I should have read the N-Europe one, too, quoting Mr. "Taylor Shchaerer":

When Skye first approached me with the idea of doing an entirely new version of Defend Your Castle, we joked around about seeing the clouds dangling from strings. I thought it would be funny if our whole game looked like it was literally held together by string, tape, and bubblegum. All joking aside, however, we were actually kind of serious about taking the art style in that direction; on some level, we recognized that if the idea alone was that entertaining to us, then producing a game with that idea could have the potential to be just as entertaining for anyone else. Ultimately, we didn't deliberate on the art style for this project; our first concept seemed to be a really natural fit for the game. I made a few mock-up screens to elaborate on the vision I had in my head and from then on we just rolled with it.

Working with a small development team also gave me a lot of freedom to explore the idea and to take it in whatever creative direction that I felt I needed to pursue. The majority of my inspiration for the graphics in this game came from my own personal childhood activities. As a kid I used to draw superheroes and video game characters constantly, and whenever I had the time to do so I was "inventing" my own semi-playable video game systems constructed out of cardboard, paper, wheels, a lot of tape, and sometimes more ambitiously using only the red and blue pencils in the pencil crayon pack and a pair of red-blue 3D glasses from the bottom of a cereal box. In tackling Defend Your Castle I wasn't trying to re-create these old childhood projects, but I definitely made an effort to try to get into that headspace again. I think anyone can understand the appeal in having limited supplies to work with and yet with a bit of ingenuity finding that you are by no means limited in what you can do with them. It's just a very liberating feeling to have such unrestrained imaginative control over your surroundings, and I think that as we get older we tend to lose that experience, so anything that can remind us of that feeling is something that will make people feel good. I hope that in some small way the art direction for Defend Your Castle can achieve that.

Finally, as an artist and a musician, it's important to me that we constantly test boundaries and try to break new ground in whatever our respective fields may be. While there's obviously a risk involved with deviating from the norm, I think it's a risk that's offset by a greater reward if successful. And even if it doesn't work out there's always the chance that what is considered a failure today may turn out to be the seed of a thought that germinates into something truly astounding and ground-breaking tomorrow. I'm just really passionate about pushing the limits, and that passion allowed me to jump headfirst into developing the unique visual aesthetic that we were trying to pursue with Defend Your Castle without any sort of reservation.

So, Tay, are you the geezer mentioned in the MSNBC story?

Nicely done, though, sir. And I really hope WiiWare finds legs; it's a neat concept.

(And $5 is way less than the cost of a movie...)

The timing was rather good; we had our meeting with the Rural Alberta Development Fund people this morning. I don't think they planned it, but they couldn't have planned it better.

I'm kind of glad I wasn't working today -- I'd have never heard the end of it.

Now I can just panic about my exam tomorrow.

Wow, so the game I made the graphics for is featured in like all my favourite blogs today:

http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/12/wiiware-lands-stateside-start-defending-those-castles/

http://www.nintendowiifanboy.com/2008/05/12/wii-fanboy-review-defend-your-castle/

http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/05/wiiware-impress.html

AND SOME NEWS SITES:

http://www.n-europe.com/news.php?nid=11805

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24567406/

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24572527/


So yeah... we are among the 6 launch titles for the WiiWare service which debuted today. We are competing against notable titles like Final Fantasy, another indie game called Lost Winds (which is fucking AMAZING, we've been playing it here at the office for like the last 3 hours) and a nintendo-made TV-Gameshow type game.

You can download DEFEND YOUR CASTLE for 500 wii points (or $5).

Wow what a reception... the paper never wrote an article about me ever coming back to town. Nice pics par!

/didn't RTFA

Hey Paras

Can I get your auotgraph???

I'll give you mine from my paper picture about a month ago :)

but you ahve more pics! Nicely done Dr.

Hey Par, looking very Doctorly in those pictures in the Edmonton Journal!

You're still looking for a distraction.

brand tags:

The basic idea of this site is that a brand exists entirely in people's heads. Therefore, whatever it is they say a brand is, is what it is.

You're looking for a distraction. I know. Here you go:

Chronotron. Apart from its copyright-suspect time-travelling "blue box", and the maddening nature of later levels, it's quite fun. And has successfully burned much of a "study" day for me.