TOM FRANCIS
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Why Isn’t There A Gunpoint Kickstarter?

I get this question a lot, which is lovely because it suggests people want to support the game and are happy to pay to do it. Thank you! I will very much want you to do that at some point!

Kickstarter is awesome and I may need it some day for something, but not Gunpoint. Here’s my thinking. Continued

Alcohol

This post is slightly fetishistic about booze later on, which if you’re a recovering alcoholic might be kind of annoying.

I like alcohol. I don’t get drunk very often, probably once a month on average, but I drink with an enthusiasm and regularity that makes me very conscious of one possible way this could go. I could become like a chocoholic, but for booze. Continued

A Short Script For An Animated 60s Heist Movie

A Disney animator named James Lopez once posted some character concepts for a 60s heist movie he wanted to make, and I just found them the other day, via Charlie Czechowski.

When you look at them, you immediately want to see it. I wanted to see it so much I wrote it. Continued

Dishonored

I like Dishonored quite a lot. Here’s my review.

If you’re playing it now, you might want to know what counts as a kill, what the threshold for ‘low chaos’ is, and whether dogs seeing you mean you’re not a ghost. Here’s a guide. Continued

Gunpoint Level Editor Trailer

Gunpoint will have a level editor! Here’s a quick video of what it’s like to use:

This is by far the most requested feature both from people who’ve played it and people who haven’t. I always planned to add one after release, but when I came to see if it was feasible, it turned out to be easier than I thought. It’s working nicely enough now that I can have it in for release. Which will be… in the future.

Here are some cool things about the level editor: Continued

Adventure Time Game Post Mortem

On the weekend of the 15th, Fantastic Arcade held an Adventure Time-themed Game Making Frenzy. It meant anyone could make a game with Adventure Time characters for the purposes of that compo, which is rare, so I did.

I finished mine at 2am that Monday, left the next day for a work trip, then spent all of last weekend working on Gunpoint, so I haven’t had time to talk about how it went. Here’s how it went! Continued

What I Like About Guild Wars 2

As I mentioned on the last PC Gamer podcast, I’m really getting into Guild Wars 2. It’s the first MMO to do anything for me since World of Warcraft, and the best since City of Heroes. And it’s mostly because of one attitude behind it:

“Yikes, that sounds like a lot of design work. Oh well, let’s do it.” Continued

My Borderlands 2 Review Is Up

“Then there are the robots. I was dubious about how much fun it’d be to shoot metal instead of flesh, which now that I write that down doesn’t make me sound like a particularly great person. But I needn’t have worried. You can’t headshot robots, but their joints are weakspots. If you’re taking a lot of damage from a particular droid’s weapon, you can aim and blow that arm off. Continued

Adventure Time Game Jam

I did Ludum Dare once, where you make a game in a weekend, and it taught me loads about how to be ruthlessly efficient and cut things before you waste time on them. I’ve skipped every game jam since then, and every event except the IGF, to focus on Gunpoint.

This weekend, though, I’m letting myself do one. Because a) I made loads of progress on Gunpoint last weekend, and am very close to being able to show you a new feature I haven’t announced yet, and b) this will probably be the only chance I ever get to legally make an Adventure Time game. Continued

Game Idea: Slumber

The theme for this weekend’s game-making competition is evolution. As usual, I’m gonna stick to working on Gunpoint but write up the idea I’d do if I had time to get distracted.

I think if you’re going to make an evolution game, you’ve got to actually model evolution. God knows gaming misuses that word enough – we need to repay science for every time a game has claimed some magical goo caused our character to ‘rapidly evolve’ into a superhuman. Continued

The Good And The Bad Bits Of The Newsroom

Aaron Sorkin’s current show about a TV news show was panned by reviewers, but I quite liked its first episode and thought its problems were fixable. The reviewers had seen the first four. I now see what they were talking about.

It’s such an extraordinary mix of exciting potential and staggeringly clumsy writing that I’ve had trouble stringing together a sentence about it that uses the word ‘but’ fewer than five times. So I’ll give up on a coherent overview and just list the things I like and don’t like. Continued

Memories Of Far Cry 2

Just found this in an old screenshots folder.

The Magical Logic Of Dark Messiah’s Boot

George Buckenham invited me on his podcast to tell him about a particular thing about a particular game I particularly loved. I picked a conceptually weird bit of logic from Dark Messiah of Might and Magic that makes kicking people more fun. It’s about five minutes.

Arguing On The Internet

 
I don’t argue on the internet anymore, but I have some ideas on how to do it without defeating yourself and also human decency.

Update: This post now has a sort of sequel, suggesting ways to contribute to an argument without being an asshole.

A Successful Spelunky Run

After 223 failed attempts, I have completed the Xbox version of Spelunky. Here’s what happened. I’ll name some enemies and items involved, but won’t spoil how I defeated the final boss. Continued