Bigotry
There was a programme on the TV last night about the residents of a village campaigning against the nearby location of a centre for asylum seekers. I missed the first part of the programme, but the gist of it was that these people were incredibly racist and that they didn't want such an establishment lowering their house prices. No humanity involved whatsoever. There was even one point where one guy said that people didn't want these immigrants looking at their daughters when they wore their bikinis on the beach as it will turn their minds to rape.

Suddenly it seems as though we've gone back to the sorts of comments you'd expect in 50's US or apartheid South Africa. Apparently, letting all of these foreigners in is taking something away from our Englishness. Excuse me, but isn't the whole of English/British history peppered with populations being merged from other parts of the world?

For a start, it's well known that mankind originated in Africa and spread out from there. Britain has seen the arrival of the Romans, the Saxons, the Vikings, the Normans, to name a few. We have a royal family whose lineage is German and Greek. I don't see that anyone "English" has any grounds upon which to get uppity about the arrival of these asylum seekers. Particularly when you look around at the state of the country and wonder if anyone has any real pride in the country they live in any more.

Mailing list
Thanks to all those who have already registered with the new mailing list.

Comic strips
Although I've posted Juniper Crescent and Smiley Street strips this week, I don't feel I'm really on top of a schedule in any way, so I'm going re-evealuate how I might be able to get back into a proper strip creation routine. The Sapphire Claw is waaaay overdue for some regular updates. I hope it won't be too much longer, so please be patient.

Think of June
June will be going into hospital early next month for an operation upon her knee, which will put her out of action for a good while. If my internet presence is reduced for a while at that time it will be because I will be pandering to her every whim to speed her recovery along. I hope you'll spare a moment to wish her well.




Forums
I’m usually a pretty regular visitor to some of the adventure-based forums, but just lately it’s been getting more and more frustrating, to say the least. I’m all in favour of reasoned criticism because it’s how we learn what worked and what didn’t. But when someone simply states “Broken Sword 3 sucks big time,” and leaves it at that, it just leaves me feeling very demoralised.

I realise that the game isn’t going to be to everyone’s liking, particularly when we moved away from the traditional point and click interface, but why such a vitriolic statement? I’ve decided that I’m going to spend less time on the forums so that I get wound up less.

Mind you, just after the point I decided that, I popped into the Adventure Gamers Forums and spotted the following:

“BS3 is easily the best adventure game I've played since Grim Fandango, and that's five years. It renewed my hope that good adventure games can still be made if someone will take the time and the care to do one right.”

This restored my faith somewhat, but actually accentuated how hurtful the unpleasant statements can be. (I’m a sensitive soul...)

I’ve started hanging around in the IGDA forums (seeing as they were so nice to nominate me for an award – I got a cool certificate, by the way) and I must admit that they seem to be much more positive in general and even if they are critical of something it’s usually done with reasoned thought.

There’s a lot of discussion going on about the level of interactivity in dialogue scenes that is pretty much taken for granted in the adventure genre. Perhaps they’ve never been near an adventure. I’m convinced that by weaving the strengths of what we’ve been working on for the last few years, into a powerful action game with a strong narrative, you will end up with a high-octane game that will rival many Hollywood movies.

Now who’s got a spare ten million?

More mailing list news
All postings that I make on the weblog will now be sent to my new Yahoo mailing list, too.

A new Webcomic to look at...



At last the return of my (now occasional) series that looks at web comics I find of great interest and think you ought to take a look at. I found this one while browsing the links page on Paul Taylor’s Wapsi Square.

My latest pick for Juniper Choice Web Comic is Soul-d by Mary.



Judging by her excellent website it would seem that Mary is not divulging her surname, but that doesn’t detract from the excellent comic that Soul-d is. Described on the main comic page as “a comic about a wannabe’s chance in hell”, it centres on Bernadette Haggis, a cleaner in a strip joint who dreams of being a singer with a huge recording contract.

The first chapter is taken up with Bernadette working towards realising that dream and builds up in a very clever way and then ends on a superb cliff-hanger. Chapter two ignores the predicament of the heroine completely as it concentrates on setting up the other main thread of the story, laying down some background and building up the excellent relationship between the characters involved. Chapter three returns us to Bernadette and this is where the story is currently at, leaving the reader looking forward to more instalments.

The artwork is in some ways very simple, but Mary makes it work very well with the muted sepia-like tones of the colouring supporting this and adding to the overall mood of the comic. She really uses the artwork and page layout extremely well to support and enhance her excellent dialogue. The pacing is very good, too, making the whole thing a real “page-turner”, encouraging me to finish the whole comic in one sitting.

I hope that you find it as enjoyable as I did and hope that you let Mary know if you do.

Changing my mailing list
I'm not very happy with the ugly nature of the Topica list e-mails and so I'm transferring my mailing list over to Yahoo Groups which offer a better service overall, I think. I'm also only going to be operating the one mailing list, so I hope this doesn't upset anyone too much.

If you wish to continue receiving the regular strip updates and messages from the weblog, send an e-mail to:
junipercrescent-subscribe@yahoogroups.co.uk

Or you can visit the group location at:
http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/junipercrescent/

I shall keep the current mailing lists open for the next couple of weeks to give everyone chance to move over.

Of course, I've just realised that those on the mailing list will get this again as I'm posting it on the blog page. Just goes to show, you can't have too much of a good thing.