Ghost's Towns Update

Ghost's Towns has been updated! Coming up on the game's one year anniversary next month, we now have some new dialogue that hopefully clarifies some questions, a new NPC, some new shortcuts, and a slight rearrangement of two buildings. Best of all, the run button now works in most places.

Download the new version for free on Windows, Mac, and Linux here: http://superwalrusland.com/wiki/index.php?title=Ghost%27s_Towns

C. Kane News

C. Kane is available as part of an Indie Games Bundle! This is the first time any of my games have gone up in a commercial bundle, so I'm pretty happy to see it's doing well. It's part of a bundle on Groupees along with a bunch of other games currently listed on Steam Greenlight. Throw a dollar or two at these guys and then be sure to vote!

In other news, I'm working on an updated version of the game now that I will hopefully have done soon, adding a new, optional coliseum and a bunch of new fights.

Ghost's Towns Final Release Available

I've made some minor edits, color adjustments, bug fixes, and additions to Ghost's Towns since the test release, so now's the time to call it officially complete and release an updated version. Enjoy! An Android port is on the way too.


 

You awaken in a mysterious town with no identity, no bearings, and an alien body. Ten trials await; complete the trials and find a truth.

Ghost's Towns is a surreal puzzle game set in a world of sad monsters and suspicious strangers. Players complete objectives around town to earn tokens which can be used to activate machines to peer into another world.

The world of Ghost's Towns is inhabited by both new and old faces, featuring cameos from Super Walrus Games titles of the past, including many unreleased games. The idea of the Tower of Truth comes from an unreleased portion of Surlaw Armageddon that was to serve as that game's final chapter. The town functions as a sort of graveyard of ideas.

Windows Install File - http://superwalrusland.com/games/setup-ghoststowns.exe
Windows ZIP File - http://superwalrusland.com/games/ghoststowns.zip
Mac - http://superwalrusland.com/games/ghoststowns-mac.tar.gz
Linux - http://superwalrusland.com/games/ghoststowns_2015.deb

Soundtrack available here: http://glockandmr8bit.bandcamp.com/album/ghosts-towns-soundtrack 

Ghost's Towns Now Available

I'm still waiting on feedback from testers, but I'm too excited to sit on this any longer: Ghost's Towns is now complete! Consider this an open beta or something. The game is fully, completely playable, though some minor changes or additions may occur later. It's available for free right now on Windows, Mac, and Linux. An Android version will be available at a future date. I'd love to hear any feedback you've got!

Walthros - Now free on Android

Walthros, the first game I ever made, is now free for download on Android. This one goes all the way back to 1998 and it's really rough and messy! Give it a look if you like Final Fantasy style RPGs or walruses.

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Everyone's lived the old RPG standard of gathering crystals and fighting mysterious monsters, but have you ever done it... as a fish? Bob Surlaw and a whole host of mutants embark on a quest to save the world. Features 9+ hours of gameplay.

First released on DOS in 2000 and made with the OHRRPGCE engine, Walthros is back for a whole new generation of players! Featuring its original 8bit-styled graphics and storyline, Walthros has been enhanced with higher quality music and touched up dialogue.

Walthros is an alien planet inhabited by lifeforms that resemble animals from Earth. At some distant point in the planet's history, there was a great conflict that ended when a legendary hero unleashed a power that destroyed most of the known world. Thousands of years later, life has largely recovered. Unfortunately, old conflicts have been reborn, and war continues to rage. Players take the role of Bob Surlaw, a Walthrosian Fish who makes a living as an explorer of ancient ruins. His journey begins when he leaves his home one morning to explore a nearby shrine that has long been sealed. Inside, he finds an angry spirit and a piece of an ancient relic.

Super Walrus Games now on Android

Thanks to some tireless work by James Paige and the OHRRPGCE crew, the game engine I've been using since 1998 can finally run on Android phones and tablets. I've already promoted C. Kane here, but I'm happy to announce that I've also ported Horse Game as a free download and my original RPG Walthros, first released as a demo in 2000 and completed in 2002, as a 99 cent game. Walthros definitely shows its age in both writing and gameplay, but I'm still proud of it and all of its pitfalls and hiccups helped make me who I am today as a game designer. I appreciate any downloads they can get!

Click the links below or just run a search for Super Walrus Games on the Google Play store.

C. Kane - A short form turn-based RPG that streamlines the genre to its basics; fighting monsters, talking to people, playing dress up. Dungeons are minimalist, graphics are monochrome. Random battles are no more, bosses are numerous. A Shark guides the way. An original hip hop soundtrack provides the beats. At last, The Citizen Game of Video Games is here.

Walthros - Everyone's lived the old RPG standard of gathering crystals and fighting mysterious monsters, but have you ever done it... as a fish? Bob Surlaw and a whole host of mutants embark on a quest to save the world.

Horse Game - In this game you must find the horse. Hello! I am your host. I am Surlaw. I watch you as you play the Horse Game and make sure you do not get out of control. Control is the most important part of the plan. Control and obedience.

C. Kane - One week later

It's been a little over a week since I released the PC/Mac/Linux versions of C. Kane and I'm pretty happy with how it's turned out. The game's had two reviews: One satirical review by one of its playtesters, and another review on Slime Salad focusing more on why the gameplay works. All this led to an article appearing on Kotaku, entitled This is Actually the Citizen Kane of Games, that brought in a couple thousand views to the game's page and a couple hundred downloads.

After a little bit of editing for text box positioning and other minor things, the game is now available for Android devices from the Google Play store. It plays pretty well with a virtual d-pad and buttons and the picture fits very nicely on my phone! If you want to support C. Kane and other games like it, please buy the Android version, even if you played the PC one already. It's only 99 cents! And please leave ratings/reviews.

I'm going to work on converting some of my older releases to Android in the near future. Horse Game's up next, after a few edits. I know that one's only ten minutes long, so don't worry, I won't be charging anything for it.

Game Release - C. Kane

My newest game is 100% done, pending any bugs or balance issues the public finds. Windows, Mac, and Linux versions are available for download here: http://superwalrusland.com/wiki/index.php?title=C._Kane

A complete, illustrated manual explaining the game's characters and setting is available here: http://superwalrusland.com/CKaneManual.pdf

8bit and Glock did a really great job with the music and the playtesters did an awesome job catching little things I would have otherwise missed. I'm sure there are still one or two little issues that are going to crop up, so if you run into anything weird, let us know!

C. Kane Beta Test

My newest game is almost complete, so it's time to recruit some outside testers. C. Kane is a short form RPG intended to finally be The Citizen Kane of Gaming. Featuring an original hip hop soundtrack by Mr. 8bit and Glock, minimalist grayscale environments, and goofy monsters, C. Kane is a 2D Japanese-style RPG that simplifies the genre to its core elements; fighting bosses, learning new spells, and engaging in absurdly self-important dialogue.

If you'd like to test, please take notes on everything as you go. Which jokes work, which skills need to be rebalanced, which Moral Choices you made, whether any equipment seems useless or overpowered. If you don't like turn based 2D RPGs, you're probably not going to have fun here.

Send me an e-mail or a private message and I'll send you the download link as soon as it's ready, which should be Friday night (August 30th) if all goes according to plan.

The Hamster Burrow Interview

Clint Emsley of The Hamster Burrow interviewed me on game design and Bob Surlaw. Check it out and show some support for this new blog, it's currently the best source for in depth articles on OHRRPGCE content.

HamsterSpeak Final Stats and Reminiscence

For the last year and a half, I've let the HamsterSpeak Contributor Index sit around without being updated. Well, I've finally gone in and filled it out in its entirety, from issue 1 to 63. If you'd like to take a look at it for whatever reason, here you go: http://www.superwalrusland.com/ohr/cont/Contributions.html

At this point, I'm much happier not working on HamsterSpeak, and I'm having a much better time just writing this blog. We had a lot of fun over the last five years, but I needed a break, and now that I've taken one I don't feel any strong desire to get back in the game. I've thought about launching an OHR review/feature site to replace HS and archive all of its content there (in addition to in the magazine itself), but this would involve learning a lot of code that I just don't have time to learn.

So, I'd like to take a second to announce that HamsterSpeak is officially closing shop. If someone else wants to take a shot at running an OHR magazine, now's the time. It's hard, frustrating work, especially on months where no one contributes, and it takes a lot of dedication. If you can pull it off, I salute you. Just don't use the same name.

Here are some statistics, for those of you that like that kind of thing. They're probably not 100% accurate. That's ok.

HamsterSpeak 60 Online

HamsterSpeak 60 

This month we have a celebration of Bob Surlaw's birthday, the results of the Collaboration Contest (and reviews of its games), Game of the Year 2011, and more.

Cool Guy Bob Surlaw - House Sprites

Here are some early sprites of things that will appear in Bob's house in Cool Guy Bob Surlaw. All of these are subject to change (The bed in the game already looks quite different from the one you see here).

Initial Impressions - Spellshard: The Black Crown of Horgoth

Download game here

Spellshard is the years long product of Shizuma and Harlock, two OHR engine users with more dedication to completing a major project than probably anyone else in the community. It is an unapologetically old school JRPG, with all that comes with that. It's tough, you have to grind early on, and it doesn't hold your hand. If this sounds good, you're going to have a great time with this game.

HamsterSpeak 59 Online

Hey, I've got yet another place to post these links to now!

A brief issue in which ghosts and goblins are discussed and Surlaw shows us his MySpace angle pictures.

Special thanks to Willy Elektrix and The Cube for being really good contributors over the last few months. You dudes have basically been keeping this magazine alive with your regular contributions and I really appreciate it.

Just a reminder that there's only three more weeks left in the Game of the Year 2011 vote, if anyone wants to get in some last minute votes. I'll be posting my own votes towards the end as usual.