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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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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Ahhh, it’s so nice to announce a winner to a competition. The pleasure of saying “Yes, this person… Nay, this victor did scratch their head many a time, and erase words, and mumble, and moan… But through the sweat of their brow, they have-”

Too over the top? Probably. But nonetheless, it’s always nice to announce that passion, and it’s my pleasure to say that the individual known as Rap Three Times has won themselves a copy of Endless Legend. And here, for both your pleasure and mine, is their winning entry (A little over word count, but forgivably so):

Notes On The Mad Fairies

Scanning the merchant’s wares, your eyes pick out a leather-bound book. The spine reads “Notes on the Mad Fairies”. Opening it midway, you begin to thumb through the book.

…that thrice blessed day I heard the singing. Oh how sweet that sound, how to ever describe it? Should I compare it to birdsong, or music, or the rhythm of droplets on a flowing stream? Should I speak of my tears or the blush on my cheeks? Maybe I should babble like a madman hoping for something coherent to come out? Neither my hand nor my mouth could ever satisfy my heart!

You skip ahead.

Despite those years at the College, I could never fully explain what happened that day when I first heard the elven-song as it sifted through the trees. In truth, those minutes/ hours passed as a dream from which I wished never to wake, and the harsh ache of the silence when indeed I did eventually awaken shook me so grossly to my core that I shivered and trembled for I don’t know how long. In all my like, it was the emptiness I felt afterwards that hurt and stung the most. The life I had treasured and clung to happily was now shown to be dreary as mud, colourless as spittle and weary as death. Nowhere could I rest, never could I be content until I could again hear that wondrous and magical music that sprung from their mouths.

You thumb further ahead.

… I know that the music I heard was their song of the hunt! They say that one who hears it is forever marked, and indeed I would believe these rumours. It has been many years since that night and not one day has passed that I haven’t thought about it. My life has been changed irrevocably.

More pages are passed over.

There are beasts prowling outside my tower and once I heard one scratch at my door. The heavy oak will withstand a great deal, but I find myself wondering what is drawing them to my lintel.

Today, my last servant finally deserted me. He says I am cursed but if only they knew! I am not cursed! I am blessed! Can’t they see that? Damn those fools, their noise only cluttered my ears. I give them all leave to go, begone and never bother me with your petty things.

You skip to the last page, the writing here is sloppy and almost illegible.

I haven’t slept for days. I think, no, I’m sure I heard the song again. Just outside, in the forest. Yes, I’m sure. They came back for me, they called to me. I was at the door but then they stopped. Ahaha! They are clever ones, they know how to tease me. I have been humming what little I can remember but my heart can never make that music. The animals, they leave me gifts in the way animals do. I recognised one of the bodies, it was a servant I once had, a stable-hand. I must go to them, whatever the outcome…

The book ends abruptly here.

You throw a few coins onto the table and put the book into your satchel, your path to the Wild Walkers becoming clearer still.

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It’s always a joyous occasion to get a new game, don’t you think? Endless Legend’s Guardian expansion released last week, and, along with a copy to review, this slightly crazed welshman also received a code for Endless Legend. Fortunately for one lucky reader, I’ve already got the game, and have permission to give the code away…

…Ah, wait, I may have misled with that last sentence. Give the game away? Not quite that simple. After all, first come first served is boring, and I do want to see some passion. So I want to hear a story. Not a long story, 300-500 words. But a story, and stories of Auriga, the dying world of Endless Legend are definitely going to be preferable. Don’t worry too much about accuracy to a world you may not have heard of: The faction summaries give some useful information, as do Amplitude’s forums, and for the rest, know that Auriga is a sentient world, and slowly… It is dying, entering an Ice Age from which it will not recover.

So maybe you’ll write a brief segment of life on this world, of the Broken Lords, condemned to eternal life at a terrible price they may not be able to pay. Maybe you’ll write how Auriga’s sentience, or its impending doom, was discovered.

Obviously, no friends or family of myself need apply, as they’d be disqualified. Sorry, I know a couple of you love writing fiction, but that’s only fair.

For the rest? Entry is very simple. Subject line is “Vignettes of a Dying World Entry”, email is, as always, themadpembsman@gmail.com , the winner will be announced at the end of the month, and they’ll have their steam key the same day.

Best of luck to all of you, and mentions shall definitely be made of top-tier entries!

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So, as you might have noticed, this one, and all the other articles, have been a little late. The downside of being the sole writer, really… You think you have a schedule, and then all sorts of things come up to play. Nonetheless, it’s been both interesting and harrowing, so I want to concentrate on certain things that have been going on. Shitty things, that go on behind our backs all the damn time, and we have yet to come up with a coherent response. Although that’s slowly beginning to change. Beginning to.

Kickstarter Fraud

You may not have heard of 2Awesome Studios. Lord knows I hadn’t, before the news hit. They’ve been making a game called Dimension Drive , and their Kickstarter failed. Now, normally, this wouldn’t be news, and you may be confused at the fact the link is to a Kickstarter that’s not even a day old. This is one of those “Good News, Bad News” things, and the Good News is just that… Dimension Drive, and 2Awesome by extension, have been given a second chance. The Bad News? How they failed the first time was, as you might have guessed from the title, due to shitlordery. Yes, I’m sticking to that wording. Essentially, someone promised 7000 euros, and… It was fraudulent. This is by no means the first time this has even happened this month, as Kiva Bay’s Feminist Deck project came very close to falling for a similar scam earlier in the month.

Yes, We’re Still Problematic

Another article of note in the week-and-a-bit’s news is by Zoe Quinn, one of many voices speaking up about industry “standards” that are toxic and shameful. It’s called Risky Business , and for the hard of reading among you, that’s part of the joke… A joke that, sadly, is all too real. As she says, there are hefty NDAs in a lot of AAA companies, crunch all over the place, imbalanced hiring practices, and yes, harassment is still a thing, and these things will continue to be Things That Happen until we say they shouldn’t. Until we educate smarter, not quicker. Until we realise, en masse, that It Doesn’t Have To Be This Way, and actively hunt for ways to improve, even if it means admitting Mistakes Were Made.

Guess what? That works for a lot of things. I’ve been writing this, for example, for almost a god-damn hour at the time of writing. Forty minutes of that has been the last paragraph, and deleting everything that comes after it because I’m not happy with what I’ve written. I could give up, throw my hands up, and move onto noteworthy releases and news. I’m not going to, because we need to see the Elephants in the Room. Plural.

We, the gamers and journos and industry figures, from top to bottom, have to look within ourselves, and deal with the things we don’t like about ourselves, the industry we’re in, and why we’re thinking what we’re thinking. That last bit is important, because we try to justify our bullshit all the time. Crunch Is Just Fine, Because We Can Fix The Bugs (Haha, I don’t see that all too often, and there’s other dimensions to the damage Crunch does.) I Can’t See It Myself, So It Can’t Be Happening (There’s a lot of things you can’t and won’t see. With luck, for example, I will never personally know the horrors of war, or being made homeless, and I hope you’ve managed to avoid these things too.) This Person Is Solely Responsible For This Game Being Bad (In most cases, it’s much more complicated than that. Your parents can’t really take sole responsibility for you being born… Think about how they met, what led to that, and you’ll quickly realise “Oh, hey, there was that person who hosted the party where they met, and the friend(s) that convinced them to go… Funnily enough, there’s a game that talks about how this happens in the game industry too. Rather tellingly, it’s called “The Writer Will Do Something“.)

It’s not an easy fight, and it’s one that has to be fought while still staying as healthy as possible… But even you, the reader who’s reading this right now and thinking “BUT THIS PERSON ON THE INTERNET IS WRONG“, can do your part. Take a little time each day to think why these issues crop up, time and time again. Crunch isn’t new. Sexism and Racism in games alone definitely isn’t new. And getting angry at people who turned out to have seen the problems early… Well, that ain’t new either, folks…

…Okay, now for interesting releases and news of the past week.

Things Wot Came Out (Of Note)

First of note is The Witcher 3. Much discussion is going on over the game already, from the writing (for good or ill) to how amazing the hair is. It released yesterday, it’s £50, and it’s apparently long enough to justify that price tag. Axiom Verge, coming in at £15, is a metroidvania that’s definitely attained some notice, so take a look, see if you like it. Quantum Rush Champions, another contender for the Wipeout Spiritual Successor throne, released a demo last week, and Invisible Inc also came out (Which I’ve reviewed today. QRC Demo’s free, Invisible Inc is currently £12, rising to the base price of £15 soonish.) Finally, a couple of note that I missed were Boss Monster (£5, a dungeon building and looting game based on the card game of the same name) and the release of Star Trek 25th Anniversary on Steam and GOG (A classic series, and a classic game… Can you do better than Kirk used to, and keep the redshirts safe all the way through? Also a fiver.)

Hanako’s released Black Closet, a procedurally generated game of school intrigue, and, of course, relationships at an all girl school, Bethesda/Id have given us the first teaser of Doom 4 (All… Er… 12 seconds of it, with an announcement we’ll know more at… sigh… E3), and Twitch are at least trying to reduce their stream lag.

And that’s a brief summary of the week!

…Okay, and a bit.

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