25 October 2015

Statement Regarding Iron and Thallium

So guys, as promised, I am releasing a statement regarding Iron's late pre-orders and future and hopefully you guys will be able to understand why things have been a bit rough lately with this game.

On Wednesday 22nd October I put pre-orders up for Iron, more than two weeks (17 days to be exact) after it was due to go up. The delays were down to the fact that I wanted to get Thallium ready to be released as a bonus game alongside Iron's pre-orders like I promised. Normally I have very little problem with releasing games late (although it is best avoided when possible) as usually they are delayed to fix a bug (as was the case here) or to make last minute improvements which is important as a game will be delayed temporarily, but will be known forever as a shit game if it's brayed by critics (Sonic 06 being a good example, or even the so-bad-it's-hilarious game Big Rigs.)

The bug was involved the upgrade shop where buying a damage upgrade wouldn't deduct however much Thallium it cost you to buy the upgrade. I fixed this, but I was only able to find the issue (or rather, find a fix for it) a while after pre-orders were due up. This is partly my fault, I didn't put as much work into it as I could have, however there is now a very big thing eating up a lot of my time since September - college.

I am currently at college for two days per week this year which is pretty lenient compared to a lot of cases. However as assignments are given out I often need to spend time at home to complete them, as was the case recently. Obviously I need to place assignments above my career as assignments have set-in-stone deadlines, whereas when I set a deadline for a game, it is much more flexible and I can change this as I see fit. I work past one of my game deadlines, fair enough. But if I miss a college deadline, I'm in the shit pretty much.

The good news is that the half-term holidays have come around now and all of my assignments that were due in have now been handed in and I have no assignments to work on over half-term. This means I can focus my efforts on Iron full-time this week.

The deadline I have set for Iron is November 19th as I iterated before - this hasn't changed, however there is a good chance in light of recent events that I will end up working past that deadline so a December release is possible. One thing I am adamant about is I will make sure I have this game released before the new year. Also, I haven't had the chance to upload screenshots of Iron yet to the official itch.io page, these will come over the course of this week so people will know what they're in for.

In the mean time, I best get going and working on Iron. My November 19th deadline is less than a month away although this deadline is flexible and can be changed if I need to change it.

Iron: http://archangelatom.itch.io/iron
Thallium: http://archangelatom.itch.io/thallium


21 October 2015

Pre-Orders Now Up!

I am happy to announce that pre-orders for CHAOS 3 are now up and running!

There have been a few delays but you can pre-order Iron now for $1.50 and get a itch.io download key for its accompanying bonus game Thallium on the side for free! This offer applies for as long as Iron remains in development but hopefully Thallium can tide you over until then.

I'll be releasing a statement as to why Iron and Thallium were both put up so late tomorrow (if I have time that is.)

Iron is a 2D game which is made mostly by me, although many of the sprites have been made by a friend of mine from college who goes by the name of RetroBlade98. He's also been working a few things of his own and you check his itch.io page out here.

Thallium is wholly my own work contains a mix of unique 2D graphics, 3D Blender graphics, and one re-used (two counting its recolour, although that made specifically for this) sprite from my last major release, Project Plasma.

Unlike Project Plasma and its little bitch mobile equivalent that shall not be named, Iron and Thallium both contain soundtracks that are actually my own work and are not downloaded from a creative commons site. Iron can be pre-ordered from its own page, whereas Thallium's page serves as just an information page and can only be acquired by pre-ordering Iron.

Iron: http://archangelatom.itch.io/iron
Thallium: http://archangelatom.itch.io/thallium
Project Plasma: http://archangelatom.itch.io/project-plasma
Project Plasma's little bitch mobile equivalent that shall not be namedhttp://archangelatom.itch.io/project-plasma-mobile

13 October 2015

Scottish Independence - A Year On (Anti-Rant)

Exactly one year ago today I posted a somewhat controversial rant titled "The Rabid 45" which took aim at the protests and rallies that occured as a result of the No outcome of Scotland's independence referendum last year. I've had a few people approach me asking me whether my views on this have changed since I uploaded that rant and I can safely say they have for the most part, even to the point where I put a big strikeout through the whole rant back in early-mid August.

For those haven't seen the original rant, it's all here.

Several things have happened since then in the UK politically, the Conservative party (Tories) won the general election again (something that I can't say I'm overly happy about) and I can say I am somewhat more sympathetic towards Scotland and I will admit, I have warmed slightly to the SNP although I still strongly oppose their advocation of seceding from the country. Such a move would weaken the UK as a whole and I can see it being devastating for Scotland as well.

I read up on the SNP's manifesto for Scotland's First Minister election on Yahoo and one of the things that's been added is that another indyref is possible. I personally don't feel this is fair as the SNP are almost proposing a neverendum, or referendum after referendum after referendum ad infinitum. I see this as an abuse of democracy so that country leaders can get their way without being called dictators or megalomaniacs.

Scrolling down to the comments I noticed a shitload of anti-English racism from many of the nationalists. Now before I go on with this I'd like to emphasise that I understand that this is certainly not what all SNP supporters are like, I am well aware that the racists I saw in the comments only represent a toxic minority of the party. Sadly they happen to be a rather vocal minority.

The nationalists I've seen on Twitter on the other hand are the complete opposite and don't share the anti-English sentiment that I saw on Yahoo. When David Cameron made a comment about Yorkshire people hating each other, the nationalists stood by Yorkshire's side and supported us. I do not believe the SNP are bad people, as they are willing to work with the UK even if they were to get independence, however like I said I cannot agree with some of their ideologies, like secession from the UK.

There are still a few points that I firmly stand by however, for example I'm still suspicious as to where all of the donations made to that nationalist rally (Hope Over Fear) ended up going. If he pocketed the money then shame on him however I'm not going to accuse anyone or anything, although I still feel we should all know where the money was going to ensure that the nationalists weren't getting scammed or tricked.

I am also still in the belief that any further pro-independence rallies are pointless, kick up an unnecessary storm, and don't solve anything. Yes it's good that you're passionate over something and that you share a common interest but all these rallies are are just anger vented and made vocal. The #CameronMustGo hashtag that was trending before the election was a similar concept, however this was online and caused far less disruption. On top of this, these rallies are only really any good when a referendum is looming (like say, in the month leading up an indyref.) Eventually people will get bored and be like "oh yay another rally whoop-de-doo" and move on with their life. Putting these rallies on whenever you feel like it doesn't solve much as when the indyref comes round, all of the enthusiasm for independence may have faded.

To conclude, I am more sympathetic and my opinion of the SNP has gone up considerably considered this time last year I despised the SNP. Most of my hatred towards them however was blown way out of proportion and was mostly a result of me not understanding the party and it supporter's fully. Likewise, there are still a few points that I put up last year that I stand adamantly by and all-in-all I feel that both sides can learn a few things from the whole scenario.

Also, maybe referring to SNP supporters as "the rabid 45" was over the top and unnecessary, for this I apologise. I won't, however, change the name of the rant so people know what to look for when I refer to that rant.

On a side note, this will likely be my last politically orientated blog post for a while. Politics are one of the subjects I tend to avoid talking about here unless something has really pissed me off and I will admit I'm now having second thoughts over the rabid 45 blog post I posted beforehand.