The Hiatus

We're not dead. Well, Roger is, but dark magicks and the preservative powers of budget gin keep him amongst us.

We've not stopped work on the game. Well, we have a bit, but we'll be back, just as soon as Simon, Roger and Dave have finished work on the utterly top-secret 'Operation S'.

Until then, move along, nothing to see here.

The very, very bottom just got scraped through

Following our policy of entering every game development competetion we come across, I can only assume that we're going to have to enter the Doritos contest, and come up with a Doritos-themed game. Here's my attempt:

"It's Christmas Eve, 2110. The President's daughter has been kidnapped by lactose-intolerant separatists. It's up to you to get her back, fighting the only way you know how - by rubbing the inevitable sticky buildup of saliva, whey powder, hydrogenated milk powder and processed semi-digestible cheese-like product that comes from eating Cool Original Flavour Doritos^TM into their their corneas. Show those cheese-fearing terrorists the true power of Doritos^TM!"

I think it's in the bag.

No pun intended. I'm sorry.

A Change of Direction

Due to commercial pressures, development on Cuchulainn has been diverted towards a more mainstream project, a witch molestation game. All assets will transfer to Emo Boy Touching Fringe Surprise Yes! Is go!. Out in Japan and rural America this summer.

No, we actually did some work.

There will be a test

A few facts about Monkey Butler:-

The official drink of Monkey Butler is the Daquiri.

The official language of Monkey Butler is Tagalog, though none of us speak it.

The official revenant of Monkey Butler is the zombie (old-fashioned voodoo sort, not the fancy modern superscience sort).

The official emotion of Monkey Butler is blind panic.

Look what we did!

And here's what we submitted? Deserving of praise or prison? You judge, dial 0890 555 120 to imprison D, for R dial 0932318, you can't imprison katie; she drew this stuff.

Tiny Rats!

Small enough to fit inside a man's veins!



We just posted our entry for the XNA UK developer's competition. Roger congratulates us on this:



Huzzah!

eleventh hour howlings

"...Big fucking crows!"

just Big. Fucking. Crows.

The Uphill Struggle

Because there are simply far too few caffeine/guarana products on the market, we now have Headshot, the energy bar for gamers:



We don't need such fancy shenanigans here at resplendent Monkey Butler towers. We have this crap:

It smells in here.

Having improved the cleanliness of our working area by at least three metric filths, I found, amongst other things:

My PSP.

Five pieces of hairy string, of varying lengths. String is always useful.

An ancient race of pygmy-people. They taught me their language, and I was made their king.

It was a rich, full day.

The birth of a typeface

This, gentle folk, is what happens when the butler swaps the bottle for biro. Behold part of an orphan typeface, disowned by its owner. It is the final degradation of remedial handwriting classes.

strange designs

Whilst discussing cover design:

Roger	I don't like the font.
Dave	Yeah. We're walking the line between a great cover and a 90s metal cover.
Roger	Say, can we get the retarded crayon scribblings of a child?
Dave	[Grabbing a pencil with no little gusto] I'm on it!

That's how we do it at Monkey Butler, kiddies. Now, where did I put that rum...

The art of work

Important politics. It has been decided that whilst this might be, to all intents and purposes, a paper-free office, it is by no means a rum-free office.

Taking form

As promised, some of our concept art, as lovingly rendered by Katie.

This is young Setanta, the hero of the game, as a child:



And here he is again as a young man. Katie has described him as "your typical haggard resident of Ulster."

I'm from Ulster, 26, and got asked for id to prove I was over 18. So I could buy garden shears. We're a haggard people...



This is Cuchulainn (as he's known as an adult) in his 'warped state'. This is, if you can't tell, psychotic frenzy. With some monsterism.



The terrifying thing for the rest of us now is to make sure our parts of this whole operation live up to the art.

And so it was begun

It's the first Cuchulainn development blog. Oh happy, rapturous day. The internet is now complete, and the singing of the birds sounds sweeter. Or, it would, but it's 3 a.m.

Anyone who cares about this, at this stage, is at this table or taking this picture:



So from left to Right we have: My thumb, Jeff Bridges, Katie, and Popeye.

We're just about hitting the alpha stage now:



OK, so it's a little bit Yar's Revenge so far. Hopefully over the next few days we'll have some of our staggeringly wonderful concept art to post, courtesy of Katie. If the game in motion is a fraction of the quality of her initial drawings, it will be gorgeous.