Today I made my daily trek down to Park street to forage for food. Normally on a Sunday, I go for Weinerschnitzel. Sure, the food is mediocre, but they make up for it with very colorful paper wrapping, which I can't resist.

Today, however, the city decided to have a fair, which is another way of saying they turned the street into a mall with no shade and a bunch of drunks. And there were a couple guys with a banjo playing the chicken dance or something. See, this is why I stay indoors...

Anyway, I figured I'd try some fair fare and got a BBQ beef sandwich. Price: $8.00!!! There goes my entertainment budget for August, and it's still July.

No, not prog rock, as in progressive rock.

I'm talkin' Productivity Rock!

That's right, I'm starting a band called The Priorities. Our song list already includes:

Lookin' In Your Outlook

Let's Get Things Done (Baby)

You're On My To-Do List

We expect to be very popular among indie game developers who should really be working on their game right now.

I only have four score and 7 hours left to spend on the game. So more games are being cut from the lineup... possibly to resurface in a later add-on pack.

Good Joe: Hmm, I need some kind of bonus for this driving game.
Bad Joe: How about roadkill?
Good Joe: No, no, this is supposed to be a nice game.
Bad Joe: C'mon. You already have a beaver sprite that isn't being used.
Good Joe: That's just cruel. Besides, I can't justify running over a little beaver.
Bad Joe: Sure you can... if he's carrying a BAG OF MONEY.
Good Joe: Well, I can't argue with that.

Well, giant shoes, actually.

I had a dream last night (that would be this morning for you normal people), that I was chilling out on the moon. Or maybe it was an asteroid. I was looking up into the sky and saw a giant athletic shoe. I don't remember the brand, but it was actually a floating billboard in the shape of a shoe.

I'm not one to make predictions, but I really think this is an omen of how obnoxious advertising will get in the future. No one will be able to appreciate the night sky any more, because it will be filled with geo-synchronous billboards.

It gets worse, though. When I shifted my attention to another area of the sky, there was another second giant shoe on a collision course with the first one. So in the future, not only will mankind be in danger of renegade comets, but also giant falling shoes that are on fire from the atmospheric friction.

Update: I also just had an idea for sparkling water that uses helium for the carbonation, but that wasn't in a dream. It's just a good idea.

I was going to take the past couple days off to prepare for the final stretch. Really. But I ended up setting up the important non-game stuff instead.

First, I switched merchants to BMT Micro, because SWReg added a sleezy and deceiving upsell button to all of their final store pages. That's like Disney World taking Pirates of the Caribbean (the ride) and routing it into It's a Small World. It's just criminal. Which is too bad, because they had a great design.

BMT has the best reputation out of anyone, but a cruddy design. So I spent at least 2 hours modifying their raw HTML hoping that they will implement it the way I want. I'd hate to have a flawless user experience marred by an imperfect payment process.

Also, I developed a custom copy protection scheme. I wasn't originally going to do this, but I keep hearing from other developers that report a measurable increase in sales once they switch to DRM. I made user experience a top priority, though... in fact, I think my unlocking scheme will be more pleasant than most actual games.

Beyond that, I also came up with a revolutionary way to solve the "sharing" problem among users, but that will have to wait until after the launch. It will literally cause a revolution, and if you're a part of the problem -- then you'll soon be part of the solution!

Update: Over 200 scores in the scoreboard list... and check out that cutthroat competition in the Top 5!

Show the internet what your initials are made of! Throw down the gauntlet and challenge the world to a Joystick Johnny duel by putting a custom scoreboard badger on your blog, myspace page, or forum sig!



How can I get one?
Thank you for asking.

From the Scoreboard screen within the game, select "STATS WEB PAGE" and you'll be able to claim your badger at the bottom of the scoreboard page.

It's sooooo simple.

The demo has been updated. And this time it has anchovies!

Joystick Johnny Website

(Note: you will probably need to delete previous versions)