*i once released games under the studio handle ‘handmade games’

the ‘handmade games’ philosophy extends to every aspect of new game+:

• i must make the sound effects from recordings, synthesisers (and where i must use snippets of sounds i cannot get myself, i must heavily disguise them, not simply reuse the generously-given work of others on places like freesound.org).
• i must make all the songs with single-take recordings of live instruments and heavy, old synthesisers and a million wires and mics going everywhere, a million effects and guitar pedals on everything, two amplifiers recorded on either side of the room for ‘width’ (not only on guitar).
• i must storyboard the intro by hand on paper and work on it for over a year.
• i must draw all the maps and character designs on paper.
• everything must be animated by hand, not programmatically, even wind effects.
• i must code every part of the codebase (except one complicated shader) myself, reuse nothing, even if there is much better code available for free or cheap. unity has a great particle system? roll my own.
• i must use none of the built-in unity helpful systems or effects or even basic sprite handling and instead write my own engine within that engine.
• i must build all my tools (even my own pixel art software).
• i must never use ai, even for search (well except once… to help fix a tricky rendering bug. it did help but also i had to do a lot of work checking the code and i’m not sure what would have taken longer. it’s my nature.)

this is not all to say ‘look how much work i’ve done’, rather to illustrate the pathological amount of control-freakery that has made this project take 14 years and change. it’s something i’m advising against, to be clear. there must be a good balance somewhere. i just clearly don’t know what it looks like. then again, maybe this is part of what makes my games my games. and maybe it’s needed more than even now in a world with so much automation? i don’t know, really. ask me after about 16-17 when it’s done.

anyway, i’ve got a good flow at the moment. it’s taken many years to get a good balance alongside life and music career and some health issues which have made things slower than i’d like. but i with the aid of my new business manager and my putting my music on ‘quiet mode’ for a bit (i have a couple of albums to release soon but then backlog is not really increasing rn…), things are feeling achievable and not only that there’s a new passion and excitement there that’s reminding me of the old days. maybe it’s the similar doomy feeling of ‘this has to work or else i am literally broke’ that gets me in gear and perhaps i even relish that challenge. again, this is not a mode i suggest operating in because it also comes with a huge amount of anxiety that only builds the more years that pass and the lower the reserves get.

as i hit half a century this sunday it’s got me philosophising about how i spent my last decade and a half, almost a third of it i guess? i don’t regret it. i just don’t encourage or recommend it! perhaps there is a balance to be found there, after all.

but i do still love pretty much anything handmade. so i think including as much of it as can be considered practical is always a good way to go.

*like the 1995 Amiga game Keith’s Quest (apologies for stealing the logo, Terry Gilliam!)

hey friends, i hope you’re all doing well. and as ever sorry for the long ‘awk’.

just a quick update to say that the site now has a new hosting package with SSL security and that means that this site and https://lonesurvivor.co.uk and even the mysterious https://newgameplus.com now appear safe to your browser of choice

(keep an eye out spacerecordings.co.uk going live soon also!)

from here on out i’m going to make a concerted effort to update this blog a lot more often, ideally weekly…

the game whose working title is NEW GAME+ has now been in development for over 14 years. which means it may be the longest on record still unreleased game still in active development?

not an accolade i’m proud of by any means, but the game on the other hand, well, that i am more excited by than ever. i have newfound motivation to get it over the finishing line (and as i’ve invested nearly everything in it financially it has to be out soon anyway!)

i also now have a little help from a manager who is taking some of the weight off. more info on that soon…

there’s lots to share in the coming months. i look forward to going on the final journey with you all.

~jasper

it’s been 12 years…

…but it’s still on

in fact my current plan is to focus on it exclusively until i can finally release it

thankyou for your patience. i’ll try to update this place occasionally with progress. i understand there’s probably a lot to talk about at this point, having kept silent about my development for over a decade.

after three years rebuilding the game from scratch, and adding a world of new content, i’m happy to announce this new version of the game is live right now on Steam. it’ll be coming to Nintendo Switch on 8/11/22, next tuesday.

here is the steam link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1907440/Super_Lone_Survivor

i hope you enjoy the new version of the game. it’s meant to somehow capture what i would like to see in a remake.

~jasper

hey there, it’s coming up on the 10 year anniversary, March 27th 2022, and i’ve got some pretty exciting news: if all goes to plan, i should be launching the brand new, remastered version of the original game, until now codenamed Lone Survivor Remastered.

i’ve actually decided to go back to the SUPER LONE SURVIVOR title for it, despite it not containing the new protagonist and their scenario, which i’ll now be doing as a full length game entitled LONE WARRIOR, once SUPER LONE SURVIVOR is released.

i’m hoping to release SUPER LONE SURVIVOR on PC and Switch at the same time, depending on how long certification and bug fixing takes. the game is in great shape and i’m super excited to share this new version. at the very least i want to drop it on PC on the anniversary.

the game features full joypad support on PC for multiple pads and has customisable button prompts as well as other options like scanline strength, and whether to enable the new blood effects. there is customisable rumble support on all Xbox pads.

the other huge new feature is the 4:3 presentation. all the original art has been painstakingly redrawn to make use of this taller aspect ratio, using the original methods, while adding parallax scrolling layers for additional depth. the game is switchable from its original 16:9 presentation to 4:3 at any time with the touch of a button. as low as 640×480 resolution is supported, so vintage CRT’s that support VGA / 31Khz type signals should be able to play the game. i may look into a 240p mode too – it works, it’s just adding the UI for it if the demand is there. it would be cool to play it on an old TV though.

the lighting and shaders have been massively improved over the original game, there are now realtime shadows, the scrolling is now ultra smooth and the game supports all monitor aspect ratios with appropriate bars. the game supports up to 8K resolutions and beyond, making it hopefully more future proof. the higher the res you run it, the smoother the scrolling and lighting effects.

all of the music and sounds have been painstakingly tracked down and recreated in full uncompressed audio, compared to the original’s 128kbps mp3’s.

i’m now working on a couple of optional secrets, and possibly even a few secret locations, we’ll have to see how it comes together, but i’ve got a few ideas to expand the game without hopefully upsetting the balance at all

i look forward to sharing it with you