Updates from the Forge 11: March 2017

[Jubal]

Issue 11: March 2017

EDITORIAL

We've all had that homework piece or essay that we've forgotten about until terrifyingly close to the deadline - as I start writing this, it's 21:49pm on the last day of March and I haven't pre-written any articles, so I'm getting a wonderful re-living of my school experiences right now...

In site news - Exilian is now officially nine years old, which is an impressive achievement for a website that was expected on its founding to have a lifespan of around a fortnight, tops. We've had another quiet month thanks to some staff being called off to conferences and terrifying bits of reality, but there are some big plans afoot to improve how we get content out and link up parts of the site which will hopefully come into being more seriously in April. I should also mention that our twitch channel is doing very well and building up a following, mostly for folk watching No1 Croat Fan and friends' madcap attempts to complete Russian lumberjacking simulator game SpinTyres. If you'd like to come along and chat to the team, broadcasts are usually on Saturdays and you can visit and subscribe to the channel here.

Without further ado - here's Updates from the Forge, Issue 11!

CONTENTS:

• Between a rock and a hornet queen - My Mom's A Witch updates
• Cloudhaunts and more from Utherwald Press
• Mr. Molotov Man strikes again...
• New Music on Exilian Media
• Introducing ScreenAdventure!

Between a rock and a hornet queen - My Mom's A Witch updates
There are some fantasic new updates available on Bigosaur's My Mom is a Witch! Of particular interest are two new level-end bosses. The first is the earth golem, who stands at the end of the forest level with a devastating new range of attacks for more experienced players including meteor showers and turning its whole body into a rolling boulder. There's also a hornet queen who inhabits the battlements in place of the dragon in some games, and has deadly poisoned attacks and the ability to spawn new hornet enemies like this little blighter:

That's not all, of course. There are new items, too, including the shepherd staff, and new bonus areas in the forest including the ability to tame boars to your side! You can finally meet the King, too, and play as the fruit-producing sorceress character. With all that and more, there's increasingly a vast and diverse amount of content available in this increasingly wonderful adventure.

Check out Bigosaur's Forum

Cloudhaunts and more from Utherwald Press
Utherwald Press' most recent update has focussed back on a redesign of the deadly Cloudhaunts, winged pack-hunting mammals with ferocious appetites and the ability (and motive) to attack planes and airships in large numbers. Clouds of them descending out of the sky (with new rules available on the Utherwald website) will no doubt ruin many a player's day - and possibly also their plane, airship, and/or life expectancy in the process!

Other update topics this month have included the nomadic skykin, travelling wanderers of the airways akin to the more ground-dwelling genchi, and the regal class skyship, a powerful battle cruiser with several mighty cannon ready to pound volleys of fury into the enemy. The world of Aleyska is still very much being built up week by week, and it's always exciting to see more of it come together. Click the link below to enter the frozen skies!

Discover the Cloudhaunts...

Mr. Molotov Man strikes again...
A spin-off from Koobazaur's excellent story-game about the dangers and pitfalls of journalism and sensationalism, Headliner, the minigame Mr. Molotov Man is... different in style. Who Mr. Molotov Man is we never find out. Is he a criminal? A terrorist? An anarchist, a freedom fighter? Simply a pyromaniac? One thing, and only one, is for certain: he has a literally infinite number of molotov cocktails and a city to destroy.

From this premise comes the game - start wandering an empty street, and then as the emergency (and the fire, and the mass of burning people, bins, and cars) develops further, successive waves of futuristic police come to try and take down the Molotov Man before he can kill more. Face basic street cops, laser-wielding robot drone police, and more, as the conflagration and conflict continue! If you want some mindless fun and a LOT of flames, this is a great place to start.

Get Busy Burning!

New Music on Exilian Media
The Exilian Media Channel has seen a range of extra music released recently. With the announcement of the new season of Game of Thrones just out, we've appropriately had two extra songs from Jubal's A Bard of Ice and Fire song collection recorded and put up on the channel - The Knights of Summer for House Tyrell, chivalrous masters of the Reach, and The Black Flower, a song for Targaryen loyalists to look forward to the day when their Valyrian-descended masters return in power to Dragonstone and claim Westeros as their own once again.

Bu that's not all! We've also got several other new videos up this month, including poetry reading for world poetry day, and, most recently, Age of Kings - an original lyric set by Jubal that fits to the tune of the Age of Empires theme music.

Please remember to subscribe, and take a look at what we're producing!

Check out Exilian Media on YouTube

Introducing ScreenAdventure!

Dey505, creator of Old Adventure, returns with a new kickstarter for another platforming game, ScreenAdventure! In this puzzle-platformer you'll have a range of characters available to quest through many different levels with a window that moves across and around your computer screen! Boasting complex and innovative level design ideas, there will be a great range of stuff to look at! You can take a look at the recently released kickstarter campaign and videos of the project in development at the links below:

ScreenAdventure on Exilian

KickstarterCampaign

As usual, let me know if you have extra items for Updates and I'll try and make sure to include them - we're happy to cover academic and creative projects of all sorts as long as they're posted somewhere around the forum, and we'd always like to have more items and the widest range of stuff possible.

See you at the end of April for the next issue of Updates from the Forge!