Crowbar Benson

Big news!
Our first XBox Indie game is now live and available for purchase! Hint hint! It’s available directly through your XBox, or through the Xbox Live Marketplace. We’d love for you to check it out, or even play the demo and let us know what you think.

Sleepwalker Box Art

The heart of this game was built over a weekend at the Winnipeg TigJam, with a bunch of tweaks and improvements added later. The reason we were able to build it so quickly was that we were using Robin’s SWFtoXNA tool, which allowed us to do a lot of the visual development in Flash, and then very easily port that over to the XNA development environment. (Here’s me, trying to sound like I know what I’m talking about, I just did the drawings. But it’s pretty cool how it works, and if you’re interested in all in making XBox Indie games, and you know Flash, you gotta check out the tool).

Again, the game is available on your XBox, just go to the Game Marketplace, Indie games, and find ‘Sleepwalker’. It sells for 80 Microsoft points, which is about a dollar, and you should get a good half hour of fun out of it. It’s designed to be REALLY simple to play, with only a single button for controls (suck on that, Wii controller!), but still challenging.

Stay posted for more games as they become available!

Woody meets Crowbar

For the next few weeks, Crowbar Benson will be the guest in the ‘Woody After Hours’ webcomic, which is pretty cool. ‘Woody After Hours’ is the work of Ben Carter (writer) and Paul Westover (artist), and they’re both super-talented guys. I’ve always been a big fan of Paul’s artwork, and working with Ben on the writing of the strips is giving me an even greater appreciation of his talents. He’s fun to work with, and an excellent collaborator (I mean that in a good way, as in ’shares ideas well’, not in a bad way, as in ‘works well with Nazis in occupied France’.)
I had the chance to meet them both for a brief time in Seattle during the Emerald City ComicCon, and despite that, they still wanted to work with me. Go figure. So I’ll keep you all posted as the new strips come out, and I hope you’ll take a look!

EQ Comics

One of the big treats waiting for me when I got back from Seattle was a package from Dan Long of EQ Comics, containing prizes (Prizes, I say!) from the Snowman Hunter contest he held a while back (click to see all the winning entries). If there’s anything cooler than getting original artwork in the mail, I don’t know what it is, especially when it’s this good! The drawing below is now up on my wall, not only to inspire, but as a reminder to stay vigilant. Snowmen could be anywhere…

Snowman Hunter Original

So last weekend I was in Seattle, and was lucky enough to attend the Emerald City Comic Con as an attendee. It was pretty cool, I got the chance to meet lots of people, buy lots of books and geek out on comics in general. Here’s a few of the creators I talked with, in no particular order:

Monster Commute

Monster Commute is a web comic run by Daniel M. Davis and his wife, and they had one of the coolest booths at the show. It was tough to choose, but I eventually bought the book below. I still haven’t had a chance to read it, to busy gawking at the great artwork in in… His sense of design is really good, all the posters/books/buttons were a treat to look at.
I also had a chance to talk to him briefly at the ‘Drink and Draw’ event Saturday night, he’s a super nice guy on top of being really talented…

MONSTER COMMUTE BOOK 1

I also met the guys who produce the webcomic Woody After Hours and picked up their ‘Super Spiffy Limited Edition Emerald City ComicCon MiniComic’, which was really fun to read, and very nicely printed. I got print number nine of a fifty print run, which is my hockey number, so that was a good sign. I really like the clean artwork by Paul Westover, it’s very precise and a easy to follow.

Woody After Hours

As well, I met Angela Melick of Wasted Talent fame, who was very nice, and I only wish she had a book I could have bought. I’ve been following her autobiographical webcomic for quite awhile, and it was kind of bizarre to meet her in person. There’s a real disconnect when you feel a bit like you know someone through their work, when in actual fact you don’t know them at all, and they certainly don’t know you.

Wasted Talent

Also falling into the category of autobio webcomic artists was Erica Moen, who did have a book I could buy. I really like her drawing style, and I’m a big fan of black and white artwork. Her work kind of reminds me of my sister Carmel’s artwork.

Ellie Connelly

I had the chance to meet in person Indigo Kelleigh who I had met online a few times. Another great guy, with more drawing talent that a single individual should be allowed to have. His style is reminiscent of Herge (Tin Tin) and just looks unbelievably good. I got his sampler mini of the Ellie Connelly series he is working on, and although it’s not in colour like the web-version, it still looks great. It was also nice to read the story in one shot, it’s a bit harder to follow on the web for some reason. I can’t wait for the full on book to come out…
I also got to meet, if only briefly, the Half-Pixel crew of Dave Kellet, Brad Guigar, Kris Straub and Scott Kurtz. Talking to them was like listening to a podcast, a bit surreal. I kept waiting for Dave’s Skype connection to crap out. I also attended their panel, which was genuinely funny, if the webcomics thing doesn’t work out, they can always find work as stand-up comics. I ended up only buying books from Scott Kurtz and Kris Straub, but I’m sure I’ll pick stuff from the others in the future.
And I also scammed a quick sketch from Jeph Jacques, mega-star, for Mr. B, who is a big fan of Questionable Content (as am I).
Okay, I know I’m missing a bunch of people I met, but this post is already over long… Here’s hoping I can make it back next year with a table to call my own!

A few months ago we  were asked if we wanted to be part of a video series about New Media companies operating in Manitoba, and because we’ll use any excuse to avoid real work, we said yes.  I have to admit, our expectations were pretty low.   But we were both really impressed with James Swirsky and Lisanne Pajot of BlinkWorks Media who came out to do the filming, and we ended up having a really good time (except for the part where I almost blew Robin’s finger off with a close-range paintball shot).   Then we kind of forgot about the whole thing…

Until we saw the above video, which is really impressive, especially given the piss-poor subject material James and Lisanne had to work with.  We’re really happy with how it turned out, and are amazed at the amount of work that must have went into making it.  It’s actually part of a series of videos, which can be seen at BlinkWorks, and they’re all excellent.  They actually make Manitoba seem like a pretty cool place, so you know these guys have talent…

The whole project was put together by New Media Manitoba, which is doing a great job of bringing together and speaking for the New Media industry in Manitoba.  There’s some great people working there, and they’re really making a difference in the province.  We we’re going to start a similar organization called New Media Miami, but they’re doing such a great job we don’t have to…

ps.  We didn’t really fire Mom.