Quotables.

So I'm having a bit of fun with the RocketHands' marketing and PR. Writing up irreverent press releases is turning out to be a favourite pass-time. But most of all, I like it when I get to make stuff up.

For instance, with our first press release, we used a quote from Jack about the nature of RocketFuse's beginnings. I thought it was fine, it gave some insight into the gamejam nature of the team's development. But for a little while we toyed with the idea of using some fabricated quotes. Following are some startlingly falsified quotations we almost used:

"I felt sorry for [RocketHand's programmer] Rob, y'know," explains designer, baker and programmer Jack Casey, "He'd put on his astronaut helmet and go to his corner to play with this cardboard rocket all day. So we agreed to make this game so he could move on. Rob, if you're reading this, just let it go - you won't get to be an astronaut. Ever."

"We had this big discussion," said designer and snow-board prodigy Brad Power, "About what it means to us to be indie. Could we sell a game? Are we allowed to commercialise our work? Are we even allowed to let someone else look at it when it's, y'know, finished? We didn't really come to any conclusion by the end, so I snuck it onto the App Store when Rob and Jack weren't looking."

"I don't know much about it to tell the truth," said head honcho Jason Hutchens. "I've been busy writing code to send a new lunar shuttle into orbit while on a cruise vacation. Let me know if the game's any good, will you?"

With tongue firmly in cheek, I will press onwards to make people aware of our existence. It's a big internet!, but I've got a MacBook and a cheese sandwich to see me through.

In other BIMBAMTHWOOSH news, I have Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, and I think I may go have a dally with it before the awesome TEAMUP* action next weekend.

-Anthony

*Dibs on Gambit mother'uckers.

hello elvis!

Dollars and sense.

Even though I was intending on taking a day off today, I still had to poke around the RocketHands sales figures for RocketFuse and do some number-crunching.

After some mathematiculating and investigation, it seems Apple is withholding the GST from our sales and intends to "remit to the competent authorities", which means the ATO in this case*. Although this is a nice gesture, I'm not entirely certain it fits into the ATO's Grand Scheme of things - at what stage does the ATO reconcile the GST amounts declared and unpaid by the developers to the lump sum provided by Apple? As far as I'm aware, there's no other company that offers to remit GST made payable by a separate party potentially before the tax has been declared.

What's concerning for me though is that I can't find much discussion about this anywhere amongst Australian developers, and the few I did see are pretty misinformed (ie. "I dont know, but you should assume what Apple gives you is gross". Try using a calculator, people!). How many developers are paying their sales GST twice just because of all this murkiness?

I'll be calling the ATO tomorrow to see if someone can clear this up for me.

In other non-Apple news, I can't sign in to XBox Live because I once tried MSN Messenger six years ago and Windows Live! thinks my iinet.net.au email account should be a Hotmail account or some humbug. Lame, I was planning on settling in to Shadow Complex tonight.

-Anthony

*That low-hanging fruit's too easy, even for me.

my dog thinks you smell like money

Psssssssssssssht.

I'm sure I don't need to duplicate this information as everyone reading this blog would already know, but I'm gonna anyway: RocketFuse has been released and is live on the App Store! Yaaaay!

I got to write a whole bunch of press related stuff, including the press release and related email copy. It was fun! Being an indie developer, we get to have quite a bit of leniency and can play a little bit more irreverently than if we were slightly larger. At one stage I was toying with some manufactured quotes just for fun, which I found extremely amusing - I think I might recreate them for a RH.com story in a week or so.

Wedding plans are progressing! We've booked our tickets for Penn & Teller too, woop woop! Everyone is really looking forward to the trip. I've got it in my head I'm gonna win at the card tables this time. Although highly unlikely, it would be pretty awesome to come back from a trip both romantic and profitable.

Still practising on my bass-axe. I want to learn a few more basic stuff, and I'm thinking of recording myself so I can hear what I'm doing wrong (or possibly right, I guess?). Although I'm finding most satisfaction at just playing "solid", I can feel my lack of faculty on the instrument compared to what I know I want to play.

And then there's Dr John. I've been revisiting this amazing, amazing New Orleans piano player, and I just recently discovered these videos on YouTube. Look at his hands, they barely move. I mean, holy crap!, he plays the fattest version of Fats Domino I've heard and it looks like he's only playing two notes total! Goddamn funky doctor.

In other sweet soul music news, I took the puppies for a walk around the swamp near Wanneroo yesterday. They quite loved the romp through the grass, but I could do without the sodding mozzie bite on my arm.

-Anthony

me big chief me got big band

Elvis for $250? Let me think on this.

So, we've finally decided on The Date. On Tuesday 17th November, I will be standing at the front of the Mirage Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas, and will tell my precious fiancee that no matter what happens, she's stuck with me until one of us keels over.

Romantic, ain't it!

Now that we've bought the tickets and booked the hotels and everything, I'm starting to get really excited. We're going on holiday again!, and getting married!, all at the same time! Now that it's a tangible 'gonnahappen', everything I do now seems a lot more ... dedicated? I'm not sure, I just feel a certain sense of purpose to everything now that wasn't present for the last few weeks.

I'm going to break the news to my grandpa on the weekend - I think he might be a little disappointed, but I'll have to assure him that when we get back there's going to be a big party that all the family can come to. I think we're going to have it at the zoo. I like that idea. People will have something to do other than come and say hi to us and then stand around waiting for the sausage rolls.

We're taking Vic's family as well as mine, which is great, as I'll have the bro-in-law to take on all of the rides that no-one else would dare consider. New York New York rollercoaster, I'm comin' back for seconds! Man, food and rides and shopping and shows, I can't wait! Well, I can, but I'm going to be impatient about it.

In other awesomegameyouregonnaloveit-worthy news, the Rockethands team has submitted our first app to Apple for review. Awlright! Look out for the news at www.rockethands.com for when it's available on iTunes.

-Anthony

as in, armaggedon outta here?

On Demand.

Had a strange gig on Saturday.

We decided to pull out a bunch of old songs (mistakes!) and record the gig (self-conscious!) for future reference. The resulting first set was pretty bad, thankfully we forgot about the laptop recording in the corner and played some good sets after.

Personally, just went to show how often it's easier to perform when you're not thinking about what you're actually doing. Muscle memory, auto-pilot, something or other. I wonder how many other things I do would turn out better if I just didn't think about it? Writing for one, that's proven!

In other sensory news, there's a strong breeze blowing through the windows, and the puppies are clambering all over the couch to get as much of it as possible. All those smells, it must be like puppy-cinema for them.

-Anthony

i like the bit when they blow stuff up

[blink]

Excerpt:

"I love you so much, sometimes I think I... I'm..."

"A carrot?"

"Yes, I think I'm a carrot."

"I know how you feel!"

lolwut?

-Anthony

i'd doubletake, but frankly, this is almost par for the course

Cats are from Orisinal, Dogs are from Azeroth.

Something occured to me today after smacking one of my puppies in the face with a rubber ball: he didn't want the ball because he wanted to play with it, he just wanted it because I had it.

Then for some reason, I straight away made a comparison between core and casual gamers.

I've kind of sat on the fence between the two for a while now. I've dabbled in WoW and WAR, and I've spent vast amounts of time match-3ing. I tend to go in and out between what I like and dislike between the two.

But it got me thinking - whenever I play an MMO, it feels like a job. I don't actually have fun playing games until I play a fun game. Like Portal, which I played for the first time last night.* Incredibly fun! Done with in a handful of hours. I didn't have to get anything, find anything, I didn't have someone standing nearby with an item that will take me 60 hours to pass the pre-requisites just to hold.

When I was playing MMOs, it felt like I had to have stuff. Actually, scratch that, I will go ahead and say: to play MMOs, you have to have stuff. You're forever finding upgrades to stuff that's now no longer competitive, or even serviceable. To partake in certain content, you have to have certain level gear or you just won't make it. There's some content 99.98% of a game's subscribers that won't ever see, but lordy, if you do happen to have that specific epic loot, everyone will know about it.

Core games is about stuff - the getting and having of.

And y'know, right now, I'm not about stuff. I just like... doing.

Shooting? TF2.
Punching? Freedom Force.
Growing? Plants vs. Zombies.
Wearing a tiki mask and belting a hell of a curveball with my super spear? Mario Smash Tennis.

I think I like not having to get stuff just to play a game. I just want to play the game.

In other sweet, sweet news, Margaret River Chocolate Factory has taken my tastebuds and programmed them to love nothing else but their dark chocolate buds. Mmmmmm.

-Anthony

*There was too cake!

mice are from hyrule, i don't know why