I felt bad about the April Fools’ joke so over the weekend I whipped up the game so no one was disappointed.
For 18 years the Grumpy Gamer blog has been April Fools’ day free because it’s a stupid tradition.
So to mix things up a little I’m taking this opportunity to announce I’ve decided to make another Monkey Island.
Well, it’s 2022 and everything is turning out exactly as I predicted back when I was 7. Self-driving cars, space stations, the internet. Nailed it.
Favorite TV show of 2021 was Only Murders in the Building.
Favorite game of 2021 was Loop Heroes.
Favorite book of 2021 was Einstein’s Fridge.
Favorite rediscovered joy of 2021 was reading physical books.
Favorite movie of 2021 was Dune.
Favorite time waster of 2021 was watching physics videos on YouTube.
Least favorite movie of 2021 was anything with f**king superheroes.
Favorite pandemic of 2021 was Covid-19 (three years running).
See you in an exciting 2022 where everyone will be nice and respectful and personal agendas are put aside for the greater good and we all come together and save the planet.
Either that or a horrific dystopian post-apocalyptic world where we hunt each other for food.
2022 could go either way.
Placing the last piece.
And then disaster stuck while moving it.
Most of the debris is still assembled large chucks, so it shouldn’t take long to fix. I’m sure this happened to the real coliseum.
That didn’t take long to fix and rebuild. I don’t know what is taking the city of Rome so long.
Start to finish, it took just over a year. I blame Limited Run Games.
Holiday repost!
Clayton and I did this back in Dec of 2004. Interesting how much hasn’t changed. We’d have more “male” spouses now, something about loot crates and IAP, kissing up to steamers, and maybe change the last verse to be more “indie”, but its shockingly accurate years later.
The Twelve Days of Crunch Time
A poem by Gilbert and Kauzlaric
On the twelfth day of crunch time, My project gave to me…
Twelve cents in royalties,
Eleven kiss-ass previews,
Ten nerdy testers,
Nine patent lawsuits,
Eight unplanned for features,
Seven frames a second,
Six angry spouses,
Five focus groups!
Four unstable hacks,
Three days without sleep,
Two surly artists,
and a crappy publishing deal.
We should be done in time for the upcoming gladiator ‘22 season. Tickets are still available. I hear Ferocianus Maximus is going to do well this year.
After 7000 signatures, some progress. I am getting help.
Last month I finally got done signing over 7000 cards for the Limited Run Games physical release of Monkey Island.
They asked if I would hand sign cards to go in the boxes. Sure, how many can that be? 500? 800?
Nope.
They had over 7000 preorders and I signed every one of those cards. If you bought one of the LRG Monkey Island boxes you won’t get a Certificate of Authenticity with a crappy machine printed signature.
I signed them all.
I even left a few special messages on the backs.
At first I was going to just copy/paste his article and call it my own then I realized that is kind of a dick move.
How to make your own game engine (and why) by Tyler Glaiel
Well worth a read.
In my 35+ year career in games I’ve never used an off the shelf game engine. Starting with SCUMM I’ve always build my own. I love the power and the freedom. It’s hard work and probably cost me more but I love making game engines and writing compilers. It’s a skill you slowly acquire and after the 5th one it’s not a daunting task anymore.
I ran into a programmer at an indie meet-up and she told me this story about how another programmer at her company brought up building their own game engine. Someone responded with “What! Are you Ron Gilbert!”
I wear that as a badge of honor. :-)