Edmund's dev blog for gay nerds

The Binding of Isaac Halloween update!

2011-10-31T02:56:00.000-07:00

By 12noon Pst on Oct. 31st if you own the Binding of Isaac on Steam, you will get this....

BIG HALLOWEEN UPDATE (with no actual lame halloween themes)

-Added chapter 5 (unlocked after 10 mom kills)

-Added 3+ new bosses

-Added 4 new enemies

-Added 20+ new items

-Added one new unlockable character (Eve)

-Added one new "FINAL" ending.

-Added 6+ new achievements

-Added 2 new music tracks

-Added updated collection viewer

-Added 4 new tarot cards (finishig the major arcana)

Fixes:

-lots of small bugs were fixed

-load time fixed

-a few minor item balances

Also this is the most amazing Isaac fan art ever! Thanks @LeePfenninger

Happy Halloween!

-Edmund

Quick update news

2011-10-02T16:49:00.000-07:00

1st off sorry for the lack of response in the comments.. i actually forgot about my blog for a few days..

anyway i just wanted to mention that Isaac was updated on steam. here is what was fixed.
-Fixed wall clipping bug
-Upgraded game save so it wont be deleted by clean up tools
-Added options to the start screen
-Added control options within the options menu
-Added lefty support
-Added azerty keyboard options
-Fixed minor music issues

-Added more alt bosses.

Note: there is a 2nd update coming soon! that should fix.

-Crashing due to lag
-Mom wall bug issues
-Music issues
-Items not saving
-a few more small issues

Mac users! your update is coming monday, but youll have to wait a bit longer for the flashachievements app that unlocks your saved achievements (i need to buy a mac and tommy needs to make the app). Dont worry though, all your achievements are saved ingame and will unlock at startup once you have the app udpate.

For PC users who are still not getting achievements, check your computer permissions there is a chance if you arent running as admin your pc will block achievements from unlocking (this is rare though).

ok real update about new content coming soon!

-Edmund

little launch update

2011-09-28T23:05:00.000-07:00

So there were a few minor bumps with the launch, came out a few hours late, the launch build was actually an older beta build without achievements and minor music issues.. but we were able to update asap and patch the issues right away.

For most of the day Isaac was the #2 highest grossing game on Steam! amazing stuff! thanks to everyone who picked it up and did video play throughs, podcasts and livestreams of the game, its been yet another surreal launch experience .

It might not make sense to most, but launching a game really takes an emotional tole on you regardless of how the game does, so i really want to thank all of you who went out of their ways to live stream the game, sent me awesome emails and fan pics, you really picked me up.... so now to give back!

Well as i mentioned in my previous post, there has been a lot of talk about a Halloween patch next month if the game was received well, this is obviously the case. So on oct.31st be ready for a very dark and jam packed FREE update to isaac, that will add a lot more to the game... but 1st.

Kill mom already!

-Edmund
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update notes:
-We are aware of a few bugs (wall bug, secret room bug, alt tab bug, etc) and are compiling an update for this weekend that should fix them.

-The Mac version of the game IS saving your achievements, but not rewarding them yet. Tommy is currently working on an app to fix this this week.. so dont worry mac people, all your achievements are there in your save and will be unlocked on steam once we patch the game!

-Anyone still not getting achievements on Pc after they have updated, delete your local content and redownload the game, it will fix any issues.

--------------

To super fans:

-The Binding of Isaac Tshirt is now up! GO BUY IT!

-Danielleorama is currently working on the 1st run of BOI plushes, shoudl be out in the next few days, ill update here when they are up fro sale.

-The BOI limited edition hand printed development zine is currently in the works, i will post info here and via twitter as it develops.

-there is a wiki in the works for Isaac, go help out!

10 more hours!

2011-09-28T00:20:00.000-07:00

The Binding of Isaac will release on steam in 10 hours.. ill probably be sleeping so ill post the launch trailer and link to whereto buy the game now.

! BindingofIsaac.com !

GO KILL MOM!

1 day away!

2011-09-27T20:12:00.000-07:00

Game comes out tomorrow at 10am on steam!

A fan won a copy of the game early today and did a "1st 20 minutes of The Binding of Isaac" play through.
of course there are spoilers to those who want to see it all themselves tomorrow.. but its a pretty good vid :)

thanks andrew!

2 more days

2011-09-26T22:12:00.001-07:00

thanks mikanator200

(Q_Q)

2011-09-25T04:10:00.000-07:00

Achieve!

2011-09-23T01:52:00.000-07:00

Less than a week away from the release of The Binding of Isaac, currently adding the final music and sound edits as we test achievements and get the game ready for its steam release on the 28th.

When i started SMB dev i had a very negative standpoint when it came to achievements, they really felt like worthless tacked on extras that usually forced the player to do boring or counterintuitive things to gain digital badges, and in a lot of games out there that's exactly what they are. During the final development months of SMB we were forced to sit down and come up with 12 xbla achievements, but even with a game like smb adding achievements that were more then "check point awards" was tough. i feel like the only legit achievement we added was the Iron boy achievement, an achievement that asked the player to go above and beyond to gain something extra, it went with the hardcore theme of the game and worked so well on xbla we decided to add 11 more of them in the Steam version.

Achievements can be fun if designed in a way that asks more of the player, but in a game like Isaac, achievements can also be used as a progression check list as well as extra reward, so today i'm going to go over the "visible" Isaac achievements and explain why we did them the way we did.

Ill try not to go into great detail on each as to not spoil too much, but the over 40 Isaac achievements fall into a few different categories.

Basic Progression achievements: (colored by chapter, 6)

As i explained in my last post, Isaac doesnt play like a "normal" linear game, its a game that was designed to be played over and over with different content and outcomes. So to do achievements designed around progression we did these

Each of the 3 starting chapters (Basement, Caves, Depths) has 2 basic progression achievements, completing said chapter for the 1st time as well as killing all 4 of the starting bosses in each chapter as well. Each achievement also rewards you with unlockable content, as you might assume from the images the content ranges from, new weapons, usable items, level effecting hats and even a lil pet! These are the most basic achievements in the game, and probably the easiest to get when starting out.

Item achievements: (grey, 12+)

everyone of the 13+ item achievements obviously rewards the player with a new item that is shuffled into their next play sessions making the game richer in content. how you get these items is a bit mysterious, some are unlocked by doing specific things that are hinted at in the achievement descriptions, some are rewarded by unlocking alt characters, some are unlocked by getting item combos and others are unlocked by simply playing the game as you would normally.

Character achievements:(white, 3+)

Basic achievements that are attained by unlocking alt. characters!

Mystery achievements: (purple, 5)

these are a secret to everyone!

Game Completion achievements: (red, 8+)

Probably the game's key achievements, these guys are rewarded by completing the game 1-10 times. each one either unlocks an item, character, boss or changes the full game. these are the key achievements for all die hards.

Extreme achievements!: (gold, 4+)

Bonus achievements rewarded for finishing the game with alt characters and 100%ing the game, these rewards come in the form of very powerful familiars and even things that change how your starting characters play!

REAL achievements: (colored by chapter, 4)

The equivalent of Iron man runs in SMB, these hardcore achievements are meant for the freaks out there who like a real challenge!

---------------------------------------------

And thats the basic run down of achievements and rewards.

If the game takes off and the fans start salivating for more achievements, we have a few planned for updates in the future... speaking of future plans.

Many of you following me on twitter have probably read that it was very hard for me to stop adding new content to Isaac during the last month of dev, last week i had to completely cut off the content to assure we would hit or launch date on the 28th, of course the moment i did that i came up with a ton of amazing ideas that i felt NEEDED to be in the game! I dont want to promise anything right now, because god knows mentioning stuff like this is an easy way to shoot yourself in the foot by doing tons of extra work for nothing (see the 6months of extra dev time on the promised super meat world + level editor) BUT...

IF Isaac does well on steam and aquires a fan base that really wants more game, i will be for sure doing a FREE update this Halloween :)... those of you who though the game was dark...well, it will get darker.

ok back to testing!

BYE!

Progression?

2011-09-17T23:01:00.000-07:00

This post is filled with minor spoilers.. just sayin.

Progression:

How the hell do you add a feeling of progress when your game is randomly generated? this was a huge hurdle of mine when starting Isaac and something i was very unsure of as the game started to unfold.

i had a few examples i knew worked, Spelunky had a sense of progression by playing the game to cash in on short cuts that would push beginners through the full game by adding "starting points". Desktop Dungeons added progression by unlocking alternate characters that play differently to mix things up and allow you to continue with a new character if the game grew stale.

I liked both of these designs but the one Spelunky used didnt fit with Isaac's leveling progression and Desktop's design didnt fit well due to the lack of character customization i had without using items.

The design i settled on actually turned out to be more of a combination of alt characters from DD and the unlocking weapon system used in Super Crate Box, formed to fit Isaacs gameplay.

What i mean by that is this, the more you play Isaac the more random elements are shuffled into the game, Items, enemies, rooms, characters, bosses, endings and even chapters are unlocked as you play the game.

These unlockables are triggered by many different things, some are based on achievements others based on luck, but the most common simply happen by playing the game as you normally would.

Basicly the more you play the game, the more rich the content becomes. this formula gives the illusion of the game feeling endless and lets it unfold organically as you play. Not only does this let me add a sense of progress as you play and get better it also lets me control the difficulty of the game.

Difficulty:

Difficulty progression is another aspect i mulled over for a long time when starting Isaac's design. I wanted the game to be a challenge, but much like Super Meat Boy i also wanted to be able to add content that helps those having trouble (unlockable characters) and rewards better players with more challenge (dark world). With Isaac i came at this in a very similar way but applied it with unlockable content.

Users who play the "basic" game and are struggling will be rewarded with new items (shuffled into the game) that will aid in their gameplay sessions making the game a bit easier for them, but players who play well will be rewarded with more of a challenge in the form of harder bosses, extra chapters and raised over all dificulty depending on how well they continuously play. That said, regardless of how you play you will still eventually unlock the "helper" content even if you're dominating the game.

Its hard to go into detail about exactly how these things unlock and what they are without spoiling the fun, but there are over 60 unlockables that range from an extended game, 10+ new bosses, difficulty spikes with extra reward and loads of new unique items.

Oh also characters,

Characters:

Isaac is one of 4 main playable characters (or classes) that become available as you play the game, these classes mirror the 4 core classes in DnD, Fighter, Thief, Cleric and Wizard.

Isaac: The Fighter

an average character unlocked from the start.

HP: 3 Dam: 2 Range: 2 Speed: 2

Starting Item: None

Starting pickup item: Bomb

Cain: The Thief

Unlocked by acquiring 55+ pennies in one play through

HP: 2 Dam: 2 Range: 1 Speed: 3

Starting Item: Lucky Foot (passive item that raises luck)

Starting pickup item: Key

Maggy: The Cleric

Unlocked by getting 7+ container hearts in one play through

HP: 4 Dam: 2 Range: 2 Speed: 1

Starting Item: Yum Heart (Usable item that regenerates health. recharge: 6)

Starting pickup item: None

Judas: The Wizard

Unlocked by ??????

HP: 1 Dam: 4 Range: 2 Speed: 2

Starting Item: Book of Belial (Usable item that raises damage. recharge: 6)

Starting pickup item: Penny

Unlocking these characters will also unlock their special item in the main game and shuffle them into your gameplay sessions regardless of who you play as.

The goal of alt characters is to allow the player to start as a slightly more defined "class" to hopefully complement their play style as well as change up how one might play the game.

There are also unique "familiars" that are unlocked by completing the full game with each character as a bonus reward.

--------------

Well i hope that cleared up a bit of the mystery on why replaying the game is actually rewarding in more ways than one, and how i dealt with difficulty progression within a roguelike formula.

Im super excited to get this thing out, very very happy with it right now and really enjoyed working with Florian(nsfw) and Danny a lot, special thanks also go out to Tommy who not only has play tested the hell out of isaac but also wrote the achievement code for us and Danielle whos been obsessively playing for the past 2 months and is in the process of making some very awesome limited edition Isaac plush for our launch on the 28th!

and for those of you who missed the last post...

The Binding of Isaac is coming out on the 28th of Sept. Only on Steam.

It launched on both Mac and Pc, and will sell for $5 bucks!

Questions will be answered in the comments below.

-Edmund

Binding of Isaac release date!

2011-09-17T00:51:00.000-07:00

New Music!

2011-09-16T02:30:00.000-07:00

The release of The Binding of Isaac is getting close, currently my days are once again spent glued to my chair crunching away on the final edits, tweaks, balanced and achievements so its perfect for launch later this month.

Along side Florian and myself, Danny Baranowsky has been slaving away on some pretty amazing works of his own. Im sure most reading this blog are familiar with his work, but if you somehow missed it he did all the music for Super Meat Boy, Canabalt, Spewer, Grey matter and also remade all the music in Cave story for the 3ds.

As usual Danny has been very fun to work with, his music is also a big motivator for me creatively when i design, we communicate well on a creative level and i think it shows in the way the music complements the game.

With Super Meat Boy Danny was riding on a very heart pounding retro "video gamey" theme for most of the games tracks, with Isaac is kind of the opposite, especially when it comes to the mood. The music in Isaac is dark, strange, haunting and at times a bit disturbing. hes married the games theme with the music perfectly, hearing the choirboy singing in the bg of one of the games main tracks still gives me goose bumps when i hear it.. but enough gushing about Danny, we all know hes awesome.

Here is the next free track Danny posted today, The final boss music of the game, Thine Wrath.

http://dbsoundworks.bandcamp.com/track/thine-wrath

Obviously a lot more upbeat than the 1st ch1 track Danny posted a few weeks ago (http://dbsoundworks.bandcamp.com/album/the-binding-of-isaac-soundtrack).

Much like SMB, Danny will also be releasing a full soundtrack, this sound track will featured just over 12 tracks and be sold on Steam as well as Bandcamp.

Well time to get back to work, im going to try to buy myself enough time tomorrow to do a new game play post and also announce our release date!

i also made this icon today!

Till next time...

The Binding of Isaac Gameplay explained

2011-09-11T22:59:00.000-07:00

So, I've obviously been seriously neglecting this dev blog due to crunch time with The Binding of Isaac, but things are currently slowing down due to the game being basically finished minus some more testing and polish so i thought it would be a great time to do my 1st in depth blog post about the design of Isaac.

For the past month we have been heavily testing Isaac with other devs, the response is extremely positive and the majority of testers are fully hooked, but there is one core issue.

The 1st time people play they don't understand that the game was meant to be played multiple times with different results.

I've tried to push the title "Roguelike" around a lot to get across how the game plays, but I'm now realizing that a majority have no clue what that means, they see something that looks like a zelda shooter and right away assume it's going to be a linear experience and then become frustrated by their 1st death when they respawn back at start.

So here is my attempt at explaining the game :) I think I'll call it...

Randomly Generated Content! it's good for you!

The goal with Isaac was simple, I wanted to design a game that would feel totally fresh and new every time you play it. Now on paper this might seem very hard to do, but by pulling from the roguelike formula I was able to do this pretty easily.

On the surface the first thing most people will notice after playing once and dying is that the maps are generated randomly.

Every map consists of 4 core rooms, and between 5-20 non-core rooms.

The 4 core rooms are:

Treasure Room: where you will always find an item

Boss Room: where you fight the boss end exit the map

Shop: where you can buy items

Secret Room: its a secret!

The 4 core rooms will ALWAYS appear in a map, they are the foundation of the games "leveling" system and should be looked at as the goals of each level. Even though these rooms always appear, their contents, enemies, look, design and any "surprises" within them are randomly picked from a slew of alternates.

The non-core rooms are randomly selected from a pre-designed group of 1000+ rooms that are arranged by difficulty and chapter. the majority of these rooms consist of small arena battles that make the bulk of the game play, but they are also peppered with bonus rooms with mini puzzles, prizes, traps and a few surprises here and there.

Aside from these rooms there are also a set of context sensitive rooms:

The Arcade: A room filled with mini games that cost coins (only appears when you have enough money)

The Challenge Room: Fight off waves of enemies for a prize. (only appears when you play well)

Mini boss room: a mini boss appears!

Mystery Room1: it's a secret!

Mystery Room2: it's a secret!

These uncommon rooms are meant to spice up game play and add small alternate goals and or extra risk/reward aspects to the game. as per usual the contents of each of these rooms is always different.

On the surface this is basically the foundation of the games design, but if we go another layer deeper we can see that the contents within the randomly generated core content also have random elements inside of them.

Now, we know that the rooms are chosen randomly from a very large set of rooms I designed, but the contents within each of those rooms also have random elements.

Enemies:

There are well over 50 enemies in Isaac, but each of these enemies have minor random elements:

For example we have this guy, the Mulligan.

Most of the time he looks like the 1st guy, runs away from you if he sees you, has a small % chance of blowing up and shooting bullets out and spawns 2-4 randomly chosen flies when he is killed.

But there is also a smaller % chance he will appear as the 2nd guy, the Mulligoon.

Mulligoons act the same as their brothers accept they always explode into a spray of bullets when they die and also leave a "troll bomb" behind that blows up.

On top of these there is an even smaller % chance that a Mulligan will appear as a "Special" Mulligan and possibly look like the 3rd guy.

Special enemies will be randomly colored, slightly larger then their brothers, do more damage and have more health.

Special enemies will also drop "pickups" when they are killed as an extra reward for the risk of fighting a stronger enemy.

Pickups:

Whenever you clear a room, kill a special enemy or open a chest there is a good % chance pickup items will be spawned.

Core pickup items consist of:

Pennies: you buy items, play games and donate these to hobos.

Hearts: you fill up your life with these

Bombs: you blow up rocks, doors, walls and enemies with these

Keys: you unlock shops, treasure rooms, locked chests and other special things with these.

Less common are the one use pickup items:

Tarot Cards: randomly picked from the 18 cards that exist in the game. each card has a different effect.

Pills: randomly picked from around 12 different effects, both negative and positive. every new game changes what color pill has what effect(much like scrolls and potions in roguelikes.

On top of these, there is also a small % chance that the core pickups will become these:

Nickle: 5 pennies!

Half Heart: :(

Soul Heart: acts as armor

Double bomb: 2 bombs

Troll Bomb: :(

there is also an even smaller % chance that rooms, enemies and the like will generate chests, there are 2 types of chests

Basic chest: Generates 2-5 pickup items, can also appear in mini puzzle rooms

Locked Golden chest: Generates 2-8 pickup items, can also generate "special items"

Special items:

Special items are the core of the games "leveling system". Similar to Zeldas leveling system (if you can call it that) Isaacs growth focuses on finding items that stack together, raise your stats, change how you play and how your character appears in game.

There are over 110 special items in the game that fit into these categories.

Usable items:

these items all have different effects when you use them and recharge by completing rooms. items have different charge rates depending on the power of the item, you can only hold one Usable item at a time.

Weapon items:

these items change your shots adding properties like homing, poison, knock back, boomarang etc. They might also totally change your attack to something very different.

Stat padding items:

these items raise your range, damage, rate of fire, speed and HP (adding container hearts)

Passive items:

these wild card items will effect many aspects of gameplay without having to do anything, they range from gaining the ability to see through walls, to the ability to fly.

Familiars:

these items act as "Options" (like in Gradius), following the player+shooting, blocking, finding/generating pickups or just running around killing stuff.

The majority of special items are found in treasure rooms but, less common items are also found exclusively in other rooms:

-The Shop has a set of exclusive shop items that usually aid ease of level traversing

-The secret room has a set of more odd and rare items inside it

-The Boss room has a set of stat padding items to make sure your character's stats always get raised.

There are also small sets of very rare items exclusive to other "things" but i wont spoil them.

and finally...

Bosses:

As mentioned before, every map in the game will feature a boss room where you face off against one of 20+ bosses, killing the boss will get you a stat padding item and open the trap door to the next level.

Like everything else in the game, bosses are also randomly chosen and have random elements within them.

Every time a map is generated, it picks a boss from a set of 4-5 bosses for that chapter set. each chapter consists of 2 levels, if it's the 2nd level of the chapter the boss that is picked gets slightly buffed HP wise to balance difficulty.

The bosses level is randomly chosen from 8 different arena layouts, sometimes appearing with "helpers" or small mobs. Like enemies, Bosses can also appear as alternate special bosses with modded stats, attacks and visual changes always keeping you on your toes.

----------------------------------

All in all the stacking of these elements along with extra "special happenings" and other undescribed extras makes this formula of random generation create a game that is so different each time you play it that the penalty of having to start over from scratch really becomes a reward, because every time you start a new game the adventure feels totally fresh and mysterious.

There is another huge element to all of this that rewards players even more, but ill hold off on explaining that till the next post.

If you have any questions feel free to ask them in the comments.

The Binding of Isaac will be launching on Steam (Pc/Mac) in the next 2 weeks.

-Edmund

The Binding of Isaac, coming to Steam!

2011-07-15T16:01:00.000-07:00

As some of you guessed, The Binding of Isaac will be launching on Valve's Steam service in August (not sept.).

We haven't settled on a price yet, but it definitely wont put much of a strain on your wallets.

ok, so details about the game.

Isaac is a roguelike shooter based on the dungeon structure of Zelda (nes). At its core it controls like Smash TV / Robotron in a randomly generated semi RPG world filled with powerups items and special abilities.

There is not a traditional leveling system in Isaac, instead we used an item system. Every level will have a treasure room, shop, boss and other secret/special rooms that might contain unique items. Special items come in 4 sets, Usable items, Special Weapon upgrades, Passive upgrades and stat boosters. 90% of items in the game stack, so as you progress your character will change into a monstrous powerhouse not only in stats and abilities but also in appearance.

There are currently over 70 special items in Isaac, not counting pickup items.

Aside from these core items, Isaac uses its pickup items as resources in what i call micro puzzles. the core resources in the game are Coins, Bombs, Keys, Hearts, cards and pills each of these pickups can be used in different ways to acquire special items, gain access to shops and hidden areas, kill enemies and also affect gameplay in many other ways.

The game currently has 6 "dungeons" spanning 3 chapters, 6 bosses, 36 enemy types, 4 unlockable characters and tons of dynamic happenings.

in the end we hope to top out at 8 dungeons with 10+ bosses and 42 enemy types.. we have our work cut out for us for our aug. launch.

As mentioned before Danny B will be doing the music, so you can expect an EP's worth of new Danny Awesomeness as well, we are also featuring Jordan on sound effects (he did the sounds for smb and donkey kong country wii)!

anyway, its exciting to finally announce all this. Florian just made it so neutral flys are attracted to piles of shit and if they eat too much of the shit they get fat and become bloated flys that poop blood at you... im very happy with this game so far.

here are some beta screen shots!

Till next time!

I dropped a bean back there..

2011-07-12T16:36:00.000-07:00

In a recent interview with IGN about SMB and indie dev i was asked about The Binding of Isaac and spilled a bean or 2 about the inspiration behind the game.

you can read all about it Here

The article is for the most part correct, accept for the release date of sept. We actually hope to release the game much sooner and will release that info once we solidify exactly how and where we are going to release it.

Also i believe the part where i said "i hope people dont get offended" should probably read "I hope peopel dont get TOO offended"

Anyway yeah, back to work!

The Binding of Danny B

2011-07-10T23:41:00.000-07:00

The great Danny B has just put up the 1st track from The Binding of Isaac up on bandcamp for free!

Check it out here!

more info as it trickles out...

New game!

2011-07-08T01:19:00.000-07:00

So its been a while since ive updated this blog because of this game called Super Meat Boy that id been actively working on for the past 2 years with Tommy (as Team Meat).

Some of you know that Tommy and i have started on our 2nd "feature length" title, but none of you know that ive also been secretly working on a side project for a while now called The Binding of Isaac.

The image above is the proof!

This will be the 1st non-team meat project ive done since Time Fcuk, im currently working on it with Florian Himsl (programmer of Coil, Triachnid and the C word) and it will also feature an awesome score by mr. Danny B.

i still want to keep info on the game and its release date/platform secret till its totally finished and i know what i want to do with it, but i can say that its a play on my favorite game of all time, its a roguelike and it should be done in about a month.

ill hopefully have some more news on it next week!

ill also try and update this blog a bit more...

To clear up any confusion.
THIS IS NOT THE NEXT TEAM MEAT GAME!
THIS GAME IS A MUCH SMALLER GAME THEN SMB!
TEAM MEAT IS WORKING ON A NEW GAME!

IGF wish list

2010-12-03T14:31:00.000-08:00

Having been a judge this year in the IGF it was my pleasure to play tons of great games. This years IGF judging has changed a ton and im happy to say i think, so far, it was handled very well.

here is my wish list for the IGF finals.

Design:
Desktop Dungeon
Spy Party
Super Crate Box
Minecraft
Nidhogg

Art:
Bit.Trip Runner
Retro City Rampage
Bastion
Cave Story
???

Sound:
Amnesia
Bit.Trip Beat
???
???
???

Tech:
Minecraft
Overgrowth
???
???
???

Nouvo:
A House in California
Happy Wheels
Spy Party
Zen Bound 2
Nidhogg

Grand Prize:
Amnesia
Bit.Trip Runner
Minecraft
Retro City Rampage
Spy Party

that is all.
-Edmund

Super Meat Boy is now out on xbla!

2010-10-20T02:52:00.000-07:00

Well the day has come.

Super Meat Boy is now available on Xbox Live!

Tommy and I put almost 2 years of blood, sweat, and tears into this and I think it's really something that oozes with the blood of artistic independence.

We have released a custom trailer for this special event,

To also add to this special occasion, as a gift to the fans who have supported us through development, we are offering a launch sale,lowering the asking price by 33% till Nov. To my knowledge this is the 1st time that Microsoft has allowed a developer to do something like this and we are very proud to be the 1st.

Super Meat Boy is out now on XBLA for 800 ms points ($10) for a limited time!

To all our fans, please post about our release it would mean the world to us.

Let the world know two men have finally procreated, our baby is born... its' a boy! A meaty one.

---------------------------------------------------------

For those of you who are still not sold feel free to check out IGN's video review.

and quite possibly the best super meat boy video ive ever seen, Giant Bombs semi video review http://www.giantbomb.com/super-meat-boy/61-25114/reviews/
(seriously watch this its amazing).

And if those things still have you saying BOORRRING

Check out our metascore of 92!!!! (with 12 reviews)

i love you all.

-Edmund

So this just happened

2010-10-11T23:52:00.000-07:00

-Edmund

New interview

2010-09-28T03:33:00.001-07:00

One on one interview with Alec, from Infinite Ammo.

We talk about the downsides to game development and how to work around them, also Danielle pops in at the end to talk about things from her perspective.

very happy with this interview.

Check it out.

http://infiniteammo.ca/blog/podcast-2-edmund-mcmillen/

-Edmund

1st real post in a long time.

2010-09-25T15:09:00.000-07:00

Well 1st off, Super Meat Boy for Xbox is done.

The process was amazingly fun, stressful, overwhelming and mind destroying experience. Developing for console is totally different then deving for Pc, im sure a lot of the reason it was so stressful was the amount of pressure tommy and i put on ourselves and amount of extra work we decided to give ourselves.. but this is our 1st "main stream" game and we both wanted to make sure it went above and beyond and really showed everyone what we could do if we pushed our limits to the max.

Im still recuperating from the last 2 months of 12+ hour a day development with no real breaks (this isnt an over exaggeration). my body aches, my head pounds and my brain is sloshing around in my skull begging for sleep i cant seem to let it have. Ive some how gotten use to about 6 hours of sleep a night, my brain wants more but i cant seem to relax enough to let it happen.

the past 2 days have revolved around me trying to relax. yesterday i decided (for the 1st time in almost 2 years) to pick up a few pens and draw something.

This is what came out.

Not sure what they are but it felt really good to site down and sketch out random thought again.

Technically we have a few more months of work left for the Wii and Pc/Mac version of the game, but they wont be nearly as stressful.

anyway, i survived, i think ive learned a lot.

more on this later.
-Edmund

Indie Game: The Movie

2010-05-18T14:08:00.000-07:00

Indie Game: The Movie - Growing Up Edmund from IndieGame: The Movie on Vimeo.

Help support this awesome indie team.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/blinkworks/indie-game-the-movie

BUSY!

2010-04-20T02:11:00.000-07:00

Ive neglected this blog due to heavy SMB work flow.

Danielle made me this formspring account and im posting it in case any of you have burning questions for me.

http://www.formspring.me/EdmundM

this is probably a mistake.

Also read my article on difficulty in game design,
http://supermeatboy.com/

Super Meat Boy "Tiger" Handheld NOW ON IPHONE!

2010-04-03T19:35:00.000-07:00

Hey,

Remember way back in the day when you loved a game so much that you would buy ANYTHING that had to do with it? Remember Easter, when you had to go to your Great Aunts house to celebrate with the family, and you knew you would be bored in the car and the only thing you could bring was a crappy handheld version of some game you loved (for me it was Megaman 2) and you had no choice but to play it in the car and at her house because she was born in like the 1890's and didn't even have a VCR? Those were great days...and now, we at Team Meat, are giving you the ability to do that ALL OVER AGAIN ON YOUR IPHONE, IPOD AND EXPENSIVE GIANT IPOD (IPAD).

Super Meat Boy Handheld is all the branding of Super Meat Boy, without the actual gameplay or art from Super Meat Boy...and all for ONLY A DOLLAR. Enjoy two distinct game modes. In Game A, you have to race and wall jump past saws to save your lady love Bandage Girl!!! In Game B, you have to race past falling needles to save your lady love, Bandage Girl!!! Super Meat Boy Handheld also features a mute button, and a button that when pressed shows you a high score(not your high score,just the highest score you can get).

Super Meat Boy Handheld is available on the iTunes AppStore for only $0.99 (THAT'S NOT NINETY NINE DOLLARS YOU SILLY PEOPLE). Pick it up today, brag to your friends, and support Super Meat Boy!!

BUY IT! BUY IT! BUY IT!

Love,

Team Meat

PS: Those of you who dont get the joke click this link.
"Express an opinion get an App pulled"

Gish Plush!

2010-03-30T15:22:00.000-07:00

GISH!

ok, well this is kinda coming out of left field but.. Gish plushes have arived!

They were made by Bigshottoyworks.com and have been released to celebrate Gish 6 year ani. as well as him being features in Super Meat Boy!

GO BUY ONE!

-Edmund

GDC

2010-03-14T01:18:00.000-08:00

Finally back from 5 days of GDC insanity, by far the best one yet.

As per usual im back from it filled with love and inspiration ready to get right back to work on my one true calling making antisocial art for socially "wiggly" and mind blowingly talented like minded creative's and enthusiasts.

I drew this picture a few months ago, pictured is just a hand full of people i feel proud to call friends. its of course missing many (namely ones who made this gdc awesome, Terry, Jordan, Anthony, Andy, Dappy, Jamie, Sparky, Amon and Steve Webee) but you all are awesome and perfect at what you do.

A big congrats to Cactus, whos game i love and i knew would win from the moment i played it a while back.

ok back to work.

xoxo
-Edmund

Time Fcuk Wins!

2010-03-08T22:10:00.000-08:00

Earlier today Time Fcuk took home a Mochi for "Most Creative flash game of 2010". I wasn't able to attend the show but asked Tyler to pick up the award (thanks Tyler). There were no acceptance speeches and not having had William or I there i feel the need to write something so ill do so now.

I made TF with William and Justin at a transitional part of my life where i realized that i could either be content with where i was in life and settle or attempt to push myself as far as i could taking bigger risks financially and artistically because i feel that even if i lose, the fight will have been worth it in the end either way.

I love doing what i do, and i love that others also get to enjoy the outcome. I love the friends ive made and things ive learned through this artistic medium. (I44W7-F7DZ4-VJWRC) Video games have not only given me a voice and semi financial stability but also a much needed creative outlet so i don't become that guy you see on the street having a loud argument with something that isnt there.

Im honored to accept this award and even more so honored for getting to work with William and Justin on this game, i think its one of my best and i think it will spawn many future creations!

Big up to Jesus
-Edmund

Fcuk Time

2010-02-08T21:33:00.001-08:00

Time Fcuk was nominated for a Mochi award as most creative game of 2009.

Long time Friend and musician for Time Fcuk Justin Karpel recently did an interview that touches on inspiration, music and the universe. its a very informative read to anyone wondering how the music in Time Fcuk came to be and anyone who enjoys art in general.

read it here.

Steven Interviewed me the other night about the creative proses, ive held back said interview because im not sure if its something of interest yet. ill let him tell me if and when i should release it.

Good luck
-Edmund

Meaty Pc Gamer cover!?

2010-01-29T23:47:00.000-08:00

So ive obviously been slacking when it comes to updating the blog.. i think we will have something automated from our twitter soon enough as well as a whole site revamp in the coming weeks, but for now ill play a little catch up and post a months worth of notable twitter updates.

http://twitpic.com/1090uv - Super Meat Boy on the cover of Pc Gamer! OMFGLOLZERS(well kinda)

http://bit.ly/aKGGOP - Interview with Kombo.com featuring CRAZY INFO! (not really but still check it out)

http://elder-geek.com/ - Very fun podcast we did with them the other day is up, also a neato cover image as well! check it out.

http://twitpic.com/zobmg - Near final cover image for SMB issue #2 coming out at GDC!

http://twitpic.com/zobtw - Also Here's the process of creation for that cover for those interested.

http://bit.ly/7pm8Zp - SMB road to the IGF interview (gamasutra)

http://bit.ly/8voSae - Dtiod article, A behind the scenes look at Super Meat Boy. (good read)

http://bit.ly/5htp4w - 1st impressions of the IGF build of SMB, and new screen shots of the build (nintendo life)

http://bit.ly/dz8TD - 6 new SMB screen shots showing ch2, new retro levels and mechanics like fans and keys!

http://bit.ly/7Hj9kK - Super meat boy comics are now on sale! (finally). these comics are limited, not that many are left. (bonus surprises)

More infoz....

-SMB will easily have over 10 hours of gameplay for the expert gamer and WAYYYY beyond that for the average one.

-Flywrench will be a playable character in Super Meat Boy!

-Due to the addition of 150 more levels and other extras SMB will be pushed back from the Q1 release date but not by a ton.

------

This month is going to be crazy, we will have ch3 finished and playable for GDC, the second Meat Boy comic printed out (its 20 pages!) new video footage will be posted showing the games 2nd chapter and boss in action as well as a very big announcement that should make a lot of you guys VERY happy.

its been a crazy month to start a hopefully equally crazy year! oh and we are still giving away free comics every Friday on twitter, so follow us!.

xoxo
-Team Meat

You unlocked Flywrench!

2010-01-16T16:54:00.000-08:00

We announced last night on our twitter that Flywrench is officially a playable character in Super Meat Boy!

Here are some screens of the animated intro when you find him. http://twitpic.com/yer16

When you find the secret warp zone you get sucked into the low-fi world of Flywrench, where meat boy is infiltrated by the popular flapping protagonist. You control Flywrench through 3 levels that are played out inside meat boys 4bit body. Once completed Flywrench will be avalible at the character select screen to use in any main game level.

Flywrench features the ability to fly for a short amount of time, flapping his wings to gain height and changing colors as he would in the original game.

Flywrench is a popular and critically acclaimed hardcore platformer by Mark Essen (messhof) and can be played on http://messhof.com/. (go play it if you haven't!)

That's 5 down
(Tim, CommanderVideo, Alien Hominid, Gish, Flywrench)
...7(?) to go!

Fear the beard.
-Edmund

Meat Boy comics on sale!

2010-01-10T18:25:00.000-08:00

We finally got around to setting up the Super Meat Boy press comics in our etsy shop this week.

Each comic is signed by Tommy and myself, comes with 2 stickers and sell for 7$ (and if your lucky a button as well).

The comic is 12 pages long, 5.5 x 8.5 in, full color gloss with card stock cover. Originally made to hand out to press to announce the game "Super Meat Boy issue 1" was printed in Sept. 09. and limited to 1,000 copies and given out as a price on our weekly contests on twitter.

Once the comics are sold out this issue will never be reprinted, we will be printing a new issue closer to GDC, but once the current issue is gone its gone for good.

BUY ONE NOW!

More news to come!

-Edmund

Super Meat Boy nominated for IGF Grand Prize!

2010-01-04T16:44:00.000-08:00

Tommy and i found out last night that Super Meat Boy made it into the IGF for Audio (Danny, and Jordan rule) and is going head to head with Joe Danger for the GRAND PRIZE!! (also a few others but i know very little about them :) ).

take a look http://www.igf.com/2010/01/independent_games_festival_201.html

Its awesome to be in the IGF again, its been 5 years since the last time a game i worked on was up for grand prize, im very proud of Meat Boy.

A lot of people have been bitching about the IGF finalist, as they do each year. of course there are quite a few games i thought should have made it, but im going to avoid the negatives and talk about the games im excited to see in march.

Star Guard! - Design
I love this game, and was worried it wouldn't make it to the finals. im very happy to see it in and honestly think it has a good shot at winning for design, its quite a little gem.

Tuning - Nuovo
Good shit, I honestly think this is cactus's best work. its one of few games i played from start to finish in one sitting and wanted more. really a great example of someone who totally understands how games are designed and one of few who i feel can and has approached game design from an abstract perspective without the game coming off contrived or not fun.

Enviro-Bear 2000 - Nuovo
I fucking love this game. its funny as hell.. so far i love everything this guy does, also check out the road to El Dorado. both show humor can be expressed through game design and both are done really well.

Closure -Tech, Nuovo, Audio
I am partial to this one because Tyler is a friend of mine, but its honestly a very unique game with a pretty neat theme.

Today I die - Nuovo
Another one i'm partial to because im a fan of Daniels, I wish i were the moon was a very great game and i think Today I die is another notch on his belt, very good stuff.

Owlboy - Visual
the 1st time i saw the art in this game i felt dead inside knowing id never be that good or have the patience to make a game with that much detail in it. I believe their artist is nuts.

I'm also excited to finally get to check out Limbo, Shank, Trauma and Joe Danger, all of them have been on my radar for a while.

Heh i just realized that almost all of my faves are in the Nuovo category, thank god for that category :)

Anyway, congrats guys! see you all in march.
-Edmund

Best game of the 2009?

2010-01-02T22:19:00.000-08:00

Austin Chronicle gives Time Fcuk "Best game of the 2009", somehow beating out Super Mario Wii, Uncharted 2 and Scribblenauts (im avoiding the mention of DJ hero as #2 on this list).

Full Story Here (http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid:933325)

Pretty wacky stuff, we working on TF i honestly though it would be a bit too strange for most peoples tastes but the reception its gotten has been better then anything ive worked on in ages. I honestly though the IGN win was a fluke but TF has also made it into the top 10 indie games of the year on the Escapist, Indiegamesblog and Tigsource, good times.

The now overshadowed Spewer also made it into a few of them as well. Interestingly enough Spewer has become my most played game of all time closing in at a little over 11 million plays in the past 8 months. Its kind of interesting to see my "award winning" works like Aether, Coil and Time Fcuk get totally destroyed number wise by games like Meat Boy, Spewer and Host.

A great way to end the year!, 2009 was a very interesting and major transitional year for me. I was able to complete 2 of my best pieces, (Time Fcuk and Spewer). i tend to get sick of my work quickly and even start to hate my previous projects (coil for example) but both of these games are ones im still very proud of and i feel show a lot of growth.

I also did a game called AVGM for the global game jam early this year with Tyler. Its something we made in 4-5 hours but its quite amusing and i think shows the "addiction" formula used in most casual games today in its more basic form.

But there is one game that i did very late last year that kinda slipped through the cracks, Grey Matter. An anti shooter i did with Tommy, actually the game that basically started Team Meat.

And speaking of Team Meat, many of you know 2009 also marked the year i decided to make the move to console development with Super Meat Boy. So far development for a console title has been slightly alien to me, a lot of it is pretty backwards and not what im use to, but im stating to see the positive aspects of this kind of development and trying my best to embrace them. Super Meat Boy is something im taking great pride in and really pushing myself to the limit with, im sure its something ill look back on next year with pride.

XOXO
-Edmund

The indie Manifesto

2009-12-30T20:01:00.001-08:00

So i wrote this "Do's and Don'ts Manifesto" for Gamasutra that went live today. It basically sums up my personal direction as an artist, and touches on things ive learned from over the past 10 years. The list might not apply to everyone, but i do believe a lot of the points can also be applied to many/all artistic fields and for me its something i try to stick to as much as i can when i work.

Either way, its my little new years gift you all of you creative folk. I get asked for advise a lot by people starting out and usually have nothing to say, other then to be honest. Being honest is not only vital but the core of everything when it comes to creativity, honesty is what creates heart, substance and the "Je ne sais qua" feel that turns a good art into great art.

So honesty is number 1, there are 23 others, check out the full list below and tell me what you think.

http://www.indiegames.com/blog/2009/12/opinion_indie_game_design_dos.html

-Edmund

(oh, special thanks to Anna for editing this list)

Free Meat Boy Comics!

2009-12-22T22:26:00.001-08:00

The week im giving away 5 comics (with bonus xmas prizes) to 5 lucky peopel who sent me images of themselves with something meat or meat boy related.

The contest is simple, send us an image of yourself with something meat related, i'll use Mikes pic one more time as the perfect example.

The top 5 pics submitted by xmas win free comics (and a bonus xmas surprise!)

You can submit a link to us via twitter (http://twitter.com/SuperMeatBoy), or comment a link to your pic on this post.

Good luck!

-Edmund

Top 10 Flash games of 2009 (NOMINATE THEM)

2009-12-18T23:34:00.000-08:00

This years flash gaming summit nominations are up.
http://www.flashgamingsummit.com/awards.html
They seem to have setup a system that lets you only nominate one game, so i was only able to submit one.

I highly recommend you fill this list with flash games that are good, here's a list of my favorite flash games of 2009. this list is in no particular order.

1. Star Guard: http://vacuumflowers.com/star_guard/star_guard.html

2. Today I Die:
http://www.ludomancy.com/games/today.php?lang=en

3. Closure:
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/480006

4. When Pigs Fly:
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/505307

5.MoneySieze:
http://www.kongregate.com/games/YMM315/moneyseize

6.Dont Look Back:
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/486660

7.Dont Shit your Pants:
http://www.kongregate.com/games/Rete/dont-shit-your-pants

8.When the Bomb Goes off:
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/492575

9. Small Worlds:
http://jayisgames.com/cgdc6/

10. Canabalt :
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/510303

I Didn't nominate my own games, though i think they are still quite awesome and also recommend you nominate them as well, please?

1. Time Fcuk:
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/511754

2. Spewer:
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/494129

3.Avgm:
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/481434

Ill see you in hell
-Edmund

Time Fcuk Wins!

2009-12-16T16:38:00.000-08:00

So i woke up today to find a link to this sitting in my inbox.

Time Fcuk wins IGN's freeware game of the year!

Now of course im very very happy about this, but dont in anyway think that i believe Time Fcuk is better then Spelunky. Spelunky is one of the best indie games of all time let alone of this year.

But i will take the win over Scary Girl... no prob.
good times!

Play Time Fcuk.

-Edmund

HANDS ON MY MEAT!

2009-12-15T22:00:00.001-08:00

Area5.tv goes hands on with Super Meat Boy on Pc, new footage is shown and the impressions the beta of the game are made. here is a link to the video (Spoiler.... Meat Boy dies)
http://revision3.com/coop/santacruzin#seek=1492

I cant seem to find a way to imbed it, so you will just have to click that and then click play.. its only one more click... COME ON!

go watch it.

-Edmund

IGN goes hands on with Meat Boy!

2009-12-05T02:29:00.001-08:00

BAM! ok now back to work....
-Edmund

Time Fcuk (update/postmortum)

2009-11-22T00:42:00.000-08:00

So its been almost 2 months since Time Fcuk was released and since then its been played over 3.5 million times 1million of those being from newgrounds.com. There have also been a startlingly huge amount of levels submitted closing in on 7k. Its been a secret for a while but Josh (goldfish) from NG had been keeping thumb nails for each level submitted in the database in hopes we could use them for something down the road. To celibate 1million plays on NG Josh has set it up so you can now view levels by category (most viewed, most fun, difficult recent and author) and choose from a visual list of levels in the database to play them.

Its a really damn cool feature and im glad that William and Josh were able to make it happen, i highly recommend you check it out, and short by "most viewed" if you want to see some of the more amazing levels submitted. Do note you need to be signed into NG to be able to see these levels.

Time Fcuk was also on display at the Eurogamer Expo last week, sadly i couldn't make it but i hear the response was good. I read this quote today about it that made my day "Time Kufc, makes Braid look like Wonder Boy." -Eurogamer.com.

Glad so many people enjoyed our game, it was really fun working with William and Justin, not many know this but Justin Karpel was actually my best friend in high school, i approached him about doing the music for Time Fcuk because the game was originally inspired by my high school reunion and i felt he would probably be the only one that could fully understand what feelings i was pulling from when it came to theme and mood. He did a fantastic job.

This post is kind of becoming a postmortem ... so im just going to go with it.

Time Fcuk Postmortem:

Time Fcuk was a game i took on as a "weekend" project while working on Super Meat Boy and No Quarter. William Good was a fan of the original Meat Boy and had been working on a platformer in flash about a "bat man" who could kinda fly around a tile based world. It was a cool prototype but the thing that really grabbed me was this weird switching layers mechanic he had added to it. I instantly saw potential in that mechanic and asked if this was something he would want to collaborate on.

I started to think more about multi dimensional themes in games, light world, dark world and perspective changes. The idea has been done a million times over but never seems to have any real subtext to the theme or message.. usually simply just a mechanic that's neato. I'd been thinking a lot about perspective recently and how important it is to be able to see things from different sides. You cant learn anything in life if you believe there's always only one solution or one right answer, if you do you will eventually find yourself stuck in a situation and break as a person.

I had recently attended my high school reunion, it was a very strange and depressing event. Lots of drinking, crying and sadness mostly from people who never seemed to progress past that high school mind set, most complaining about how they felt stuck in a situation they weren't happy with. The reunion was actually quite disturbing to me and i drew a lot from it in Time Fcuk (especially the intro animation).

I wanted to write about a man who was at war with himself over his future, one side of him wanted "enlightenment" the other wanted "comfort". and that's is essentially what Time Fcuk is all about. Every bit of text throughout the game has substance and meaning to me, even down to the description.
William and I made Time Fcuk in about 9 weeks, i kept the art very simple because i knew i didn't have much time to work on it, but i also wanted to see if i could make a compelling game without using my artistic skills as a crutch. It was a labor of love, and a very fun project to work on. If i release another flash game before SMB it will be with William :).

there were small things about development that i feel really helped the mood of the game, namely the radio frequency theme. the theme came from buying new speakers for my pc that picked up a local radio station very faintly in the background. For the 1st month of development i believe i was actually hearing voices, and i think that really added to the insanity factor of the theme. I was also able to pull from the radio theme and play around with the idea of tapping into realities that are all happening at once, different existences that are parallel but can be tapped into by changing your frequency or perspective.

What went right:

1. Mood. Im very happy with how the theme and mood came together. i wanted TF to have a major feeling of panic, claustrophobia, confusion and insanity. i think most people who play through it will leave with at least one or more of these feelings.

The feel of Time Fcuk isnt something that i can easily sum up and going into development i was a bit worried about how id be able to execute something with the weird high and low duality of self destruction and enlightenment. I wanted the game to be very bleak, but also hopeful where one minute you were smiling and the next totally creeped out. in the end i think the games ups and downs mirrored the feeling of a mans inward fight against his own thoughts, a panicked war for his future where the only thing holding him back from what he wants is himself.

2. Tech. William did an amazing job with all the online database stuff. the online level submission was seamless and the editor very user friendly. it was a breeze to make levels with and i think the customization of the editor give the player almost endless ways to be creative with their levels.

3. The End. The game ends with you having 2 options, take a pill you end your life and stay in the box forever or find a way out. The best part about this ending is seeing how people end it, there are the people who "get it" and right away attempt to find a way out of the final level not listening to your future self telling you to take the pill. but then there are the rest who simply do what they are told, take the pill like steven tells them and end the game. I thought this was a cool way to end the game and i think it went over really well.

4. Music. Ive mentioned above why i thought Justin was the perfect fit for TF when it comes to music, but really the music in TF was beyond perfect for the game. Justin did an amazing job at understanding the theme and totally nailing down a musical score that complemented it perfectly. i still get this weird sinking feeling in my stomach when i hear the intro music start.

5. The Unknown. Enter the known was a feature in TF that would allow a full game to be generated using only user made content arranged by difficulty. William also added a feature that would only have levels that had a "fun factor" of 2.5 or better to be chosen. The result was awesome, not only did it give players an endless game, but also made it so levels that might have been buried in the database a chance to get rated and work their way up the ranks.

What went wrong:

1. Reflex levels. My biggest complaint about TF was a few of the levels i designed. The game was a puzzle game, but i still felt compelled to add reflex based levels because i thought they would add more variety, these levels became more of a nuisance in the end and possibly took away from the puzzle/logic elements of the over all game.

2. Alt levels. Half way through development i came up with this amazing idea of having alt levels, so for each level you play there's a chance you will play one of 2-3 levels, giving the game a more dynamic feel. i came up with the idea late one night where i envisioned people playing the game and then trying to look up hints on how to beat a level only to find no one had played the level they are on, in hopes that they would feel "crazy". this of course didn't have the effect i wanted, maybe a few people had a profound OMG THE LEVEL ARE DIFFERENT FO EACH PERSON realization.. but really it was just a lot more work for me that made things 2 times more confusing for us when trying to fix the difficulty curve of level progression.

3. Awarding a medal for submitting a map. This was the dumbest idea ever, within an hour we had a few hundred maps called MEDAL GET! that consisted of a single portal. we cut this feature out asap.

4. Pixels. Looking back i wish i had made Steven out of pixles and not fake vector pixel art. everything else in the game is made out of pixels so he just feels slightly out of place, but i made him before i had a set theme and didn't have the extra time to remake all his animations in the correct pixel style.

5. Flash limitations. This wasn't a huge issue, but we did run into a few areas where flash just couldn't do what we wanted it to, at least not easily. Moving platforms, turning levels and other platforming/puzzle ideas just weren't that possible with the limitations we were working with.

The positive side of this is the fact there are quite a few major mechanics and ideas we came up with that could be used in a sequel. That said, i wouldn't want to make a "sequel" to Time Fcuk, but possibly after SMB its id like to combine it with another idea and kind of revisit it with more of a "full game" theme.

In the end im very proud of Time Fcuk, like Aether its one of very few games that i feel came out exactly how i saw them in my head and actually had some personal substance to them. Time Fcuk was a transitional game that was being written in a time where i was deciding to move on from my current work situation because i realized i felt stuck and should probably take my own advise and leave the box i put myself inside of.

-Edmund

SMB vs 3 year old now on Gametrailers.com

2009-11-18T16:32:00.001-08:00

Things have been nuts with Super Meat Boy, we have done our best at posting new info and screen shots on our twitter as we work, you can see all of our image updates here
http://twitpic.com/photos/supermeatboy.

For those of you who cant stand twitter (its understanible) heres a recap of the last few weeks of Meat Boy related news.

-3 page article in Edge magazine (oct) http://twitpic.com/pewo3

-First images of the 1st chapter boss "Lil Slugger" were posted. http://twitpic.com/pm0vp

-SMB article in nintendo power

-Dark World announced http://twitpic.com/nhyhr

-2 cut scene images posted featuring indie characters http://twitpic.com/n4o2u, http://twitpic.com/mk9su

-First images of the 2nd chapter were also posted http://twitpic.com/ovcge

We have little time to do more in depth posts on our blog, so if you are interested in SMB news please follow us on twitter, we also do weekly contest where we give out free comics every friday.

In non-meat related news, Im also working on a postmortem on Time Fcuk and announcing a new feature that William and Josh have added to the newgrounds version. Ill try to have this up in the next day or so.

Back to work
-Edmund

Sticky Meat!

2009-11-02T15:08:00.001-08:00

Super Meat Boy stickers have just gone on sale in the Newgrounds store. The stickers are high quality diecut gloss prints and are quite large. And they are only 75 cents! (they get cheaper when you buy in bulk).

We are really happy with how they turned out, go buy some now!
http://www.newgrounds.com/store/product/meatboy-sticker

-Edmund

IGF crunch, crunch, crunch.

2009-11-01T01:14:00.000-07:00

ahhhh, its 2am and im crunching away on our submissions for the IGF. Super Meat Boy is by far the most fun game ive ever made and we are currently putting together a build to start going hands on with the press with. i should probably get back to work but i wanted to throw together a post because there have been some awesome press stuff ive been wanting to link.

1st off, IGN featured Super Meat Boy as one of the top 10 most anticipated games of 2010 :) along side Star Craft 2... (PROOF!) that coupled with the fact that we got another article in Nintendo power and 3 pages in Edge magazine have really turned this into an extremely surreal work week.

Its great motivation though and i cant wait to start showing more in game SMB footage and maybe a cut scene or 2 showing off some unlockable characters.

Oh, we are also doing an art contest for SMB where we give away comics to the top 3 entries. its called Show us your Meat! and all the info on it is posted on the our twitter twitter.com/SuperMeatBoy

other things:
-New(old) interview i did went up today on Punch-Drunk: http://bit.ly/2UYJTG
-Hands on preview of SMB from the London event: http://bit.ly/braZL
-lets play Time Fcuk video: http://bit.ly/1vxou

I also was recently send this awesome Time Fcuk jack-o-lantern pic by Bonez

and awhile back i was send this fucking sweet fan art image... sadly ive lost the name of the creator.

ok back to work!
-Edmund

3 year old vs Super Meat Boy!

2009-10-20T17:18:00.000-07:00

My niece Acacia came over the other day to play test some Super Meat Boy, Shes 3.

-Edmund

Euro Gamer rant

2009-10-16T14:03:00.000-07:00

So Time Fcuk will be shown in the next Indie Arcade hosting by Eurogamer next month in believe. They are also hosting a "video game rant" and have asked if i could make a 7 min video rant about something video game related.

I really want to do this but cant seem to settle on what to rant about.. i thought maybe talking about the design ideas behind Time Kufc, what it means to be indie, mainstream vs indie, why video games are art...

i dunno, is there anything you guys would want to see me rant about?

-Edmund

PS: Im feeling great, im almost 100% healed up and working again full time on SMB follow us on twitter to see all the new info and screen shots!
http://twitter.com/SuperMeatBoy

I'm Alive!

2009-10-07T19:44:00.000-07:00

Well this has been an extremely crazy week. I'll try and recap to the best of my ability so i can cut to the part where i gush about how awesome you all are and how happy your kind words and support have really restored my faith in humanity.

So, at about 12am Saturday night my back started hurting, thinking it was just muscle pains i ignored it and continued to work, at about 3 the pain was almost unbearable so i attempted to sleep it off to no avail. by 4 i was writhing in pain on the floor trying my best to put off the inevitable emergency visit, at this point i was vomiting uncontrollably but was convinced it was just food poisoning and once it was out of my system I'd be ok.

At 5:30 my wife called my mother who picked us up and took me to the emergency room. The nurse's 1st thought was that i was somehow having an aneurysm, this of course freaked out everyone to the point of tears but after an EKG it was ruled out. At about 6:30 i was given morphine and by 8 i was put through tests to find out what was wrong, right away they could see my gallbladder was very inflamed and needed to be removed, but the scans also showed an abnormality on my liver that could potentially be cancer, this of course didn't go over well with anyone and the next 15 hours waiting for results of a 2nd scan was extremely hard on everyone. results came back negative, the abnormality was nothing more then a fatty lump, who'd a thought? :).

the next day i was setup for surgery, gallbladder removed and sent home at 11pm the next day, and have been slowly recuperating at my couch and pc for the past 2 days.

At some point while i was in the hospital My wife Danielle hijacked my facebook and posted the news, it wasn't long till people started sending donations and well wishes.

Now ill do my best to say this as honestly and clear cut as i can.. I appreciate every single amount of effort you've all put into the kind words you've sent me and money you've donated. I didn't expect anything like this at all, being in a drug addled haze for the past 5 days and waking up to something like this was beyond moving and brought me to tears many times. I love all of you guys and hope to repay you all in some way eventually.

Running the risk of forgetting someone i feel the need to really mention a few names of fellow devs that i really love and respect, my Team Meat partner Tommy, Matt from flashbang, Derek, Tyler, Tom, Daniel B, the guys and gals at Kongregate, John, Jeff, Kyle, the wolf fire guys, Matt Thorson, Metanet,Anna, Dan A... the list goes on, and i know im forgetting many... Everyone at Gonintendo, and other wii blogs, all of you guys that twittered and posted on your blogs, Everyone that sent me e-mails and well wishes... you guys have made me feel very accepted and wanted and words cant express how good all this has made me feel. Expect something special in the mail from me in the coming months :).

But of course above all i need to thank my wife, Danielle, who stuck by my side the whole way through, i cant imagine how hard this was for her to deal with, i just feel so grateful for having her.

For those of you wondering about my insurance/money situation please don't worry about me. Ill be ok, you've all done more then enough and i don't go down that easily. I'm healing up well, I'm motivated and already getting back to work on SMB.. i can only imagine what games this experience will inspire :)

You guys are awesome friends.

Here's a pic of my ass in a hospital gown as a gift to all of you!
XOXO
-Edmund

Indiecade introductuion video

2009-10-03T13:54:00.000-07:00

The finalist for indiecade were asked to talk for 3 minutes about our games while 12 slides went by behind us. I asked to prerecord my introduction a day prior to the event due to illness (you can kinda hear it in the video), this is my little introduction to Aether.

-Edmund

SMB animated intro

2009-10-01T02:27:00.001-07:00

Check it out on newgrounds.com as well!
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/513180

Super Meat Boy coming to Steam Q1 2010!

2009-09-29T16:21:00.000-07:00

The coming soon page for Super Meat Boy on Steam went up today, officially announcing that SMB will be coming out on Pc and Wiiware in the 1st Quarter of 2010. The Steam page also has some new screen shots and info.

Check it out kiddies http://store.steampowered.com/app/40800/

We will also be selling the Pc version off our site as well..

Tell your friends!

-Edmund

Meat Boy comic...

2009-09-28T22:43:00.000-07:00

Last month Tommy and i made a 12 page comic to give out in London as a "press pack" for SMB. We will also be sending these out to press over the next month, if you are press e-mail me with your info and who you write for and we will send one out. Those of you who really want your own copy will be able to pick one up from the newgrounds.com store next week.. ill post a link when its up.

Here's a few pages from the comic.

Also destructiod posted a few new screen shots and info about warp zones, retro tile sets and new music. go check out that article as well.
http://www.destructoid.com/exclusive-the-sights-sounds-of-retro-super-meat-boy-150188.phtml#ext

-Edmund

Bytejacker interview

2009-09-25T13:12:00.001-07:00

Bytejacker interviewed me about Aether last week
http://www.bytejacker.com/blog/interview-edmund-mcmillen

oh and Time Fcuk is up for Indie pick of the week!
GO VOTE! AHHHHHH!

Time Fcuk is also going to be part of the Eurogamer Expo as part of "the indie arcade".

-Edmund

Dr Fetus on twitter?

2009-09-25T01:00:00.000-07:00

Just found out Dr.Fetus has started twittering... im already a fan.
https://twitter.com/DrFetus

Time Fcuk Plush!

2009-09-24T13:14:00.000-07:00

Danielle made 20 limited edition Time Fcuk "Steven" plushes for those of you who enjoy things that are awesome.

its a little late notice seeing as most are already sold, but they went up on the newgrounds store an hour ago.

BUY THEM HERE

-Edmund

Higher Rez Meat

2009-09-23T15:23:00.001-07:00

Reposting the 1st gameplay footage trailer of Super Meat Boy, non-youtube version :)

Video Games | Super Meat Boy | Punch Gameplay Trailer

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Im leaking the Indiecade finalist list!

2009-09-21T21:12:00.000-07:00

fuck it!

Aether, Edmund McMillen and Tyler Glaiel
Akrasia, Team Aha!
Classic Night, Akarolls
Cogs, Lazy 8 Studios
Closure, Tyler Glaiel & Jon Schubbe
Dear Esther, The Chinese Room
Deep Sleep Initiative, The, ARx
Eliss, Steph Thirion
Everybody Dies, Jim Munroe
Global Conflicts: Latin America, Serious Games Interactive
Gray, Mike Boxleiter & Greg Wohlwend
Maw, Twisted Pixel Games
Mightier, Lucas Pope and Keiko Ishizaka
Minor Battle, Andre Clark
Moon Stories, Daniel Benmergui
Nanobots, Erin Robinson
Osmos, Hemisphere Games
Papermint, Avaloop
Path, The, Tale of Tales
Radio Flare, studio radiolaris
Ruben & Lullaby, Erik Loyer
Shadow Physics, Steve Swink & Scott Anderson
Sowlar, Odd Man In
Spectre, Vaguely Spectacular Team
Train, Brenda Brathwaite
Tuning, cactus / Jonatan Soderstrom
You get me, Blast Theory
Zeno Clash, ACE Team Software
Modal Kombat, David Hindman

We are also delighted to be featuring two invited social games:
Urban Bingo, David Jiminson
CBCG, The Copenhagen Game Collective

Also some of the finalists have posted videos about their games
(Aether = http://edmundmcmillen.blogspot.com/2009/09/indiecade-2009.html)
(Closure= http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0k4SKEGBlw )

----

please post this information places.
-Edmund

Time Fcuk mini interview

2009-09-18T14:21:00.000-07:00

Mtv called to talk about time Fkuc. the mini interview went uptoday on their games blog. those interested in the inspiration behind the game can click the link under this text.

Link

-Edmund

1st Super Meat Boy footage! (sorry to steal your thinder time fukc)

2009-09-17T00:02:00.001-07:00

Here ya go, 1st footage of Super Meat Boy.. i kinda sorta youtube HD quality.

Im re-posting this because there's been a strange leak of gameplay footage that has gotten around that im not too happy with... this was the intended trailer.

so please feel free to float this one around the big ol net.

We have been getting a lot of questions about the vid, so ill address the most common here.

-There will be warp zones hidden in levels that are only accessible for a limited time, if you enter them they will warp you into "retro world" where you play as 8bit meat boy, but you also play by old school rules. (check out the :50 second mark to see what im talking about)

-The sea of meat boys at the end of the trailer is our first footage of the replay system. When you complete a level you will have the option to view a replay.. that shows every single attempt at the level. a nice visual pay off for a job well done.

-This trailer is obviously early, it features simple levels found in the 1st chapter of the game, the forest. there will be 5 complete chapters in the finished game, and well over 150 levels to play.

We will be posting footage of the level editor in action as well as an animated intro in the next week.

stay tuned!
-Edmund

Its Time to get Fcuked!

2009-09-16T17:18:00.000-07:00

Time Cfuk is a game about stasis, its a game about perspective and viewing both sides of the story from afar, its a game about blocks, platforms, drinking, high school reunions and work time fun.

Time Fcku is a "puzzle platformer" about finding logic in irrelevance, its a 1+1=2 formula that will ask more from you after you leave it alone, its a community experience about communication with people who you dont like.

Time KcuF is not an art game, its an allegorical game about stuff you've never experienced, its an escape from your current existence, its the feeling of loss and panic.

Time Fcuk is a play on how if one changes around the letters in a word even though it means nothing logically, we all still see it as something that its not.

Time Fkuc can be played on newgrounds.com, or by clicking this link.
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/511754

----

I hope you guys enjoy this one, its another big personal achevement for me. looking foward to playing your levels.

Jesus loves you
-Edmund

Meaty Press

2009-09-10T16:05:00.000-07:00

A few new interviews and press with infoz

Nintendo Life update/interview
http://wiiware.nintendolife.com/news/2009/09/super_meat_boy_development_update

Fnintendo Interview (its in english at the bottom)
http://fnintendo.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3649:entrevista-fn-team-meat-super-meat-boy&catid=47:artigos&Itemid=75

Also we just got back our press photos from sears for the *London event, enjoy!

XOXO
-Eddy

*for those of you who dont know Tommy will be showing Super Meat Boy for the 1st time playing at a Nintendo press event in London on the 16th of sept. if your press and reading this... Tommy will doing his usual "massages for press" after the event in the ally.

Indiecade 2009

2009-09-06T02:18:00.000-07:00

So ive been waiting to announce this for a long time.. and im still very confused on whats going on with the announcement.... but Aether is a finalist in Indiecade 2009!

I was told that the finalists would be announced by the 1st.. not too sure whats going on but i really wanted to post about it.. i could be doing something wrong here but, such is life.

Indiecade asked its 2009 finalists for to make a "mini documentary" about our games.. an interview or something along those lines.

So i interviewed my 3 year old niece Acacia, and re-edited it in a way that i felt expressed the theme and mood of Aether.

This game was a huge personal achievement for me as a designer, its one of a few games ive made that i feel have pushed my limits and its the game i feel was by far the most personal piece ive ever done.

Aether was a game based on my child hood, i wanted to make a game that felt how i remember feeling when i was between the ages of 5 and 7. There was a great deal of though and personal expression that went into almost every aspect of the game, even thought it only took 14 days for Tyler and myself to finish.

If you haven't played Aether yet, please do. you can play it online Here.
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/459147

Aether was the 3rd in a series of games id done that i felt pushed emotional and abstract aspects of game design, the first 2 being Triachnid and Coil. It was also 2nd in in a series of allegorical games based off of my personal life (Coil, Aether, Spewer and Time Fuck).

Anyway it makes me feel pretty good inside for Aether to be recognized this way, i hope to one day finish the story with a full version of it.

But right no my life is filled with Meat.

-Edmund

More Time Fkuc info!

2009-08-23T18:06:00.000-07:00

Time Fcuk has been delayed till the 16th of sept. so its level submission and rating system can be integrated into the Newgrounds database (or something like that).

In the meantime that lets us smooth out the level editor and get the community system running the way it should. With that said i should explain that aside from Time Fkuc's core story mode, the game will also feature an online counterpart that will supply the player with endless content.

Time Kufc features a full (and soon to be super easy to use) editor that will let you make everything you see in the main game. Its 100% what i used to create the levels, so everything from level color, player state, number of dimensions and even the text that's said at the start of the level will be totally customizable.

When you make a level in TF, once you complete it (to prove its possible!) you will have the option to submit it to the portal. The portal or the "Explore" area of the game is a hub where you can browse user made levels and then play/rate them on difficulty and fun factor. You will also be able to arrange levels by said ratings as well as most recent.

The final piece to the community puzzle is the "Enter the Unknown" section of the game, where a full game is simulated using levels from the portal that have been rated highly. These levels will be arranged by difficulty to simulate a feeling of progression.

Im very very proud of this game and of the amount of work and creativity William, Justin and myself have put into it. As mentioned before Time Fkuc is part of newgrounds Power of Three event. An event that pushes the creative community to unite and make fun games. A percent of the profits made from the event are given to Child's Play, a charity that gives toys and games to terminally ill children in hospitals across north America.

Due to my currently schedule this might be one of the last flash games i make for the next 6 months, so i hope i step out of the flash world for a little while leaving you with something substantial, thought provoking and enjoyable.

In other news.. Tommy and i will be unveiling something fucking sweet in the next 2 weeks... staytuned!
-Edmund

Mom plays meat boy

2009-08-14T23:43:00.000-07:00

My mom and pregnant sister came by the office yesterday and played a beta of Super Meat Boy on the wii.. heres a video of it.

oh and a few hours later my sister went into labor... coincidence? i think not.

Im now an uncle, Again!

-Edmund

Video land (Tf beta video)

2009-08-11T00:57:00.000-07:00

Time Fkuc is a game about perspective, growth and self reflection.

It's currently being fondled by strangers, but will be come a full fledged whore on sept. 1st.

Time Kufc is by Myself, William Good and Justin Karpel.
Power of 3.

-Edmund

Video of me nude! (also new meat boy shit)

2009-08-08T03:00:00.000-07:00

So as some of you know Tommy and i are crunching to get a playable build of SMB ready for Pax in early Sept. Things have been moving so quickly and looking so awesome that we couldn't help but upload a video with stills of the current build as well as some downright amazing music from the master himself Danny B.

Watch it down there v v v v v

The new track is actually a remix of the original forest music that was in the flash version of the game, but about 50,000 times better, and that's totally nuts because, its identical to my high score on double dragon!.. ZOINKS.

The images you see in the video are screen caps from the forest chapter of our current beta. Keep in mind these images are still VERY early and dont feature many of the "cream in your pants" effects Tommy will be working in over the next few months.

i also threw some super secrets in the video...

or did i?
(i did)

oh also this

-Edmund

SUPER FUCKING INDIE STEAM SALE!

2009-08-08T00:13:00.000-07:00

Indie Super Sale!

Buy Gish and get 9 other indie games for free! Only $30!
On Steam!

-Edmund

Evereyone loves Lists!

2009-08-02T13:48:00.000-07:00

I did a lil interview with a new indie startup website called "the indie bay" the other night.

One of the most common questions i get in these interviews is the "do you have any advice for indie devs who are new to the scene, or tips for developers". Well i actually answered it this time... i came up with this list of indie do's and Dont's.

--------

1. Be honest.
honesty is extremely important when making art.

2. Realize your making art.
Game designers are artist and have huge advantages over the mainstream, think about what they are and exploit them.

3.Take big risks.
try to innovate the hell out of anything you make. from gameplay to the way it looks, be unique and you will stand out.

4. Design from the heart.
Write/design around things you feel passionately about. Put yourself into your work and show the world what you personally have to offer.

5. Be ok with being poor.
Indie game design is the new starving artist, be frugal and humble.

6. Don’t bite off more then you can chew.
if your just starting out.. think small, then think even smaller. If you start out on something big you wont finish it and if you do you will be burnt out on games.

7. Rapid prototyping.
Make lots of small ideas quickly, then expand on the ones that work.

8. Think critically.
99% of game design is critical thinking, try to find holes in your designs, and if you cant fill them move on to something else.

9. Stand out.
Don’t make something that looks or feels exactly like something else. when people see something new they will be more forgiving of its design and when something doesn’t look like everything else it will get more attention.

10. Grow up.
Chances are your not a fucking kid anymore, so if you feel like making a more adult themed game feel free to do so.. you’re indie you don’t have to answer to anyone.

11. Stay Grounded.
No matter how good you are there will always be someone better. stay humble and accept you’re not perfect. a designers ego can easily put up walls that will stunt his growth for years just because he doesn’t want to admit he might be wrong.

12. Go outside.
the outside world is important, it can also be very inspiring. Go take an adventure outside then come back home and write a game about it.. that’s what miyamoto did.

13. Work with people.
People are nice, and some are quite talented in things you ain’t. Game design tends to use both sides of your brain.. and chances are you’re lacking in one area. find someone to fill that hole (insert sex joke here).

14. Network.
talk to other designers/fans/media about what your doing. you just might gain some perspective on how others view your work and maybe even make a few friends.

15. Stay balanced.
Most designers tend to become depressed or have a varying array of mental disorders. take care of your brain, and most importantly yourself.

16. Learn a little about business.
It sucks ass, but its important to know a little about it, so you know if your getting fucked over.

17. Be excited about your work.
If you cant get excited about something you’ve done.. then how can you expect others to be? talk about you’re work to people sell yourself as well as your game.

18. Play video games.
You cant expect to learn anything if you aren’t actively playing the games that are out.. even if they suck, games that sell well in the mainstream do it for a reason, pick it apart and find out why.

19. Dissect existing formulas.
All game genres are basic formulas. From level design, to mechanic introduction, to basic jumping patterns.. its all a formula that works for the game. Pick apart those formulas to see how they work.

20. Join communities.
Indie game communities are booming, join one. you don’t have to post anything, but reading them will give you a good understanding of the dos and donts of early game development, as well as inside and opinions about game design in general.

21. Try to make money.
Selling your work, getting your games sponsored, using online ads and asking for donations are all means of making money from your work. You need some money to eat, so try to best to make some.

22. Be open to feedback.
if quite a few people say they don’t get some aspect of your game that you think is perfect, chances are youre wrong. its hard to take critical feedback, especially when they are right. Loosen up, stay humble and remember your not as great as you think you are, if a majority says somethings wrong.. then it is.

23. Make the games YOU want to make.
Go with what moves you, if your no longer feeling something, put it down and work on what you’re thinking about. Ive found that all of my best games were ones i did quickly and felt very passionately about.. the ones that sucked were ones i lost interest in but still finished up.

24. Have fun.
If your not having fun then quit. You only live once, there’s no reason to keep doing something if its not making you happy.

25. Don’t read dumb lists.
Most lists online are totally pointless and the guy writing them is usually talking out his ass anyway.

-------
Hope thats helpful
-Edmund

No Quarter?

2009-07-27T23:18:00.001-07:00

Alex did an update about our No Quarter indie all star beta test on the Cryptic sea blog.

http://crypticsea.blogspot.com/2009/07/no-quarter-test-day-2009.html

Check it out, it has video from NQ!!!!

Official new game announcment?

2009-07-25T01:32:00.001-07:00

I believe my previous post about Time Fcuk was too citpyrc for most, so ill just lay it all out on the table.
William Good and myself will be releasing a game called Time Kufc.

Time Cfuk is a game about stasis, its a game about perspective and viewing both sides of the story from afar, its a game about blocks, platforms, drinking, high school reunions and work time fun.

Time Fcku is a puzzle platformer about finding logic in irrelevance, its a 1+1=2 formula that will ask more from you after you leave it alone, its a community experience about communication with people who you dont like.

Time KcuF is not an art game, its an allegorical game about stuff you've never experianced, its an escape from your current existence, its the feeling of loss and panic.

Time Fuck is a play on how if one changes around the letters in a word even though it means nothing logically, we all still see it as something that its not.

Here are images i took of the game in question by pressing Print Scr while playing.

TF will be released for the Power of Three festival type thing that newgrounds.com is putting on, i believe that starts on the 1st of sept.?

But enough about the future.
----------------------------
Here is news about my current situation:

-Spewer just got editors choice in Maclife magazine (5/5)

-No Quarter is in final beta, and should release soon(ish) on Steam.

-Super Meat Boy lives... and dies! we will have a public demo in the next few weeks (and maybe gameplay video)

-A game i made made it into something i cant talk about yet (but hopefully ill be able to edit this post with real info on it in the next few days)

-My sister is having a baby named Dusty.

love
-Edmund

i hope we can keep this up

2009-07-15T15:20:00.000-07:00

how-indie-games-took-on-the-world-and-won

-Edmund

Time Fcuk

2009-07-10T02:45:00.001-07:00

I find myself stumbling over the future, because the ground is moving too fast for my legs to keep up.

I broke my pinky toe last night on a chunk of forever and i fear it will soon become infected.

My lack of health insurance is making my homemade splint lead me to believe i could easily become a doctor for the poor.

6,21,3,11.......

Wait, im getting an incoming transmission... its me waving from across the room, but im missing my right foot and seem to have gained some weight.

I had a dream recently that I got Aids from Andy Warhol after he informed me his art was right wing propaganda, I fell of a cliff into dark water that was a holding cell for 2 dying killer whales.. I was scared but also sad because their emotions seemed too human to me.

Tomorrow is Friday.

-Edmund

Chat with us LIVE!

2009-07-01T14:01:00.001-07:00

Tommy and I will be doing a live Q and A cam session with Bytejacker over stickam. The show will be open to anyone who wants to ask us questions, so feel free to pop in and say something totally obscene.

The show starts at tomorrow, Thursday the 2nd, 5pm PST (8pm EST) and lasts... forever? heres the link

http://www.stickam.com/bytejacker

if you want insider info on all things meaty.. you will be there!
-Edmund

Super Flash Exporter!

2009-06-28T19:09:00.000-07:00

Tommy unveiled his super "flash to console" exporter tool. a tool that will basically let me do all my art and animations in flash, then with a click of a button Tommys tool exports out all my work into a single png file that gets magically rerouted into the game exactly as it was in flash.

he put together a little video explaining in depth how the process works, i highly recommend you check it out because you just might learn something.

Its an amazing tool that we will be using extensively for super meat boy and basically every game we make together from now on.

im trying to get Tommy to post a video of the SMB level editor.. but believe the content in it is a little too adult to be uploaded to youtube... we shall see.

In other news, No Quarter (Hitler's Must Die!) are currently in the last month of development. We will be putting it up on Steam as close to August 1st as we can, we will be working quite a few 11-12 hour days for the next month, its going to be hellish...

-Edmund

My pants are creamy

2009-06-16T03:03:00.000-07:00

If the nintendo power artical wasnt enough, Super meat boy got the cover of Indie Games Mag this month. I just got my copy in the mail today and am very please to see how well it came out. They also did a 4 page retrospective on my work as well as a very unique interview that really reads like im casualy talking to someone off the street.

(seriously how long do you think can juice that single piece of character art for?)

Buy it now!
http://www.indiegamemag.com/

I found out today that Alex and I will officaly be going to Pax this year to announce something, some of you might know what this something is.. but there a good chance that what you think we are announcing isnt at all what you assume it is.. its super secret.. shhhhhh.

Either way Tommy and i will also be there demoing Super Meat Boy for the 1st time publicaly! yay for that right?

yay for life! im going to eat some toast D made me... fuck off!
-Edmund

Nintendo power bitch! What now!?

2009-06-15T03:15:00.001-07:00

If you go to the news stands this week and tear open a factory sealed issue of Nintnedo power you will find a beefy 2 page article/interview with Tommy and I for Super Meat Boy on Wiiware.
Heres a page from it.

Weird huh? Doesn't seem real... Tommy and i should have some cool new info and video of SMB pretty soon.

For the next 2 weeks Alex and I will be working on getting together a playable beta of No Quarter with all games in near final playable states. Last week i spent a few days making over 120 set pieces for Hitlers Must Die!, the environments look more realistic and lush now, with layers of parallax hills, trees and piles of dead Hitlers.

We hope to wrap up development of No Quarter in late July, fingers crossed.

On the side ive been working on a few secret flash games... i cant say what they are for or much about them at this point but they should be finished in the next 2 months.

-Edmund

BOSS FIGHTS!

2009-06-08T03:09:00.000-07:00

i was reading the indiegames blog and they showed a few video of final bosses in indie games. i felt the need to post this.
Its a video of the final boss of Cereus Peashy, the first video game i ever started working on. Originally programmed by Castle Crashers creator Tom Fulp, and later remade by Caulder Bradford. sadly the fact that it was one of my first designs means its horrible flawed... honestly playing it now makes me realize how little i knew about games back then.. but its still kinda pretty, so yeah, i doubt many got that far in it so there's the vid bitches.

you can play the full game here.
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/358510

_Edmund

New interview

2009-05-22T16:21:00.000-07:00

Poisonous Pixels just put up an interview they did with me a few weeks back. if any of you are interested in some very honest artistic opinions and personal stuff about my work might find it interesting.

http://www.poisonous-pixels.com/2009/05/artistically-independent-interview-with.html

-Edmund

Update Time!

2009-05-18T20:54:00.000-07:00

Super Meat Boy has finally gotten some mainstream press in Game Informer this month posting the 1st "in game" screen shot of meat boy getting ground into paste. Its awesome to finally have my work in such a large magazine in the US. I was even more pleased to find out they also put my CD "This is a cry for help" in their gear section! pretty nutty stuff.. that said because of the mention im down to my last small box of CDs... honestly anyone who wants to buy one please do so know because they will be totally sold out very soon.

Ill reprint the cd again sometime next year with updated content.. but it will be a while before i get the time to do so, think of the current version as a limited print.

Spewer won indie game of the week on Bytejacker this week, pretty surprising seeing as it was going up against one of Alec's best games as well as one of the prettiest flash games ive ever seen.

Also in other Spewer news... Spewer is now the highest rated game of all time on Newgrounds.com. Im sure its status wont last that long but its still an awesome feeling, seeing as the closest ive ever gotten to #1 was back in 2001 with Destination egg(one of my 1st animations)... i think it got as high as 8th for like 2 days :).

the next 2 months ill be hard at work finishing No Quarter, working on SMB and jumping back into Gish 2 development... BTW heres a video update on Track 1 of No Quarter, Hitlers Must Die!. i should have some awesome Gish 2 news in the next month or so.. heres a hint.

-Edmund

Pay to have this girl beat!

2009-05-15T16:11:00.000-07:00

Daphny (aka the Jill character from Mighty Jill Off) needs your help! she needs monies for new teeth and she's willing to accept money to see her beat on camera with random objects. 20 bucks gets you a video of her being beaten with the household weapon of your choice at least 5 times.

im still trying to figure out what ill have her beaten with.. my 1st idea was a turd but it says no turds on her disclaimer...

anyway seriously look at her.. you know you want to see her beat!

DONATE NOW!

-Edmund

THE INTERNETS!

2009-05-12T01:43:00.001-07:00

Tonight Danielle turned on the camera in them middle of one of my rants around the house... the following video is what transpired.

The video is my gift to all the developers out there who slaved away on a game for months(years) only to have their worked bashed by anonymous forum kids on the Internet. Basically inspired by the latest comments/flame wars set forth by people trolling Tigsource.com and the indie games blog.

It felt good.

-Edmund

And all that could have been

2009-05-08T14:12:00.000-07:00

Ive always found Cactus' posts about his "lost/unfinished games" to be intriguing, so i thought I'd do one as well. Here are a list of my most prominent "lost games" in a little post I'm calling "And all that could have been".

Cereus Peashy (that uber lil wiggly guy):

My very first game. I started this super basic platformer with Tom Fulp (castle crashers/ alien hominid) as my first attempt as designing a video game using characters from a little world i called the badlands. The badlands was inspired by my work as an animal control officer and had a big focus on sacks of skin and rotting flesh.

Cereus Peashy was canceled in 2003 because tom was starting work on his 1st console game and could no longer make time for it.I'd totally remake the game again with Caulder Bradford from scratch in 2004.. and then again in 2006. The final version of the game is pretty to look at and shows how far id come as an illustrator in those 3 years.. but i wasn't happy with the game's amateurish design and over all game play. the process was a big learning experience.

There's no playable build of the original online, but I did add a playable build as a secret bonus on my CD.

Triachnid 2:
At the end of Triachnid 1 it told you to look out for Ep2 in the summer of 2007!, that didn't happen. I started the Triachnid series with Florian Himsl and In all honesty Tri2 is/was a very very awesome game much improved over the original in many ways... but this one kinda drifted into video game limbo.
Due lack of interest by Florian the triachnid sequel just kept getting pushed back. Tri2 went through a few redesigns when it came to the engine, and i think this just burnt Florian out on it. He's said many times that programming for it was just boring and he wanted to focus on more interesting games (Coil/Cunt) and in a way maybe it's good that we stepped away from it. In it's current state Tri2 is about 60% finished... and its probably the game on this list i'd most love to finish.

Bacterium:Bacteruim was one of a series of 3 multiplayer flash games i was designing around a parasite theme. I started the game in early 2008 with Eli P. (Spewer) and things were looking very promising. Bacterium was a turn based strategy game that played out like star craft stripped down to the basics. I really wanted to see if i could do a solid strategy game and i had a great design that seemed to be perfect on paper.. but when it came down to actually putting it into game form a lot of the fun seemed to be missing and the balancing work to come along side a tutorial that explained how the game played caused me to become quite overwhelmed. I think Eli felt the same way and we stopped working on it a few months in.

Grub:
Another multiplayer game with the parasite theme (Host, Bacterium, Grub) Grub was the closer to the awesome trifecta i was trying to accomplish.. its obvious that i was biting off a little more than i could chew at this point in time.
Grub was a real time single screen RTS being programmed by Josh (psycho goldfish), an amazing programmer that was working on his own multiplayer flash server and wanted a cool game to launch with it. I actually ended up doing basically all the art in the game within the 1st week of development because i was so in love with its design. a few weeks into development Josh got hired by newgrounds.com as their lead programmer and could no long put that much time into his multiplayer server or Grub.

Ill still IM Josh these days to ask when the server will be done, he says the server and Grub are still on his list of things to do this year... it would be awesome to see this one finished.

Guppy (the seed of god):
Guppy was florian's break from triachnid 2, a new game with awesome physics that would never see the light of day :) Guppy, was a hugely ambitious flash game based around a 2d world where you played as a "monster" that could be looked at as either good or evil depending on his actions. We actually got a shit load done on guppy in the month or so we worked on it.. but again the games design was WAY too complex for either of us to do in a few months so it was put on a permanent hold.

It was around this time when i grew bored of my stereotypical art style (badlands/gish). i wanted to do something that looked like pixel art and came up with this fake pixel art style that i ended up using in, Blood car, Meat boy, No Quarter and Super Meat boy. A lot of the forest levels in Guppy were used as the frame work for the graphics in Super Meat boy.

If you search around you might be able to find a beta of Guppy online.. but i don't have any links off hand, it was added to my CD though.

The Badlands:

A turn based strategy game that i started designing in early 2004. this was one i actually printed out and made in physical form to see if it was doable.. and it was. sadly i couldn't find anyone to work on it with so its just been sitting on the back burner for the past 5 years.
The badlands plays kinda like Chess meets warhammer meets pokemon and used characters from my early games (peashy, Gish, weltling). There is a game called Zaticon online that plays a lot how i envisioned this playing.. so maybe you should just go play that (just mentally replace the horrible DnD art with Peashys and Gish') :)

The Book of Knots:

Originally a new Cryptic sea platformer featuring a physically walking biped with a sword. Alex and i stopped working on this in 2007 once we got the rights back to Gish and i simply moved its story over to Gish 2 because it seemed to fit better.

I tried to think of a way to turn it into a flash game for a while, even spending a week getting a ton of animations done for the lead character.. but stopped because with the games story already being told in Gish 2 it felt kinda pointless.

Badlings:
In 2006 i got a call from this indian lady who said she was an investor who was looking to fund any project i was interested in working on with her, i took the bate like a sap and started on the Badlings. Now dont think i was just jumping on this without meeting the lady, she came out to meet me many times and we had tons of conference calls with her and other investors in the project that made it feel totally legit... but in the end of course it wasnt.

Badlings were going to be a series of "online pets" something that's done a lot now, but wasn't really around in 06. about a month into the project i was informed i wasn't going to be paid for my time and i just didn't return her calls after that.

it was a stupid idea anyway.

Meat Ninja (meat boy):
The meat ninja was the one of many "heroes" i had designed in this series of characters i was calling super zeros (spewer was also one of them). Using a sprite from Guppy i started to design a small platformer based around a little skinless ninja who could teleport around the screen.

while looking for a programmer for this i ran into Jon Mcentee (meat boy) who was working on this crazy little engine for a platformer he wanted to do. his engine felt a lot like N so i thought it would be ideal to remove any other ninja elements, Meat ninja lost his hood and became meat boy.

Office Yeti:
Ive always wanted to work on a game with Metanet. Im a huge fan of N (obviously) and tried me best to worm my way into their next project, which in 2007 was a game called Office yeti. They let me come on as the lead artist and i just took it and ran with it.. shortly realizing that their console deals were going to put this game on an almost permanent hold.

i actually e-mailed raigen today asking him if it was cool that i was posting info and images from the game, he informed me the game might be back on.. so maybe this game shouldn't be on this list.. oh well.

-Edmund

Hitlers Must Die!

2009-05-06T21:44:00.000-07:00

We officialy announced the title of the 1st track of No Quarter on the Cryptic Sea blog today. The game is called "Hitlers Must Die" and i went ahead and posted the ingame story intro along with the announcment today. (Check out the blog for the full story)

we are entering the 1st full playable beta of No Quarter in Pax10 and Indiecade next week. Wish us luck!

-Edmund

Today i die

2009-05-05T13:23:00.000-07:00

Daniel Benmergui (creator of i wish i were the moon) recently posted his new game Today i die, and its quite awesome. highly recommend you check it out as well as his other work if you haven't already. There are only a hand full of designers who's new and upcoming work i get excited about, and Daniel is definitely one of them.

-Edmund

I just threw up.... a new game!

2009-05-03T22:48:00.000-07:00

You're born into this world a guinea pig before god. Unsure of his motives you progress through life solving his puzzles searching for meaning in the rudimentary problems of everyday life.

To make sense of life we must evolve past our previous forms, purge from our bodies the rules set in place by our previous selves in order to see the future with new eyes....

In other words Spewer is a game about puking.

------

Spewer is a puzzle platformer that uses liquid physics though regurgitation as its core mechanic. Taking the role of a mysterious test subject, code named Spewer, you must vomit your way through over 60 levels of stomach turning puzzles, learning new abilities, changing forms and piecing together your purpose in life.

Spewer was programmed and co-designed by Eli Piilonen a fresh face to the indie scene, and Edmund McMillen Artist/designer behind such indie hits as Gish, Coil and Super Meat Boy. Spewer is sponsored by Newgrounds.com

Eli Piilonen - Programming / Design
Edmund McMillen - Art / Design
Danny B - Music
Jordan fehr - Sound effects

Play in browser:
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/494129

Download url (Pc/Mac):
http://www.newgrounds.com/downloads/flash/spewer.zip

No Quarter Update

2009-04-29T18:50:00.000-07:00

So alex and i are currently crunching for pax10 and Indiecade. the goal is to have No Quarter in working order for both but our primary focus this week has been on Alpha Red (known as gun in older posts), or track 1 on the No Quarter album.

Alex recently added some AI to the enemies and the game has taken a very action packed direction as of late. The game currently runs on a deeper physics engine then Alex made for Gish, its hard for me not to be very excited about this game... its a very dynamic game, and we are doing our best to come up with more gameplay mechanics that will complement this style.

it blows my mind that no one has done a physics based shooter like this before.. it seems like shooters hit a wall with Metal Slug.

anyway i was working on the title screen for our beta and thought id post what im working on. ill try and posts some up to date gameplay videos once the pax10 beta is finished. The goal is to have No Quarter done by june, so we can jump on to Gish 2 Full time, we shall see how it goes :).

Oh also Tim from Braid is going to be in Super Meat Boy.
-Edmund

Press link round-up

2009-04-26T19:00:00.000-07:00

Games Tm.

I got my biggest article yet in this months issue of Games tm. a 6 page article about innovation in video games and the IGF, they interview me and the tale of tales people about the direction of the indie scene and the importance of being indie.. its a great read if you live in the UK.

Gamedev.net Coil interview: http://www.gamedev.net/reference/business/features/igf09interviews3/page9.asp

Game informer indie week 3 (coil related): http://www.gameinformer.com/News/Story/200904/N09.0422.1910.37476.htm

Dynamic graphics article about indie gaming:
http://www.dynamicgraphics.com/dgm/Article/28941

Battery Acid super meat boy interview:
http://leakybattery.wordpress.com/2009/04/21/super-meat-boy-interview/

ok well im all caught up, now back to work.
-Edmund

Contest Winners! (draw me nude)

2009-04-26T18:48:00.001-07:00

So im about a month late on this, but i finally got a few hours of off time.. so here it is

The results of the "DRAW ME NUDE" contest!

So i got so many submissions (over 105) that i had to change the awards just a bit, mostly due to the fact that most of the really great entries were already drawn with a tablet, and i wanted the 1st place winner to be someone who needed a tablet, so here are the results.

5th place ( a piece of paper that says fuck off on it signed by me ) Goes to!......Fluffkomix! for submitting over 7 horribly drawn pictures of me nude (one of me with a tiny vagina) congrats!.

4th place (a copy of TIACFH) goes to Animan-7 for his disturbingly accurate image of me flexing nude in the mirror.

3rd place (a copy of TIACFH) goes to The-Puppet, uniquely disturbing with a great art style.

2nd place (a signed copy of TIACFH) goes to Sucho for a very well painted edmund abomination.

1st place (a signed copy of TIACFH) goes to Jagondudo, i think its obvious why i picked this one.

and finally

The Grand prize (my wacom tablet) goes to I-Smell for doing a hilarious take on Aether, depicting me swinging from planet to planet with none other then my penis! GOLLY!

This contest went way beyond what i expected, and had some amazing entries.. here are a few runner ups that i feel should be posted as well.

shunshuu

tmkunt

Idude

Biffthetimid

idiot-monarch

ultrapitchfork

and my personal runner up fave

increpare

Either way, ill be printing all these out and wallpapering my desk area with them to fual my narcissistic self loathing (does that even work?), and they will eventually find a perminent home on the rerelease of my CD next year!

I love you all
-Edmund

Possibly the best ad there ever was ?

2009-04-11T23:37:00.000-07:00

I did this tonight, im very very pleased with myself. Seriously, if you have any appreciation for anything ive ever done at all, you will post this image on your blog and spread the word.

Special thanks to Myron for the inspiration.

-Edmund

Danielles hamster died.

2009-04-05T21:56:00.000-07:00

I posted the 1st in game art from Super Meat Boy over on the SMB blog.. but im going to spoil most of that fun and post it here because lets face it, posts without images are like whores without nipples.

If you're in need of more info go read the blog.

Oh also the escapist did an interview/article on Meat boy as well, >read that too.

Im slacking big time on posting the winners of the draw me nude contest.. but i swear ill get to it once im done with these Spewer levels.

-Edmund

GDC FTW!

2009-03-31T00:09:00.000-07:00

Im recouping from GDC... im in love with my peers and motivated by the industry as a whole!

I had a great time and especially loved my intimate interactions with my new fav indie devs, Reagen, Daniel, Petri, Cactus and Anna. you guys have refilled my faith in the indie scene.

Danielle took like 200 photos of the event.. here are some.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/danielleorama/sets/72157616107313608/

Daphne got people to wear diapers and i held them like babies.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/danielleorama/sets/72157616013759813/

i also have a series of indie closeups as well..

http://www.flickr.com/photos/danielleorama/sets/72157616103381636/

the end
-Edmund

IndieBIZ FTW !

2009-03-20T22:46:00.001-07:00

Getting ready for the mochi's and GDC... im disgusted by peers and let down by the industry as a whole, what will the week have in store? im guessing socially retarded nerds with BO talking about stuff that doesn't matter... and im not just talking about myself!

toodles!

oh also Gish is on sale on steam for 6.69
(http://store.steampowered.com/app/9500/)

and Coil made its secret appearance on steam tonight as well(http://store.steampowered.com/app/31500/)

-Edmund

Mochi Awards

2009-03-17T16:24:00.000-07:00

Aether and Coil are both up for Mochi's (flash game awards). its nice that there is finally a real awards show for flash games, and its great to see this platform get some support.. but at the same time i cant help but watch this vid and cringe at how horrible some of these games actually are. That said there are still quite a few awesome ones.

Im actually part of a panel at the summit the awards are taking place at. The panel is about "how to make a hit game". this is something ive been mulling over in my head for weeks now and am becoming increasingly frustrated by it.

The flash scene is saturated by derivative, manipulative (see my post about AVGM) and greedy garbage that has little or nothing to offer when it comes to game design, and the worst part of this is the fact that its games like these that do well.

the first response of any designer who employs these tactics is always "well if it does well, then that's what people want so that makes the game good".

I cant help but want to scream "fuck you, your fucking shit up for the rest of us who are trying so hard to push game design as an art and bring some respect to what we do"... i mean shit, am i wrong here? i want the art of game design to be respected. my ideal future is one where game designers are looked at as artist and respected as much as musicians and film makers, is this a ridiculous thought?

At this point in time video games are still viewed as childish craft by 99% of people, but with things the way they are i can understand why.

We have such a long way to go, i just hope other artist like me arnt turned off by the fight ahead.

I dunno, maybe im just in a weird place...

Whatever, it will be interesting to see what comes out at the summit, the event is currently sold out.. but if you have a ticket ill see you there.

wish me luck
-Edmund

Blog Updates

2009-03-15T21:27:00.000-07:00

I posted the 1st screen shots of the new Meat Boy on the Super Meat Boy blog.
Here: http://supermeatboy.blogspot.com/

Alex posted new video and info about No Quarter
Here: http://crypticsea.blogspot.com/

that is all
-Edmund

Party Time!

2009-03-10T12:36:00.000-07:00

Last sunday i rented out a local Karaoke bar for my 29th birthday. heres a little vid of the events that transpired.

-Edmund

Win my Wacom Tablet (art contest)

2009-02-26T15:46:00.000-08:00

I just posted the Wacom Nude Portrait Contest, in the Newgrounds.com art forum.

heres the link.
http://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1033214

and heres the info:

ART CONTEST: Wacom Nude Portrait Contest!

I recently got a new wacom and want to give my previous tablet a new home, i thought what better way to give one away then making a contest where people draw me nude to win it!?

WHAT TO DO:
Draw me nude.

I dont care what you use, or how you make me look. just draw a picture of what you think id look like nude, best drawing gets my personal standard Wacom Intous 3 Graphics Tablet.

THE RULES:
1. The picture must be of me, and i must be nude in it
2. No one else can be in the picture.
3. Humor is awarded above technical skill.. this is for a wacom tablet so i encourage all you mouse wielding maniacs to bust something out and win this thing.

DEADLINE:
Entries must be posted by 11:59pm on March 18th.

PRIZES:
1st Place: My Personal (aka used) standard Wacom Intous 3 Graphics Tablet, and a signed copy of my CD, This is a Cry for Help.
2nd Place: A signed copy of my CD.
3rd Place: An unsigned copy of my CD
4th Place: A piece of paper that says fuck off loser on it, signed by me.

---

Here is what i look like. (do note that under those clothes im fat, hairy and tattooed)

http://flickr.com/photos/danielleorama/2747276905/in/set-72157594348931889

Here's an example of a drawing i did of myself nude:

Feel free to join in the fun!! :)

-Edmund

Mochi awards!

2009-02-24T13:36:00.000-08:00

I'm extremely please to announce that both Coil and Aether are up for Mochi's!

Aether is going for "indie game of the year" and Coil is in the "creative" category.

The competition is nuts, so mu hopes arnt set to high, Aether is going head to head with the hugely popular Fancy Pants 2 and Coils up against the Majesty of colors (sad to see this made it in over I wish i were the moon).

Ill actually be speaking at the event after the awards show, they have me on a panel talking about "what makes a flash game a hit", im tempted to just say "tits" and walk off the stage :). Should be interesting either way, anyone else going?

In other news, Meat Boy and Aether are also both up for NG Tanks, Once again going up against FPA2 and Majesty of colors. the NG awards are a lot harder to win then the Mochis seeing as there are like 10 other games going up against them, but you never know what will happen.. it would be fucking awesome to have a Tank on my desk :)

Wish me luck!
-Edmund

AVGM (retrospective)

2009-02-20T22:08:00.000-08:00

So its been a few weeks so i felt enough time has passed to talk a little about AVGM.

AVGM was a joke, no one was actually meant to play it at all. The flicking of a light switch to unlock stuff or "level up" is an example of what Tyler and i view as Abusive Video Game Manipulation (what the game stands for :P).

Its a tactic that's used in all MMORPGS, its a horrible and abusive way to get people hook on your game and an incredibly lame thing to do. The upsides of this tactic are obvious, its easy to get people hooked on your game and pay for it, and as long as you string them along with more expansions of the same situation you can basically bleed people dry while giving them nothing in return.

Now don't get me wrong, i understand its fun to play with people online, ive played battlefield 2 for years, but its strange to me that so many people fall into the horrible design of MMORPGS even knowing what they are doing the whole time. The level grind is a horrible and boring thing.. and what do you get from it? a more powerful character you can PK with? why not just play an online multiplayer game where everyone starts out at the same level? why should someone with less of a life then you have an equipment advantage? why are people ok with being rewarded with meaningless and empty digital icons for time spent clicking a button?

well its a simple and easy formula, and here's the break down of AVGM.

AVGM has 41 unlockable items that appear on screen and you click a button, the more items on screen the more clicks it takes for the next item to appear. Once all 41 items are unlocked they start to become colored, nothing else happens.

To finish the game you have to sit there and click the button 10,000 times. and here are the stats on how many people did this.

http://www.mochibot.com/shared/shared_trafficreport.html?key=cf99275a4769339e539571558d174da8

As of feb. 20th, 337 people have clicked AVGM 10,000 times each.
The whole thing gets even more pathetic when you know that only 8,000 people played it. That's what? 5% of people who played AVGM sat through 10,000 clicks....

Granted quite a few used auto clickers to finish it.. but the point is they still went out of their way to download an auto clicker to do so.

Its funny how small digital rewards can keep people playing something for hours, then again ill be buying Diablo 3 when it comes out, so who am i to talk.

just thought some of you might find this interesting :)

PLAY AVGM NOW!
(or just go outside for a change)
-Edmund

A Meaty Week

2009-02-18T13:25:00.000-08:00

Tons of big Super meat boy news!

So first off the unveiling of the Super Meat Boy Teaser trailer on gametrailers.com. Created by a good friend of mine James Id, the teaser is a huge throw back to those early 90s animated MTV video bumpers, Liquid Television and NES video game commercials. Meat Boy screams early 90s nostalgia, so i thought it would be perfect to do a teaser in the same vein, and James did a really great job here.

Lets Watch!

In other news Cube Craft just posted a paper craft of Meat Boy, its quite awesome, hes sitting next to me as i type this.

Download him here: http://cubeecraft.com/cubee/meat-boy

Tommy and i also did an interview with Destructiod about SMB, another nice read for this super meat filled day.

-Edmund

New Merch!

2009-02-15T13:54:00.000-08:00

So secretly last week D posted 3 new items on my Etsy shop, some of you seem to have already found out and ordered a ton of the buttons, but here is the official announcement.

New to the store:

Coil Print (gold):
The Coil print is a 9'' x 5.5'' 2 color screen print. This print is a limited run of 30.

Button Grab Bag:
10 randomly assorted 1'' buttons featuring art from all my games and other selected work. There are over 200+ different buttons so you wont get any doubles in your orders.

C Word Button set:
8 1'' buttons featuring art from "The C word".

As usual all the new content is handmade by myself and/or Danielleorama

Anyone who has missed the other items that have gone up in the past weeks be sure to check out my Etsy Shop.

-Edmund

Mary Z, Final.

2009-02-11T21:12:00.000-08:00

so heres my final version of Mary.

I did did these remixed versions for the hell of it.

DONE!
-Edmund

Zombie Mary time lapsed drawing.

2009-02-11T01:16:00.001-08:00

So there it is.. sadly it took longer to put the video together then actually draw it. but ive been wanting to do a video like this for years so .. there ya go.

i should have a totally finished version posted in high rez tomorrow night.

night
-Edmund

PS: sorry about the low rez, my pc crashes when i try to render it any higher