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KousouGames Four years Anniversary Article
It's the 16th of October, 2008. I've got a sheet of algebra questions staring threateningly at me, there's a packet of biscuits just begging to be eaten, and the less said about my kettle the better.
Of course, I'm resisting all these wonderful temptations for one very important reason - it's Kousou Games' 4th birthday tomorrow, and it's fallen to me to write the anniversary article sometime in the next five hours. Fun.
Four years. That's a long time, in internet terms. If the web is the "universe", then we've been around for an aeon or two already. We've had our fair share of adventures in these four years, from the big hack of '05, to several games, each with varying success to branching out into other forms of content to the awesome-but-not-as-awesome-as-we'd-hoped-and-still-not-quite-finished project Q, as well as having more staff members than you could shake a stick at (trust me, I've tried).
And throughout all the drama, all the good times, all the bad times, we're still here. We've outlasted many of our rival sites, including our main inspiration Confused Games, and the overhyped Fendez Games, and we're still gaining popularity. In fact, we've currently got what I (probably mistakenly) like to call a cult following.
You can read about our previous misadventures in the other anniversary articles, but let's take a step back now, and look at our fourth season in the game.
The new Kousou year got off to a somewhat subdued start, as usual, with a handful of examples and music from mitxela. Chritmas and New Years came and went, with only an awesome drawing of a Christmas Tree to show for it. Had the wheels finally fallen off the Kousou machine? Was this project Q's mundane failure?
Simply put, no. February saw the unveiling of Kousou's latest game - thanks to the efforts of mitxela, Tetris had now joined the Kousou ranks, and sparked an upturn in activity at the site. Complete with a highcore table that saw many weeks of battling, with emkay finally being knocked off the top spot by Klope62 and Atrius.
And, the good times continued to roll, in the coming months Kousou released a handy Anagram Finder, along with Atrius' long awaited (by mit, at least) Bezier Curve example, coupled a version of Asteriods using the engine, complete with high score table, amongst a lot of other, smaller content. But it was June that the "big thing" happened - something truly special. Kousou Games has always been known to push the limits of its tools, generally Gamemaker, in things like LoZ: Just beginning and the Doritos 3D project that is currently under the carpet. But this new project announced was different. This wasn't going to just push the limits of Gamemaker, this was going to push the very limits of gaming itself. A 3D maze - a truly 3D maze in every respect.
However - a project this big takes time to do well, and we want to do it well, so in the meantime other content continued to flow from the Kousou fountain. August saw another arcade game released - this time Anaconda, a remake of the classic mini-game from Timesplitters 2, a take itself on the classic Snake game, and Atrius' funky GBA Jukebox. It was around this time that we acquired some South American friends, who promptly took over the Zelda Space Invaders high score table.
Of course, amongst all the awesome new stuff, our old projects were not forgotten - steady work continued on the two Zelda projects, Just Beginning and the Hylian themed Bomberman, and they'll definitely be released sometime. And when they are, you will understand, the wait will have been worth it. Jam, mitxela's old project from late 2006, also got revived in this period, and let me say, it is looking incredible. Once you see the game's Cable Car in action your life will be pretty much complete.
It wasn't all sunshine and lollipops for the site though, this year saw Solarrain's departure from teh team, as both he and the staff admitted it wasn't really working anymore, and Atrius almost literally dropped a bombshell when he announced he would be signing up to the army in the near future - pretty much cutting out all his time for Kousou. Oh well, he can always desert them and come back to us. (I'm joking there. I think you can get shot for that.)
So, what, you ask, of the future? Well, aside from our four key projects - Zelda: JB, Zelda Bomberman, the 3D maze and Jam - you all have phase 8 of Project Q (there's been a lot more to it than you would think) to look forward to.
Phase 8 basically entails the new forum setup that you've all been waiting for - but it's not just going to be a forum. Oh no. The basic plans for this go back to sometime in 2005, and it's going to completely change the way you look at, and use Kousou Games.
Rest assured, we're here for the long haul, and things can only go forwards from here. And next year, I promise some *real* content for the super special 5 year anniversary.
And now some crap about staff, past and present.
Current people:
1. master K/emkay: The English one. Co-founded the website. Main contribution these days boils down to moral support and crappy articles like this one. Promises he'll finish the K-Team one day.
2. mitxela: The Welsh one. Evil cousin of emkay, he does all the crap to do with the site, and makes a few games too. Is currently busy getting totally drunk every night after having turned 18.
3. Atrius: The American one. Programmer extraordinaire, turned Kousou from being "pretty sweet, dude" to being "totally tubular, man". Unfortnately, he's leaving us to join the U.S. air force, and therefore, is no longer cool.
To The Retirement Home:
ZeldaGaiden/Dark Vaati/Link 303/The Ock Yock/Reshter: The one who had TOO MANY FUCKING NAME CHANGES.
Solarrain/Solarz: The one who played guitar. Had too many commitments to keep up with Kousou, and therefore, had to go...
Zoru: fag
Sol: The one who ran Frider Waves. Good friend of the team for many years now, but didn't actually do anything when part of it.
Djcube/Cube: The other Welsh one. Wibble.
Iceman: The Irish one: Famed for liking cheese pie, but not liking Reshter.
Maken: he neva did nuffin n he dint rly make sens cos he typd lyk ttly not propr u get me?
Alan the Pigeon: Had possibly the best username ever. That is all.
Saviour of Hyrule, Valay5, Smithie, Necco20, Sniper, Trank, Trinest: I have nothing interesting, witty or offensive to say about these people.
This is emkay signing off, I love you all.
Author: emkay
| This page was uploaded on 17/10/08
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