My game Rebuild went up on Kongregate, Newgrounds and the general public last weekend, and rocketed to the top of the charts. I expected a decent turnout since there aren’t a lot of Flash games like it, but I’m genuinely surprised at the number of people who have stayed up all night playing it, trying to get all four endings in one day. They aren’t turned off by all the reading either, which was my biggest fear. So many players are posting their suggestions for a sequel that I guess I’ll have to make one after I finish my next game. I have a suspicion Word Up Dog is going to disappoint my fans, having no zombies or visceral stories of life after the apocalypse. I suppose it could be post-apocalyptic, in some future where mutated animals find a collection of early 90’s hiphop albums and base their culture on them.
It’s going to be great.
Pochote’s been treating us very well this last week. We’ve made friends with our neighbours Larry and Angie and their three dogs. We took a trip with them to the next cove over and spent a beautiful day on the secluded little beach, swimming and exploring and getting rather too much sun as usual. Larry’s been in the area for several years and has lots of advice for other fun things to do nearby.
Our neighbour on the other side is actually a sleepy little bar/restaurant run by expat Canadians. We head over there every second night to watch the sunset and have some fabulous roasted chicken from their big clay ovens. They just opened it a few months ago and so far it has a very quiet and chill atmosphere, lots of families and some nights with nobody there but us.
On the same property the owners also run the free Harmony Music School for local kids, which they started out of their own pockets but the government has finally recognized and begun to fund. They are part of a volunteer program where people come to teach in exchange for accomodation. Pochote is a very small fishing village with few extracurricular activities for kids besides “futball”, so this school is a big deal for the area and is making a real impact. A number of their students have gone on to play for the national symphony orchestra.
A couple days ago we walked with Don (a founder of the music school) all the way down the beach, past Tambor and another fishing village out to a place called the Jesus Tree. This was a spectacular little beach with one lone tree inexplicably growing out of the rocks in the ocean where no tree should be. High tide stopped us from going farther, but Don regularly walks all the way to Montezuma along this coastal path, about a 5 hour walk. And he does it without bringing water; just shorts and flipflops and an early morning start.
I’m getting opportunities to practice my clumsy Spanish and to cook with unusual ingredients, and we are both working hard. During our daily beach walks and dips in the ocean we talk about game design. At 5:30 we take in the sunset on a beach log or at the (still nameless) bar next door. We rise and sleep with the sun here, it just seems to make sense that way.
