2016 has been a pretty crappy year, but it wasn’t crappy for Turbo Button. I’ve updated the site with links to three new talks (from Vision Summit, GDC, and Oculus Connect) and two new game releases (Adventure Time and Floor Plan).
Read MoreMaking a Change
Today is my last day at Magic Pixel Games, and my first day as a independent developer.
Read MoreData from “A Night at the Roculus”
A collection of hardware data from Night at the Roculus installs.
Read MoreWhat I Listened To: 2013 Edition
This is normally when I put together a big list of games I played in the previous year, but while I’m working on that, I thought I’d share some of my favorite songs from last year, in pseudo-particular order. I get my music recommendations from some combination of friends, random bands that I get to see, Sirius XM Alt Nation radio, and Spotify. The songs are embedded below, but here’s a link to a Spotify playlist with them all too. Cage The Elephant – “Come A Little Closer” I wasn’t a big fan of their new full length on the whole, but “Come A Little Closer” hits all the right notes for me as a follow up to some of my favorite songs of theirs, like Back Against the Wall and Aberdeen. It’s something I would want to play in Rock Band all the time if that was still a thing. Two Door Cinema Club – “Changing of the Seasons” This song excites me as much as the their original 2010 album. I need to try to see them in concert sometime soon in LA. Young the Giant – “It’s About Time” I always liked Young the Giant, but this song hit late in the year and I’ve been listening to it ever since. I’m a big fan of the upbeat tempo, compared to what I’m used to hearing from them…I think it actually suits the vocals better than something like “Apartment.” New Politics – “Harlem” One of my guilty pleasure songs from the year. Don’t have much more to say than that. >_> Imagine Dragons – “Demons” Imagine Dragons exploded in popularity this year – I can’t turn on my TV without hearing “Radioactive” on a commercial. So while “Demons” hasn’t been ignored, it certainly hasn’t gotten the respect it deserved being on the same album. This is the only one between the two that has stayed on my playlists. Fitz and The Tantrums – “The Walker” It’s a happy song, and the world needs more happy songs. I gained extra appreciation for it when I found out the song’s lyrics are actually about a homeless guy who...
Read MoreWhat I Played: 2012 Edition
So remember when I said I would have this writeup finished back at the end of January? Yeah, that didn’t happen. But it’s finished now! I find that my responsibilities and opportunities as a full time developer have made me write less not because I don’t want to, but because I’m around developers all the time and talking about these kind of things scratches the same itch. I’m at work on a postmortem for Stick to It, the recently released iOS game I worked on at Magic Pixel, and a couple deconstructions that have been in the oven for far too long. But back to the point – here’s the list of all the games I played in 2012. “Played” in this sense means I gave them more than a couple hours (where applicable) or in many cases completed them entirely. This console generation has gone on for so long that I’m still catching up on some of the hidden gems I missed in previous years, and I know not all of these games are new for everyone. I hope this list will give other people a good overview of my gaming habits (and background), but more than that, I hope I might tip someone off to something they might not have otherwise played. 10000000 (iOS) 10000000 is a dungeon-crawling puzzle RPG with a very unfortunate name, but it’s a hell of a lot of fun for the few hours it lasts. The game is a constant grind where you go on short runs, earn resources, and upgrade your character to go on slightly longer runs – like any number of early 2000s flash games – but this particular implementation of the match-three puzzle mechanic grabbed me. The icons matched on the bottom half of the screen determine what attacks or spells you use against monsters on the top half of the screen. I don’t think I’ve gone back to the game at all since hitting the score goal indicated in the title. Assassin’s Creed Revelations (Xbox 360) Another Assassin’s Creed game, another opportunity for me to run around and clear a bunch of dots off of a map. The epic...
Read More2012 Recap
I went to write my “What I Played” post for 2012 and realized I hadn’t made a post on here since the last annual “What I Played” post. I need to get better about updating this thing. I did a lot last year in games: I participated in my third Global Game Jam in January with a bunch of my friends from college, and we made a game called BLARF. I hosted the What Would Molydeux game jam in LA for Magic Pixel Games, and had an awesome time. I participated in my first Ludum Dare competition, making a “game” called Pluto’s Revenge by myself over a weekend. I used Stencyl, so don’t worry – it’s still not “real” programming. I attended GDC 2012, E3 2012, PAX Prime 2012, and Indiecade 2012. I also moderated and spoke on a panel with some friends at PAX Prime, the first time I’ve gotten a chance to do that. It was a ton of fun! I participated in an internal game jam at Magic Pixel Games and had a title for iOS get greenlit. I’ve been working hard with a great team and it’s coming out next month, so expect another post! I started a website called “KickAssist” at Magic Pixel Games, where we give money to indie game projects on Kickstarter and Indiegogo. You can read about it here! There are some awesome things in the works at Magic Pixel Games for 2013, and I look forward to sharing them with you soon! In hope of motivating myself to write more, I’ve redesigned my website with a minimalist theme and put the focus on the content. It’s also much friendlier for reading on tablets. The annual “What I’ve Played” post should be up later this week. Until...
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