Welcome to the official blog of My Owl Software, creator of the excellent Apple Jack games!



Saturday 14 September 2013

Apple Jack 1&2 now available on Desura

Hello again,

Just a little message to say that Apple Jack 1&2 is now available on Desura:

Apple Jack 1&2

Wednesday 11 September 2013

Apple Jack 1&2 in Indie Royale bundle.

Hello!

If you mosey on over to the latest Indie Royale bundle situated here:

http://www.indieroyale.com/

you will find none other than the PC versions of Apple Jack 1&2! See!

Needless to say, the more of these bundles that are sold, the more money I get from them, so if you haven't already got them on Xbox now will be a perfect time to pick them up! You even get four other games absolutely free. I actually don't know very much about them but I'll have a guess based on their names:

Thunder Wolves - a game where you play as a pack of wolves caught in a thunder storm.

Stellar Impact - a game set in 2008 where you play as Stellar McCartney whacking Heather Mills over the head with one of her false legs.

DIVO - a rhythm action game starring operatic pop vocal group Il Divo. 

100% Orange Juice - a game where you play as the quality control manager for Tropicana as he tests batches of orange juice to ensure that they comply fully with the trades description act.

And all of that for the price of a good-quality frozen pizza!


PS - Apple Jack 1&2 have also been accepted by Desura and should be available there very shortly. If I have promised you a code for the game they will be sent as soon as it is up.

Saturday 17 August 2013

Apple Jack 1&2 on Steam Greenlight

Hello!

The PC release is now on Steam Greenlight, so please vote for it:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=170273921

Frankly, I've put it up more as a cheap way to advertise the game ahead of its release than in any expectation of it getting greenlit, but I certainly wouldn't complain if it did make it on to Steam proper. You never know, stranger things have happened (like when it rained frogs that time in Brazil).

Anyway, if all goes to plan you should be able to buy it somewhere else sometime in the beginning of September. There may even be more than one way to get hold of it at release...

Friday 2 August 2013

Apple Jack 1&2 demo

Hello!

I've stuck Apple Jack 1&2 info on IndieDB and uploaded 8 level demos of both games.Get them here:

http://www.indiedb.com/games/apple-jack-12

All that's left is to email various game distribution services to see if they are interested.

Wish me luck!

PS. I forgot to add the names of all the testers who helped out with the games last year to the 'credits' menu. Rest assured I will fix that for the release and send out download codes for all testers when  the full games are up.

Friday 26 July 2013

Apple Jack 1&2 Advert/poster

Hello!

I did a quick advertisment / poster mock up for the PC releases. Not sure if I'll get much use out of it but I was reminded of the old game ads you used to see in magazines in the 90s, where a piece of original artwork (in this case by Kate Willaert) is superimposed with a number of little screenshots.

I should probably redo it with Jack himself as the central image but then I wouldn't be able to use the 'lumbering' pun, so bugger that.

PS. That release date is only a guess, but hopefully an accurate one.


Thursday 18 July 2013

Apple Jack PC news

Righty then,

Apple Jack 2 on PC is basically finished now, with just a bit of testing to be done on it by the excellent folks at Tofu Testing, who helped with the original XBLIG release.

Once that's done I will need to copy across many of the PC alterations to Apple Jack 1, which I'd LIKE to say won't take very long at all, but given my track record at estimating these things will probably take three years or something.

Then I'll look to stick both games on as many PC distribution services as will have it. Clearly Steam is where the bulk of the audience is but the chances of these two UK-centric 2D platformers getting anywhere on their crappy crowd-sourced Greenlight system are roughly zero. It might still be worth submitting to it for publicity reasons, but otherwise I'll have to look elsewhere.

For several reasons I'm tempted to try and port the games to Ouya too:

i) It's a console (of sorts) and consoles are what I like best
ii) It'll be a nice way of learning Monogame, which looks to be a good successor to XNA
iii) It'll give me an excuse to buy an Ouya, to replace the original Xbox which I still use as an emulation console.
 iv) Ouya is fun to say. Oooya! Oooooya!

A 3DS or Vita version of AJ2 would be great too, but I'm probably too smalltime to be allowed on those, even with the great reviews it got.



Saturday 4 May 2013

Seven months later...

Hello!

It's been an absurd amount of time since I posted an update on here, during which not a lot of progress has been made on the PC versions of AJ1&2, or indeed much else programming-wise.

This is mostly due to my poor, abused back, which has spent several years propping up my arms and head while I tap away at the computer, with no back rest to support it. Turns out that this is VERY BAD, and the final stretch Apple Jack 2 pretty much knackered it completely, to the point where I had to lay off the computer work until I could make it stop bloody hurting all the time.

Thankfully, after getting a proper chair and doing stretches for several months it's finally back to normal and I can get on with finishing the conversions. No more testing is required at this stage, but thanks to everyone who has continued to offer help in that area.

Once THAT'S done, I can finally start to work on a new game! There are dozens of ideas ready to go, from the simple to the absurdly ambitious. The one I really want to do is a very peculiar shoot'em up, which would involve hooking up with a decent artist (due to the amount of drawing required), and an actor to play the part of a giant space orange. Brian Blessed would be the perfect man for the job, but he's a bit expensive and there's a lot of dialogue.

Other ideas include a stealth game, a one-button platformer, a 3D platformer, a body-hell beat'em up and a puzzle game. I've also got the set-up and plot of Apple Jack 3 nailed down, but I really want to work on something else first.

Progress should be swift on the PC conversions, so keep your scanners peeled for more updates.



P.S. To Futil1ty in the comments section of the previous entry - there isn't really a trick to completing 5-13, you just have to be good at wall jumping. It was actually even harder when the game was first released, but so many people got stuck I had to patch it. Think yourself lucky!