CHARRED CORPSE GUNFIGHT

Have you ever wanted to pretend to be the reanimated burnt corpse of a cowboy? Have you ever fantasised about being locked in a hellish high-noon/midnight quickdraw with your hated enemy? Have you secretly longed to experience these things within a limited colour palette? Then oh boy, is CHARRED CORPSE GUNFIGHT for you!

Relive the fight that inexplicably caused your body to self-combust across several weird levels that culminate in fighting a mountain. If you make it that far.

CHARRED CORPSE GUNFIGHT is my first publicly available game. I've made it for Low Rez Jam (64 x 64 pixel games) and it incorporates a lot of stuff I like/do, eg horror imagery and industrial sounds. But in a cute way, possibly. It's FREE and can be downloaded from here: https://atomic-toilet.itch.io/charred-corpse-gunfight

YYEEHHAAAWWWW!!!!!!

THIS IS A TEST

WEW WEW WEW WEW WEW WEW don't panic, Mr Mainwaring!

For some reason, Blogger has stopped sending my posts to my Facebook page, so this is a test to see if some fancy Internet magic I've worked actually, er, works. TALLY HO!

In perhaps not un-related alarming news, I keep thinking I've got bugs on my skin. I don't think it helps when weird tiny flies appear in my room and try and get in my ears. That actually just happened, I'm not going nuts.

Imagine if everybody started to think they had bugs on them? That'd be weird. Have you seen BUG, the William Friedkin film? I can't remember if it's based on a stage play or just feels like one, but it's incredible. It's about a former soldier who's convinced he was part of an experiment involving bugs in his blood. You know as the viewer that he's nuts, but...he's so convinced this is true that you get the sense he's actually starting to make it true. It's a fascinating study in paranoia and insanity - what I love about it so much is that it's about how the power of belief is a very powerful thing, and that madness can be spread in different ways.

I watched a new film recently called POD that is supposed to touch on similar ideas ie a solider convinced he was involved in weird experiments and who now claims to have something in his basement. It's enjoyable, but lacks the nuance and sheer storytelling mastery of BUG. For example, in POD, the soldier is all twitchy shouts and incoherent rambling; in BUG he's all fierce intensity and unassailable certainty. I know which one I find more frightening.

Something else that POD made me think about is how it's part of this trend (I'm calling it that, but I don't know if it actually is) of new/modern indie films - usually horrors - that are decent films hiding a really good film inside. Typically, they give you a bunch of ideas or start to lay the groundwork for something impressive, then kind of give up and go an easier route. Or, to put it more simply, they feel like they need one or two more script revisions.

POD is enjoyable and has some cool ideas, but doesn't spend time on real suspense or tension. Every conclusion feels like it's arrived at pretty quickly. If, for instance, the crazy soldier had been portrayed as more grounded and remarkably serious, it would make it a lot more creepy and unsettling if he's saying "There's something terrible in the basement, but you can't see it because I can't risk letting it escape." That's reasonable. So what is it? "A monster." Right. But I can't see it? "No. It might escape." And you caught it? "Yes, but I think it wanted to be caught. I think I'm still part of a military experiment" etc etc etc.

WE ARE STILL HERE is another one. In it, a grieving  couple move into a haunted house with a dark link to the nearby town. All the really interesting 'history' stuff is rushed through in the film and shown through pretend headlines at the end. Surely it would have made for a more effective scare/growing sense of unease if the main characters did some digging and came to the slow realisation that something is terribly wrong in the town, not just their house?

And lastly, I'm inclined to mention STARRY EYES. In it, a desperate aspiring actress gets involved in some freaky movie cult and undergoes a drastic change. It has a creepy/disgusting build-up to...a bit of an anti-climax. Then a sort of 'real' ending that really feels like it could go on another half an hour and be better for it.

These are all films I enjoyed, but left them feeling like they could have so easily been a little better. Honestly, it's like GHOST SHIP all over again.

WEW WEW WEW WEW panic over! Back to our regularly scheduled whatevers!

I AM MAKING GAMES

Oi oi.

In my last post I revealed that I'm teaching myself how to code video games, with my main focus being a ninja platformer. I'm taking a slight break from that, though, as I'm entering LOWREZJAM 2016. It's a Game Jam, which happen all the time, and always feature interesting themes. This one is games that are only 64 by 64 pixels in size. My entry is almost done. This is what it's called:

It's a two player game that is both about dead burnt cowboys locked in a high noon gun battle and not about this at all. I'm currently adding daft little touches like being able to shoot the other player's hat off and an idea for a sort-of secret ending.

Ah yes. The ending. A good video game is like a good book - it should have a beginning, middle and end. It also shouldn't plateau early on - there needs to be development of some kind, such as extra abilities or story elements or what-have-you. CHARRED CORPSE GUNFIGHT is likely going to have around 7 endings, some of which it's feasible no one will ever actually reach haha. UNLESS they're crafty and patient. But I've already said too much...!

I've got a ton of other ideas on the go, too. I am focusing on the ninja game and this one, but because I enjoy programming but need to take a break from these games every so often, I work on other genres. I've got a couple of different real time strategy prototypes on the go, a mini giant monster simulator called TYRANT REX (after one of my toy/sculptures) as well as a tiny platform game called INSIDE AN ANGRY WIFE. Also something that might be an RTS or a tower defence game, I'm not sure yet. All I know is it's going to be one of those ambient/minimalist type affairs and use these weird cubes:

So that's it. I love learning new stuff and figuring out how things work, and coding scratches both these itches. I'm particularly enjoying working on CHARRED CORPSE GUNFIGHT because the remit is limited and forces creative thinking/design - I might well make a bunch of daft 'tiny' games, as they're quicker to work on than a full-scale one, then see about bunging 'em on an app store or something. We'll see.

Until next time, chums!