The Steam version of EBF5 is out!

Compared to the free version (coming soon-ish), it adds 48 extra equips, 5 new dungeons, and 10 new bosses, including many of the hardest ones in the game. Other perks include HD graphics and audio, a choice of screen resolutions, and Steam features, like cards, achievements, and cloud saving!

Everyone who owns EBF4 on Steam will get a 20% discount coupon for EBF5. This needs to be launched by a human from Valve, so there might be some delay getting these out.

The coupons will be valid for a month, and after that I’ll release a Steam bundle of EBF4, EBF5, and Bullet Heaven 2. This bundle gives you 20% off if you “complete the set”. If you only own EBF4, for example, you can buy the other 2 games together for 20% off. This will be a permanent deal going forward, and it works in conjunction with other discounts.

If you want to support Phyrnna directly, buying the EBF5 soundtrack on Bandcamp will give her a much bigger cut than she gets from Steam. It’s also available on most music platforms.

The EBF Discord is a good place to talk with other players, and to get help if you get stuck in the game. You can also report bugs and other problems there.

EBF5 officially only supports Windows, but Steam Play beta allows it to run normally on Linux (apparently), and the installation folder also includes the game’s Flash file and Flashplayers for different operating systems. So you can run it on a Mac or even on a mobile device with a bit of tinkering. (without Steam features though)

The free web version will be released once I’ve had a break from the Steam release. The beta will stay up on this website, but it’s already quite outdated and buggy compared to the Steam version. Saves between all versions will be compatible, and easily transferable with the save backup feature. Saves from the beta may have a few minor problems – such as permanently missing an equip or two if you save in the wrong place – so it’s better to start again.

Hey guys, Epic Battle Fantasy 5 launches on the 30th of November on Steam! 
Please add it to your wishlist. 

It'll be $15, with owners of EBF4 getting a coupon for 20% off in their Steam inventory - the coupon is activated by a human, so you might not get it immediately.

A free version of EBF5 with less content will also come to Newgrounds in early 2019.

After 3 years of full-time work, I'm really looking forward to having this huge weight off my back. Flash was already announced dead when I started working on the game, so we'll see if launching a huge Flash game in 2018 pays off. Either way, I'll finally be free to try some small projects again, and probably some different game engines too.

EBF5 took a lot out of me emotionally, and I never want to work on such a large project ever again - or at least not in such isolation. I am however incredibly happy with how the game turned out, and I hope everyone enjoys it.

It's the result of 15 years of messing around with Flash.

Hey guys, I wrote a huge blog post about EBF4's journey through Steam.
Read it if you want to find out how a free* Flash game sold 250,000 copies.

In related news, EBF5 is almost done, it's mostly just translations that need to be finished off.
It'll be coming to Newgrounds a little bit after the Steam release, which should happen before Christmas!
It'll cost $15 on Steam, with owners of EBF4 getting a 20% discount, and comes with a bunch of extra dungeons and equipment. Please add it to your wishlists, and have a happy Halloween!

Hey guys! Epic Battle Fantasy 5 is ready to be publicly beta tested! BUT I need to have the Steam store page finished before then (so that people can start wish-listing it and all that).

This means it's time for me to put together the game trailer. I'm gonna go with something very similar to EBF4's trailer (shown below), so I'll need to record some footage, write a silly script, and have someone read it out for me.
If you or anyone you know might be interested in doing the trailer narration in the next week or two, send me some samples of your work and a quote please.

Josh Tomar did the voice in the EBF4 trailer, and I'm happy with how it turned out. Figured I'd give others a chance before asking him again.
 

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.