John Ayliff (Space Goblin Games)
@spacegoblingames
Indie text game developer, creator of Seedship and Beyond the Chiron Gate. Now working on a pulp sci-fi adventure narrated by the villain! Website: Blog: Header and avatar by Tom Morley
Yes! An interactive pulp sci-fi story narrated by the villain.
My wife always gets me nerdy T-shirts for my birthday but this year she's outdone herself. I had no idea this Venn diagram intersection of nerdery could possibly exist.
Fellow authors: without any context, what's the first line of your current WIP?
I like to think I've grown a lot since I was 15, but if you strip away the layers you'll find an Asimov nerd.
License to Bluesk kojira.github.io/bluesky-lice...
Just launched an update to Beyond the Chiron Gate to add a dark-on-light colour scheme, for those who like the darkness of space a little less dark spacegoblingames.itch.io/beyond-the-c... store.steampowered.com/app/2960700/... apps.apple.com/us/app/beyon... play.google.com/store/apps/d...
I thought writing a whole game in the voice of an over-the-top pulp space villain would be fun, and it is, but it's also *exhausting*.
I will say that the giant sexy hologram scene hits differently when you see it in context.
You know what old comic could make a good movie? Jeff Hawke. Space hero guy but he's more of a diplomat than an action hero, but actually he's mostly a straight man to a bunch of weird bickering aliens who are the real stars.
Wondering how long I can spend coming up with spaceship names before it becomes procrastination.
Quote with a fictional band that isn’t Spinal Tap
Also, nice selection of cards at the bottom of the scryfall.com main page today:
Okay, we did movies and games. Now tell me what books you've read more than once.
Does playing until you decide this game is done count as completing?
Taking a short break from Foolish Earth Creatures to work on an alternative dark-on-light colour scheme for Beyond the Chiron Gate.
Space Goblin goes to the opera! Nell of Lamp Post Projects (lamppostprojects.com) painted this for me as thanks for playtesting their Fantasy Opera games. One doesn't wear a space helmet to the opera, so he's wearing an opera coat with a star pattern.
I broke my favourite mug :( so I glued it back together to use as a pen holder. Thought I'd share it in case you also need to hear that you're doing a good job and your hair looks nice.
Having a lot of fun writing this stupid space villain game. #screenshotsaturday #indiedev #interactivefiction
Playing the demo of this now and it's a really clever game. The story is great and the card battles seem to have a lot of strategic depth. Also how can you not love a game that has a card called "the AUDACITY"?
"Choose your own ship name" Amazing, more games should have this.
After days of being blocked I'm making progress again, and have finally reached The End! (Technically a spoiler I guess, but how else was this game going to end?)
No cheating; your last saved picture of a celebrity is your therapist. I don't have any saved pictures of celebrities, unless a Batman meme counts?
Me when everyone keeps carrying out their intentions
Personal nerd goal achieved: I've got my hands on scans of old Eagle comics so I've been able to read the 1960s Dan Dare stories that have never been reprinted. And it's a pity they haven't been reprinted, because they're pretty good!
"Don't waste your time on anything that doesn't thrill you or bring you love. See you out somewhere in the cosmos."
Cool feature: You can press a thing on the top and the engine opens up. Seeing how the mechanism worked as I built it was pretty fun. Annoying feature: The astronaut has a big backpack but when you put her in the cockpit there's nowhere in the ship for the backpack to go.
Filling in placeholder text today and sometimes I come across a bit that I'm not sure can possibly be improved.