As anyone who’s read the About page knows, or has been following The Mad Welshman since the beginning, a Patreon has always been in the game plan. I want to go back to dealing with games full time (Hell, maybe even making some later on), and… I can’t do it without reader help. Game Journalism, by and large, does not pay for itself. On some level, there has to be a customer. That customer, in essence, is you.

So, let’s lay it out. If you’re willing to support, you don’t actually have to support with much at all. Even £2 a month, from enough people (Specifically, 500) is enough to pay my base living costs and put enough in the budget for review copies I can’t get from the developers (And the taxes that result from me making it my job). There’s a reward for a little more, but essentially, that £2 a month is saying “I think these reviews, articles, and Youtube vids are worth the tub of ice cream, or packets of crisps, or bottle of coke I’m drinking while reading or watching them.”

…I am, of course, assuming you’re doing these things for the sake of giving a guideline as to how little this costs you. But for those who can pay a little more, there’s also signed digital art prints from yours truly. A WIP example of one of the first to be offered is currently on the Facebook for the site, and, for those who can’t or don’t want to support the site, but like the content enough to share it, the Facebook page is a good place to start, as I update it almost as soon as the articles go up (Generally. This one’s an exception.)

What if things go above that? What if, instead of £1000/month from 500 people, it’s £1500 from 750? Well, that means the site can improve even further. Podcasts. Going to events (Yes, I’ll even stomach the weenie-wagging that is E3 if we get that far) and covering them. Other writers, leading to more diverse viewpoints and more content for you, the faithful reader.

The Mad Welshman Patreon can be found here .

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There is a great confusion surrounding Early Access games these days. It’s not entirely undeserved, as the field is relatively new, and Mistakes Have Been Made. Some games have come out too early. Some came in too early. And some never really made it out. But not all the confusion is “Should I buy this thing?” or “Will I burn out on it before it’s released?”

Part of it is the role of the person paying the money. This one is a common one, and it is technically our fault, as an industry, that the problem exists. The other fault, of course, lies with entitlement, and a misunderstanding that refuses to go away: By paying for a Kickstarter, or an Early Access, or a Patreon, you are not a shareholder. You are paying for the product it produces, in the belief that it will work. I’ve done so with Formula Fusion, because I know the developers have a pedigree with Future Racing games, and I know they can produce another good one. I did not back it because I thought it would be another Wipeout game.

And yet… People are already asking “What kind of Wipeout physics they’d like to see in Formula Fusion.” Seems like an innocent question, doesn’t it? But there’s an assumption there, and a dangerous one at that.

Not Wipeout. I can understand some confusion. But it’s not.

Formula Fusion is not Wipeout. It’s not in the game plan, although features inspired by previous games they’ve worked on (Which, hey, happen to be Wipeout) are part of this plan. What makes this even more insidious is that people are assuming based on an alpha build. Specifically, version 0.0.4, the first public build. Thankfully, cooler heads have pointed out these facts, and the fact that accessibility for new players is a far more important concern than the wishes of us old horses, but it’s a common trend I’m starting to get sick of.

I may sound like I’m over-reacting, but this is by no means the first time I’ve seen talk similar to this. Starbound is an excellent example. See, Starbound starts you with… Some very simple kit. It’s got a slow-ish start, taking something like 4 hours to get off the first planet, and into the wider plot. But one of the most common complaints I saw, throughout the Early Access of the game, was the Caveman Tier complaint. Why do we gots to start so slow, Chucklefish? Why do we gots to make our tools, Chucklefish? Why can’t we just be exploring, murdering stuff and building massive bases, Chucklefish? Wouldn’t it be better if, wouldn’t it be better if, wouldn’t it be better if…

Burn Down Cavema- Oh, Wait, I got past it. Never mind.

If. If. If. I can understand disappointment when a game isn’t quite to expectations, or when expectations are misled due to some poor sod on the Marketing end (Journo, copywriter, or PR rep) who’s been told something that later turns out not to be the case. Dungeons, for example, was considered by many to be a spiritual successor to Dungeon Keeper. Problem is, “Spiritual Successor” does not mean “Sequel”. Hell, often times, sequels are different beasties. Going back to Wipeout, Wipeout Fusion is a very different beast to Wipeout 3, itself different in important respects to Wipeout, the original. But this is precisely why so many journos, myself included, say things like “DON’T PREORDER!” Because expectations without critical thought can lead to talk like “Ugh, Burn Starbound Caveman Tier”, and other backseat developer talk.

Sometimes, I’m with you, because advertising can be misleading, and the games industry has a nasty habit of “sexing up” their footage before they’ve actually sexed up the game (As Breach, a game where even the UI dropped in quality between E3 and release showed, it’s not limited to AAA heartbreakers like Aliens: Colonial Marines). But this kind of backwards looking backseat commentary isn’t productive. Mighty No. 9 is a prime example of how unproductive this entitled viewpoint can get. A community manager jokes about wanting Beck, the protagonist of Mighty No. 9 to be a lady, and suddenly, death threats are flying over the internet, because how dare anyone suggest that Mighty No. 9 stray from the Megaman vision! Assumptions. Mighty No. 9 looks and plays a bit like Megaman, and has the lead designer from Megaman. But y’know what else plays like a Megaman game? A.R.E.S. Shovel Knight. The (Sigh) Angry Video Game Nerd game. And I don’t hear angry players complaining about the differences in The Vision with any of those. I certainly haven’t heard of death threats being sent.

This is not Dungeon Keeper. It is a “Spiritual Successor”. There’s a difference.

In the case of Formula Fusion, the Kickstarter video goes on for about half an hour as to what they want to do, and, unsurprisingly, it’s not “Another Wipeout”. Wipeout is mentioned, a lot (Which may lead the inattentive to think things), but it’s in the case of “We liked this idea which didn’t work last time (Fusion’s upgrade system)” or “We wanted to present a more dystopian world than [the Wipeout Series]”

Sometimes, your beefs with a game are based, not on whether it’s like that thing you liked, but whether it works, and I’m down with that too. I’ve got an article lined up as to design mistakes that Quantum Rush Champions makes, and not a one of them is “Ugh, it isn’t Wipeout”. Wipeout is a comparison point for difficulty, but the design decisions themselves are unique to QRC, and they are not good. I am definitely not alone in thinking them bad either. Whether something is a common complaint is something I like to check when writing an article or a review, but I also check whether it’s an opinion thing, or actually has an effect. In the case of, for example, weapon pickups having small hitboxes, that’s definitely a problem. That the viewpoint in QRC is not exactly like a Wipeout game is definitely not among my gripes with QRC.

So, hopefully, at this point, you’ve been reading and nodding, thoughtful. I’m going to summarise now, so as to make sure we’re all clear on this. You are not the developers. You are not shareholders. Your input is valued, but if you do not like the product, unless it’s to do with crashes, bugs, and things that definitely don’t do the game justice, that is on you. Please don’t backseat develop, it’s somewhat rude, and is not going to help your enjoyment of the game. Please think before assuming a game is going to be like a game before it. You’ll be less disappointed and clearer headed for it.

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Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £6.99
Where To Get It: Steam

Ah, Jackbox, purveyors of party games that you can play anywhere… Y’know, so long as you have something that can connect to the internet, and at least one person who owns the game. Who’s streaming. And here is where a score-based review of Quiplash would fall down, because it would really have to have two separate pretty numbers: One for the game client itself (£6.99), and one for the actual player experience (jackbox.tv, price: Fuck all, but you will never host the game, nor will you be able to play without a room code.) One of these scores would, to many, be a fair bit lower.

Sometimes you get cool things, and your friends smile.

But not to me. You see, the client, in its way, is equally as hamfisted as the jackbox.tv, player input end. As a host, I get to see all sorts of pretty pictures, hear pretty voices and noises, and, if I’m feeling generous, stream them to the less fortunate players (And audience.) Without that last one, none of the players will ever know how well they did, because the player side client won’t tell you. On the other hand, I can’t do a damn thing through the client (like join the game I created), having to rely on the simple, almost HTML form-ish nature of the jackbox site to do things, rather than all these pretty visuals.

Put them together, along with some mates, a voice chat, and the ability to show all the other players what the hell is going on, however, and all of a sudden, the magic happens. Through brute-force and the magic of socialising, the bits of interface come together, and the result is laughter, groans, all the noises that you associate with people playing and enjoying a party game. The rules are pretty simple. Three rounds, 2 questions each to answer in 2 of them, as many questions as there are players in the first two rounds to vote on, and the third round is a single free-for-all question. Twice the points in round 2, three times the points in round 3, and if your suggestion is the only one to get all player or audience votes in a question (and wins), that’s a QUIPLASH, worth bonus points, oww! Oh, yeah… The game is pretty much built for streaming, or a packed party, because the audience actually matters, and anyone with the room code can vote, even if they can’t play.

…And sometimes you think “Uhhh… Do I know these people? I don’t know these people, really I don’t, Officer”

People have likened it to Cards Against Humanity, but with improv, and… That kinda works. I’ve seen some terrible suggestions (Armenian Genocide as a sound that weirdly makes someone sleep better), and some beautiful ones (The Artist Formerly Known As Prince as a Crackerjack box prize. Step right up, one in every box!) I’ve seen injustices (Forget-Me-Not was a terrible name for a Goldfish, and, on reflection, worse than Edward Cullen… It’s just we all hate Twilight more) and deserved victories (“If anyone says CUMquat is a better name for Kumquat, they lose” was, considering how filthy minded the group was, an excellent choice)… But one thing cannot be denied. All of us had fun. We agreed it would be cool to do this again. And all of us playing agreed it was good, despite having to stream the client window somehow.

So yeah, this game is good. It looks like it’ll last a while. But be aware, if you buy it, that you’ll need friends. That you’ll need some way of showing the client window to the other players, and talking to them. Otherwise, all I can really say is: The voting system rewards playing to a crowd, and if you play well with others, folks, then you’ll have fun. Let yourself go a bit, and have a laugh with it.

The Mad Welshman learned many things from this game. For example, people claim that Bears are a good substitute for toilet paper. Truly, the world is a strange place.

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Much of the time, conversations with fellow members of the games industry (writers, developers… Doesn’t matter) are either shop talk or just shooting the breeze. But sometimes, things get interesting. Segue achieved for this comment, by MAIA developer Simon Roth:

“While we are on the subject, we genuinely need the equivalent of an ISBN for games.”

Most of you will at least have noticed that books have a 13 digit number on the bottom, or seen ISBN on a book’s Amazon page, but not realised how powerful those thirteen digits can be. Each edition of a book has a different ISBN. Want to find the specific edition with that typo or cover or introduction you liked, or want to compare editions? The ISBN has you covered. And I could immediately see at least part of why it’s important.

There are several different versions, for example, of roguelikes, and some of them are drastically different, such as Nethack. There are many games with exactly the same name as other games out there (While this is less often true with AAA titles, there are definitely examples, such as Powerdrome, which has an older version… And a PS2 reboot), and, to make matters worse, some games almost completely fall under the radar (For example, when choosing titles for the side videos of my current Let’s Play, which are to do with Future Racing games, I completely missed quite a few titles, including… “Future Racer”. It wasn’t very good, but it was embarassing to have missed something so obvious, because so few places refer to it.)

It would be of great use to do this, not just for gamers, who can pass around a… Let’s call it an ISGN (Because that’s the easiest acronym) instead of trying to find a reference to a game that’s only mentioned in rare places. It would be useful to archivists, and game academics, who could then have an easier time referring to the specific game when using academic notation such as the Harvard Method. It has a lot of uses… And it’s already a thing that isn’t restricted to books, with music and magazines also having their own identifiers.

…But obviously, it’s not a thing that can spring up overnight. So all I’m going to do here is leave this article, just proposing the idea (And giving fair credit to the person who originated it), and let game devs who read this to talk it over. I’ll be happy to put discussion on the subject in article form, via the usual contacts, and if enough of the games industry likes the idea, keep people posted on the progress.

But for now, it’s just an interesting and useful idea.

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Disclosurey Type Stuff: I backed this project for £20 on Kickstarter. Because hey, I try to back games I want to see more of.
Other Reviews: Early Access 2, Release

I don’t normally write much about releases. I don’t normally write about them the day they come out. I especially don’t tend to write much about games where it’s way too early to tell whether it’s going to be good or not. But Formula Fusion is a special case for a couple of reasons. And one of them is the return of an old friend from the Wipeout series.

I’mmmm aaaaaa highwaaaaay staaaar!

…Well, to be fair, the marketing of Formula Fusion (A combat racing game set in a dystopian future) has been pretty much “Spiritual Successor to Wipeout, on all platforms, by Wipeout devs” , but this returning friend hasn’t been seen since Wipeout Fusion, to my knowledge: The Barrier. The Barrier was first seen in Wipeout 3, and it was the bane of many a Wipeout player’s life. All it did was drop a little wall that you could pass through, but others couldn’t. But ohhhh, it was enough. If you were good with it, you could drop it into the track on the side you wanted, and laugh as you watched three or four fellow racers pile into it and carom off one another.

And now it’s back, seemingly in even easier form (It just drops behind you.) If that were all the early promise shown in an alpha version of the game, I most likely wouldn’t write this article. But the controls are tight, responsive (Whether on keyboard or gamepad), and simple (W to accelerate, A and D to turn, left and right arrows to airbrake, allowing for sharper turns, and space to fire a weapon). I’m not so hot on the current UI, but the first track is a good example of an early track in a campaign, with only a few airbrake turns. At first, when playing the track, you’re inevitably going to hit things (other racers, the walls, barriers), and maybe even see the dreaded Pinballing (Where your attempts to correct from the collision send you into another wall) before exploding, but it’s exhiliarating when you start to master the track, moving from side to side as you hit the keys to turn.

New York (The first, and currently only track available) is a nice mix. Be warned, you will need airbrake turning.

Is it worth the £20 fee to get into Early Access at this stage? Not unless you really want this game to succeed. Does it, however, show promise? Hell yes. It’s a good first vertical slice, the music is pretty pumping, and the fact that, even in this early alpha, the controls and physics seem tight, shows that the devs know what’s important. And that’s the other reason I’m writing this. I wanted to point at an example of a solidly produced alpha slice. It’s by no means perfect (The Low resolution, for example, definitely means Low, as the final screenshot will show), but at this particular time, I don’t expect it to be. All I expect it to do is give me a taste of what I’m looking forward to. And that, it does.

Formula Fusion was released on Early Access on the 3rd of August, 2015. It costs £19.54 until the 10th, where it shall be £22.99, and The Mad Welshman believes in the AG Revolution.

Low Res is not joking. But if your graphics card is hurting, I think you can forgive a little jagginess for that extra speed.

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