I watched a video the other day by this girl who drew all 151 original pokemon from memory and she said whenever she ran into a creative block, she just drew pokemon for fun.

No pressure, no expectations, she just drew pokemon because she liked drawing pokemon.

So I started drawing for fun again!

I posted some random comic pages the other day but here's the start of a new story. This comic is based on a movie I made in 2012 called Sins of the Dragon. It was one of my favorite movies I made with my friends, and I really liked the universe we started to build in this story.

Anyway, the script is by my good buddy Kale and the art is by me. It's nothing special, but like that chick in the youtube video, I'm just drawing this because I like the characters and the world and I want to "re-imagine" the script in a new fun way. No pressure, no expectations, just drawing for fun.

I'm not sure if I'll do the full 32-page script, but maybe. I doubt if Kale ever checks this site but this is the only place I'll be posting pages. Maybe he'll get a surprise birthday present of a full length cartoon of his script that we can laugh at this year.

Here's the first two pages (comic pages, not script pages):

I'm still trying to dig my way out of this seemingly endless creative rut I'm stuck in. I think that "winter blues" thing I get stuck in has been waaay worse this year. I'm kinda stuck in that spiral right now.

So yeah.... Nothing to see here. No updates. No new game yet. Just a guy trying to figure his shit out.

I have been trying to get out of this rut though. I started doodling and drawing again, and making inane comics that I'll never finish. Here are some pages I drew last week.

I just made them for myself to get myself into the habit of creating again, but I feel like I need to get into the habit of posting again too, so here's some pointless art with text in comic sans, because why not?

Hope you guys are doing well! Anything new? Play any fun games recently? I finished Fire Emblem on GBA earlier this week and beat Spider-Man on PS1 this weekend. That game is just as good as I remember it being. I've been on a retro binge recently, and I'll be starting Shining Force soon ( @phronemophobia ). Let me know if there's any other games you recommend and I'll see if I can grab 'em.

Atomic Angel artwork by phantomarcade

Wanted to post a quick update to keep anyone who's interested in the loop.

The whole Atomic Angel adventure is written in a word document (thanks to the wonderful Funkmachine who did the heavy lifting on this one) and I'm mainly transferring the adventure from that document into a game file. I can't say how long it will take to finish- I really expected to have this adventure done in January but I keep hitting mental roadblocks, even though this should have been one of the easier ones for me since someone else wrote most of the game!

Legend of Silver Wolf, Master of the Grey Blade, the prequel to Dreadnaughts, is also partially written. I'll probably be posting Atomic Angel first and then Silver Wolf a month or so later.

Legend of Silver Wolf, Master of the Grey Blade artwork by mogy64

Anyway, if you're just DYING to see what's going on behind the scenes, here are links to the WIP games:

Atomic Angel: http://philome.la/kfsb7/atomic-angel---wip/play

Silver Wolf: http://philome.la/kfsb7/silver-wolf---wip/play

These are not finished games!!

So if you don't want to spoil anything for yourself or if you'd rather play through a complete adventure instead of getting a fractured experience, skip these.

If you decide to check 'em out, just know that you will reach a point sooner or later that says "Double click to edit this passage." There are dozens of options that will lead you to a page that says this. It's not an error, I just haven't added those sections in yet.

Some pathways will get you farther than others, and some of the fight scenes aren't playable (just a placeholder that says "XVX you win"), and you can't get to the end of the game yet since none of that is written, but... here's some demos anyway.

Hopefully I'll have the full things finished soon-ish. I wrote/transferred several pages yesterday and did all the coding for those scenes this morning so progress is being made, even if it has been slow. I gotta get back into a daily writing routine instead of weekly.

That's it for my update. Going to write some more today.

PEACE!!

fuck! i missed my deadline.

can't stay and chat, gotta finish writing this adventure!

I’m going to use this post to spitball some ideas I’ve been rattling around in my head. It’s been about 3 months since I posted the last Crypt Shyfter game, but I’m eager to share a new one. I’m going to post Crypt Shyfter: Atomic Angel on March 23 for Newgrounds in Space.

After that (hopefully next month) I’ll be posting the prequel to Dreadnaughts, which is fairly close to being finished.

And then that’s where things get funky. I had originally planned to keep writing short adventures and posting them as often as possible, but now I’m considering a new alternative. I’ve posted before about wanting to do a big Skyrim-type game, with a massive world and tons of quests and characters to meet. I never really got started with that game, but the idea still interests me.

So what I may possibly do is spend the next couple months after posting the Dreadnaughts prequel writing this larger game, and when I have a solid game post it on here. But THEN after the game has been posted, I’m thinking about updating it with “expansions” and new content. So there would still be new adventures coming out in the Crypt Shyfter world, but they’d all be contained in one single game that was frequently updated.

I think it would work, since the game has the ability to save files, so if you played one month and then jumped back in a few months later, you should still be able to continue on as your character right where you left off. I’m not sure if saves get wiped when you close your browser or clear browser data so that may cause issues, but I’ll have to look into that.

Still, it would be kinda neat to have one huge game where you can go anywhere and do anything, with new stories appearing all the time. It would be a multi-world game too, so you’d have the ability to play on Azmar (the fantasy realm of the first few games) or be transported to Fuzonia or Andraxxus Prime or Bo or any of those other wacky planets.

It would be a huge challenge creating a game like that, and especially making sure play remains consistent no matter where you choose to go since you can do any quest in any order, but I think it’d be a fun challenge.

I think it’d be neat if you could start the game as a barbarian on Azmar, or a Fuzonian on Fuzonia, or even a Shyfter or an Andraxxan, and then interact with the world accordingly.

I may abandon that idea and continue on with the short adventures like I’ve been doing, but we’ll see...

Anyway, I’m setting a deadline for myself for Atomic Angel and that is March 23. You can hang me by my balls if it don’t hit it.

2018 has been a year of decluttering for me. Simplifying, minimizing, all that jazz. That includes getting rid of physical clutter like old clothes I never wear (I mean, really, how many stinky loincloths do I need in my cave?) as well as digital cluttter, like social media.

I gotta say, I’ve been much happier the past 3 months now that I don’t have ANY social media accounts other than Newgrounds. Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit are all deleted (not just de-activated! The 14 and 30 day trial periods for deactivation have expired and now those accounts are officially gone) and it feels fantastic. My head has so much more room in it for important things.

It was actually really damn hard at first. I’d pick up my phone every 10 minutes and have to catch myself before logging into one of those accounts. Even now, 3 months later, I occasionally find myself picking up my phone and staring blankly at it, only to realize I only picked it up out of habit, and that I don’t actually have anything I need to check on there.

I want to say I’ve been using all this extra time to write, but I haven’t. I’ve been lazy...

In fact, now that social media is out of the picture, I find myself picking up a controller instead of a phone every time that urge hits. I’ve been blasting through my backlog of games, and I’m finding that I enjoy playing games so much more now.

I try to stay off review sites and I’ve disabled all emails from Steam so I’m not tempted to buy more games until I beat my backlog. It’s nice getting to play games without reading reviews and forming my own opinions. I feel like the last few years have conditioned me to listen to what everyone else has to say about a game, and I don’t think for myself anymore. It’s like, “Oh, this game site says XYZ was crap so I’ll stay away from it, but this other game won 10 GOTY awards so it must be good! I’ll buy it!”

Turns out, playing through my backlog, I’ve run into plenty of highly praised games that I don’t like at all, as well as “mixed review” games that have become new favorites. For example, Divinity Original Sin is well loved by seemingly everyone. I gave it a shot... 2 shots, actually, over the course of the past year. I really tried to get into it, but I just couldn’t. I LOVE RPGs, but for one reason or another I couldn’t get into Divinity. So I put it in a folder called “The Shit Pit” where poor purchase decisions go to die and remind me not to buy games like that just because they got good reviews.

On the flip side, I played Lord of the Rings: War in the North, which had pretty negative reviews for the most part (with a few big fans giving it a thumbs up) and I totally loved it. The reason it got panned was the same reason Divinity was praised: War in the North is a “linear” game while Divinity is “open world,” which I guess is the standard of how good a game is these days? The closer it feels to you being able to do anything as a player means the game is better?

I’ve never been a huge fan of open world games (other than Skyrim, I can’t think of a single one I’ve enjoyed), but put me on a railroad and throw some bad guys in the way and I’m in! I love me a good story, fun shooters, and hack and slash games, and those games used to be really popular. But now it seems like if a game doesn’t offer unlimited choices and options then it gets bad reviews.

But I digress. I’m clearing out my backlog and it feels great. Tonight I finished Dragon Age: Awakening and I really enjoyed it. I’m going to start a shooter next before moving onto Shining Force 2 (thanks Phronemophobia!).

I might update with my thoughts as I go along but that’s it for now.

How does your video game backlog look? Is it beatable?

I'm still working on new Crypt Shyfters, and will have the next adventure posted in March for Newgrounds space month.

But in the meantime I've been working on some short ebooks to help out anyone interested in writing their own text adventures or RPG campaigns.

There are two out now, and I'll be posting more periodically. These two books are free this week, so grab 'em now! After this week they'll be 99 cents each (but free is still a better deal).

The first book is INSTANT NPC: 60 Unique NPCs for your tabletop RPG, which is a book filled with NPCs for you to drop into your games (text adventures or D&D or Pathfinder, it doesn't matter).

There are no stat blocks included so these characters can be thrown into any game of your choice. I figure you're all smart enough to know how to stat out NPCs for your game of choice, right? Each NPC has something unique- they've got their own back stories, quests to give, items to trade, etc.

They're detailed enough to give you a sense of the character, but still vague enough to give you plenty of room to play around and make them your own.

The second book is Kung Fu Space Barbarian's Guide To Writing Text Adventures, which is exactly what it sounds like. I filled this little book with some of my advice for writing text adventures. I haven't included any coding or programming language since there are so many programs you can use, but if you need codes for Twine just send me a message or email me. I include info on how to contact me in the book if you need more info.

Anyway, hope these end up being helpful to someone. If not, they're free books this week, so what the hell. Add em to your collection for fun.

this dude launched his car into space and landed the two rocket boosters on their platforms in perfect sync less than 10 minutes later. 

you think making cartoons and video games is hard? after watching this, i believe you can succeed at anything you set your mind to

2017 was an awesome year for me, and I'm looking forward to an even better 2018.

Unfortunately, I'm going to have to make some really major changes. Over the past few months I've been slowly stepping away from social media platforms- reddit first, then facebook, and most recently twitter.

If you've commented on any of my posts or any of my games, you know that my responses on here are almost immediate.

That's because I'm super addicted to social media, but this year I'm trying to work on that... I've been doing really good with the other sites, but NG is going to be the toughest habit to break.

I've switched off all notifications on my phone except text messages and phone calls, and I'm going to be checking email 2-3 times a day.

So, if you want to get in touch with me from now on, here are the best ways to do it:

• Send me a PM on Newgrounds. I get email notifications whenever someone sends a PM, so if you want to contact me and you need a response, send me a PM. I will not be checking notifications anymore- this includes comments, @'s, reviews, or anything else that shows up in the "star" notification ticker.
• Send me a message on my website. This is also hooked up to my email, so I'm definitely going to see anything you write here.
• Join this Discord server. This will be the most immediate way to get in touch with me since it's basically instant messaging. I'll be checking this every day, and I'm more than happy to chat or answer questions whenever I'm on there!

I'll be leaving this post up here on my front page for anyone who stumbles across it in the future. I will still be posting adventures on Newgrounds, but don't be upset if you don't recieve a response from me- I'm not ignoring you, I just won't see them thanks to my new social media diet. It's good for my health!

If you come across any fuck-ups in the games, PLEASE send me a PM so I can fix the things!!

Otherwise, I hope you all have an awesome New Year!

<3 KFSB