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  NO CAN HAS! 07:36 PM -- Fri May 28, 2010  


This is the first boss in RWG. All done and functional! He's nothing terribly exciting, but I am hoping for many bosses this time around. Two have been drawn, but drawing large (anything but nonteensy, actually) pixel art is a lot of work and I'm not artistic enough to pull it off, especially quickly. Consider his awkwardness part of the charm. The map in this game is split into six areas, hopefully with some semi-notable theming to each, so you don't get too lost. The first segment is done now, in a basic sense. I hope to make this one much less linear than the last, and part of building a good speedrun will be figuring out the best order to do things in, and just what you should skip. It also has some more unique and interesting abilities very new to Robot.
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  The Curse Of The Badge 06:14 PM -- Fri May 21, 2010  

I am really mixed on getting badges added to my game on Kongregate! By the way, there's a "Kongai Card Challenge" on it now, which is an extra special big deal.

I noticed again with Robot Wants Puppy as I did with Robot Wants Kitty that getting badges added resulted in a massive drop in my rating. For the first 100,000 plays it settled a bit, definitely drifted down a little, and then was steady for days, around 4.15. It is no longer in the fours, and it got there literally overnight (without a whole lot more plays!).

The badges are a curse! I know I'll make a lot more ad money this way, so that's good. I just hope it makes up for the decrease in prize money. The tenor of the comments changed completely too (could just be imagination, of course). It seemed to go from hugely positive with the occasional complaint to a massive screaming hatefest that I have NO interest in reading anymore. Interestingly, before the badges, negative comments were almost universally downrated, and now they are almost universally uprated. I don't think either one is really the right use of the comment rating system, but nonetheless, it says something about the crowd visiting the page.

My only theory is that the kind of people who want to get the badges are not the kind of people who are playing the game because it appeals to them, so they're gonna rip on it. Before badges, people chose the game because it looked interesting from the screenshot. After badges, people are choosing it because they "have to" earn the badges, so they're suffering through it, but not suffering gladly.

And that said, I'm not saying I don't want badges in the future! It's probably worth the abuse to get the ad money and more hits on my website. And I appreciate the time and work the badge guy puts into doing them (he actually plays through the whole game! Imagine the horror!). I just wish the human race wasn't a wretched hive of scum and villainy and ugly bags of mostly water. But I'm always wishing that.

For the record, I think this might be the best game I've ever made. I've played it through many times, and I always enjoy the thrill of tossing a cat on an alien's head! I know something like Supreme has vastly more to it, and if I could only play one, I would pick Supreme, but in terms of quality of development, polish, fun factor, style, and innovation, as opposed to raw content, Robot Wants Puppy is something I'm very proud of. Naysayers are welcome to not like it, that's fine too. It's not the existence of haters, it's the massive influx of them the second badges were added that is my concern here. And by "concern" I mean "whine", because there's nothing broken or wrong about it, it's just a sad fact.

In Robot Wants Goldfish, Robot will throw bombs.
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  Riding The Wave 08:39 PM -- Thu May 20, 2010  

It's just crazy here. I don't mean that I'm crazy busy, although I am constantly, at least 3 or 4 times a day, suddenly finding something that needs my immediate attention (an update to a flash game, an offer from a business, the usual customer/forum stuff, something from somebody else I was waiting on that arrives). What I mean is that I am just riding a wave of stuff. I don't know where it's taking me, and I don't have much control over it. I could just hop off and go back to doing whatever happens to appeal, but the wave is made of dollar bills, so I'd like to see where it's going.

What does this mean? Well, I had a list of all the flash games I was trying to get done, as well as a few large projects that were supposed to come after, all in a nice ordered plan, but at this point, it's all I can do to keep up with the projects, updates, and offers that are pouring in on this wave. I can no longer say "I.D.I.O.T. is next!" or "Daibaka will be done on February 14th" (not sure I could say that in the first place, but I did say it anyway!). I don't know what I'm gonna be working on, and as these opportunities appear, I have to hit them right away and get them done, or I'll miss out. And I do need them at this point.

There will be two more Robot games (at least), and they will be the two next things I do, unless something else jumps up in between, which is how they got on the list in the first place. If you want to complain and beg for fancy 3D adventures, I'll just have to recommend you go play Torchlight or WoW (I always recommend WoW!), because I have to go where this wave is going until I'm riding high enough to see the shore.

I'm definitely looking to get 3D Studio as soon as I can reasonably do so, but not for 3D games. I want it to make my trademark googly eyes in more flash games. It'll be nice to have it handy for when I have a chance to make something big too, though!

I really want to get IDIOT out soon too, because I have an artist hanging on the line who wants to get his cut from it! Check out how cool it looks now (work in progress, some tiles are clearly missing, don't know if I will keep the sizes as is):

So I will be trying to progress on that. I'm hoping to make it sort of a Roguelike (but fast and extremely short - no end, just see how long you survive, like it is now), but very simple. Still keeping a lot of the basic concepts that the original had, just getting more emphasis on fighting and leveling up and getting upgrades. That's more of an idea than something I've actually worked on. Mainly what I've worked on is getting the new art into it and converting the whole thing to the Flashpunk library instead of Flixel.

So that's how it is... lots of crazy offers from lots of places, lots of opportunities, and I'm going to take the ones I like and see where I can go with this flash stuff. I'll share what info I can as appropriate, but of course I don't think I should be talking about deals that are underway. I will say this, I owe a 3rd Robot game to MaxGames, so that will be coming. The 4th Robot game is unrelated to them, and hard to explain how it came about. Actually, I think it will be the 3rd one.

Find out more as the wave cruises on across the seas of Dumbness.
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  Robot Wants Puppy! 06:24 PM -- Fri May 14, 2010  

Play Robot Wants Puppy now!

It's here at last! There's nothing I can really tell you about it that you won't find out quicker and better by playing it. Try it, you couldn't possibly dislike it.

And if you want to be really cool and helpful to Hamumu, how about playing it on Kongregate and rating it 5 stars! Then I can win the weekly and monthly contests for best game. I will be very pleased with you if you do! It's gonna be spread all over the internet both by me and the sponsor, so if you find it on other sites, feel free to rate it highly there too, if they let you rate. Hamumu appreciates your support! A lot.
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  The Month Begins! 08:16 PM -- Wed May 5, 2010  

I've got a lot of stuff going on for you, but it's not coming out today. There are 6 add-ons for Supreme With Cheese, a bunch of Fan Art and Action Photos (those are both already up, check em out!), a T-shirt that I haven't started yet, the enhanced version of Infinite Deadly Islands Of Terror (at least a week away), Robot Wants Puppy which will blow your mind when I'm finally allowed to release it (it's done, just squaring away the logos and whatnot with Maxgames), and less soon are the other games which are in development. The T-shirt is something I have a really cool idea for (related to Infinite Islands), but I need the new version to be done first.

What I don't have for you is a new Behind The Dumb. I don't know if I will do one again. There are two factors: the obvious one is that it's a lot of work that takes up time I should be making games (I'd have the enhanced pirate game almost done now if I hadn't spent the past three days puttering around avoiding doing a BTD). But the more important and damaging one is that I'm really shy and I don't feel comfortable at all being in front of the camera. I hate making those videos. The truth is that I have fun when I'm actually in the process of making it, but defeating the demons that hold me back from getting started is harder and harder every time (you'd think it would get easier, but it doesn't!). I don't want to put myself through that anymore, given that I could spend the time making games, or updating the site which is sorely in need of help and bugfixes. Without these shows hanging over my head, I feel a lot more ready to do stuff. Having something I deeply don't want to do on my plate basically makes me do nothing, because I just bumble around avoiding the bad thing rather than moving on to the other things.

On the flipside, I know BTD is very popular and one of the favorite things of a lot of Hamumians. And I do have fun actually making it, like I said. So who knows? I just don't want to commit to a monthly version anymore, but I would hope that sometime I'll sit down and feel like making one and so I will. I wouldn't count on it though. I'm also considering the advice of Penny Arcade creators on how great social anxiety drugs have been for them. Maybe I'll become a whole new person! But I hate drugs, so probably I won't try that. Another thing I've considered with less side effects than drugs is making an animated version. On Penny Arcade, they have Blamimations which are very poorly animated but funny cartoons, and I can easily see how I could do a similar style rather quickly. But one thing about animation: however cheaply you do it, it's still a lot more work than just filming a person.

On another note, the About page is going to get an update sometime this month, because I had a professional photographer (hire him for your wedding!) visiting to play Mortal Kombat with me a few weeks ago, and he shared a huge pile of really awesome pictures he took on his visit. It's about time we got some decent pictures on there. Example:


We also played WoW. While sitting in the same room as each other. Guys are like that, antisocial.
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