It’s not officially called Speedball mode because that might cause upsets down the line, but Dan Marshall’s Behold the Kickmen [official site] now has a menu switch that turns it from a highly accurate football simulation into a highly accurate grim futuresport simulation. I say “highly accurate” with tongue in cheek as Kickmen is the project of Dan Marshall (he of Ben There Dan That and The Swindle), a man who does not understand or care for football. What began as a joke is now close to release and to my fooball-lovin’ eyes, it actually looks like an extremely entertaining arcade game.
Here’s a curious thought experiment: what if football were played by human beings rather than sentient cars? How would they turbo boost? How would they even kick the ball? Dan Marshall – him what made The Swindle and is the mean half of Ben & Dan – has some ideas. He’s making Behold the Kickmen, a game where football is played on a round pitch by kickmen with the power to charge up and hyper-curve shots. Have a look at this imaginative vision of an alternate reality:
“When’s the new Ben & Dan game coming?” the crowd throbbing around Dan Marshall pleads. Something about the way his shirt is always unbuttoned, inevitably one button beyond appropriate, makes people assume he’s in control. “You know, Son of Ben & Dan, or Revenge of the Balloon-Headed Mexican, or whatever it is, when oh when oh where oh why?”
You don’t need Dan. You probably don’t even want him. Ben Ward–the good half of Ben & Dan, the one to play pool with, who only teases kindly about your love life–has released a silly Twine game.
You may have heard about last weekend’s extraordinarily disastrous attempt to film and broadcast a Pepsi-sponsored game jam, called GAME_JAM. At enormous expense (rumours fly of around $400,000), a group of in-indies – the likes of Zoe Quinn, Davey Wreden, and Robin Arnott – and YouTubers were supposed to be taking part in a reality-show-cum-game-jam for four days, to be professionally filmed, edited and broadcast on YouTube. The event didn’t make it through the first day before a number of the developers walked off set and refused to return, and everyone involved was upset and pissed off. It didn’t make it to day two. For a comprehensive account of what happened, you ought to read Jared Rosen’s article on Indie Statik, but the short version is: one of the people in charge was a sexist arsehole, the sponsorship was so ludicrous they weren’t allowed to drink anything other than Mountain Dew (not even water), and the atmosphere was miserable beyond anything conducive to making games. It was a massive, hugely expensive, disaster.
In response, we and asked Size Five Games‘ Dan Marshall to use his experience working in television production to write a guide for developers when it comes to TV. What to look out for, the tricks of the trade, and why it’s probably best avoided altogether. We should stress, this is a general guide, and not directly related to those peculiar events in LA.
If your only exposure to Size Five’s size five Privates is through this esteemed periodical, you may believe that it is little more more than a flimsy excuse for us to make jokes about willies. Not true. Last night, at the British Academy Children’s Awards, Privates won in the ‘Learning – Secondary’ category. This involved beating off competition from the likes of erstwhile Naked Chef and Turkey Twizzler basher Jamie Oliver. You can see footage of Dan Marshall’s acceptance speech and a brief interview by selecting the category on the right here.
The really very splendid Time Gentlemen, Please!, from indie developers Zombie Cow, has already seen Alec pronounce its glories in beautiful form. An genuinely hilarious game (oh, how woefully that word is applied to any game that isn’t actively about the gruesome death of children – here it’s used correctly), it deserves a lot of attention. So does the creator, one half of Zombie Cow, Dan Marshall. We grabbed him by the knees, pathetically hugging him, and begged him to answer just some of our questions. Find out about how the game came about, joking about Hitler, and what adventures game needs to get right.
It’s been emotional. Now, over a week of frenzied nostalgia later, Gaming Made Me draws to a close with a final round-up of Developers and Journalists. From the former, Ed Stern, Brian Mitsoda, Annie Carlson, Dan Marshall and Simon Parkin. From the latter, LewieP and Simon Parkin. Oh no! Simon’s dual-classed, the powergaming twink. Recollections… go!
