I love the presentation. The art and music are great. The gameplay is almost there, but it's definitely too difficult. Perhaps if it were a hair slower and the player weren't so heavy, it'd be easier to get into. It could ramp up quickly if the challenge is something you're inclined to keep, but the way it is now, it's just frustrating when I'm starting out (especially because I really want to love this game--it feels like the kind of thing I'd get stupidly addicted to if I stood a decent chance).

But fantastic work overall!

As a kid, I always wished there was a game based on Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles. Years later, I found out that there was a King's Quest-ish game based on the Disney film, but I'll pretend that didn't happen. It's been so long since I read the series that I can't vividly remember what made it more compelling to me than other children's fantasy novels, but if I could tap into that intangible appeal, I'd so love to make that game now.

And I'll second the mention of anything with a Gorey aesthetic. Although his actual stories don't hold much appeal for me anymore (The Unstrung Harp being an exception), I would love to see a character-driven game set in the wider world Gorey implied through his art. It would absolutely have to remain visually beholden to Gorey's style, though; no American McGee's Gorey.

Gentlemen,

I'm David. I make games.

I've been reading the TIGS blog for a couple of years now (since sometime shortly before the reboot) but it never really occurred to me to visit the forums. And then it did, so here I am.

I grew up with BASIC (of the GW- and Q flavors) and Nintendo consoles. The one-two punch of Donkey Kong Country and Toy Story around 1995 made me want to be a modeler or animator, so I dabbled in that for a bit to no avail. I sailed on the maiden voyage of the Unreal ship, doing some very early and regrettable level design. College finally knocked the C++ into me and I proceeded to attend the very expensive but worthwhile Guildhall at SMU to catch up on all the game development stuff I'd missed by never reading GameDev or Gamasutra or any whitepapers or anything during school. Now I'm employed at an awesome studio making a sweet game, and I spend basically all of my free time doing independent hobbyist work to learn more and flex some creative muscles.

My all-time favorite game is probably Super Mario Bros. 3. It is perfection in gameplay and has a satisfyingly rich set of levels and baddies. I've also got a soft spot for Zelda II, the ugly duckling of the series. It was the first Zelda I played and the one I've completed the most times. I really can't defend it logically, but it's fun to me. My other favorite games are Thief, System Shock 2, Deus Ex, and various other first-person/RPG hybrids that might fall into that nebulous "immersive sim" genre. Most of the indie game demos I've developed over the years have probably been informed by one or more of these games.

The last game that I developed independently was called Rhapsody. It was a physics-based platformer that I finished in the fall of 2005 for a school project. Various team projects consumed my time for the next year or so, and I finally got back to hobby coding last summer. Sometime in the distant future, I hope to have a new game to show for feedback. I'm writing a homebrew 3D engine for my games and so spending an inordinate amount of time implementing common things that I could already have if I were using an existing engine. But I'm learning a lot from it (and not just Use an existing engine! ).

So, that's me!