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Crowdsourcing

If you’ve never had the pleasure of experiencing video game crowdsourcing, here’s a brief synopsis of how it it works:

  • Person 1 has an idea for a video game.
  • Person 1 realizes he has no actual talents related to making video games, so he becomes the “ideas guy.”
  • Person 1 has no money to hire people to make his game for him.
  • Person 1 posts a request on the internet for people to make it for him for free.
  • Persons 2-5 join up. They also have no talents and become “idea guys.”
  • Persons 6-10 join up as artists, and set out doodling hundreds of pictures of Orcs.
  • Persons 11-15 join as modelers, and make dozens of untextured barrels and cups.
  • Persons 1-5 write dozens of pages of incomprehensible lore.
  • Persons 6-10 have a bitter falling out over what the HUD should look like and quit.
  • Persons 11-15 get bored and just kinda forget about it.
  • Persons 2-5 leave to crowdsource their own games.
  • Person 1 closes the project down after he comes up with an idea for a better game.

These games are always doomed to fail for several reasons, although it’s mainly due to the fact that “ideas guy” hasn’t been a viable gaming career option since 1991. Anyone can come up with an idea for a video game. Making it happen requires people who actually know what they’re doing, and those people are too busy making their own games and actually releasing them to spend their free time making generic fantasy MMOs about Orcs.

I read a request from one of these recently, asking for someone to write the class lore for their space sim. I sent in the following sample. Feel free to use it for your own game, or write to me and ask for some badass Orc doodles.

Arcturian Spacedwarves shun modern technology and prefer to travel via flying steam-powered locomotives and giant mechanized aerospyders. Hailing from Arcturus, spacedwarves consider space travel physically impossible. They will declare war on any race more technologically advanced than them (they consider space travel to be the work of evil wizards), and will quickly mow them down with their Arcturian bulletguns. Spacedwarves have a 25% natural resistance to lasers, are short, and have a poor sense of humor. Never the less, Spacedwarves have a habit of causing comedic misunderstandings, and can often be found dashing back an forth between two different bars after they accidentally schedule two different dates on the same night.

Comics for Dad

When I was 10 years old, I wanted nothing more than to write comic strips for the newspaper. I was obsessed with Gary Larson’s The Far Side (even though I don’t think I actually understood any of them) and would spend my afternoons drawing pages and pages of my own single-panel cartoons. I studied The Far Side strips like I was a scientist, and recreated them in a hodgepodge of incomprehensible art, animals acting like humans, and endless godawful puns, like a prepubescent Victor Von Frankenstein. I made cargo cult comic strips, recreating jokes I didn’t understand, and using words and references I didn’t know the meaning to.

I made a comic strip calender for my dad in 1995. I was 11 years old. Here it is, reprinted in its full glory.

Malatora Tower Defense

Here’s a video game I made based on a Something Awful thread about the micronation of Malatora. I think the less I explain the better, because it still won’t make any sense. Click below to download, and click the help icon while in the game if you just can’t figure out what the fuck is going on.

YoYoGames

Screenshot

Malatora Tower …
Added: 05 September 2011
By: BulletRiddled

The humans are coming!

Your homeland of Sao Thome is under attack. You squatted on the land, selling fake gems in order to finance the building of your massive underground death fortress, but for some reason everyone’s mad at you. You’ve shut down your forums, and the Rickroll button has been pushed. Man just doesn’t understand Dragon Honor. It’s time to fight back.

Tech tree:

Barney – Malatoran citizen in a Barney costume that has been “liberated” from the mainland. The first step in becoming a real dragon.

Tinfoil Dragon – Upgraded from Barney unit. Malatoran citizen in a tinfoil dragon costume. The second step in becoming a real dragon.

Dragon – Upgraded from Tinfoil Dragon unit. Finally, you are a real dragon! A human brain that has been implanted into a robot dragon. All dragons are born female, but wish to become hermaphrodites so they can have sex with each other without it being “gay”. Up to ten penises can be purchased per dragon. With each penis added, the dragon will start furiously masturbating, unloading gobs of hot dragon jizz in random directions in an inaccurate but powerful attack. A ten-donged dragon will turn gold and be known as a Dongdecadragon.

Dongwolf – Upgraded from Tinfoil Dragon unit. A weak and easily killed unit that has multiple rape teniticles growing out of its back. Has a small chance of turning enemies into Dongwolfs. Attention whore.

Enemies:

Sao Thomas Citizen – Pitchfork and torch in hand, this angry citizen just wants his land back. The land YOU rightfully squatted from him! You should murder him.

White Knight – This internet hero has come to liberate the many fine virgin Malatoran damsels from the clutches of the evil dragons. Little does he know the virgins are all men and the women all have penises. Multiple penises, sprouting out of their backs.

Jetknight – A faster version of the White Knight.

Mounted Jetknight – A faster version of the Jetknight.

Military – The combined forces of all the world’s militaries are no match for even a handful of dragons!

Sounds fucking awesome, doesn’t it? Well, why don’t you download that motherfucker right now and show those puny hyoomans who’s the real dragon!

PROTIP: Press spacebar to advance the next wave if you don’t want to wait.

Noah’s Ark 2 – Onion Infinite Showdown

Red Robin presents: The Onion Infinite!

Standing a staggering 7 inches tall, the Onion Infinite will satisfy your deepest craving for melted cheese slathered in mayonnaise. So big it has to be served on a stick, the Onion Infinite combines teryaki beef, fried onions, spicy mayonnaise, and eight slices of cheese into a sandwich that tells your heart to go fuck itself. It’s man food time.

The Onion Infinite was created by Sole.Sushi. All blame should go to him.

Ingredients:
Onion bun
Onion straws
Cheddar double
Pepper jack double
Sauteed onions
Angry onions
Banzai beef patty
Banzai beef patty
Chipotle mayonnaise
Campfire mayonnaise
Ancho mayonnaise
Another of this burger

The Onion Infinite is a recursive hamburger, meaning that it contains a copy of itself as an ingredient, which contains a copy of itself as an ingredient, and so on to infinity. We decided to only eat two, but maybe one day the technology will exist for a truly infinite hamburger. It will be served with a glass of Coke in a Klein bottle.

Ancho mayo and angry onions weren’t available, so we substituted in red onions and a fried egg in honor of Smash Mouth.

Last year I ate a hamburger called the Noah’s Ark, a goon invention consisting of two of every animal. Two beef patties, two chicken patties, two fish patties, two veggie patties, and two helpings of bacon. It was documented in this Comedy Goldmine, and in this video of me trying and failing to eat it. The video got passed around the internet, and was seen by a man named Big Josh, who took on the challenge and actually finished the whole thing. I got in contact with him on Twitter, and me and him have been shit-talking each other for it over the last year and a half. We’ve been talking about doing a hamburger showdown, and we decided it was finally time after raddits posted this thread.

Last Saturday I drove several hours across the province to meet Josh, so we could settle our spat the way only two responsible grown men approaching 30 can: making complete asses of ourselves in front of a restaurant full of gawking onlookers. Now, I’d been training for this all week, including eating the Onion Infinite Jr, and beating the Smash Mouth 24 egg challenge. I was feeling pretty confident that I could eat the burger the fastest, or at least eat the most before giving up. Then I met my opponent.

Guess which one I am.

I knew right away that I was completely fucked. I’m 5’8 and 130 pounds. Josh is 6’8 and over 300 pounds. If I had known this beforehand, I probably wouldn’t have driven three hours with a car full of friends to watch me be utterly humiliated, and then filmed and put on the internet so random strangers can tell me what a colossal faggot I am. But I was already there, so we went to Red Robin.




Will do!

The waitress had a little bit of difficulty trying to understand just what the hell I was trying to order, or why I needed two of them. Then Josh ordered two, and we started to attract an audience. Staff, patrons, even entire families started coming over to see what the fuss was about.

I ordered and entire pitcher of water to wash down the burger. My strategy was the same as the one I’d been practising all week: small bites, swallow with water, repeat until finished or opponent gives up.

Then the burgers were delivered.

Now I’m doubly fucked. Put together, the Onion Infinite stands a whopping seven inches tall.


Josh tried to get his to a proper size by squishing it down, while I put mine on a skewer and started vainly gnawing at the edges.


My water strategy immediately went out the window after I took one bite and realized cheese doesn’t break down in water. I had to just plow through the whole thing and hope my opponent gave up, or died, or something.

The burger itself was actually pretty good. I would order an Onion Infinite if it was maybe a quarter of the size of the real one. All the strange flavors balanced each other out nicely into a strangely sweet, but spicy hamburger. At least, until you made your way towards the ultra-dense onion-packed centre.

The middle of the Onion Infinite is so onion-y that we started sweating down our backs, giving our quickly growing audience the horrific sight of two grown men eating hamburgers larger than their heads, shirts drenched in sweat, faces smeared in various sauces and mayonnaise flavors, belching and and trying not to barf, while another group of grown men giggled and filmed and took pictures.

We were both in agreement at this point that it was actually a good thing our wives weren’t there to support us.

A man walked by at this point and muttered “Jesus Christ” and shook his head in disapproval, and people started to walk away in disgust. I had to take off my glasses because they were so smeared in various Onion Infinite juices that I couldn’t see out of them.

I was feeling pretty good when I figured I was about a third of the way through the burger. I was still making good pace, and still had some room in my belly for a little more Onion Infinite. Then I looked over at Josh and saw that he was finishing his last bite. He ate the entire thing in less than ten minutes. He swallowed the Onion Infinite like a goddamned anaconda.


Josh got a round of applause from everyone watching, which now included a significant portion of the kitchen staff. Complete strangers mocked me to my face, and then as a final insult, the waitress brought us each the bill for one Onion Infinite.

I humbly bow the the amazing eating skills of Big Josh. He’s beaten me twice, once in front of the internet, and once face-to-face in front of both friends and strangers. In fact, here’s a video of Josh destroying me in the Onion Infinite challenge.

The Onion Infinite is available at Red Robin restaurants for only $37.25

Turn Your Brain Off Mensa Canada AG 2011

I recently spoke about bad movies at the Mensa Canada Annual Gathering 2011.  The title of my talk was Turn Your Brain Off, and you can watch the whole thing here:

Afterwards, I took part in the Mr. Mensa contest, part of which involved stripping into swim trunks and jumping in a hot tub.  My wife made me a replica 1920′s bathing suit for the event:

I came in second place, probably because my costume was just slightly too sexy.