In the run-up to the March 3rd release of Clover: A Curious Tale, we're giving away the rather spiffy soundtrack to the original Clover for free. Do note though that this is not the even spiffier new version for A Curious Tale.
Composed and recorded by Chris Chillingworth, the soundtrack is about half an hour of original piano pieces. We deliberately kept the instrumentation simple in order to focus on the melodies. Also featured is a rock demo of one of the tracks, so you can see the origins of where the music came from.
Feel free to download this and re-host it elsewhere if you're one of those journalist/blogger types.
New games that're a bit like old games, but better.
26 Feb 2010
Download the original 
23 Feb 2010
Gary Cutlack: Guest Actor
Some of the more observant amongst you will undoubtedly have spotted the cameo appearance of a certain award-winning game industry cynic in the original XBLIG version of Clover.
I'm pleased to announce that despite defective microphones, awkward online stores, incompetent delivery services and snowed-in Scottish islands, UK:Resistance's very own Gary Cutlack has lent his vocal talents to Clover: A Curious Tale. He plays a bitter, twisted loner who has apparently escaped to a remote rural village, and is fed up with ultra-violent books. Sound familiar?
"Looks like there's a lot of pressing right. 8/10." - G. Cutlack
Being slightly more concerned about legal action, I've had to remove the Dreamcasts and Saturns from the background, and also the UK:R logo from his shirt. Besides, the git changed the UK:R colour scheme just after we drew the artwork.
If you're not familiar with the man Graham Linehan described as "so funny", and Peter Serafinowicz listed as one of his favourite tweeters, then you should most certainly check out:
I think we should see more gaming journo's in upcoming titles. I'm personally plumping for Adam Doree in Shenmue 3.
I'm pleased to announce that despite defective microphones, awkward online stores, incompetent delivery services and snowed-in Scottish islands, UK:Resistance's very own Gary Cutlack has lent his vocal talents to Clover: A Curious Tale. He plays a bitter, twisted loner who has apparently escaped to a remote rural village, and is fed up with ultra-violent books. Sound familiar?
"Looks like there's a lot of pressing right. 8/10." - G. Cutlack
Being slightly more concerned about legal action, I've had to remove the Dreamcasts and Saturns from the background, and also the UK:R logo from his shirt. Besides, the git changed the UK:R colour scheme just after we drew the artwork.
If you're not familiar with the man Graham Linehan described as "so funny", and Peter Serafinowicz listed as one of his favourite tweeters, then you should most certainly check out:
I think we should see more gaming journo's in upcoming titles. I'm personally plumping for Adam Doree in Shenmue 3.
Clover: A Curious Tale - Available through Blitz1UP.com
Just a quick post to say that Clover: A Curious Tale will be the first game to be offered through Blitz 1UP's own portal.
Not only is this a bit of an honour to be the first game to be offered this way, it's also a treat as that means there's less middle-men between me and my tasty monies. Mmmm... Monies.
If anyone fancies buying several hundred copies, that'd be awfully splendid as I have no coats with zips that work, and Cyberdog's new jacket is the absolute nuts.
Not only is this a bit of an honour to be the first game to be offered this way, it's also a treat as that means there's less middle-men between me and my tasty monies. Mmmm... Monies.
If anyone fancies buying several hundred copies, that'd be awfully splendid as I have no coats with zips that work, and Cyberdog's new jacket is the absolute nuts.
19 Feb 2010
Clover: A Curious Tale - Releasing 3rd March
Clover: A Curious Tale. PC. Worldwide. Wednesday 3rd March. English, French & Spanish. Multiple distribution channels.
Want to know what that video's all about?
The press release for this announcement is below.
Want to know what that video's all about?
The press release for this announcement is below.
London, United Kingdom – Thursday 18th February
Clover: A Curious Tale to be released March 3rd
Binary Tweed is very pleased to announce that the new, improved PC version of Clover: A Curious Tale is to be released in conjunction with Blitz 1UP, via a range of download services on Wednesday 3rd March. Recognising the wide appeal the more streamlined and user-friendly version of the game will have, Clover: A Curious Tale will be available for download worldwide, including French and Spanish translations.
For those unaware of the original, Clover: A Curious Tale is a watercolour side-scrolling platform puzzle game with a political agenda. Featuring no lives or health bars the game is an experience to be taken at the player’s own pace, designed to challenge puzzle-solving skills as well as interpretations of world events.
“It's hard to think of an area of the game that hasn’t been massively improved upon. We’ve got secret guest actors featured in the game that I’m chuffed to bits about. It’s an indie title with an indie agenda that anybody with an interest in puzzlers, Dizzy or counter-culture should play,” commented Binary Tweed’s Deejay.
By combining feedback from players of the original with Blitz Games Studios’ knowledge and experience, every area of the game has been given an overhaul:
- New animations for every character, new graphics, user-interface and effects
- Complete voice-acted English dialogue, and French & Spanish translations of a script four times bigger than the original
- New puzzles, and sub-quest making the game over twice as long
- Four new endings dependent on the player’s actions, and playable epilogue
- Context-sensitive controls, and improved 'feel'
Commenting on what makes the new version special, Blitz 1UP Producer Neil Holmes said “We’ve stripped away some of the baggage that came with revisiting a classic genre, making the game feel more modern and welcoming to new players. For those that think they know Clover, they’re going to want to pay very close attention to each of the four endings. There’s more to the story than it might first appear.”
About Binary Tweed - binarytweed.com
Binary Tweed is an independent games studio created in September 2008, focusing on the reinvention of classic genres to make "new games that are bit like old games, but better." After leaving the financial sector, founder Daniel 'Deejay' Jones set up shop using the services of a network of friends and ex-colleagues of a variety of creative disciplines. He aims to bring original takes on vintage games to new and experienced gamers alike, using the power of his 10” moustache.
18 Feb 2010
Leake Street and Clover (or TL;DR)
Hopefully by now you should have seen the below video. If you haven't, stick on your headphones, get ready to pay attention, and click play.
I used to live in Elephant & Castle, near Waterloo station in London. I lived there for at least five years, and got to know the area pretty well.
As some of you may know, I used to work in an IT/finance company until September 2008. As was the case for a lot of people I got made redundant, except I had the good fortune to find out about this just as it was announced that Xbox Live Community Games (as it was then called) would enable people to sell their games over Xbox Live. As an aspiring games developer who got sidetracked by the inforwebs, this seemed like a pretty good way to use my redundancy cash.
I already knew that I wanted to make a Dizzy-style game. It was something no-one else was doing at the time, a genre I knew inside-and-out, and something I thought I could do with the meagre resources available to me; that is to say, muggins here and favours from a few mates.
I've always been a bit of an angry leftie, and it's something I never really got to express when I was in a band - I can't sing for toffee, and I was the bassist anyway. That summer I'd finally achieved a long-time ambition of seeing Rage Against The Machine play live at the Reading Festival. I'd also been listening to a lot of Pink Punk's first album, as well as a good helping of One Minute Silence.
Rewind to 2002. I'm living in student halls, with great mix of people of all nationalities and ages. The war in Iraq is looming, and a year previously I'd been told by someone who really shouldn't have said anything that the war was inevitable, it had been decided upon by the military planners behind the scenes, and that they were just waiting for the "political pretext" before they could move in. This was the sort of person that had an armed guard when he went to work - not for their protection, but to make sure they didn't take any wrong turns.
My mate Carlos and I had many a long, rambling philosophical discussion in the shared kitchen of our flat. As the Iraq issue progressed, naturally we spent a lot of time debating the possibility of war, and if it was at all grounded in fact.
I had a lot of doubts. Carlos was flat-out in opposition of military action, and in principal I was. I'd always looked at history like the Vietnam War, and was bewildered how anyone could support it, let alone think it was a good idea. I'd always thought if I was living in that era, I'd've fought to have my dissent heard.
The problem came down to the fact that neither Carlos nor I really knew what was going on in Iraq. You can't believe tabloid papers, because it's all spin. You can't believe broadsheets, because they're stealth-spin for people that think they're somehow enlightened by reading bigger bits of paper. Whatever decision we came to, it was a matter of taking someone's word as truth, because we could never be in a position to find out the truth first-hand.
Ultimately my stance was that I felt I had to place my trust in the country and system that had enabled the life I was leading. There was no way of telling what the truth was, so I had fearfully hope that the society I was a part of was trustworthy and honest.
I didn't oppose the war. I wasn't one of the million who turned out to protest against it.
I was lied to.
Over the years, I'd teach Iraqi asylum seekers, get in near-scraps with discharged Royal Marines (bad idea, let me assure you), train with paratroopers, have drunken conversations with troopers from 2 Para nearly in tears, and be taught by 'offshore security experts'. I heard a lot of points of view.
Skip forward to September 2008. Along with nagging and pervading regrets about the war in Iraq, it had always bugged me that despite knowing my taxes had gone towards things I didn't agree with, and despite opening my mind to truths about the world, I'd never really done anything about it.
Something I'd been toying with was the idea that we don't all need to be revolutionaries, and that just perpetuating a tradition of socially-acceptable counter-culture in popular media would be enough to instil an intolerance of injustice in future generations. This is a theme that is more heavily played upon in A Curious Tale.
I find my newly-unemployed-self wandering around Waterloo. I can't really remember why I took this route, but I found myself walking into Leake Street, presented by this:
I quite like graffiti, as long as it's not just shitty tags that have no artistic merit. Tempted to go off on a tangent here about my favourite ever bit of street-art, but this post is long enough already :P
So on I strolled, looking at some of the more thoughtful daubings, and pondering about the theme for my first game. That's when I came across this:
It was the first time I'd ever read this quote, and it summed up pretty much exactly how I thought about what was going in the world. The fact it was first said some 60 years previously by a Nazi gave it quite some gravitas.
This is what Clover is about. If I presented to you a cartoony, childish-looking fantasy world where similar events took place, you'd have no hesitation in condemning those same things that have happened in the West. The plot of Clover is for the most part presented as pretty clear-cut, but people that think that way tend not to be reading between the lines. So... Why have we done nothing in the real world?
There's been some discussions going on here about whether this little video is too pretentious. I think it is. But that's exactly the point. The game does have an agenda, perhaps not presented in a terribly subtle way, but that's part of its purpose.
I should absolutely point out that the photo of the Goering quote came from Paul In London, and he's been a very helpful chap in letting me use it. The graffiti has since been covered with crappy tags, so unfortunately it's no longer there for other people to enjoy.
I used to live in Elephant & Castle, near Waterloo station in London. I lived there for at least five years, and got to know the area pretty well.
As some of you may know, I used to work in an IT/finance company until September 2008. As was the case for a lot of people I got made redundant, except I had the good fortune to find out about this just as it was announced that Xbox Live Community Games (as it was then called) would enable people to sell their games over Xbox Live. As an aspiring games developer who got sidetracked by the inforwebs, this seemed like a pretty good way to use my redundancy cash.
I already knew that I wanted to make a Dizzy-style game. It was something no-one else was doing at the time, a genre I knew inside-and-out, and something I thought I could do with the meagre resources available to me; that is to say, muggins here and favours from a few mates.
I've always been a bit of an angry leftie, and it's something I never really got to express when I was in a band - I can't sing for toffee, and I was the bassist anyway. That summer I'd finally achieved a long-time ambition of seeing Rage Against The Machine play live at the Reading Festival. I'd also been listening to a lot of Pink Punk's first album, as well as a good helping of One Minute Silence.
Rewind to 2002. I'm living in student halls, with great mix of people of all nationalities and ages. The war in Iraq is looming, and a year previously I'd been told by someone who really shouldn't have said anything that the war was inevitable, it had been decided upon by the military planners behind the scenes, and that they were just waiting for the "political pretext" before they could move in. This was the sort of person that had an armed guard when he went to work - not for their protection, but to make sure they didn't take any wrong turns.
My mate Carlos and I had many a long, rambling philosophical discussion in the shared kitchen of our flat. As the Iraq issue progressed, naturally we spent a lot of time debating the possibility of war, and if it was at all grounded in fact.
I had a lot of doubts. Carlos was flat-out in opposition of military action, and in principal I was. I'd always looked at history like the Vietnam War, and was bewildered how anyone could support it, let alone think it was a good idea. I'd always thought if I was living in that era, I'd've fought to have my dissent heard.
The problem came down to the fact that neither Carlos nor I really knew what was going on in Iraq. You can't believe tabloid papers, because it's all spin. You can't believe broadsheets, because they're stealth-spin for people that think they're somehow enlightened by reading bigger bits of paper. Whatever decision we came to, it was a matter of taking someone's word as truth, because we could never be in a position to find out the truth first-hand.
Ultimately my stance was that I felt I had to place my trust in the country and system that had enabled the life I was leading. There was no way of telling what the truth was, so I had fearfully hope that the society I was a part of was trustworthy and honest.
I didn't oppose the war. I wasn't one of the million who turned out to protest against it.
I was lied to.
Over the years, I'd teach Iraqi asylum seekers, get in near-scraps with discharged Royal Marines (bad idea, let me assure you), train with paratroopers, have drunken conversations with troopers from 2 Para nearly in tears, and be taught by 'offshore security experts'. I heard a lot of points of view.
Skip forward to September 2008. Along with nagging and pervading regrets about the war in Iraq, it had always bugged me that despite knowing my taxes had gone towards things I didn't agree with, and despite opening my mind to truths about the world, I'd never really done anything about it.
Something I'd been toying with was the idea that we don't all need to be revolutionaries, and that just perpetuating a tradition of socially-acceptable counter-culture in popular media would be enough to instil an intolerance of injustice in future generations. This is a theme that is more heavily played upon in A Curious Tale.
I find my newly-unemployed-self wandering around Waterloo. I can't really remember why I took this route, but I found myself walking into Leake Street, presented by this:
I quite like graffiti, as long as it's not just shitty tags that have no artistic merit. Tempted to go off on a tangent here about my favourite ever bit of street-art, but this post is long enough already :P
So on I strolled, looking at some of the more thoughtful daubings, and pondering about the theme for my first game. That's when I came across this:
It was the first time I'd ever read this quote, and it summed up pretty much exactly how I thought about what was going in the world. The fact it was first said some 60 years previously by a Nazi gave it quite some gravitas.
This is what Clover is about. If I presented to you a cartoony, childish-looking fantasy world where similar events took place, you'd have no hesitation in condemning those same things that have happened in the West. The plot of Clover is for the most part presented as pretty clear-cut, but people that think that way tend not to be reading between the lines. So... Why have we done nothing in the real world?
There's been some discussions going on here about whether this little video is too pretentious. I think it is. But that's exactly the point. The game does have an agenda, perhaps not presented in a terribly subtle way, but that's part of its purpose.
I should absolutely point out that the photo of the Goering quote came from Paul In London, and he's been a very helpful chap in letting me use it. The graffiti has since been covered with crappy tags, so unfortunately it's no longer there for other people to enjoy.
CloverACT.com
In anticipation of upcoming Clover: A Curious Tale goodness, you can now visit CloverACT.com to hit the Blitz 1UP landing page for the game.
It'll be from here that you'll be able to buy the game, so make sure you've got it bookmarked! Whilst you're there, check out some my rather ace label buddies. If you've not tried KrissX yet, you're quite frankly living under a rock, an idiot, or both.
It'll be from here that you'll be able to buy the game, so make sure you've got it bookmarked! Whilst you're there, check out some my rather ace label buddies. If you've not tried KrissX yet, you're quite frankly living under a rock, an idiot, or both.
11 Feb 2010
Preparing For Release
Blitz 1UP and I are currently waiting for the conclusion to discussions with some distribution partners. Once this is done, it's going to be pretty much go, go, go!
In the meantime I'm fannying about with soundtracks both old and new, trailers, gameplay trailers, promotional images that have large amounts of wickedness, and waiting for translations.
...That reminds me, must fix that bug with the French options screen. Back to the millstone!
In the meantime I'm fannying about with soundtracks both old and new, trailers, gameplay trailers, promotional images that have large amounts of wickedness, and waiting for translations.
...That reminds me, must fix that bug with the French options screen. Back to the millstone!
8 Feb 2010
Clover OST Track Titles
I've just been tarting up the soundtrack to the original version of Clover (not the new super-sublime and profesionally-recorded one for A Curious Tale).
Just as quite a lot of thought went into the music, a fair bit of personal thinking went into the names of the tracks. Clichéd they may sound, but it all means something to me.
Sorry, but as a frustrated and failed musician, this sort of thing yanks my crank.
Just as quite a lot of thought went into the music, a fair bit of personal thinking went into the names of the tracks. Clichéd they may sound, but it all means something to me.
Sorry, but as a frustrated and failed musician, this sort of thing yanks my crank.
- There Comes A Time...
- Complicit In Tragedy
- Choice Betrayed
- Occupied With Distraction
- A Deal Postdated In The Blood Of The Loyal
- Yielding To Hurt
- Believe In Everything I Said
- SE17NN
5 Feb 2010
New Trailer
There's a new Clover: A Curious Tale trailer over on the Blitz 1UP YouTube channel.
Naturally I've posted it here, and also covered the thing with lots of annotations to highlight all the sublime wonderfulness that's gone into the new version of the game.
Shame I can't talk in the trailer about the four new endings, the side quest, the specifics of some of the tricksy new puzzles, the new characters (come on, think of the spoilers!), the French and Spanish translations, or just the mere fact that there's 8,000 words of script in the game.
Naturally I've posted it here, and also covered the thing with lots of annotations to highlight all the sublime wonderfulness that's gone into the new version of the game.
Shame I can't talk in the trailer about the four new endings, the side quest, the specifics of some of the tricksy new puzzles, the new characters (come on, think of the spoilers!), the French and Spanish translations, or just the mere fact that there's 8,000 words of script in the game.
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