Click here to download (1.3 Mb zip)

At some time in the future, garbage collection and processing will become completely automated. Small earthmoving robots will work in garbage dumps, all connected via wifi. The robots will be designed to modify their own programming, eventually becoming the most efficient and effective machines on the planet.

For about three weeks, then things will start to get weird.

RoboTrash is a game about picking up garbage. To do that you’ll have to make the best of random events, make a strategy, then deal with people messing it up.

This is the new version of my old game Recycler. I’ve changed the graphics to be a little less ink-heavy and the playing pieces and board to be larger and easier to assemble. I’ve also changed the rules to take care of issues that have come up in play testing.  When I have the opportunity, I’ll make a fancy PDF of the rules, for now there’s a document and a quick HTML version.

This game borrows a lot from RoboRally, and was admittedly influenced by the Pixar movie Wall E. My friends and family were wonderfully patient and helpful in the play testing phase.

As the conversation carried on, I sank progressively lower in my chair. Because I love my iPod. I read books on it, I play games on it, I listen to podcasts about game design, webcomics and Ninjas on it, I write my random thoughts out for the world to read on it, I  study the Bible on it, and I doodle on it. (see illustration) There’s a Flashlight, an alarm clock, a level, a ruler, a dictionary, a planetarium, a Monosynth, a Seismograph, and audio Bug Repellent. I tend to keep six new-to-me webcomics going in my tabs at a time. Oh and I occasionally listen to music…

I’ve taken to calling it “My Tech.” (This sometimes includes my camera and usb key, and will ultimately also include my upcoming laptop and drawing tablet. ) I try to never let the battery die completely, and never completely fill the hard drive. And I only ever dropped it while running on the treadmill so it landed on the belt and was shot into the stairclimber once. And I have never had it explode. (Like I always say, you take good care of your tech, and it won’t blow up in your face.)

Y’know I’ve squeezed so much usability from this little thing, I can’t imagine what I could do with a PDA whose makers don’t make up stupid little rules about what Apps can and cannot do…

I had an epiphany yesterday morning. I’ve been struggling for a while with what my role is, given my knowledge and means. I’ve also been reading some Emma Goldman and Henry Thoreau, which despite getting me really excited about living by my own means, kinda marginalized my feelings of myself as an artist. Then there’s the guilt, in the, “How can you spend four thousand dollars on a laptop and tablet when there are people dying of exposure on the streets of Vancouver?” vein.

But as I walked through the neighborhood right at sunset, my first day home after three weeks straight of graveyard shifts, my sheer joy at the glory of the morning was tainted by the knowledge that it would dissipate before I could run back home for my camera. Wandering through my familiar woods, I thought of the uncountable moments that are lost daily. Returning home, I decided that was my responsibility. Robin Gibson: Moment Capturer.

So I went home, smeared some pastel on canvas paper, made a painting that was fairly awesome, then completely ruined it in an experiment involving a laminator. So I salvaged it into a comic strip ala “A Softer World”

On that note, I’m working on a comic project that’s a little more down to earth than my others. (Also a little easier to draw) I’m not going to start posting it until I have a significant backlog, at which point I’ll be putting out one a week.

So, between work and other projects, I’m slowly slogging at this little Surrealist story. I decided to do a wordless comic to make up for my inability to write decent dialogue…

So I had this idea for my next batch of business cards; something to make them a little unique, give them a bit more value, and encourage people to look at them more than twice.

Basically, on the front of each card there will be a character and some stats, while on the back, along with my contact info, will be the (very brief) rules for the game.
The line art I did in ink with my favorite Hunt bowl-pointed nib,  at about twice the printed size, then scanned the drawings and vectorized them in Inkscape.
My original intent for the art style was to emulate Victorian children’s card games, this is where I got my colour palate. Then I stumbled across some old bubblegum trading cards, and adopted some ideas there. I used the pencil tool to rather haphazardly trace out areas of colour, then I shifted them a little, to emulate cheap colour separation when done by a chainsmoking little old lady during the 1930s.

I’ve only got three coloured now. the rest I’ll colour eventually, as well as adding a few more characters. The old paper texture is just for effect. The final print image will be printed on antique style cardstock.

For the record, these characters BASICALLY have no relation to any of my current storylines. Most of them are just random people (things) that’ve popped into my head over the past few years, except the Cait Gypsie, from a dead storyline; the wandering Mad Scientist, an ancestor of another of my characters; The Metal Snail, my mascot; and the Aer Pyrate, who is so painfully genaric it makes my head hurt. Yes they all look pretty threatening, and maybe that is undesirable on a business card, but this is to be a combat-based card game. So, yeah

Once I’m done I’ll put all the cards here for download, along with some alternate rules, (I’m keeping the stats nice and ambiguous) full size SVGS of the lineart, and blank card templates. Because of my current kick, the whole thing will be released under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License, meaning: do with it whatever you want as long as what you want doesn’t include making money or removing my name and website. You can even use this image if you want, but the full size SVGs might be more use…

Gotta go to bed soon, gonna make it quick…

Today I started, (for the third time) work on my experimental Passive Space Unshooter, Crez. Basically the idea was to go back to the classic space shooters of the Taito era, and remove the essential game play concept, IE, “Dodge and Shoot”. This demo represents about a solid half-day of work…

This is just a quick demo. The graphics suck, there’s no scoring or menu, and the game play is poorly executed, but the gist is there. Use your mouse to direct the crez and deflect the green bursts to defend the sphyres. If all the sphyres are destroyed, you lose. If you destroy all the aliens, another, faster wave takes their place.

Download Crez Demo 1 (382Kb, Windows Exe)

(I figure if I put a play-by-play of my development process on my website I might actually get the thing done. Hah, I know right? But it’s a nice thought anyway… That said, I’m off to work and won’t be able to touch this for two weeks.)