September 24, 2005

Graves & MacGuffin unveiled

Page0wthumb.png So, probably time to reveal a little project myself and artist Adam Reed (of Nine Planets Without Intelligent Life fame) have been working on for the past few months - a video game-themed graphic novel named 'Graves & MacGuffin'.

Well, it's not just game-related - as the info page explains, G&MacG is '...a noir-ish murder mystery series set in the world of video game development. It features Graves, a video game tester, who rather falls into solving a cornucopia of gruesome or bizarre games industry crimes... He does this with the help of MacGuffin, a sardonic virtual pet rodent who exists inside Graves' handheld gaming system.'

So far, we've got the first 8 pages or so plotted and drawn, and we thought we'd stop, put them online, and gauge interest. Are you a graphic novel publisher or know a publisher who might be crazy and/or shrewd enough to get involved in putting this out? If so, then contact us, and we can chat about it further.

If not then, well, fair enough - we're going to get the comic its own domain, finish up this story on the web, anyhow, and see who enjoys it all the same. Oh, and as for the story concept and setting, this is all just a little odd, maybe. But heck, it twins my experience in the video game industry with my love of the classic detective story and Adam's inspirational art. And I don't wish any of my former colleagues extreme violence, for those wondering. Besides, who doesn't like to see Seaman-like virtual pets solving devious game development murders?

[Actually, this initial tale is based partly on a slightly more 'unrefined' short story (warning, swearing alert!) that I wrote, anonymously, for Insert Credit a couple of years back. Apologies that I didn't get back to respondents suggesting a murder weapon (the interactive part of the story), incidentally - of the 15 or so replies, I would have picked the guy who suggested a crystal Sonic the Hedgehog statue. But then the project veered into leftfield, and as you can see, a sharpened game disc is the culprit in this rebooted version.]

Posted by h0l211 at 04:37 PM

September 10, 2005

Continental Drifting, Again...

sep05sm.jpg We got our first copies of the September issue of Game Developer, pictured to the left, when we were in London for GDC Europe last week, and the Tetsuya Nomura-drawn cover seems to works great with the orange and black color scheme, woo.

In any case, this is the point where I talk about the Game Developer's October 2005 issue, which is the third annual Top 20 Publishers issue - we calculated the top game publishers by factoring in revenue, average review score, anonymous feedback, and other factors, with fascinating results. Also in the issue - a neat in-depth interview with Daniel James of Puzzle Pirates and now Bang! Howdy fame about appealing to the 'broadcore' gamer, and a postmortem regarding the graphics of the gorgeous Resident Evil 4 from Capcom Japan artist Yoshiaki Hirabayashi.

So, as mentioned above and in the linklog, me and Holly went to London last week, both to see my family and to catch Game Developers Conference Europe, and both went rather spectacularly! Over on Gamasutra, we covered GDC in-depth, and I actually got a chance to do some writing for once - witness Sony's Phil Harrison keynote, some great developer-specific Xbox 360 info, and a fascinating session on SCEE's SingStar karaoke game series. The game design mash-up and Keita Takahashi's keynote were two other highlights of the show - looking forward to next year's already! Oh, and pre-GDCE, my colleague Brandon's interview with ex-Silent Hill supremo Takayoshi Sato is one of my favorite Gamasutra pieces to date - nuanced and with lots of personal insight.

So, we're off to Japan on Tuesday for the Tokyo Game Show and to stealth interview a mess of Japanese developers, and I imagine the linklog will degenerate into photoblogging at that point, doh. Please try to curb your enthusiasm. Oh, and as a random postscript - thanks to all the entrants to the 2006 Independent Games Festival - the first round saw 117 game entries, a record, and there's going to be some kickass finalists who really showcase indie game development in a positive way. Yay!

Posted by h0l211 at 09:46 AM