You may ask yourself, "Self, why does The Ludicrous Ones do all this streaming and whatnot, when they're a development studio?" Well, I felt like I should address that.

Countless times, we've all heard "by gamers for gamers" and other similar PR speak. Yet, oddly enough, you never see these folks really play much of anything. 
Example: John Romero is a personal hero of mine. One of the coolest things I've ever seen him do is play Aladdin on Sega Genesis. Not selling anything, not talking tech or design or theory, but being a guy who makes games, playing a game, just cause that shit is fun. 

It is our prerogative to highlight our own work- and we will certainly do so a lot more, as games get closer to a form showable to the public. Still, there'll always be room for everything else, from the obscure retro title to the biggest current games.

So, can you call The Ludicrous Ones "by gamers, for gamers"? You're damned right you can. Now if you'll excuse me, it's been a long day of bump-mapping sprites and stuff, so it's time for a little Blaster Master.

What's up friends! It's a nice rainy morning here in STL, so I thought I might give y'all a little (read:huge) update!

First of all, we've announced that we're officially supporting Operation Supply Drop with Team Mayh3m Militia and later in the year, Extra-Life. Having worked with charities in the past, I can say that these two are fantastic. Keep an eye out for initiatives and incentives based on those in the near future. 

Connected to this and also just for fun, live streaming performances of games that aren't necessarily ours continue to happen. Look for updates on what and when on Facebook, and be sure to follow me on Twitch at www.twitch.tv/ludicrousda3ve.

The development side of things is running at a pretty crazy pace. Firstly, our Wii U development hardware has arrived!! NDA prevents me from saying really anything or showing any images of course, but trust me that it's really exciting!

Prep work continues on The Bounty:Uber Edition. The last of the maps was printed yesterday, and there are SO MANY levels. Data entry starts with Unity 5 this week, so the march continues. Remember, if you want to play the original, you can find it on our Games page, including the free shareware edition, which is meaty by itself.

The shmup. This one, as said before, is looking like a really fast cycle. Art and enemy design continues, and we may have an absolutely incredible band lined up for the soundtrack. News coming really soon. Like really exciting news. 

Near-Lucid. Design continues to be refined, and the first pieces of art have been put together. This is what you'd call a top secret project, but it's something truly special. In addition, I've written a large selection of music for it... one of which I'll share with you today. This is called Determined, and this recording is the main melody of the song, just an acoustic demo, but it's a taste. You can listen to it here.

That'll do it for today, and these posts should get more concise as games' cycles get to their primary focus stage. 
Till next time, brothers and sisters.

Let's start off with a quick update of the boring stuff! Preparations for The Bounty: Uber Edition continue. The quest to continue to figure out what Unity 5 is all about is, well, continuing. The prototyping of the action games in Construct 2 has also gone really well. In fact, I'd like to take a moment to seriously applaud Scirra on just how incredible C2 is. It's a visually oriented game creation software based in HTML 5- for regular people, this means you don't have to do any traditional programming, and it's pretty straightforward. It's actually so neat, I may release something smaller on it. It can also export to Wii U, plus I'm really excited to possibly just put some minigames up within this very site- little arcade-like experiences to accompany their PC/Console siblings.

The more fun stuff! So, I've always enjoyed shmups (shoot em ups). From Defender and River Raid to 1943 and Life Force to UN Squadron- I just dug them. The biggest moment though, was picking up The Raiden Project for PSX. This was a sort of combo pack/remix of Raiden 1&2. Anyway, the beauty of it didn't surface until my brother Teddy got ahold of it. His enthusiasm, love of anything that explodes, and possibly some intoxicating substances showed me the way. It was what the arcade was supposed to be... and in a way so goddamned violent. I want to capture that and share it with the world.

Problem is, that shooters don't really support that kind of impact anymore. They look great and feature plenty of gigantic explosions and crazy bullet sprays... but the action is hardly visceral. More dodge and weave than punch, y'know? I've got some ideas to change that.  

This is a case of "you've got to wait and see", but I'll leave you with an early work-in-progress image of the Player 1 side ship (player 2 is red). It's design and mobility is inspired by flying saucers and their theoretical anti-gravity liquid metal propulsion systems. It's pointed outward a bit to keep the player knowing which way is forward, so it has the nickname is The Amazing Intergalactic Guitar Pick™. I hope you dig it. 

Be well, game on, and I hope to catch up really soon with new updates. Also, Hyrule Warriors rules, and the stomach flu does not.