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Kousou Games, another year on.
After our first birthday went without a hitch, despite not having as much content released as we wanted to (Only an article, some sprite sheets and some backgrounds), things quieted down at Kousou Games for a while, and the staff went about with their own little projects. At the start of November the staff decided that we should do something for Christmas: I made a couple of winter-y sprite rips, and some images edited to fit in with the Christmas theme; Mit made Christmas banner or two, and started making a Christmas themed game with Atrius. We also planned a Christmas news report, where the staff would record lines, then Atrius would make animations in flash to fit with the script. However, the game and news report never materialised.
After a fairly disappointing Christmas release-wise we at Kousou Games started looking to the future, and increasing our popularity - and, on January 6th what seemed like a perfect opportunity came up: The Nintendo Zone awards. We decided to sponsor the awards, and offered a cameo in one of our games to a winner of a certain event. DragonMaster6693 won the cameo, although he still has not featured in any of our games. Kousou Games also won the forums award, however, due to slight disorganisation on our behalf, we never did get our advertising spot.
On January 14th we started work on our new project- a Zelda fan game made for Just Zelda (One of our new affiliates), later dubbed ‘Legend of Zelda: Just Beginning’. We were having several cameos in the game, including all the Kousou staff at the start of production, and those who applied at Just Zelda. The game was to be made in GBC Zelda style.
Over the next few months we did release several games; Hyrule Wars, Catch the Cucco, Mario Pacman, and Metroid Pinball. We also released a Smilie maker. And then there were the on-site activities, the Word Finder, the text confuzzilator, the image generator, an ASCII generation script, and, one of our most popular releases to date, online minesweeper, Mit would later release a high score table for this. Along with new resources, finally, Kousou Games began to grow once more.
On June 15th discussions started with a potential new staff member: Sol, and around a day later he became our head of Advertising, and a writer. We also fired Reshter (who had rejoined the team earlier in the year) and Iceman due to inactivity.
Then, on 18th June Atrius released the computer game version of everyone’s favourite: SuDoku. By now, KG was regularly getting 80 unique hits per day, and rapidly rising, something out of sight last year. Had we finally flourished?
On the 26th of June, our hosting plan changed for the worse. Many of the scripts malfunctioned, and no longer worked. The site essentially crashed, a lot had to be permanently removed. And worst, after our hit-log peak, suddenly our activity fell.
Had KG lost its way? Was this going to be our unremembered death?
Staff- past and present (In order of joining time and their jobs/achievements, if they still work for us)
1. master K- Co-founder, lead designer, programmer Still a member
2. ZeldaGaiden- Co-founder, website designer, having several name changes (currently Reshter), the account that was hacked Has left
3. Alan the pigeon- Was supposed to be a mod, but didn’t do anything Has left
4. Trinest- Was supposed to be a mod, but didn’t do anything Has left
5. Necco20- Was supposed to be an admin, but didn’t do anything Has left
6. Djcube- First mod to actually do something, made one game, tester, had a name change (cube) Has left
7. Iceman- Mod, was making some games but the files got erased. Has left
8. Sniper- Admin, posted quite a lot, after the hacking he became a mod, then went inactive. Has left
9. Mit- Admin, Website designer, image designer, lead programmer and lead designer. Did not become active until just before the hackings. Still a member
10. Smithie- Designer, Smithie left soon after Valay5, he had a name change (Darklight) Has left
11. Valay5- Programmer, he left soon before the big hacking. Has left
12. Maken- Was supposed to get resources but never did anything. Has left.
13. Saviour of Hyrule- Tester, went inactive before he could test anything Has left
14. Atrius- Lead programmer, mod, game designer. Still a member
15. SolemnGamerForever- Programmer, mod, graphics designer. Still a member
16. Trank- Music designer. Has left
17. Sol- Head of advertising, writer. Still a member
On the 25th of July, mit released Fizzy the Dragonfly. Despite it being a simple game, and having purposefully bad graphics, Fizzy became an instant hit with users from all around the ‘net (well, ZFGC) competing to get the top score- some were even prepared to cheat to get on the top spot. Suddenly people were coming here faster and faster - if we'd released another couple of games since then, maybe we'd have become even better than before. Except shortly after Fizzy, all of the staff seemed to disappear.
Where did we go?
Project Q. Project Q was mit's idea for the future. To turn Kousou Games into a professionally designed site with great quality games, and a place to share resources, ideas, and a place for Fan Game programmers - and Fan Game players - to hang out. After the first layout was finished (click here) everyone thought it was going to be brilliant - but after school restarted, it all stopped.
After a month, it was clear that Project Q would never complete. Just like with LoZ: The Final Challenge's Dark World, just like with the Christmas Projects, just like with nearly all fan games, we'd aimed too high. The dream had flown away, right?
This time we're better. This time, we know what we can and can't do. We know what time we have, and how hard to work. We know where to aim, and, this time, we'll make it. Kousou Games will get the best present ever.
List of Failed / Suspended Projects
Loz: A link to the worlds - After hours and hours of level designing, there's still another six worlds to design, plus the dungeons. Way, way, too ambitious.
Loz: Clans of Derulia - The opposite: after hours of engine-coding, Atrius had an amazing game, with virtually no level design.
Catch the Cucco 2 - Simply not enough motivation
BOA - Again, a half finished engine with little or no levels.
Red Triangle - the gameplay was terrible, and the whole thing would need to be redone if anyone was going to enjoy it.
The Legend of Cheese - was basically forgotten about.
Rise of the Nation - possibly an excellent idea, but only a small amount of resources were made, and no level design.
Loz: The Twin Swords - an engine with no level design or story.
Angry Bob - An excellent engine, but the AI was too difficult to make realistic, and the project basically fell apart.
Sissy Fighters 2 - The engine was alright, but turning the arcade game into an adventure just was too time consuming, and it never took off, really.
The Christmas game - Many resources made, a simple engine, and a story, but there was no point working on it after the deadline.
The VG Quiz - Complete, working engine for this web-based game, but not nearly enough questions to it, and it was never launched.
The Kousou MMO RPG - An excellent idea and engine, but there was so much planned - at the current rate or progress, we wouldn't finish for at least five years.
Project Q - The old write-your-own-forum-ontop-of-a-new-layout-plus-create-an-integrated-site idea. PHAILURE.
Depressing? Quite. What are we doing, then?
...
A focused, better effort at Project Q, Loz: Just Beginning, and an unheard of new game called Jam.
The Legendary Kousou will return.
This article was brought to you by master K and mitxela. Click here to make a comment on this article.
Author: emkay
| This page was uploaded on 23/10/06
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