By the time of this post, we have completed our second game jam! We created games and submitted to two game jams hosted on itch.io this year, the Brackeys Game Jam 2024 and the Scream Jam 2024. No we didn't win, but I was stunned to see how fast we were able to put together solid games! Additionally, not to brag, but it seems that our audio is consistently highly-rated, with our game JJ'S WAY being in the top 2.5% in sound design in a jam of 1,500 entires.

Cutting Corners is our newest title and was a take on a more straight-horror paranoia game and boasts entirely randomly generated levels and unique graphics. Additionally, this was our first try at a web-based game for increased ease-of-access, so go ahead and try it out right now. I'm waiting.

Okay anyway, given that JJ'S WAY was pretty well recieved and the team and all of our cool friends all seem to want more of it, we will be making a major update to polish up the game and make it really solid, so be on the lookout for that! Cutting Corners may get similar treatment afterwards, but here's the thing; Cutting Corners was a sort of prototype of a similar game--not like we are making another game secretly right now, just that the idea of a damaged laboratory with randomly generated levels, paranoid audio design, and first-person playing was borrowed from a different (much larger) game idea we had. Thus, even if Cutting Corners doesn't specifically get updates, the good essence of the game will likely be used in a much better project later.

As for now, I have a completely new (non-game) idea brewing about helping our fellow indie game devs...

Hey remember what I said last time where TGTICX was going to get overhauled? Probably not, well, whatever... The time has come to test it, as feedback is invaluable. At this time I already got extensive feedback from somebody that is what made the a1.1.0 update. So please, lend be some of your time and I will try my best to make it worthwhile.

The plan for TGTICX is as follows: this play-test will be open until roughly the start of July. The final result of the playtest will be made into version d1.0.0, which is a Demo release. The Demo will be posted on itch.io publicly. We are working on the trailer for the demo that will be released along side it. Any feedback you give now before the demo is out has a very high chance of altering the game. The exclusive alpha soundtrack disc will be finalized and sent out shortly after the play-test concludes.

Now I have to be honest with you, this whole game update from the old pre-alpha versions of TGTICX has taken longer than expected. We still want to have Crisis Commander done in a reasonable time, but we will allocate resources to TGTICX if it seems worthwhile. In the time immediately after the Demo release, we will be closely monitoring interest and will decide whether or not to keep pursuing the title after some time. I understand that this is essentially our first public game and so I am not expecting any crazy amount of attention, but if we get any considerable amount, the game will be made into a full title (~15 playable floors). Otherwise we will work more intensively on Crisis Commander, as we can't afford to work on a title that isn't going to go anywhere.

Sorry if that sounds a little negative. You reading this is already a great thing, so thanks for reading!

Not quite a year has passed since the Westwood Plan and it seems that we have an unexpected project that found completion.

I have created an album. I have sorta done this before, but this is the first time I made one that I have confidence in and got produced professionally. Exploding Donkey is named after the company in the hopes that it will bring people here. Plus, the songs are varied because they are supposed to represent different parts of the Exploding Donkey Co, so the name isn't entirely just shilling.

I wrote all of the songs, with the usual musical help from Mike Campbell, and somehow was lucky enough to get my brother to play the clarinet part for The Brother Song! He doesn't even play anymore (even though he should...)! The art was also done by somebody in the company. If you haven't already, you should try getting it on CD to see more of it. My favorite track is The Director--I think it is a cool jazzy song. Also, it is true that eventually you will be able to figure out who all twelve characters in the art are, they aren't random!

But anyway, listen to the album, because this is a big project, and it is pretty cool. I am also doing the soundtrack of Crisis Commander, so beware of that. As this is the last post this year, pay attention to 2024 because Crisis Commander will begin gaining a lot of content and The Game that is Called X is getting a MASSIVE update--it is going to become a cohesive game instead of a test project!!!

Oh, I said too much. Merry Christmas.

It finally happened, we have launch! The Exploding Donkey Company is public, such as this website and the launch of our favorite silly game, The Game that is Called X.

The purpose of the website was mentioned in earlier posts and remains more or less the same. If you aren't an employee, don't bother with the account system, as it doesn't do anything. If you want to contact us about anything except bug reports on games, you can contact the company email put at the bottom of every page. Otherwise, today is yet another step forward for the company, and I am very excited to start development on the next project, Crisis Commander, which will start now.

If you read this, I behoove you to play The Game that is Called X. It's very ridiculous but fun, and if you want to help us out and make me happy, tell people you know about it. We will be releasing updates and information on Crisis Commander as we make it, available in updates here and on the home page. TGTICX updates will be viewable mostly on the Itch.io page and the changelogs also get posted on the download page.

Have a nice day.

The year of 2023 opens with the first of the new mandatory quarterly ED Co. meetings. Previously, ED Co. meetings were held at most once a year, an absurdly low frequency. The meeting frequency isn't the only thing to change; this first meeting discussed something that I call the Westwood Plan.

So basically, the Westwood Plan is a plan named after the company that used to exist called Westwood (studios). Their early existence and later success was inspirational material and looking at the order of projects created by a studio like that, we realized that, combined with massive roadblocks in development, Defend the Fief, the bullet-hell RPG with 15 campaigns and 7 characters, was a terrible project to start with. The main point of the Westwood Plan was to modernize and reorganize the Expoding Donkey Company to be a functional company that will work on smaller projects that are more feasible within the confines of our limited manpower. In other words, the plan was a big reality check.

Things are a lot different now, and you can expect a lot more. The time for grand and implausible ideas is gone and it is now time to get stuff done. That means that ED Co. is going to be hard at work to entertain, more than it ever used to. The future of this company is not the graveyard, the future will be a real, profitable studio who's cynical humor is unmatched. With that, of course, expect to see The Game that is Called X become a lot more prevalent and polished. TGTICX has been chosen to pave the way for the real target project, something newer, smaller, and (hopefully) just as fun as Defend the Fief, which it is going to replace as main project.

Stay tuned for more, especially a little project we call Crisis Commander...

As you may know, ED Co. had an old website once, made in Weebly. It had everything that was relevant at the time, but eventually it seems to be lost to time. And it was only now that I finally decided to heckin' remake the website using knowledge from web programming languages. So this new website was made from nothing! It started as a text file!

The idea here is that we now have total control over every aspect of the website, no paywalls. I have the intention that this site should serve as the definitive hub for ED Co. and EDGU stuff. Basically, I mean that every major online-accessible thing should be included in or referenced by the site. That's your wikis, store pages, articles, and everything. The idea is that this page can be bookmarked and used to locate any ED Co. file with ease. And of course this custom-built website gives us access to the possibility of custom accounts that can be used for anything. My current idea is that EDCO accounts are only for employees and contractors, since there currently wouldn't be any use in anyone else having one. The accounts will be usable to access online internal files in the company, allowing for incredible file sharing. Permissions could be set for different account types, so a contractor can't go snooping around any part of town.

Oh yeah, and this Blog (I hate the word Blog!) News feed is for any updates about literally anything of relevance. So project update news, spotlights and such. Also any general company news, stuff that matters to customers. And of course, some generically important posts like this one! The first post! Please enjoy the site, and stay safe...