

Cynical software
  volume one

by Jacob Waldemar Buczynski.

published 28th of September 2015

check out my website at 
www.revengeofthesunfish.com



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About the game
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Greetings and Welcome to this readme!!!
 First of all this "game" is actually a software collection,
containing 10 games.
Each game is selectable from the
title menu, or by pressing the number keys. 


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"Why is it called cynical software"
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A:

The games that are part of this software package were originally 
published on the Google play store, and were part 
of an attempt, to make some money. The
Idea was very much quantity over quality, the advantage of this 
method being speed. The primary source of revenue was to be 
through pop-up ads that would appear during the games. Money wise, this 
project has been ineffective, since the total
revenue didn't exceeded the costs(advertising), although that’s
not to say it's been a complete failure.
I did improve my skills at writing phone apps, and I learnt
several new coding tricks, also the apps are earning slightly more
than before, however its such a small amount that  
I have to question whether it's worth it.

In a talk by Jonathan blow, (who’s a notable dev)
(you can Google the talk "Game design_ the medium is the message")
he compares free to play games to commercial television 
in the 80's. The only part of his comparison that I really
disagree with is the suggestion that today’s television,
which, due to being free of advertising constraints, 
is actually better than television from the 80's.
I would argue that the new format has the potential for more
streamlined viewer engagement, but it's still equally as "bad"
as TV shows from the 80's.
Production costs might be up, but i think the way ideas
are expressed within the format remains the same,
that being; they are expressed didactically and/or 
framed to persuade rather than being explored critically or 
left open to interpretation. 
Television, far from being "entertainment" is simply mass
 brainwashing. It does nothing to progress the human spirit 
but only serves to reinforce backwards stereotypes, in-group-bias,
 and maintain the status quo.   
I'd like to point out that I think that game of thrones is
rubbish. But I digress, my point was on the issue 
of free to play games, not television. Although I criticized
Jonathan blows comparison, i still agree with the crux of the 
issue. The free to play model really does limit the types of games
that can be made under it.
No, "Papers Please" probably wouldn't work under the 
free to play model. So with this in mind here are 10 games
that epitomize the free to play model.
I think of them as being the equivalent to postcards, where
more in-depth games might be comparable to novels, or short stories. 
 One of the main reasons I wanted to release 
this software package was so that people
could play the games without the ads. In doing so, this serves
as a "good will" gesture to people who are followers of my work.
So, yes, the games themselves are a bit limited in scope. 
Play them and you'll know what I mean. Despite the cynicism
and the mercantile attitude towards success on the play store,
there is some love put into the apps, Mainly Devil duck. 
I think devil duck shows off my art style, more so than the other
games, coming in second would probably be Frog man. 

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Some notes on the games
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Frog Man

In this game you have to eat fruit and avoid
monsters and dangerous objects. You can kill
monsters by projecting your head into them, likewise
objects can be deflected. There are a few power-ups
such as a shield, projectile fire, and dragon transformation.
The game keeps going until you run out of lives,
 getting faster each level.


Crab ball
ever played Breakout? well this is nothing like it ;)
In this game you have to break all the "things".
They start out as bricks but as the game goes on
they become other things like onions, fish ect.
 There’s some power-ups here as well, but they mostly
 serve to annoy and confuse the player. This game
has an ending and is therefore completeable. Player "lives"
serve no game-mechanic in this game. 

Digger dude
In this game you have to collect cherries to move to
the next level. Monsters spawn at set parts of a level,
and there are bombs which fall if you move underneath them
and rocks which also fall if you are underneath them.
You can shoot with space bar, and use this to destroy
enemies and rocks. You have finite lives (although you
earn new ones fairly frequently. The game can be completed

Running with sharp scissors
This game was decided upon based on popular 
"trends" on the play store (which is a cynical thing to do). 
Idiotic, "gory" games like this
one seem to be popular, and indeed my statistics appear to 
confirm this. As for the game, you pop balloons with scissors,
avoid slipping on bananas or crashing into walls. Mindless.
the game doesn’t have any ending.

Smack my bug up
Based on a prodigy song and a popular addiction.. 
actually not really.
This game uses the mouse. You have to click on insects
to swat them before they reach the girl.

Total recoil
I thought I was being smart coming up with a title referencing a
Paul Verhoeven/Arnie movie, unfortunately some company had come
up with it first, but I only realized this after I had released it.
There’s so many games on the play store, it's tricky to have an 
original name that doesn’t sound totally munted (ie Crunge) 
Does this game look familiar? yep it's that one level from
Revenge of the sunfish, expanded to be slightly longer.
Not much to say about this, basically a bezerk clone.
Game has no ending

Thief master.
Master thief was already taken by another game, Hence we
have "Thief master" This is based on "Jewel thief"
which was a game included in the disk on windows after-hours.
I made this game because it was relatively easy to design.
It's actually kind of fun. You move the mouse around and hold
down the mouse key to move. You have to collect the jewels.
This game is completeable yay!

Super orange man
This is totally not packman!
yeah so, move around and collect the mandarins, or perhaps they 
could be small oranges, in that case would that make the 
protagonist a cannibal?
this games does have an ending.

Devil duck
My personal favorite game in the collection.
In devil duck you kill enemies and collect apples.
The only controls are the arrow keys. Up key performs
a high attack with your pitchfork and down key deals
a low blow. You move to the next level once you have
enough apples. Game is beatable.

Cosmic Zoo
This game has two phases, one in space and one above a planet.
when in space you have to press the arrow keys to zap asteroids,
in the other level you have to abduct alien sheep and return to
your spaceship. You lose a life if your spaceship gets destroyed.
the game goes on forever but gets harder and faster. 



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Feedback and support
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If you liked this software package, or if you
didn't like it, or if you just have something
to say about it, perhaps a comment on what I wrote,
 feel free to email me. My email is nimbuswad at hotmail.com
I'll get back to you as soon as I can. 
Keep in mind that sometimes I’m snowed under by my work.

I have more games that I’m working on, longer, 
more in-depth projects, including the
long awaited "Revenge of the sunfish 2"

I would really appreciate any support I can get.
You can help spread the word( i would really appreciate this)
 maybe you could post on a blog
calling me a cool person or you can link to my site.

 I can't be programming, animating and composing for games,
and posting everything i do on twitter, plus updating the site.
it's just too much work. I've been considering patreon as 
a possible source of income, but based on the data, I don't think
enough people care about my work at present.

Anyway hope you get some fun out of these games
   

Jacob WB aka Jinxtengu

   
  
1:58 PM 28/09/2015
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