Category: Opinions

We Need To Talk About Alan

Alan came into my life about a week or so ago. A message to Retro Garden – my retro gaming blog – landed in my inbox.

Alan’s email came from a generic Gmail address, but seemed to show passion for retro gaming, his avatar of the Psygnosis Owl that also stood him out from other people who are primarily looking for something. Also, something about his message was different to me. He seemingly broke all ten of the “how to pitch to bloggers” tips you see circulating on SEO Marketing Blogs. So I took my chance with him, half expecting an email back with a generic post embedded with links, that wouldn’t fit into my site.

However, Alan’s posts were superb. Well written, long pieces that showed a deep understanding of the genre. They were either fantastically well researched or they were games he played. One thing was noticeably missing from the posts, a link. Alan didn’t want a single bit of accreditation for the post. A bunch of emails back and forth (mainly my guilt trip) established that he was a chiptuner – a sub genre of electronic dance music that uses the original hardware to make tunes, so I linked to some of his work. It’s only polite.

So yes, as many of you who read this post do some sort of blogger outreach, let it be known is this is what you are up against. My blog is decent, though isn’t huge, but still get a fair amount of traffic to it and is one of those sites that gets a fair amount of requests. In fact in the past week this is what I get for Retro Garden (offers that generated a response are starred):-

  • Alan’s email*
  • 3 press releases for various Computer related stuff in the UK.
  • 5 press releases for gambling.
  • 1 Pitch to Alpha Test a PC game on Kickstarter*
  • 10 press releases for gardening equipment.
  • 16 RIMjobs – RIMjobs stands for “Relevant & Informative” Marketing Jobs. Poorly worded guest post pitches that contains the words “relevant & informative”, two words that make me close your guest post pitch quicker than a door on a double glazing salesman.
  • An unsolicited guest post on “When You Should Plant Petunias In Your Garden?” (seriously)
  • A request for a paid placement on the site*

Alan’s post you may think are one offs but it’s not the case, there are plenty of writers, particularly in fun niches, who are just looking to write out there. Often these are more attractive than your pitches.

As such, if you’re pitching to me, that is what you need to stand out from, and many other bloggers are the same. Quite a lot, in all honesty. So how do you do it? Well in short it is adhering to three simple rules.

It’s About Me

The amount of people who pitch their content to me like it the literary bastard child of Harry Potter, The Art of War and The fucking Bible is unbelievable. Also they focus on themselves, or their client, like I should be grateful that I’m being even graced with an email from them.

They then usually use the RIMjob phrase of “relevant and informative” as a way to describe their latest scribbling.

Newsflash for you folks: a “informative and relevant” piece of work is all relative. What you may have slaved over for the morning I may not like. Second newsflash for you: many “informative” blog posts are in fact not going on blogs designed to inform, but rather opinion pieces. Reviews are opinion pieces. I’ve never played more than the first 2 Grand Theft Auto games because I’m not a huge fan of them. I’ve also never played Resident Evil too. That’s not saying they’re bad games, just I’m not a fan of the genre or the game play or whatever. That is just my opinion. Retro Garden is 90% reviews.

I can understand why you are shying away from “opinion pieces”. They are controversial and could land you in hot water with the client. Try and think of offering your opinion rather than just a bland piece, maybe if you can get your client involved. Then, and only then pitch an “informative” piece. Pitch to me with the knowledge Retro Garden I have had probably only one real “informative” guest post, and that was a guy who tore apart a Japanese Super Famicom for a guest post. Unless you’re willing to go to similar lengths (and expense!), then it’s probably not a good idea to pitch an “informative piece” to me.

tl;dr: Read the guidelines, before kissing my arse & telling me it tastes of ice cream. You need to prove to me why I should give you an opportunity. Selling your content like my blog is worse off without it isn’t one of those things. Pitch ideas!

But Don’t Lie or Patronise To Me

This is a big one for me.

Look, I know why you are contacting me. I know why you are after giving me content, but don’t pretend it’s “just a little link”, don’t pretend you “are after editorial exposure”, and – worst of all to me – don’t pretend you’re a woman. I grew out of speaking to pretend women on the internet when Yahoo! Chat folded.

Be honest with me. That’s all. A bare faced liar annoys me. Don’t expect me to do work for free either.

tl;dr: Tell me who you are, tell me what you are offering, tell me what you want.

Make It As Damn Easy As Possible

This is the final thing about me – I’m lazy.

Yes, shock horror! But lazy isn’t a bad thing. Lazy people as pointed out by Bill Gates are the sort of people who find an easy way to do a hard job. I’m of the opinion that I spend 2 hours finding a way to do a 4 hour job in an hour is a good use of time.

As such, when it comes to running my site, I want the maximum results for as little as effort as possible. You may write the greatest analysis of a video game ever, but if I’m chasing you for images and corrections, then I’m unlikely to post it. It’s shocking as well how many times people don’t read the guidelines as well. Often (at least with me) guidelines are laid out on the “write for us” page usually, so if you don’t follow them, then don’t expect me to be very forthcoming with a response.

Final point about this – I’ve a lot of sites, some still going, some dead. Many use the same email address. If you contact me with an email saying “I want to guest post for your site”, at lease name the site as well!

tl;dr: Don’t make me work for your guest post. Trust me, I probably won’t bother.

I may come across as a bit of a dick with this (which is something I admit), but as a site owner, I get frustrated when marketers come to me peddling the same cookie cutter emails (often they are RIMjobs) for responses.

I know this isn’t everybody, and actually I’m quite open to many pitches. Furthermore I’m not the greatest outreacher in the world (there are so many more talented people than me at this!). Please just be honest, explain what you are going to do, work hard and butter my ego. It’s not that difficult, trust me!

Top 3 Best Quiz Machine Games Ever

If you remember back to my Goals of 2013, one of my goals is to save a bit of cash. This manifested this month with my monthly challenge of giving myself a cash amount for what I will save. One way I’m doing this is by avoiding fruit machines (yeah it’s a habit I’ve kinda dabbled in since my University days), and instead, when bored, playing on quiz machines instead.

In truth, I’ve always liked a dabble on quizzers in my time, a small guilty pleasure with my pint. In fact I’ve probably played most games on quizzers during my time spent in pubs, so I’d like to think I’m pretty good at them, and know what makes a good game. As such, here’s my three favourite quiz machine games ever.

quizzer1

3. Monopoly: Streets Ahead

You’ll notice a theme with all games on this list, in that they have a fairly defined end game. Games such as Cluedo you can play for hours because the machine will eventually screw you over, rolling numbers on your dice that will miss all the good squares. Monopoly is another game, with early versions not even telling you the points you have to reach before the cash prize.

Monopoly: Streets Ahead though is one game that takes the classic Monopoly and provides you with an end game. For one, they get rid of the dice entirely. Instead you have to pick properties you would like to win. Answer all the questions on a variety of subjects in the round to bank the points. Get over the number of points and you enter the end game, which you’re nigh on guaranteed to win a prize.

You can also enter a “shop”, which gives you the chance to exchange points accumulated up to that point for properties, tokens (which give you perks) and extra passes and try agains, and there’s a couple of skill games.

In short, it’s quite a fun quiz game, and probably my favourite quiz based quiz machine game. It is fairly easy to win something, though does have a habit of throwing up “Hotel & House” repairs towards the end, which is a bit screwy, but not irrecoverable from. The fact that this screwy feature exists knocks it down from second to third.

2. Eliminator

This game is quite fast, but quite easy to win a pound or two on. The game features a 16 square grid, with 8 right answers to a question, and 8 wrong answers. You need to find all 8 correct answers. This game does have a habit of throwing up some nasty rounds early on (one in particular is “Find 8 Cigarette Brands”, as somebody who has smoked a grand total of one cigarette and one cigar in his life, it’s tough!), but overall they are pretty fair.

What’s nice about this game is that the random, but welcome, feature that after the end of rounds, your lives and assists (“Eliminator” which eliminates 2-3 wrong answers, and “Find 1” which finds one correct answer) are refilled, which is always handy when the random difficult question shows up.

The only thing that lets this game down is the speed of it. For 50p, you are probably getting a minute or two of game time. It’s frantic, particularly with the timer which speeds up at later levels, it could do with being a bit slower I think, but overall my usual #2 choice if #1 isn’t on the list.

quizzer2

1. Pints Win Prizes (ideally, the second edition, but the third is fine as well)

And lo, the best quiz machine game, in the world, ever is Pints Win Prizes. This game has a £10 jackpot, and is your basic hangman game. To win the game, each puzzle gets you a pre-determined amount of beer into a pint glass (or, if you have a “Happy Hour”, a small amount in each pint glass). Collect 10 pints to win the jackpot, but various prizes are available for complete pints (starting from 4 pints). Bonuses are the usual bonuses you get with hangman games (Pass, Extra Letters, Complete Phrase, Extra Vowels and Eliminator), and you get 6 lives. You can also “Pull The Barmaid”, which will get you 3 pints straight off.

In short, it’s fairly straightforward to get decent wins, and also really good fun. The diverse range of categories means most rounds have at least one category that you’ll like.

If you can find the second version of the game (green bar, rather than blue), then play that. It has far fewer categories than the third one, and doesn’t have as quite a difficult bonus round when it wants you off the machine.

When Theme & Plugin Developers Work Together – Everyone Wins

So a blog post that has been doing the rounds in the WordPress Community has been “Do not buy WordPress themes that bundle premium plugins” by Coen Jacobs from WooThemes. In it it is a exasperation of the arms race experienced by many plugin developers when dealing with some theme developers, who are happy to include premium plugins in their theme.

As introduced in the post, one of the issues of including plugin functionality in themes is that you increase the load time and – in the desperate attempt to be all things to all men – you actually end up bloating your site with features you cannot replicate or don’t need. For example, you may notice this blog running slightly faster over the last few days. This is largely due to removing one plugin that was a legacy from the previous design, who’s functionality is no longer needed. Imagine if that was buried deep within a theme? It would take me as an experienced coder a while to remove the code, and a less experienced individual would probably just be stuck with the functionality.

It has gotten so bad now that at 3 Door Digital we now try to avoid buying themes, as wrestling with them to get them working takes longer than say using Underscores or Peadig to design from scratch.

The Premium issue is a problem, and is something that it took me a while to figure out a solution with WP Email Capture as with WordPress, all derivative code needs to be GPL compatible (which, in my case, it is). It’s something I’ve dealt with a couple of times as theme developers bundled the premium versions of my plugins with their theme, promising extra functionality. When you buy a premium plugin, you don’t just buy the plugin code, you also usually buy access to support and updates, which people can remove should they desire (Gravity Forms – for example – is a GPL plugin but has a solid TOS. I’m speaking with somebody now to get a similar for WP Email Capture). Whilst GPL developers generally are quite a helpful bunch, if you stop them feeding their kids (or in my case, my Pie & Pringle addiction) then – if you knowingly buy a theme with premium plugins attached – you should be able to understand that they may not be so willing to help if things go wrong.

Unfortunately, customers are often caught in the middle of this, and suffer the headache when they are stuck between a plugin developer who has no record of the premium customer, and a theme developer who doesn’t have a clue what they’ve packaged with their theme. The worst case scenario has been for me when a customer used a cracked version of a premium theme (that injected footer links) that was bundled with a cracked version of my premium plugin (that emailed every signup that ever signed up to a dodgy email address). This hack broke when the plugin owner tried to remove the footer links. Of course, both the theme developer and myself were unable to support it, and in the end we gave a copy of our plugin and theme, unhacked, for free.

I should add that I do have great working relationships with some top notch theme designers. Jake Caputo of Design Crumbs has been absolutely crucial in making my plugins more friendly to designers (you should check out his themes by the way), and my top affiliate has just topped three figures in commission last month alone (on top of his theme sales), so it can be rewarding working when plugin and theme designers work together.

So please do it! It’s been a negative rant, but if it means that more theme designers and plugin developers working on ways of complementing their products, rather than stepping on each others toes, then the community and customers will all benefit.

Three Video Games I Would Like On Kickstarter

No word of a lie, Kickstarter is fucking dangerous.

If I’m browsing late at night, drunk, I find myself channelling my inner Peter Jones from Dragon’s Den and investing in projects. There doesn’t seem to be much rhyme or reason to the projects I invest in, though it usually depends if I like the concept. For example: a movie about being Ginger? Have a tenner! A film about Nigel McGuinness, one of the greatest wrestlers to ever grace these shores? Here’s 50 notes! Hell a game about random games for the Android? Here you go! Here’s a fiver, let me have a copy!

But the main target of my “investment” are retro franchises that are seeking a new lease of life. Carmageddon was probably the most famous one to get funded, but I’ve contributed to reboots of Elite and Dizzy (the latter didn’t get funded in the end, though ironically one game that remained faithful to the franchise, Spud’s Quest, did). I’ve even did a wee jump for joy when I got a preview of the coffee table book based on artwork from Sensible Software through the post a few weeks ago.

With that said, here’s my three games that – as a seasoned Kickstarter investor – if they ever opened up for funding, I would throw much hard earned cash at.

I’ve tried to keep this list at least reasonable. These three games are games that haven’t had any new games since the PS1/Saturn/N64 era. I’m also trying not to focus on too well known franchises, or games that you can easily play now (basically: Theme Hospital and the Monkey Island series).

Also I’m looking at games that seem viable for consoles, and whose licences aren’t owned by notable dickheads in the industry (so yes, that rules out Killer Instinct – but seriously Rare & Nintendo should patch up their differences to get Killer Instinct 3 out. The public demands it). Finally, I’m trying to get focus on games that would run particularly well on the Xbox Live, PSN and below. So a remake of Final Fantasy 7 with full HD graphics and be on 85 Blu-Rays are out of the question.

streetracer

Street Racer

Right, let’s get one thing straight: Street Racer was the best racing game bar none on the Super Nintendo. Yes, that includes Mario Kart.

Mario Kart is a franchise that in my opinion has improved. The Wii version was absolutely superb, and had a lot of time for the Gamecube version. When people shake their head and say “don’t you like the SNES version? It’s an all time classic!”, I answer “it is, but it is so overshadowed by Street Racer”.

Street Racer is a game similar to Mario Kart. You have a choice of eight characters, each with their own special moves. Without a franchise behind them, the characters were creative and pulled from public fiction. Frank, for example, was a Frankenstein monster, and Suzulu was an African tribal prince. Each driver had their own special moves such as Persian’s prince Hodja’s car becoming a magic carpet, and Raphael’s Ferrari’s horn startling competitors. Pickups were limited to repair kits and nitro boosts, but that aided the game as you relied on skill, rather than the luck of picking up a good item.

In short, there was also no blue shells.

The game managed to balance difficulty without being too affected by rubber banding that plagued Mario Kart. In fact, pulling away and lapping back markers scored you more points, as well as fastest laps and punching people. It may have been more beneficial to scrap it out amongst the pack, rather than race to a multi lap lead. Add on the Royal Rumble mode and a Football game, then you have the greatest racing game on the Super Nintendo.

The series saw a game come out on the Sega Saturn and Playstation, but no other game was to follow. It’s crying out for a Street Racer 2.

Xbox and Playstation struggling with carting games, as Mario Kart has it tied up on the Wii. Even Sonic All Star Racing, whilst good, didn’t quite feel the same. I feel that a Kickstarter project for a new Street Racer game, with added characters, game modes and tracks could really add to the franchise. Furthermore, it can introduce new people to probably one of the greatest racing games ever. The fact there hasn’t been a new game is obscene. Get it done!

thedetectivegame

The Detective Game

A bit of an unknown quantity game, that – if released – could kickstart a genre. The Detective Game was released midway through the Commodore 64’s lifespan, and you played a detective who has to solve a murder in a mansion. The suspects are all in the mansion, and one of them is the murderer, and you have two hours to solve the murder before you are murdered yourself. Also on the hit list are various people in the house.

The reason I love this game so much is the atmosphere. Game designer Sam Manthorpe managed to recreate the atmosphere of a murder mystery on such a limited space, it is an adventure game first and foremost, but due to the story and everything that goes on, you could argue that it is the first ever survival horror game, released a decade before Resident Evil.

The reason why it divides so many people is the difficulty level. It is a simulation of a detective game, and as such you have very few clues to work on. Evidence is marked with an “E”, however four pieces of evidence aren’t. Lateral thinking is needed throughout the game, but even that is enough – there are secret passages that need to be found in the game, and if you miss an item in a room that is later locked, then you will not be able to complete the game. You aren’t given any warning on this, except your death two hours later.

It is tough, but it is well worth playing and persevering with, as the game’s story and conclusion is superb. A kickstarter reboot with maybe an assistant to bounce ideas off (or even a two player option?), as well as DLC featuring new storylines, would be well received.

paradroid

Paradroid

Out of all the games I’ve talked about, I think this one is the most realistic, not only due to it’s original popularity, but it’s licence is fairly easy to obtain – which can help it.

Paradroid is an Andrew Braybrook classic for the C64. You are on a spaceship as a weak, 001 series droid, and you have to take back the spaceship that is crawling with robots that have run amok. To do this, it’s largely a top down shooter, however you can also obtain control of other robots to take them over. This is done in a mini game, which, if successful, you get control of the robot. If you are unsuccessful though, you end up back as your 001 series, and – if unsuccessful again – you are killed.

The stronger robots have the highest numbers, however the time you can control them are limited, with 999 series robots being few & far between. Also it’s far harder for a 001 series to capture a 999 series, than it is to capture a lower series. Strategy is needed to work your way upto the stronger robots, and use them to take out the difficult floors.

The spaceship you play on is huge (I believe there were a fair few of them in the game), and the gameplay was solid, and borderline atmospheric. The game had an almost encyclopaedic level of data on the robots.

There should be a reboot of this game. The game’s licence is fairly easy to get hold of, as Paradroid (and other Braybrook games such as Uridium and Alley Kat), have been on the Nintendo Virtual Console and are usually on those 10-in-1 joysticks you get. I’m not sure on sales figures, but it is one of the most well remembered C64 games out there. A reboot (even just a graphical reboot) would be welcomed by the community.

Anyway, these are my three picks for franchises for video games that should be rebooted, what do you want to see rebooted?

Achieving the Unachievable

Frank Sinclair said it best with these words – “We have achieved the unachievable”.

I rarely talk about Colwyn Bay FC, the claret and blue coloured love of my life, on this here blog. Usually when I show my passions with it then I rant on here (it’s a personal blog, I’m allowed). The last rant was back in January, whereby I bemoaned the “Crisis” at the club. In short, I wrongly stated a few things, which were:-

  • Nobody gave Lee Williams the chance.
  • The players weren’t taking responsibility.
  • Frank Sinclair would never become manager of Colwyn Bay Football Club.

Fast forward a week after that post and:-

  • Lee Williams was rightly sacked, he had too long in the job anyway.
  • The players were taking responsibility.
  • And Frank Sinclair was the new manager of Colwyn Bay Football Club.

At first, it was roses and petals and everything was lovely. Two great draws away at promotion chasing Guiseley and Altrincham, followed by a wins against Corby Town and Harrogate Town saw Colwyn Bay edge closer and closer to safety, but a defeat at Histon (that still annoys me to this day, hence why I struggle to write about it on You’re Supposed To Be At Home saw the season unravel. Chance after chance was spurned, and then following a defeat to already relegated Droylsden, many fans saw that as the end, as with six games to go – it looked bleak, as although we had 3 games in hand over third from bottom Corby Town, a dramatic upturn in form was needed to escape.

table10thapril

And, lo and behold, a lifeline was thrown.

Colwyn Bay scraped a win against Gainsborough Trinity. I remember following the game on the Bay forum like a ridiculously hungover stalker on the train home from BrightonSEO, shaking in a combination of nerves and acute alcohol poisoning, and it sounded like we weren’t going to win. Gainsborough were all over us, and we were defending too deep, and they were certain to score. Not so, albeit it took a 95th minute wonder save from Chris Sanna to claim all 3 points. People said our season turned on that save. I’m inclined to agree. 3 points in the bag and 6 points with three games in hand due to Corby’s loss with Workington meant that the table all of a sudden didn’t look too bad.

Fast forward to a Tuesday night, and a cobbled together night out at #Mancdigibowl. I still wasn’t convinced that we’d get out of it, so for the first time in a while I had my phone switched off as Colwyn Bay made the long away trip to Brackley Town, a promotion chasing side that if they won would guarantee a spot in the playoffs with games to spare. Take a draw and the dream is still on.

Half time, we were 3-0 up. Brackley pulled one back but all of a sudden we were now 3 points behind Corby with two games in hand. Oxford City at home was next up, two days after and this game I was locked in my room – refreshing the forum and checking Twitter like a madman, as a win would put us ahead of Corby on goal difference. After we were drawing at half time, it was looking unlikely, before two quick goals early in the second half saw us win 3-1, and a gap that 8 days before had seemed substansial was now gone:-

table18thapril

Corby taking the place in the relegation zone, and displayed a class that you don’t see higher up the league system:-
https://twitter.com/steelmendotcom/status/324986939814051841


The work, and the games didn’t stop though. Workington away on the Saturday was next up, and we were afforded the luxury of BBC Radio Cumbria who were covering the game. Another 1-1 at half time was converted into a 2-1 after 90 minutes, and could’ve been more when Workington inexplicably brought their keeper up for the final corner of the game to try and salvage a draw. Following a clearance, Shelton Payne was unlucky to score right at the death. A small niggle in a fantastic performance (especially as Shelton’s performance towards the end of the season has been phenomenal). Due to Corby’s win at Gloucester and Histon’s draw to Boston United meant a trip two days after that to Bradford Park Avenue would see a win take us nearly safe, and definitely safe should results go our way on the Tuesday. This happened:-

Another 2-1 win, the fifth win in nine days, saw us nearly safe. Histon grabbed a draw against Solihull Moors the day after, which meant that a win or a draw against Gloucester City on the final day would see us definitely safe.

By now, people were starting to take up and notice the achievements of the Bay, and the gate for the game swelled to a massive (for us) 633. The town were finally proud in their football club, and many fans (myself included) took to fancy dress to celebrate the occasion.

bayvsgloucester

But would a celebration be premature?

Gloucester City were spirited, with a team struggling for players, and the City faithful were a good laugh, but Colwyn Bay completed their amazing turnaround in form by winning 1-0, to finish 5 points clear of the drop. For once the result didn’t matter, but not that you’d notice with the pitch invasion right at the end. With all due respects to the achievements of last season, this season felt something a little more special.

I cannot describe how dejected I was with my football club in mid April, with trips to Skelmersdale United, rather than Stockport County on the cards. In short I wanted the season to end. Now, I can’t wait for the new one to start. Hopefully this has been the shot in the arm the Bay needs, and the town begin to get behind their team more.

And to all my friends, I apologise profusely, to Cass, Shane and Alex, as well as my housemates, who have seen the brunt of my “OMFGWTFHAVEWEDONE!” in the last 2 weeks. Not one of them cares a single bit about football (well, Shane did quite enjoy his trip to Vauxhall Motors on Boxing Day). Think of this blog post as my final say on the matter, as now I’ll bloody shut up about it.

In short, we achieved something as a football club incredible.

You see, very few teams in a season go on a six-game winning streak. Very few teams begin that winning streak from 20th in the table. To win six games from 20th in the league in 15 days is unheard of*. Players showed a monumental effort to play these games, with cases of players having to stop on the drive home to vomit out of the window as they were so banged up, it is unheard of. This isn’t the Premier League, where players can be rested, it was largely the same 11 players throughout the run (with possibly one or two changes, due to suspensions). Furthermore, the players are all part time, meaning that many after arriving home at 2am, would be up the next day to earn a living.

Just incredible really. I’m so proud of what they have achieved, and am proud to say that my post in January was wrong, dead wrong. Bring on next season, as I would say we completed The Great Escape, but even then, Steve McQueen didn’t quite jump over the fence.

We did.

Header Image Credit: @Wayheyland

* Through reddit I did a bit of research, and managed to find that towards the end of the 2000/01 season Canvey Island played 7 games in 14 days, winning 4.