Mr. Smoozles Goes Nutso - Special Holiday Price!

To celebrate the forthcoming holiday season, Mr. Smoozles Goes Nutso is now on special offer at the new holiday price:

3.99 USD, 3.49 Euro, 2.99 GBP

New Screenshot

Although this is similar to a previous screenshot I posted some time ago, a lot has changed since then. I hope the changes are for the better.

Another Scout update

I've put a lot more detail into him this time, which gets him back to the look I originally had in the Sapphire Claw comic strip I did ages ago. I've also been making tweaks and improvements to the background art I currently have created. I may yet move this game forward in a substantial way...

Juniper Games site update

Take a look at the Juniper Games website to see the update.

Small update on Sapphire

I've been playing round for ages, on and off, with the idea of creating a 3D version of Scout that remains faithful to the original. This is the first version that I feel meets that criteria. Although there are changes from my original 2D drawings, they are in keeping with the essence of the character, which is the real test. I've created a full set of stand, walk and talk anims and played with it in the Wintermute engine and so far I'm really pleased with the results. Perhaps The Sapphire Claw has just taken another step closer...

Leipzig 2008

Once again I will be attending the Leipzig Games Convention held in August. While I'm going to be there as a guest of DTP and will be undertaking some promotion on their behalf, I will be free on the Friday to meet with people who would like to discuss matters pertaining to Juniper Games or my writing and design work.

I hope that I get the chance to meet up with some of you.

Mr. Smoozles Goes Nutso - online distribution

I've been a little lax in posting to my blogs lately. It seems as if I've been swamped by work over the last few months. In the midst of that, though, was the good news that Nutso was picked up by Merscom for release through various online portals.

The official press release can be found here. Details of some of the sites carrying the game can be found here.

There's a good chance of further news on the Nutso front in the coming weeks, but until it's confirmed I don't want to chance fate.

Great review for Mr. Smoozles Goes Nutso

Check it out, here.

"As indie games go, Mr. Smoozles Goes Nutso is pretty well made."

Thanks to Isaac C for writing such a great review.

Moving Forward

It's been some time since I last posted and while there is very little in the way of news, I thought I'd post something about my plans, which have lost a lot of focus recently.

I posted question on Adventure Gamers, here, which asked what players loved about adventures and defined the genre for them. Partly, this was in reaction to reading a number of negative threads about what people hate in adventures, but partly it was designed to help me focus my efforts again.

I've had a busy time lately, working on projects like The Witcher and, in particular, So Blonde, as well as a number of others. In my spare time I've been juggling lots of different personal projects, none of which are moving forward very quickly because I'm not concentrating on any of them in particular. I even played around with an idea for a sequel to Mr. Smoozles Goes Nutso, but I finally realised that, as good as these other ideas are, I must concentrate on one and look towards creating a fully-realised game proposal.

What this now means is that Sapphire Claw, a Nutso sequel, Mekapods (renamed) and a number of other projects will have no more work done on them for the forseeable future while I concentrate on the game I'm going to refer to as Project B&P. When I'm not working on projects that bring in the money, that is. :)

Project B&P is going to be a character-driven adventure game with, what I hope will be, a few interesting twists along with plenty of familiarity. Stay tuned for further notices.

Not forgotten

Just a quick posting to say that I've not forgotten about the Juniper Games blog. The work I've been doing on So Blonde and another game have overshadowed things here a little, but it's all for the greater good.

Perhaps I'll have some further news soon.