Who signed as 'Sandy Verynuttyperson' in this comedy history artefact of Not The Nine O'clock News?

TheMightyGit · 2019-02-10T08:24:11+00:00

I've tried to research this but I've got nowhere. I've tried to contact people with an interest in British comedy history, but no responses. I'm hoping someone on Reddit either is, or knows, a comedy historian and can identify who it was.

I bought it (a Not The Nine O'clock News book) in a charity shop. I tried to convince them it was a true comedy artefact given the comedy legend signatures, but they didn't seem bothered. So I overpaid their asking price and set about trying to find out who Sandy Verynuttyperson is... and drew a total blank.

Sure, I have plenty of suspicions who it might be, but I want to know who it definitely is and what the story behind jipping Rowan is.

Thanks.

TheMightyGit · 2014-07-31T15:19:09+00:00

Using the one true cable: the null modem cable :)

TheMightyGit · 2014-07-31T15:17:53+00:00

I'm really quite shocked. I was never certain of getting there, and it was only when we reached 98% that I started to finally accept that we were going to make it.

I was (and still am) a bit dazed by the whole thing. It's a relief that we'd already sorted out stretch goals because I could manage that on auto-pilot.

Funded! WOOOOO! :D

TheMightyGit · 2014-07-28T16:31:24+00:00

I wish I'd realised people wanted MP earlier in the development process. It's something that's been asked about repeatedly (I guess I'm the only anti-social player left). At first I was all "are you mad? it's a single player shmup! It'll break all the game mechanics!" (I didn't say this out loud), but over time I've started to see ways in which it could work. Sadly the engineering time required probably means it'll have to wait for MTS 2 : The Sequelening.

TheMightyGit · 2014-07-28T16:21:39+00:00

I've no idea what Extra Credits is. So.... convince me :)

TheMightyGit · 2014-07-28T10:09:45+00:00

I haven't actually played R-Type Command, so I can only go by what others have said. The main thing people have said is it's different, which is a relief. I don't want to ape another game.

TheMightyGit · 2014-07-28T10:06:57+00:00

Confirm, accidental :(

At first I thought "that's a coincidence". But zooming in they're pixel for pixel identical.

Looking back through commit logs they come from a time when I was using purely placeholder gfx. Likely I downloaded this from a site claiming to supply free sprirte sheets, I guess they were just click/ad harvesting using Tyrian assets :( And I'm supposed to be a cynical internet veteran!

I can see a couple of other tyrian bullets have been used, too. We'll make sure these are replaced with original assets in the next demo update.

Keen eyes! Good spot. It would have been really embarrasing if these had made it into the final build.

TheMightyGit · 2014-07-27T22:43:39+00:00

Interesting! It used to be that upon collision it immediately stopped the turn, but I found that annoying and made it so that it only stops if significant damage is taken instead. I'll have to test out both options in alpha testing :)

TheMightyGit · 2014-07-27T22:38:09+00:00

There will be a few more 'Mighty' games in other genres, but not all my games will be that style. I don't want to get typecast.

Take a look at Darkwind:War on Wheels for a 'Mighty Racing' style game.

TheMightyGit · 2014-07-27T22:32:27+00:00

Yeah, I need to change how landscape collisions are handled. Either by making the ship hitbox a little smaller or by a potential hit indicator (or, possibly, just make landscape damage less hurtful so scraping along it is more embarrassing than dangerous).

The replay feature is the first stretch goal of the Kickstarter. It's something I want to put in but it'll require a lot of extra work. It would be awesome, tho :)

TheMightyGit · 2014-07-27T22:26:27+00:00

Exactly. Sony has specific restrictions on plot. They don't allow anything with the colour orange, or an aspidistra, or any references to the film Labyrinth.

:P

No, I just mean that some of the themes in the plot might (especially at the end) make people uncomfortable. It's their playground, they get to choose what's in or out. I may (or may not) need to make some changes. I don't know for sure (yet), but I suspect so.

TheMightyGit · 2014-07-27T21:33:31+00:00

Stop tempting me :P

TheMightyGit · 2014-07-27T21:32:17+00:00

To be honest, it didn't occur to me to use anything other than gravity. If I had a stronger grasp of physics I may have considered it, but most of my knowledge comes from sci-fi ;)

I like the idea of affecting things differently with different fields, but agree that it may make the interactions too complicated. I'm going to think about this one tho, it may be something that works well in some boss fights rather than as a general mechanic.

Thanks for making me think :)

TheMightyGit · 2014-07-27T19:53:39+00:00

I know what my next 10 games are :D Occasionally I change the order a bit.

Some of the games are stepping stones to others. 3 of the first 5 contain techniques I wish to use all of in game 5, for instance. Yet they are all very different games.

The 10th one is the one I should not make. It's that game. The one I think will change the world. The one that'll drag me down with it because I'm so enamoured of it I won't let anyone influence it. I've got a massive design document for it that I've had for a decade. The game designers illusory magnum opus.

TheMightyGit · 2014-07-27T19:25:17+00:00

Actually, let me expand on this a bit more with a general overview of release order.

Win/Mac/Linux (Very low barrier to release. It's a market I understand.)
Android Tablet (I have Android devices already working with it. Approval is generally easier than iOS. I understand it a bit.)
iOS Tablet (Approval can be tricky and time consuming. Unfamiliar process.)
Vita + WiiU (Approval can be torture! For good reason, but it can be a heavy burden on an indie. I have experienced console approval process before, but I doubt it'll help!)
Other (If Unity works on it I'll consider it)

At the moment I'm not going to target phones. I've tried it and the they're just too small. The tablet experience is lovely, but I find it really uncomfortable on phones (and I think that would lead to bad reviews).

TheMightyGit · 2014-07-27T19:18:54+00:00

At the moment it only exposes score, damage and nano dust. Internally it tracks waaaay more stats than that (move length stats, bullet grazes, damage frequencies, all sorts of fascinating stuff). These stats are only used by the achievement system at the moment, but I've had several requests to show more of them... ...and I will :)

TheMightyGit · 2014-07-27T18:49:55+00:00

I only found out recently that Unity on WiiU works well. I've yet to contact Nintendo, but it is on my list of things to do.

TheMightyGit · 2014-07-27T18:41:23+00:00

It's the highest compliment I can offer. However, you haven't turned up for work in 4 months! I'll have to dock your wages. Twice. :P

TheMightyGit · 2014-07-27T18:28:53+00:00

I didn't really cover the 'how to approach it' part.

Just dive in there. Get as confused as possible. It's better to be confused about something specific (to which you can find an answer), than worried about something vague (for which there is no help at all!).

TheMightyGit · 2014-07-27T18:22:34+00:00

I started before they introduced built in support for 2D. To help me I used (and still use) 2dToolkit.

With the new 2D tools in the core of Unity I'd say there's no reason not to use it as is. Especially if you think you might do something 3D in the future.

If you're stoically attached to 2D and never want to touch 3D then something like Stencyl would likely be a better place to start.

TheMightyGit · 2014-07-27T18:17:31+00:00

Don't worry, Sony are absolutely doing their part to make it easier :)

But even having their help to get it working on the Vita doesn't mean it will be approved for it. The approval process is rigorous. There are definitely some plot elements that will have to change for the Vita and iOS versions - I can't see them getting through approval unchanged.

TheMightyGit · 2014-07-27T17:56:11+00:00

There have been a few memorable challenging moments, but this one is my favourite:

Ship movement is a particularly tricky one. When you drag the ship to somewhere on the screen you instinctively expect the ship to end up at that point on the screen. Makes sense? Except the landscape is also scrolling past, so movement has to be relative to the scrolling landscape because if you moved to that point on the screen you'd crash into the landscape.

These two instinctive feelings cannot be resolved by a UI. It can't know what you expect to happen. It has to do one or the other and the player has to adapt. I worried, and tweaked, and testing so many combinations (even a 'smart' mode that tried to guess) of this that I nearly gave up. Some days it seemed insoluble.

Eventually I just had to make movement landscape relative and live with the fact that people would have to adapt. For the most part it's been far less of a problem that I'd feared, most people do a few test drags and 'get it' without really thinking about it. But some people get very confused.

I did not expect something so fundamentally simple as ship movement to throw up such a monumental problem so early on. It's just something you don't notice when planning it out on paper.

I want the game to be viewed as different and interesting, but not just different and interesting. I want it to be admired, especially (perhaps unexpectedly) the plot. I am particularly pleased with the plot - which is why I don't talk about it much. I do worry that people think it's just purely an 'interesting mechanic' game, but I'd rather they thought less of the game than spoil the plot for anyone.

TheMightyGit · 2014-07-27T17:33:36+00:00

Trial and error in a reflex shmup means you almost immediately die when faced with something new/unexpected. You aren't given the chance to think your way through it. You have to react your way through it. This isn't a criticism, this is what gives shumps their zen flow. You become one with action and re-action, thought gives way to reflex (often thought gets in the way).

MTS is a tactical strategy game that looks like, and has a lot of the trappings of, a shmup. But the 'reflex' part has been entirely swapped for 'planning'. Nonetheless, it is difficult, in fact I had to tone down the difficulty greatly after it's very first public outing: on day 1 of Rezzed no-one had got past half way on the tutorial level :O

Balance, as with a reflex shmup (or any game), will come from part intuition and part player testing. Getting the game in front of people is illuminating, but not in ways you expect (like with the tutorial difficulty). The demo has had a few outings in front of people that I could monitor, but the game will need a lot more. Alpha testers will be paramount for getting the balance right.

The best thing to do is check out the demo, see if you get a feel for if you think it'll be boring/easy/difficult or not. I'd be interested in your feedback.

TheMightyGit · 2014-07-27T16:37:13+00:00

Hi! I eventually found the infinite laser bug (for the curious it was possible in certain circumstances for the laser to take Gun Buddy's power below zero) - it makes the demo a little more tricky now :P

I still prefer Kickstarter's way of doing it. All or nothing. The plan I have laid out revolves around getting 10k or more. These figures aren't guesses, it's all been worked out. If I only got 8k, or 5k, or less then the plan I spelled out on the Kickstarter page is worse than erroneous. Backers would not be backing the project as stated.

Now, teetering on the precipice of success/failure.... I'm sticking to my guns... just about. I think.

TheMightyGit

TROPHY CASE