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Oh I'd forgotten the Steptoe account, I knew he was originally Barefoot but it hadn't occurred to me to check the account details. Good thinking.

[Les, if by chance you are still around and see this, please know we are all thinking of you.]

Just an update, insofar as I have one...

Cat found a possible phone number for Les but I've tried it and it doesn't connect at all, so assume it's a dead line. Still no reply from any online methods and he hasn't logged onto the forums.

heltenjon has kindly reached out to a couple of relatives on FaceBook, but no response.

I'm not sure what else we can do at this stage. Les, if by chance you are still around and see this, please know we are all thinking of you.

[Ender's Game]

I read Ender's Game for the first time a couple years ago and had no idea about the twist at the end of that one. I guess most people here already know it, but if you haven't, I recommend the book (if you're someone who can separate art from their artists).

Sadly I read the book after seeing the movie so it was less of a surprise, although they movie and book did deal with it slightly differently.

Hey, I know another example, and imo it is more close to this idea:

Spoiler

The "Dark City" movie, where aliens recreated a human city in space, and use humans as test subjects, wiping their memories and changing the roles they live.

[close]

Ooh haven't seen that one CW, though funnily enough I was looking at it on IMDB yesterday as a segue from someone mentioning that it shared several props with The Matrix (or bought them after The Matrix finished filming, to be more precise).

[The Tunnel Under the World]

The Tunnel Under the World by Frederik Pohl has a fantastic twist, similar concepts have been used in movies and literature since so it may seem quite hackneyed now, but this story (written in 1955) made quite an impression on my when I read it in a sci-fi anthology in my younger years. I'm fairly sure the idea was pretty unique back when it was originally written (though I could be wrong).

If you want to read the story itself, don't look at the hidden description below!!

Spoiler

A chemical plant had exploded, killing all the inhabitants of Tylerton. A ruthless advertising executive, Dorchin, took over the ruins and rebuilt the town in miniature. The dead people's memories and personalities were read from their brains and copied into minuscule robots, which are being used as captive subjects for testing high pressure advertising campaigns. Each night, the power is cut and Dorchin's employees manually reset each robot's memory in preparation for the next experiment.The protagnosit founds out that his whole world fits on top of a table. The story is told from the point of view of one one of these people who, unaware of any of the above, slowly realises that things are not as they should be, and tries to uncover the truth... then maybe wishes he hadn't.

[close]

The most famous example of a similar idea is in the movie

Spoiler

The Truman Show

[close]

Quite a big update released today, including:

- smoother gameplay and mouse control
- test levels you're creating direct from the editor
- press X to get a little extra time if you're almost out of time on a level
- 5 new bonus levels
- various small bug fixes (that most players will have never seen, but still, they were there and now they're not!)

Bump

I assumed immediately that it was in the microwave, because I've done the exact same thing myself! 

I assume the zombie question is in reference to my Adventurejam game? :-)

Maybe subconsciously!

Vance, genuine question - if you turned into a zombie and were therefore undead, how many years could you keep adding a dollar before it became untenable? 

Thanks for giving us advance notice, hopefully a few AGS devs will be able to join. There's always an interesting mix of games resulting from this jam.

Sorry no idea. Looks like a Doom clone or similar, early 90s I'd guess from the graphics, or later but deliberately retro in style.

Snow Problem is currently 70% off in the #SteamSummerSale2023

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2097090/Snow_Problem/

Cat - I'm pretty certain devs have never had access to mailing address, at least I've never seen any (using Itch since 2017). They need your address for tax purposes but I have never seen an address of a buyer, perhaps someone else who uses Itch has?

Email address is slightly trickier - it doesn't appear in the game reporting dashboard anymore, but (and I only know because I've just specifically checked) you do seem to be able to access this data if you download a sales report in csv format.

In terms of gamejams neither of the above would apply as you only get data on actual sales, not on every download. What I'm not certain of is whether data is logged if people make a donation for a game offered without charge - I've had people add an extra payment onto a sale a couple of times, but never actually had a donation on a game I've not charged for on Itch, so not sure how that works.

Currently 70% off in the #SteamSummerSale

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1298280/Captain_Disaster_in_Death_Has_A_Million_Stomping_Boots/?snr=1_7_7_230_150_1

Just to keep everyone updated, heltenjon has tried to contact Les' son on FaceBook (awaiting response), and Cat has potentially found a number for him, so we'll keep trying.

I think it's time for an update!

Acts II and III are now fully playable in placeholder mode, and I'm starting to put things together for Act IV. Part of this will involve Lorenzo having to watch a classic early eighties film so that he understands what I'm using as reference, which he's really thrilled about as it stars an actor he doesn't much like! 

Speaking of Lorenzo, he's been doing some amazing work on the graphics. Here are a couple of screens from Act II (well one is a smaller version of the scrolling in-game screen):





You may be wondering, looking at the above location, if we are going to be reunited with a character from Stomping Boots - and you may well be right! 

Do you maybe have his full name and address? You could try writing a letter. If something happened to him, a letter might be received and read by a relative.

I know his name but not address; I've tried looking up the name in the phone book for the area his AGS location is set to (assuming that's correct) but no joy. Pinged him on email and GChat again but as far as AGS goes he hasn't been online since November 22, so unfortunately it doesn't look good.

I hope he wouldn't mind me saying this (and he may have mentioned it on the forums anyway) but his health wasn't good and he did feel that Maelstrom Obscura was quite likely to be the last game he made. He had been talking about relaunching the Kickstarter and I'd said I would help him with that, but it never came to fruition. The nature of his medical condition is such that progressive limitation of movement and functionality is possible, so it may be that he's okay generally but simply unable to make games anymore and finds going online too difficult.

Anyway I'll periodically keep trying to get in touch and see if there is any other way of contacting him that I've not found so far, and overall just hope he's okay.

Garfield: Winter's Tail?

We have a winner!

Any update on this?

No reply at all I'm afraid. Will keep trying.

Did you edit your post @Volcan? I'm sure I first saw it as saying "Your turn, cheater." 

Anyway... easy one now (maybe?) - the character is easily identifiable but what's the name of the game?