Good Morning Gato #68 – Summer Grillin’

What makes a house a home? A grill! Well, according to some people anyway.

Summer in New York
Hi, James here!

It may have been slow coming, but I think I finally realized that a gorgeous summer is upon us. Yesterday, we had a chance to fully appreciate this beauty by essentially beating ourselves up by method of hike. Nature, why you so harsh? Our former marketing pirate Dustin joined us; he’s relocating to San Francisco early next week, so now’s our chance to do all (well, both) of the awesome things upstate NY has to offer. Tomorrow: 5k in the morning, then Six Flags! For six months out of twelve, going outside is awesome!

Still Making Games!
Charlie Murder is… changing. I can’t believe this page still exists, but the game got mentioned in two PC mags when it launched in 2001, so there’s your notability I guess. Zombie Smashers X was basically a punk rock tribute to River City Ransom (the best Nintendo game of all time, ever).

XBLIG Charlie Murder was basically a pitch perfect dumb coin op beat-em-up, complete with a Winners Don’t Do Drugs attract screen, Insert Coin mechanic, and stupid crowded boss battles that were won simply by inserting all of your allowance money (simulated) and mashing the buttons. At some point in the process of building up the core game for the XBLA build, I noticed that I was once again making a punk rock brawler with RPG-like character building. It has become a spiritual successor to a sequel to a tribute (Couldn’t remember the greatest song in the world!) I think it should be called a BrawlPG, but that’s way easier to say than to spell.

I’m not sure when I noticed this happening, but it was an awesome realization: discovering that I’m making a successor–an incredibly awesome looking successor that would’ve floored me if I could’ve seen it in 2001–to the game that got me started in this whole crazy thing. Legacy!

Yeah, I’m still going to remake Survival Crisis too someday. Just let me enjoy this moment!