A good chum of mine is working on an absolutely beautiful arcade game right now. I adored the first My Nuclear Octopus but Jeff’s got the follow up on another level, it’s the full Minter. Have a look at this work in progress video! It’s glorious!
But wait, there’s more. I did a tiny bit.
I’m not kidding when I say I love the original and well, you know what I’m like when it comes to cosmic aquatic beasties with lasers anyway. So yeah, I can only apologise as yes, that ridiculous comic strip in the intro was written and drawn by me (narrated, thankfully, by Jeff).
This is the original version, which I had to tweak a little bit so Jeff could use it in game. It was drawn, originally, as fan art but I’m happy to say that it’s made its way into the game. I adore so many forties sci-fi comics and I freely admit, I spend way too much time drawing my own versions for fun (I’ve got a handful of Death Ray Manta and SYNSO ones I’ve doodled for my own amusement as well) so I’m made up that one has finally managed to unexpectedly sneak its way into an actual videogame.
I did offer up another version to Jeff, which rather than have it never see the light of day, is featured here too. Again, this was doodled primarily for my own amusement only instead of a forties pastiche, I was aiming more for a late seventies/early eighties comic strip advert thing. Both were cracking fun to do.
The Key Art (or cover art, if you’re old fashioned like me)
I’ve been contributing a few bits of cover art here and there recently for games and whilst I’m nowhere near on the same level as … well, most people whose cover art I admire … I am at least enjoying myself in the process regardless.
Unlike with the comic strip which has only just really found its way into the game, Jeff asked me pretty early on in development to contribute the box art. At this point, Jeff hadn’t worked in many of the cast of characters you’ll see in the game now so I did my best at bringing the couple he had done into the piece. I was largely thinking of 16 bit software box art for this one, pushing myself out of my usual “dodgy cassette art” comfort zone.
A couple of things didn’t make the cut into the final key art as Jeff didn’t fancy his octopus having a big clownlike red nose and felt the eyeball didn’t look eyeball-ish enough so I tweaked those to fit. As is pretty common with key art now, it was fired over to Jeff so they could easily move parts around to fit the multitude of different image sizes stores require these days, along with an octopus with no nose (how does he smell? – Ed) and the required tweaks to the eyeball.
The final arrangements on the store pages and logo are Jeffs work as I try and avoid having to do logos myself as I’m pretty garbage at the things. I really like how it all turned out under Jeff’s steady hand too!
Now I just have to wait for Jeff to wrap the game up, As ever, these things take time but I’m grateful to have been able to contribute a few small things along the way to help it all along.