QBob Progress Report #7
QBob: Remastered now has an official launch date: July 24th, 2025! Here is the QBob: Remastered Store Page on Steam. Please wishlist it on Steam today! Also, watch the launch trailer below:
QBob Progress Report #6
After having finished the bulk of the game (see the last QBob report), I have been spending the last month or so getting the game ready for distribution on Steam. And, as of today, I can finally announce that the game has its very own live Steam page!
Before I dig into the details, I’d just like to say for the first time (and definitely not the last): please go to the QBob: Remastered Steam page and add it to your Steam wishlist. Wishlists play a big role in getting new games noticed and, even if you never buy the game, adding it to your wishlist will be a great help.
As of this writing, it’s very much a work in progress. But you can’t imagine the amount of effort it took to just get this far. I couldn’t have done it without Craig, who helped with gobs of corporate paperwork. The other bit that took a bunch of effort was generating the dozen or so new art assets for every possible store location the game banner can appear in.
One of the biggest new features that I have added to the game are achievements. There are twenty-two total and they range from super easy (RTFM, flip through the entire manual) to well-nigh impossible (1cc the game on hard difficulty). Each achievement has a custom icon and they have been successfully linked to the Steamworks API.
There is also an in-game fallback if the build of the game isn’t linked to steam. You can’t believe how excited I was when I saw that little floater pop up in the lower right corner for the first time.
I also did a full gamepad support pass to allow the entire game, from menus to high score entry, to be accessible without the help of a keyboard or mouse. Now, I fully admit that playing the game with a gamepad is not ideal, but Steam really pushes gamepad support, especially for making titles compatible with Steamdeck.
There are still a couple of items to complete. I’d like to get cloud saves enabled, which, in theory, is just a matter of mirroring the GameMaker local storage folder to Steam. I also need to make a short game trailer video which is going to require me capturing a bunch of gameplay footage and editing something together. Then there’s the soundtrack and game manual PDF. Back to the grind.
Master of Disaster
Ugh. Complete garbage movie. Jackie Chan is in it for like 4 minutes and it has nothing to do with the main story. Lau Kar Leung has fallen far from grace in this one. I hated this.
The Circulating Lifeblood of Ideas: Leo Steinberg’s Library of Prints
This is a rare instance where the writing in the art book might be the most interesting part of it. Sure there a ton of prints featured here, but they tend to be small reproductions that are lacking needed detail. Steinberg’s use of prints, especially copies of paintings, as a metric for gauging contemporary ideas and beliefs is a fantastic way to appreciate printmaking. It really elevates the importance of the print in art history. Now if only everyone could read this and then boost the sales of my prints!
Cat Quest on PC
I initially liked the no nonsense action-oriented combat of this RPG but I soon realized that it was just the same thing over and over again. I think the biggest hook here is not the insipid cat theming, but that the entire game is played on the over-world map. Other than that, the story is immediately forgettable, there is no actual “role playing,” and there is no variety or strategy in the battles.
Whom Gods Destroy
This was a depressing crime story about a loser who returns to his old home town and tries to prove himself by becoming the biggest bootlegger around. He ends up succeeding and burning every bridge along the way. The story was frustrating because the protagonist was just unlikable and always made the worst decisions. Initially you want to root for the guy but that sentiment fades about a quarter the way through the story.
The Spirit and the Mouse on PC
It’s another freebee game from the Epic game store! I guess it was okay. There’s a deliberate Studio Ghibi vibe here in that it’s a story filled with Asian spiritual mysticism that takes place in a quaint European village. You control a mouse who is granted electrical powers from a spirit and you must go through the village and restore power to the various frustrated citizens.
The vast majority of the game play is exploring the town looking for collectables—not my favorite—as you help minor spirits accomplish various tasks. These range from “find every mailbox” to “match the symbols.” This is definitely a kids’ game. A kids’ game in which the main character commits suicide in the last reel. Fun stuff!
Collection - Wood Engraving
My art output this year has admittedly been lacking, but I finally managed to edition this new wood engraving. It’s a ball of stuff—a collection if you will. What are we but the images, words and sounds we collect?
The image was engraved into an end-grain maple block from which it was printed by hand using Gamblin Portland Intense Black ink.
Printing the Wood Engraving
Process Images
Click the thumbnail images to zoom in.
Mad Max on PC
My first and biggest complaint about this video game adaptation of Mad Max is that there weren’t enough Australian accents. And, aside from some of the vehicular combat, it doesn’t really feel like Mad Max. Sure, it does a good job in replicating the look of the movies complete with War Boys, endless desert, and fantastical cars galore. But the whole post-apocalyptic wasteland was much more interesting in Fallout. Here the open world seems barren and the characters inhabiting it are just as empty.
Despite all this, as a game is does what it needs to do. On foot, the combat is a poor man’s version of the rhythmic punching of the Batman games. Time your blocks and mash the A button when you get an opening. The game is at it’s best on convoy missions where you chase down a group of cars and shoot, ram and run them off the road. It’s not quite the epic automotive battles of the movies, but at least there is some sense of the mayhem that George Miller was able to capture on film.
The King Tide
Slow burn folk horror a fishing village that’s more of a comment on the origins of religions than anything else. A baby is found who can heal people and hilarity ensues.