Apologies as usual for lack of posting, but as I've said so many times before, when I have nothing new to show, what news can I announce except day to day details of my incredibly dull personal life? So I don’t post much.


Here's some thoughts I've been thinking in the last month or so, figured I might as well share it with you…


The problem with attempting to complete Wasted Youth right now is it's simply not worth the effort, unless I’m guaranteed a worthwhile return it just doesn’t bear thinking about.

I have so many half-finished projects, committing myself to another which requires considerably more work just doesn’t make much sense. However, I am aware that the longer I leave this, the less support / hangers-on from the original players of Part 1 (as made apparent by recent comments on the previous news post) … Even so, unless I can secure a deal with a publisher/sponsor or crowdfund or a combination of the two ala Shenmue 3, then I don’t see myself completing Wasted Youth any time soon. So consider that.


Also, while I really do appreciate all the interest, positive or otherwise, I don't think many of you appreciate just how much work is required for a 1 man time to create a game like Wasted Youth.

Rich, my oldest brother, wrote most of the script & dialogue and helped a great deal in outlining missions, along with all other kinds of gameplay elements, however it was solely me who coded and designed everything. From sourcing/creating sound effects, to texturing and animating - everything!


Also consider that to continue such an ambitious project, it would make very little sense to continue developing it for Flash, a rapidly dying platform, cruelly mismanaged by Adobe to the point where for the past few years it’s become evident that it’s doing everything possible to accelerate its eventual death.


When I made Bunny Invasion and Wasted Youth, I remember naively thinking that it would exist on the internet indefinitely, but clearly that’s not the case.

I often check to see if TwoTowersGames.com (our sponsor for Wasted Youth Part 1 who have since become inactive) is still online, for if they ever go offline every instance of WYP1 will go offline too! Unfortunately this is pretty inevitable and it could happen any day. If you’ve downloaded the SWF you’ll notice the file size is very small, the core files exist solely on TwoTowersGames.com.

I could fix this on my end but the fix would not apply elsewhere, every other site hosting the old game file would still be defunct.

So there’s a ticking clock of sorts to rescue Part 1 before this happens.


Back to the point of frameworks - even now, after lots of consideration I still can’t determine a preferable framework that it would lend itself to.

What’s required is a full remake (Part 1 + Part 2 unified) on a different platform. The simplest/least destructive way I can think of doing this is to continue developing it by using the Haxe/OpenFl framework, which would allow for cross-platform deployment. The biggest game to use this particular framework is Papers Please from a couple years ago, but not much else.

Being so out of the loop, having not communicated with hardly any fellow developers recently, I’m not entirely sure if this is a good idea. A bit of research would probably rectify this but as my focus is currently elsewhere I haven’t got round to it.

Alternatively, imagine a 2.5D-ified Wasted Youth. If I was more savvy with 3D this might even be easier and make for a much neater workflow. I much prefer working with vectors as opposed to sprites and bitmaps and whatnot. Difficult issues regarding animating and character design are so much easier in 3D. It looks attractive is all I’m saying.


There’s other points I could mention but I’d like to keep this short.


The most likely way I can see Wasted Youth in the near future is through crowdfunding, I’m struggling to see it any other way if I’m honest. And I can’t say I’m an especially big fan of Kickstarter… I rarely see anything on there that doesn’t elicit groans or mouthing ‘what the fuck’ (case in point)

I mentioned the Shenmue 3 model earlier, and I wonder if I was ever able to mobilise enough support through a kickstarter campaign if I could negotiate a deal with a former Flash sponsor who I’ve had contact with.


Now, I’m handing it over to you. Please tell me what you think (or continue to), and as long as I don’t pussy out of it I’ll try to respond relatively quickly with a follow up. Here it is - the declaration of a subsequent news post in around a month or less!


Progress of Wasted Youth is not as far as most of you might hope, but here’s hoping we can work something out.


I considered including an interactive poll to allow you lot to vote yay or nay to the kickstarter idea, and if so what you might ‘pledge’ (I can’t bear to use the dreaded D word, lest it seem like a charity for my sake), but if you have an opinion or an imaginary amount of dough you'd be willing to part with, please post it in the comments. I’m hoping I’ll be somewhat more aware of exactly where we’re at afterwards.


PS - New site development is still ongoing, aiming for September release. Also been looking into new hosting servers as our current hosting service is pretty awful.

PPS - It just occurred to me that if the patient people that still check here regularly would like to offer support in some way, a good way would be by going to the top of the page, enter your primary email-address into the box right of 'Subscribe to Our Newsletter' and hit subscribe. Ignore the bit about weekly game updates, it's a downright lie. In the event of some 'news' I might use this to inform you of such 'news'.