So I’ve been drawing with my daughter lately, she does her scribblings while I do mine, using her crayons. Here’s what came out lately. That red smudge is of her doing, I did not dare to remove that in photoshop.

So – here is the new issue of Stripburger special. Greetings from Cartoonia – the Essential Guide of the Land of Comics sports quite unique idea – gathering artists from different countries and asking them to write down 3 things that are crucial to their home country. Then they swapped those things between different artist and asked them to create a comic about them. Phew. That’s Cartoonia allright. So I got someone’s three things , and somebody else got what I came up with for representation of Poland.

You can see few pages of my contribution here.

Enjoy them in color, because they’re printed in grayscale. But not to worry, I’m pretty sure this comic will end up in a separate, full color album one day. Anyway – it was supposed to be a small comic, but turned out to be a 20-page story. It’s Revolutions – my main comic series. My three objects that I had to base my comic on were: wayside shrine, the neanderthal flute and Janezek of Carniola (who turns out to be the main character of the story). Can’t tell you much more about the story…

In Greetings from Cartoonia, 12 modern comic creators, half of them from Slovenia and the other half from various European countries, entered a colorful comic-book-styled intercultural dialogue. The results of this irresponsible behavior are fantasy-filled postcards from the involved countries that don’t pay attention to stereotypes. Slovene authors used their foreign colleagues’ homelands (Italy, Finland, Norway, Poland, Portugal and Romania) as motifs for their comics. Slovenia was used in the same manner by other artists. All authors have used ‘objects of inspiration’ gathered from the cultural treasuries of the involved countries. Among these are architectural types, animal species, car models, traditional folk products, mythological beings and so on. Each artist created a comic story that takes place in the chosen land based on a handful of objects typical for that country. The emerged comic-portraits of the countries quickly got out of hand and mutated to Cartoonia, a completely new, original trans-national entity. A safe haven for those that think the world lacks sympathy for comics, an art form they create or worship. The book is an indispensable guide to this unpredictable, sometimes dangerous, wonderfully bizarre and bizarrely wonderful country.

That was an official promo that I found on Top Shelf’s website. The book came to me in a nice package with lots of additional stuff:

Cartoonia postcards. Those sheets of paper were used for twitting before the twitter was invented. It’s quite the same, only in real life. People used to send them to each other from vaactions or trips to foreign countries, as in you go somewhere, buy a postcard there and send it back home to your folks to let them know how good you have, and they would get it and envy you.

There’s also this big map of Cartoonia with all objects indicated as long with names of countries they’re from (countries’ names are purposely misspelled to indicate the fantasy nature of the whole project).

Cartoonia pencils, unfortunately they came too late for being actual tools in the creation of Cartoonia comics. But they’ll probably be used in next projects, mine for sure, as well as other comic artists that took part in this project. So there will be a itsy bitsy tiny bit of Cartoonia in upcoming comic books from all over Europe. That’s what I think.

And there are also Cartoonia erasers. It’s a piece of rubber used to ctrl+Z when you’re drawing on an actual paper. But it can only remove the pencil featured above as I assume, so it’s like really old-timey ctrl+Z. But still. You can correct your errors to some extent with this item. Not that I make errors. But still.

And there was this extra package:

Inside there were 20 copies of a  poster I created for Cartoonia. There are only 40 copies in existence, and the other 20 will be available for purchase. Each artist was supposed to create one, and they printed those using an old method of screen printing (40 copies each). This method is so old that even I can’t explain you what that is. But here’s the poster:

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced the 10 semi-finalists in the animated short film category of the 2010 Academy Awards. Thirty-seven entries had originally qualified in the category. And the Kinematograph is one of the semi-finalists. ;)

Mateusz Skutnik is a rarity: a gifted artist who is also a skilled coder. He is responsible for some of the most beautiful casual games on the web.

There are two types of artist. The first sort can spend an age on a work of art, painstakingly, bit by tiny bit, building it up until, finally, often years later, they deem it ready for public consumption. And then there are those rare individuals who are blessed with such an abundance of talent that they can turn around wonderful artworks in the time it takes some of us to read a book.

In the casual gaming world, Mateusz Skutnik is undoubtedly one of the latter. Over the past few years, his output of games has been nothing short of phenomenal. Eight games in his hugely popular Submachine point-and-click series, no less then 12 Ten-Gnomes games (quirky takes on the hidden object genre), two editions of the much-acclaimed Daymare Town series, three Covert Front games, and that’s before we even get on to some of his lesser known works, including my personal favourites, the Squirrel games, of which there were more than 25 at last count.

And we are not talking low production value games here. His games are notable for their brilliant artwork, gripping storylines and imaginative reinventions of existing genres. Mateusz is that rare specimen, a gifted artist who also has the wherewithal to write computer programs and market his creations. Until relatively recently, he created the majority of his games single-handedly, doing all the graphics and programming himself. With growing recognition of his work, Mateusz quit his regular job a year ago to focus on his gaming business. He now runs a small game studio – Pastel Games – with Karol Konwerski.

Your output of new games over the past few years has been nothing short of phenomenal. And you do all the graphics as well as the programming. Do you ever sleep?

Umm, sure. It’s not like all those were made simultaneously. For example it took almost two years between Covert Front 2 and 4, and one-and-a-half years between Submachine 5 and 6. Besides, developing doesn’t take that long. To create a game from scratch I need about three months, so it leaves more than enough time to think all [the game] stories through, create a game and have a normal life afterwards.

Where do you get your inspiration for your games?

Everything and nothing. In 10 Gnomes it was the surrounding that I was setting the game in. Sometimes it takes just good sounds or ambients to spawn an idea, sometimes something I see in a movie or TV.

Your games are notable for their brilliant unique graphics. How did you become such a great illustrator?

Years of training. Twenty years of drawing comics, five years of learning how to program these things. There’s no way around it. Time is the answer.

Do you think games can be considered to be art?

10 Gnomes received a Storm of the Year Award in 2008 in the multimedia category. That’s an art award. Does that answer your question?

What are you working on at the moment?

Daymare Town 3 point and click game, and trying to get on track with a new Revolutions comic album, but that’s on a hold right now.

Which of your games are you most proud of?

Can’t judge. There’s no favourite, besides they’re all different and incomparable really.

Is it possible to make a good living out of developing casual games?

Yes. A year ago I quit my regular job and I’m still alive today. That proves the point.

You have recently moved into iPhone development. How does developing games for the iPhone differ from creating Flash games?

Teamwork, proper programmers, graphic and level designers, project managers. Kind of professional compared to one-man developing process.

Are their any game developers whose work you particularly admire?

All stuff made by Wada Nanahiro, Amanita Design and Ferry Halim.

What are your plans for the future?

I want to draw a full comic book next year. Concerning games – probably new Covert Front, Submachine and Daymare Town. The usual point and click trinity.

Tasha Granger

play this sketch | walkthrough | secrets guide

So this is that Submachine 2 sketch I talked about in previous post. You might know this screen grab from early versions of Submachine 1 – it was supposedly a preview of the second part. Back then I didn’t recognize the most valuable feature of the Submachine – the moving rooms system. Luckily for the game once I realised that – I started working on Sub2 from scratch, and this sketch fell into oblivion. Until now. I’m showing you this because it’s a strange thing to see Submachine in this normal pnc view version. Enjoy.

thanks so much for posting this! if you have anything else like this for the other games, i would love it if you shared them too!

No, this is the only sketch that I have. After redoing the Sub2 to the normal version, things went smoothly afterwards. Sub3, 4 etc didn’t have any early version that didn’t see the light.

Only mr. Skutnik knows what we can find behind this door.

[talking about the blood door] In fact I don’t. I didn’t get that far in story construction to create story behind that door. But it was supposed to be a mystery throughout this game. Maybe explained at the end. Or maybe not. Hard to tell really.

Hey, I really love your submachine games, I think they’re the best point and click games on the internet and I can’t wait for the sixth one.

My only problem is that I have seen at least two versions, maybe three, of the original Submachine.  It’s sorta confusing which one is the original and which one is that latest.  I appreciate some of the changes you made to it but I think it would be good if you posted a Sub1 change log, the clarify things a little.

2009/9/18 Joe Dawson

I agree with the above. As I look back at the basement changes, there were too many versions out there  to leave that without a changelog. You can click on each screenshot and play each version separately, I know it’s pointless and boring, but still. It is the history of the series. So here it goes:

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Download all five versions in .exe form for PC in one convenient zip file

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version 1, September 2005

Also known as the original, or the short version. This version had… 9 rooms. Which is about 1/16 of Submachine6. But those were the early days and who could predict that this series would grow to such extent as we see nowadays. As I checked this version I was really surprized that it was so small, yet there were so many things to do in such space. We can see an inventory on the right side, with static icons of found items. You had to drag them onto stage for some kind of interaction. What a drag. :D.

Fun fact: this version didn’t even have a menu at the beginning, you just went straight to the gameplay after initial Submachine logo. Maybe that’s what caught the imagination of so many…

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version 2, October 2005

Also known as the extended or the official-plot-version. Overwhelmed with the surprizing success of the first submachine I thought: I can do better than this! So I created this extended version. This extention summarized in adding one more puzzle, a whooping number of total 20 rooms and most importantly – the introduction of the wisdom crystal (gem) in the series. Those crystals played their role in following episodes and I’m pretty sure we’re not through with them. I also introduced another new thing in the series: a Dead End. You could actually find yourself in point of no return, or, to be more precise – point of no progress. You could always return, restart and try again. There’s even a restart button in the inventory, look above, there was no such thing in the first version. I know, that was a stupid idea and I never repeated that mistake. Not only in other episodes that followed, I also removed that from following versions of the basement.

Fun fact: Back then I really considered that game to be big. :D

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version 3, October 2007

Also known as the unknown version or version that no one actually played. This is the extended version rebuilt around a new engine (no, not Float yet). This version skipped the flawed inventory of Submachine 2, and went straight to the no-visible-inventory mode of Submachine 4 and 5. Items found just happen to appear on the right side of the screen, so when you have none of them the game presents itself in a nice graphical form of a room surrounded by black thick outline. That sophisticated graphical design went down the drain once you found your first object in the game, but what the hell. It looked nice for a second, goddamit.

Fun fact: I’m not even sure why I made that version. That’s a mystery. I probably thought that the engine of Submachine 4 was freaking awesome or something.

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version 4, June 2008

Also known as the last or the current version. I don’t intend to create anymore versions of this game. I’m through with that. For now. But who knows. Maybe I’ll come up with something better than the Float someday. Oh yes, that’s the version built on the Float Engine, finally. And that’s the main reason why it’s the last version. But still – 20 rooms… What was I thinking. If I’d now come up with a new submachine episode that would consist of 20 rooms I’d be laughed off stage, or slaughtered by those craving more and more (as in: too short,too simple, make it bigger and harder lol !!!11!!eleven).

Fun fact: As this version is considered to be most advanced in terms of action script programming, it doesn’t have any option to turn the music on or off. All previous versions had that. This one doesn’t. Go figure.

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version 5, March 2014

This version is basically the same as the previous one. However, in 2014 I was finally able to contact the musician behind this game’s ambient music, which, by now, is iconic part of the entire Submachine series. Since this piece was originally downloaded from some website with free sounds (I know, I know, professionalism at it’s best) – first of all I asked him for a permission to use this music in my game. Only 9 years too late, but hey. This humble and generous man said yes. His name is Marcus Gutierrez and his name landed on the menu page, properly credited as music author. Besides that ambient revelation, this version also introduces the ancient coin inventory item instead of ye-olde Euro coin. This change was dictated by making sub 1 more lore-friendly, since it all revolves around ruins, runes, old artefacts and what not. Euro just doesn’t belong in this world. This might be a small change programming-wise, but it’s big enough for me to grant a new version of the game.
[V5 description was added to this article in January of 2021, after EOL of flash player in browsers, while exporting .exe files for preservation].
Now back to original article…

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Luckily for us this is the end of the log.

Or is it…

why did you initially decide in the second version to introduce two doors and later removed that?

that’s a very good question. After sub1 I had no idea what sub2 will look like. There was a moment when submachine was going to look like a normal pnc, like Covert Front for example. Normal view without moving rooms. Yeah. And that was that screen. I still have that early version of submachine2 – looking like a normal pnc , I’ll post that eventually for you to see. [here it is]

So once I realized that this is a dumb idea and that the uniqueness is that room movement precisely, I scratched the project and started over, creating the lighthouse as you all know it. Therefore – that screen had to go. But look out for the sub2 sketch. That’ll be proper fun. :D [here’s the fun]

written by Zack

In the starting ‘blue room’ (made up of four flat walls), there are three things you can do. Click the neddle on the gramophone in the room to the right of the starting point, and the jungle/wilderness music will stop playing. This is not actually collectable, but it is something that you can interact with. Other than that, there are technically no collectable items here.

:With the wisdom gem you collected from the extended version of Submachine 1: The Basement, you can place it between the two circular conductors raised with a metal stand, connected by wires to a metal box. This room is opposite to the starting point. When the wisdom gem is placed correctly, a blinking door will project onto the wall. Make sure to get the 4 secrets from the metal arm mechanism in this ‘blue room’.

Secret 7: Is located  on the wall behind the metal arm mechanism. From the center point of the mechanism, go left three squares and up one. Whe you click on the panel it will break, and the seventh secret will be revealed.

:Now that we are in the main hallway, we can collect two keys neccessary to open two door in the game. The ’silver key’ is located on top of either the ‘right door’ or the ‘left door’ (it changes each time you play) and the ‘bronze key’ is located on top of one of two windows (this changes each time you play; you must click the window once to be able to spot the key.) The ‘copper key’ is already in our inventory from the start of the game, although we have no idea why.

:The cog wheel is obtained by zooming in on the scarelet liquid oozing out of the ‘blood room’. Before you grab it, there is something written in blood you can zoom in to read (after you look at the spilled blood once and then zoom out). it says, “C=”, with a three-clawed (or handed) scratch mark. After obtaining the cog wheel, something is added to the blood message when you zoom out (this will be added to the wall the second time you zoom out from the spilled blood, regardless of wether or not you took the cog wheel). It now says, “C=2″. Creepy, huh?

:There is a light ficture above the ‘blood door’, and when zoomed in on, you will find that one of the screws is loose. Unfortunately, Mateusz Skutnik changed his mind about how he was going to make this game (which was a darn good decision, mind you) before he had the chance to provide us with a screwdriver. So, the loose screw gives us no other purpose other than to mock us. Meh, it’s cool anyways.

:The ’silver key’ is used on the ‘left door’. The only objects in here are a lamp and a chair. The chair holds a secret (finally), and the lamp serves no purpose unless you enjoy madly turning electrical decor switches on and off.

:The ‘right door’ is already unlocked. This room contains a projector, and a blank wall to the right of it. Look at the blank wall and pick up ‘diary 2′. Note that this was once of the things carried over to the finished Submschine 2, as well as ‘diary 1′, the cog wheel, the red chair, the lamp, the projector, the wisdom gem holder and metal box, the Submachine 2 “see where it takes you” machine, einstein’s famous theory (e=mc2, what c equals is written in blood after finding the cog wheel, and what m equals is written at the bottom of ‘diary 2′. We never got to use the code in this prototype.), the projector, the lightbulb, room keys, and the gramophone, just to name a few. Anyways, after obtaining the note, click the bottom-right corner of the wall to find the sixth (and most well hidden) secret.  There is one more thing to do in this room; use the projector. Place the cog wheel, as well as the lightbulb (which was in your inventory from the start of the game) into the projector. Look into the lens, and you hopefully realize that you forgot to turn the machine on. Do so, and look into the lens again. “Wait a minute!” you might say, “All I see is static.” And if you said that, then you are absolutely correct. No matter what you click; no matter what items you drag onto the screen; no matter how long you watch the stat; you will NEVER see what the film labled ‘memory’ contained. Bummer, eh? It kind of gives you that uneasy feeling, as if the main character doesn’t remember anything, his mind is blank. Does this have anything to do with walking through a half-existing door created by a wisdom gem? Yeah, probably.

:There is only one more thing to do in this unfinished game, and that is to find out what doors your two remaining keys unlock. The ‘bronze key’ has no purpose other than to be a waste of your inventory. Don’t even try using it on the ‘blood door’, it doesn’t work. Oh, and just to mention, you might feel disappointed when you discover that after obtaining the cog wheel, you can’t even go back to the ‘blue room’ to use it on gramophone. There is one unexamined object in your inventory, the ‘copper key’ that was residing comfortably in your inventory from the moment yoy read the words, “see where it takes you”. Between the ‘right door’ and the ‘right window’ lies a staircase. Climb it to gaze upon your final destination. Use the ‘copper key’ on this last door to reveal…a blue screen? No, not THAT blue screen. Instead of the error screen that crashes your computer, you are greeted with a light blue message from Mateusz Skutnik. Although this is supposed to be when the game ends, you actually have two options: close the window, or click the bottom of the game screen to continue playing right where you left off (you will find yourself back in front of the exit door). Meh, let’s read it, shall we? It is dated October 23, 2009, and basically says that the sketch ends here, he apologizes, then goes on to say that he hopes that the time you spent playing his unfinished Submachine was time well spent (and it better have been, I spent a long time writing this).

:As you undoubtly by now have discovered, the secrets of the ‘blood door’ are to be forever locked away with a padlock of prototype discontinuation.

1. Secrets 1-4: You can find 4 secrets from the metal arm mechanism, just left of the first screen.
2. Secret 5: is found on the chair in the ‘left room’
3. Secret 6: is found in the ‘right room’ to the wall to the right of the projector. Click on the bottom-right corner to find the most well-hidden secret.
4. Secret 7: Is located in the ‘blue room’ at the start of the game on the wall behind the metal arm mechanism. From the center point of the mechanism, go left three squares and up one. Whe you click on the panel it will break, and the seventh secret will be revealed.

Make sure to get this secret as well as secrets 1-4 before leaving the ‘blue room’, because you cannot come back here after opening the door projected by the widom gem.

Congratulations! You have found all 7 secrets!

compiled  by Zack

play this game

walkthrough: video |  english | polska | espanol | deutsche | francaise | hungarian

reviews: -ak- | Jay is Games

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We’re travelling to the outskirts of the submachine universe. Straight to the defense systems of the net. Allegedly no one has ever been there before. That’s what Murtaugh told us in previous game. It is a very desolated area, the human presence in the sub def is unwanted and dangerous. Can you survive this experience?

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pre-release tension log:

The game was finished on September 27th, 2009 (the date of this post). After I announced it, there were over two weeks of impatient waiting for the release. And things got ugly pretty fast :D :

I just finished development of  Submachine 6 and wanted to mark the date for the future generetions ;D. So on this occasion I want to share yet another screen from the upcoming game.

I do not know the release date yet. But once the game goes online I’ll send out an appriopriate newsletter and a tweet, so you have a chance to stay in loop with this info, as long as you’re on twitter or signed up to my newsletter, ;)

Happy day.

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p.s. – any links posted in the comments on this post are invalid, so don’t try them. I still don’t have a release date, but as you know it’s out of my hands by now. I wanted to finish that game in september and I did – that’s all I can say.

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p.s.2 – wow, I’ve got my own trolls right now. Looks like things are going well for me :D. To debunk any stupid thing that might pop up in the comments – nothing bad is happening, me and arcadetown are not in some conflict, that’s bullshit. Everything is OK. Don’t worry. Just wait for the game…

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p.s.3 – ok, let’s kill  that troll. From now on – I’m not commenting on this post. So if you see anything  signed MateuszSkutnik down  there – it’s a troll. If there’ll be some questions that Iwant to answer – I’ll answer them  here, within the post. Bazinga.

oqapo Says: Mateusz when we can expect the issue submachine 6?

no idea. Sorry.

olga Says:  Mateusz, you are getting more and more famous!!! Congratulations!!! :-DDDD

thanks, I’ve got my own trolls right now. That’s an achievement :D.

bugger Says:  How long did it take between the completion of CF3 and the date it was released? Knowing that will give us some kind of idea when to expect sub6 (I hope).

I don’t quite remember, but the release date was not that important because the link to the game leaked online before the game went officially live. So there had to be some nice waiting time since people started sneaking around arcadetown’s links.

Kisakot Says: Damn them Arcade Town! Are they so lazy to take an hour for inserting their-the-only-logo into game and publish it already!

actually it’s the developer who does that. :D. They have an ready-to-go swf file. ;)

Corona says: So, when’s Sub 7 coming out? j/k

next year. :P

Corona Says: Mateusz – “Mental note to self…under no circumstances ever tell the public you’ve finished creating a game. Less pressure that way.”

I won’t even say that I started developing a game. :D

oqapo Says: After sub6 you plan a new submachine additional chapter, a short?

No. But there will be subnet exploration project. Not a game, an exploration website without a higher purpose or goal or ending. But still – some sort of submachine.

edan Says:  is this comment from arcadetown is real?

Nope. They don’t comment here and sure as hell they wouldn’t announce anything here.

from JayIsGames: