Facebook less, and my favourite thing about it is that you can make your own sticker packs! So once I got bored of spamming Pepe the frog memes, I made two EBF packs: One is the characters in the cutout style, and the other is the character emoticons from the game.

You can get them by opening these links in Telegram:
Character pack: https://t.me/addstickers/EBF_characters
Emoticon pack: https://t.me/addstickers/EBF_emotes

Anyway, I like Telegram a lot because it reminds me of the old days of instant messaging: where you could post whatever you wanted and didn’t have to worry about some huge corporation recording all of your personal data. It’s even popular with ISIS, so it must be good for privacy!

Also before someone mentions Whatsapp: that’s also owned by Facebook.

Alright, that’s enough shilling for now. Let me know if there’s any other cool apps that can use custom sticker packs, and maybe I’ll put these on there too.

Hey guys, I'm working on the Epic Battle Fantasy 5 cutscene art now.
As you can see, I went with the same style as in the previous game, but have polished it up a bit.
It's nice to be working on something different for a while, the regular art gets really boring after so many years.

EBF5 is 84% finished now, and you can see some more previews on my YouTube channel.
Please subscribe if you're interested in the development of the game - I don't upload very often anyway.

In EBF5 development news, the overworld map is complete now!
I’ve just got two of the premium dungeons left to do. After that I’ll finish off NPCs and sidequests. 
I’ll have many more animated gifs to show off too.

There was also this big thing with Patreon changing their fees, but everyone complained enough and they ended up not doing that, so that was nice. Patreon's a nice easy target with most of their users being business-savy. Too bad it's not so easy all the time. (Good luck with your internet, Americans)

Continuing on from last week's post, here's some more gifs of the areas I'm working on for Epic Battle Fantasy 5.
The world map being complete is within sight... still got a few areas to go, but I'm getting there.

Overall EBF5 is about 77% complete... after two whole years of full-time development.
I would have liked to be a bit further along by now, but at least the extra time is paying off and there's a big jump in quality over the previous games. And by some miracle EBF4 is still selling well enough to cover my living expenses... so huge thanks to everyone for that.

If I ever decide to work on a  3-year project ever again... please kill me.

Here's some gifs!
The world map is more than half done now, so I've got some scenes to show off.
I'll finish this game someday, I swear.