GyroVorbis has officially declined our challenge. And it took him two whole videos to do so! Here's part 1, and here's part 2. Most of it is just overdrawn rambling and retorting our insults all seriously, so you should just skip to 4:04 in the 2nd video where it gets pretty epically funny. Me and Jesse were crackin up at that. They pretty much owned us...or did they? "We're not gonna play into your little scheme" Gyro says...which is funny, because by his responding he already has. The goal of our challenge video was to create more awareness for us and our game. That is my number one focus right now, creating as much awareness as possible. I'll worry about patchin up our reputation later...

But wait, why didn't we just politely challenge them instead of acting like jerks and damaging our reputation on youtube? Think about it. Would that have been as interesting? Or as Memorable? Would Gyro have even responded via video? And if he did, he certainly wouldn't have gone to such lengths in that response; constructing a whole level just for us. The JForce brand is now instilled in the Elysian Shadows community forever. They will never forget us. And apparently, we'll even be in their game! Not only did we advertise to all of their current & future subscribers, but also a good portion of their future players (regardless of whether or not Gyro keeps us in the game). That is a definite win in my book. All the hate doesn't matter, because the basis of that hate is that we're arrogant and inexperienced and that our game is going to suck. All we have to do is release an awesome game, problem solved. Of course, some still probably won't buy it because they just flat out don't like us, but meh, the trade-off was still worth it. Plus, our video adds to the JForce profile of being arrogant and controversial. In the long run that'll get us more traffic. Controversy sells.

Anyway...
Since Gyro asked, the smack talk I refer to is when they said our game is generic and that we're ignorant to game development and we aren't going to sell our game. That's smack talk. Doubting us. It was enough to warrant this. But yes, I did start the whole thing.

And MrGoodah was Jesse, and he did all that without my knowledge while I was at work. He even called me up when y'all discovered him and was like "crap."

Also it's silly how Gyro exaggerates about that coding segment in episode 10. The video was only like 7 minutes long, and that segment didn't last more then 3 minutes.

But whatever. My work here is done. We'll post a response video when our game is finished.

-the scheming sign painter

Oh snap! So here's the scenario: GyroVorbis and his team are making a 2D RPG, Elysian Shadows. I was reading their forums a few weeks ago and noticed a thread about us in which some hating was taking place. Now, lots of people like to hate on JForce, it's the cool thing to do nowadays. But this is different, cuz these guys are doing 'making of' videos like us. They're also young and immature like us, and have never completed a game before as a team. However, they are certainly more experienced than us, and they even post "how to" game development videos on their youtube channel. (note: in both those threads I linked to, you'll see the user "patio" which is actually me in disguise...MUWAHAHAHA!)

So, the bet: whichever game gets a lower average review score (and yes there are plenty of indie review sites) must recite a speech written by the winner, while wearing a shirt which endorses the winner. Obviously this must be recorded and uploaded to youtube and made public so the world may laugh. And if Gyro's team would like to make any amendments to the bet, we are open-ears. It would be much more interesting if were competing for sales, but I believe they're releasing their game for free. Either way, it's goin down.

Now we just have to await a video response...unless of course, they're chicken...

In this episode we mess around with frame count, talk about a new possible art direction, and compare our game to Blow Everything Up (we do that a lot actually, same goes for Crimsonland and Babo).

And Jonny keeps sayin he's gonna write blog posts discussing his programming journey, but he's a slacker. I'm going to start forcing him to do so. Starting this week.

Here's the youtube comments.

So I removed those games we were selling. I only sold a few, but we were getting a handful of downloads every day, so that's good I guess. The reason I had them here is so we could have some extra content on our site besides our documentaries, and of course to try and make some extra money to pour into our game. I was thinking they could only benefit us, but I was not thinking correctly...cuz, ya know, the more monetization efforts you have on your site the less 'linkable' it is. Aaron Wall (seo mastermind) is a big advocate of this, so are many others, but it was his book that really hammered this concept into my head. It's a pretty obvious concept, though a lot of marketing people don't get it. They wanna throw in as many ads and affiliate links as they possibly can...

See, what happens is, other bloggers may look at your site and think you're just tryna' make money. Nobody wants to link to greedy money-hungry bastards and give them more money. For example (maybe), when we announced our first episode I notified a few gaming blogs (I didn't do an all out press release though, I sort of regret that). A few of 'em posted it, but I actually think maybe 1 or 2 more would've posted it if we didn't have those affiliate games on our site. Especially since episode 1 seemed like a big joke. Maybe some editors looked at it and thought "Man these guys aren't real game developers! They're just jokin around, tryna' sell their freakin affiliate games!" But I dunno. Another reason though, is that there's a lot of other sites/blogs that sell those exact same games. Do they wanna link to their competitors? I think not!

Now of course this concept isn't really applicable to most indie developers. They just sell their game and don't really consider additional revenue sources. And that's how it should be for a lot of 'em. I mean, could you imagine affiliate games or ads on Braid's site? Or Aquaria's? Those games are so pure. It just wouldn't seem right.

But JForce is not so pure. We're gangster. I think a small square ad on our sidebar wouldn't be too out of place. But the key is to build up traffic first. Create a site that adds real value to the web, a site that people can't live without, then start to monetize that traffic in other ways besides just your game's sales. However, I don't think affiliate games should be one of those other ways, because of the linkability thing. And it just makes us look more money-hungry and 'business-y.' But I dunno, I change my mind a lot. The Crimsonland guy has them, and I don't think it hurts his rep at all, though he might be loosing links... I said might, so don't hold me to that...just hold me baby...

Anyway, if you've been downloading those games they're all available at Reflexive if you want to keep downloading them. You'll see a bunch of casual BS jumpin at you. Just click browse and filter that crap out. And speaking of Reflexive, they just got bought out by Amazon. That's pretty big news. That means that we indies might have a chance of putting our games on Amazon.com, one of the most popular websites in the world. W00t.

And episode 10 is on its way. I've been pretty busy launching my dad's political cartoon blog. Also, I'm sort of disappointed with the quality of our show. It could be much better, so I'm gonna change a few things. Oh, and we got a really funny video comin up. It's gonna be EPIC. It involves another little indie crew...don't miss it.

-JForce out


PS: I love World of Goo. We might have to start marketing our game as the 2ND best indie game ever.

EDIT: no, nevermind, ours will be better.

Ok, last episode of concept art discussion. Here's the rest you haven't seen: Flower Mane, the juggernaut character, and the monk character. And here's a group picture with most of the characters. And who thinks the living origami box and Chuck Norris should be in the game?

In other news, Jordan recently launched his new site: JordanBlakey.com. Check it out, he has some really sweet artwork on there. Yes, our artist is that good.

Here's the youtube comments.

Do you want to be banned from TIGSource? ...TWICE??? Then this video is for you!

So Jordan just finished a spritesheet. Check it out, it looks freakin sweet. No really. IGF Visual Excellence Award here we come. But he can't run the game on his computer, so he needs a video to see his work in action. I decided to make it episode 8. And while I'm at it, might as well show off all the cool new abilities Jonny's added. Concept art discussion will continue next week!

The song is Chuck Rock by Machinae Supremacy.

Here's the youtube comments.

More exciting discussion of concept art!

Here's the youtube comments.

The next three episodes will show us discussing character concept art. And, as you can see, we have boomerangs and hookshots in the game now!

Here's the youtube comments.

In this episode I got Ty over checking out our latest version of the prototype, now with big shiny laser balls! We also discuss how rolling should work, as well as the dreaded 'open-mouth syndrome.'

Intro song is from Quake 2, chase song is from Final Fantasy 7.

Here's the youtube comments.