The Trees Are Calling

my river monster through several life stages :> it's so long that i couldn't keep it all on the canvas but you get the idea. it is patterned like one of our most vulnerable native fish species the humble arctic char, which are only in ireland because they got trapped in glacial lakes at the end of the last ice age. unlike their international conspecifics, our arctic char cannot return to the sea (trapped) (in a lake)

so the idea for this one is an ice age monster who, through human intervention in diverting water from the lake and into a canal system, is finally able to escape the ancient lake...

here's a lil close up of the last portrait because it got squished into the corner lol:

and when it released for ios? holy fuck were they DROWNING in money. when they took a weekend to put the game on sale for a dollar, down from five, a couple months after release, they made as much in that one weekend as they did since its release. it was among the top paid apps for weeks.

with critics, peggle was among some of the top downloadable, mobile, and general best games of all time at the time of its release in 2007 and onwards, and it only shot up in popularity as they made it more accessible to more people. and this was in a time before candy crush.

the thing about simple addictive puzzle games is that they make you feel competent, confident, smart, and cool for being good at them. not everybody can learn how to aim in a shooter or the best strategy in an rpg. but anybodys grandmother or baby brother can play a simple puzzle game, and the nature of these games and the way they make you feel only makes you want to play more and more.

however very very fucking few people who play simple puzzle games that you can master on the toilet would be going to E3 in the early 2010s. remember in 2012 when every ~hardcore gamer~ would screech about ‘fake gamers’ who only play candy crush? thats what peggle was. it was THE crack mobile game from the pre-candycrush era.

no one who was excited about peggle was going to E3. the hundreds of thousands of people who played peggle were not the type of people who would consider going to (or even giving a shit about) E3.

but it sold like hot cakes, and candy crush was churning out content like a madman, and EA owned popcap now, so because the game sold amazingly, and because they wanted to keep cashing in on it, and because corporate drones who controlled the scripts didnt comprehend that their consumerbase isnt one homogeneous mass, they decided to announce peggle 2 at E3 2013.

but not just “oh by the way peggle 2”, no. peggle sold like skyrim, it sold like black ops, clearly they should be saving the best for last, they should announce it like it was the craziest most incredible announcement of the night!

thus:

Boris "professional idiot" Johnson wanted to build an island airport in the immediate area.

it's fucking visible

You weren't kidding they've been trying to get the masts off for 5 years and keep getting foiled because there's probably bombs leaking out of her

Gordon Lightfood never did

a song about it.