This weekend I’ll be in Sydney swanning about at the The 80s Are Back exhibit at the Powerhouse museum. Why? Because they’re holding a gaming weekend. I’ll participate in a panel talk on Friday night, Global Game Jam for the 48 hours that follow, and a slightly beefier talk on the Sunday. I probably won’t participate in the ROM CHECK FAIL highscore challenge since that seems a little unfair, but it’ll be great to see how people go at the game. I just hit 10700 in a quick playthrough, but my highest is somewhere around 1300. Up until this point I’ve considered myself possibly the best ROM CHECK FAIL player on the planet. Prove me wrong.

Once I get back I have a bit of GDC preparationary faffing to do, but I promise to follow that with some serious Captain Impostor development. Did I mention that the next episode is called Captain Impostor? The next episode is called Captain Impostor.

<3 Farbs

Late last year I spoke at GCAP about my experiences as an indie developer. Sadly they didn’t get footage of my first slide, which was a gigantic picture of my beautiful glowing face. As its radiant, comforting smile beams out over the crowd you can can hear a gasp, a sigh, and perhaps even a tear. Let us now enjoy the most narcissistic fourty nine minutes of my life:

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Farbs

Wow my throat hurts. I can’t tell if it’s from the solid 72 hours’ talking, or from the hotbed of disease we call a conference. Either way, ow. I gave my first ever hour-long talk, which you can experience in summary through the magic of Twitter. Speaking of Twitter, guess what I’m adding to Captain Forever and Captain Successor? The new Twitter and Facebook exporters, along with the current ones, will be available after you finish a game. All ship configurations will be recorded as you play, so you’ll get to browse through them and recover your favourite pre-accident creations. Cool, no? I’ll release this with some tagalong bugfixes, then put my head down and get working on the next CF episode.

Post-GCAP Greetz go to Paul Callaghan (who got me thinking about narrative design), 2K Australia (who bought me beers and dinner), Ant Orman (who works at 2K but gets a special mention for helping with a slippery design problem), Tom Crago (who I somehow never bumped into), and Yahtzee (who politely endured my fanboyish yammering).

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A week (or so) after launch, Captain Forever is looking pretty good. Tens of thousands of people have played it, and over a hundred were awesome enough to register. Thanks everyone! What’s even cooler is that people are starting their own CF initiatives. In the past week I’ve seen a 3,500 word strategy guide, a facebook group, a wiki, and even a wikipedia entry (though this is being threatened with deletion). Huge props go to the people behind these projects. If you have both the time and the inclination, please drop by the wiki and jot something down.

The games themselves have also seen a minor overhaul, with annoying scrap reclaimation warnings appearing much less often and adaptive training messages added to CF to assist first-time players. This week I’m making some final changes to CF and CS, and starting work on a new addition to the series. Expect more soon!

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Captain Successor (Click for larger)

Has Captain Forever launched?
Yes!


Can I play Captain Forever for free?
Yes!


Can I play Captain Successor?
Yes! But only if you are a supporter.


Is that all?
No! On Monday I’ll start the next game in the series. It will be like Captain Forever and Captain Successor, but better. When it’s finished it’ll be released to all Captain Forever supporters. Then, with any luck, I’ll start building another Captain Forever game for you.


Thanks Farbs! I love you. Is there anything else I can do to help?
Yes! You can tell everyone you know to play Captain Forever. They don’t have to support it, and hell they don’t even have to like it. It’d just be rad if they gave it a try. Thanks!


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Print Media!

So… Captain Forever won Best Game at GDC China’s IGF. Oh em gee. I honestly didn’t expect it, so I wasn’t prepared for a fortnight-long celebratory bender. Luckily I didn’t go on said bender – I’ve been crunching to get Captain Successor ready for IGF. Also I’m 30 and it may have killed me. If you click the thumbnail to your left you’ll see all 30 years of me holding both a trophy and a giant wad of cash, which is a surprisingly difficult maneuver.

Right now I’m adding final touches to CS, all of which are awesome. I’ll spend a few weeks cleaning up distribution problems then plonk my index finger on the big red button marked LAUNCH. I’m really enjoying playing with the new whisper mumble murmor, and I’m super keen to release it to you guys.

High-fives go to Ichiro of Dejobaan Games for suggesting a new end-game to Captain Successor. if you haven’t played AAaaAAaaAAAaaAA(etc) – A Reckless Disregard For Gravity you should check it out right now. I’ve put a lot of hours into it and every one of ‘em was a blast.

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Woooo!

Where in the world am I? I’m in Australia, and occasionally that’s a good thing. It’s particularly sweet when I enter Captain Forever in the GDC China Independent Games Festival, since said festival is limited to countries in the Asia-Pacific region. CF made finalist, so I’ll be showing it and possibly previewing Captain Successor in Shanghai this Sunday. Come say hi if you’re in the area

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Captain Forever supporter John Tokash compiled this great playthrough, and put my video compression skillz to shame. It’s very interesting seeing the scoop technique in action – I’d heard about it but I’d never actually seen it done before. Thanks John!

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Captain Anachronism

Hail! Dost thou seek the Captain Forever trailer music? Heavens be! I happenstance carry a copy in this fine pouch.

Andrew Leys finally finished tweaking the music last week, so now we can bask in his moog-love splendour. This version is about four times as long as the trailer soundtrack and sounds so very much nicer. If you’d like to hear more of Andrew’s music in Captain Forever then be sure to let me know. His payment is props and criticism, and I need more nice words to feed him.

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Sorry.

Wow. For an unfinished, unpromoted game Captain Forever’s getting a lot of support. My sincere thanks to everyone who’s signed up already. Captain Successor is now in full production and shaping up rather nicely. More on this later.

As per this post’s appellation, I present these project pertinent plinks links.

Community VCD archive (!!!):

[VCD ARCHIVE]

Blog Posts:

TIGSource
2D Boy
IndieGames
Destructoid
Offworld

Forum Threads:

TIGForums
Quarter To Three
Game Axis

Advertising:

Adam Atomic’s “Canabalt”, which is bloody brilliant.

…and in case you missed it:

Captain Forever Itself

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