Yahtzee Croshaw

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Yahtzee Croshaw
Yahtzee Croshaw in 2010
Croshaw in 2010
Born
Benjamin Richard Croshaw[‡ 1]

(1983-05-24) 24 May 1983 (age 40)[‡ 2]
Rugby, Warwickshire, England[‡ 3]
Occupation(s)Journalist, video game critic, author, video game developer, humourist, audiobook narrator
Employers
Known for
Spouse
Kess
​
(m. 2018)​
[citation needed]
Children2[citation needed]
Websitefullyramblomatic.com

Benjamin Richard "Yahtzee" Croshaw (born 24 May 1983) is a British journalist, video game critic, author, humourist, video game developer, and audiobook narrator. He is best known for his video game review series

Fully Ramblomatic, which he releases through Second Wind
.

Croshaw has developed and released over two dozen

Dark Horse Books
.

Outside of creative works, Croshaw was one of four founders of the Mana Bar, an Australian cocktail bar and video gaming lounge which opened in 2010, and had closed by 2015.

Game journalism

Zero Punctuation

Main article: Zero Punctuation

Zero Punctuation was a video-review column Croshaw released every Wednesday on The Escapist

one more review, Croshaw was hired to continue the series on The Escapist.[4][7] Reviews were typically posted initially on The Escapist's site, then uploaded to The Escapist's YouTube channel a week later.[2] The addition of the series to The Escapist led to a large growth in site traffic,[8] and the series became the most popular feature on The Escapist,[3] with each episode consistently receiving hundreds of thousands of views, and the most popular episodes surpassing a million views.[2]

Throughout the series's lifetime, Croshaw became known for his rapid-fire delivery

subjective artistic standpoint."[14]

Fully Ramblomatic

Main article: Second Wind (entertainment group)
 Yahtzee Croshaw Twitter
@YahtzeeCroshaw

Today, I formally resigned from The Escapist and Gamurs. I don't have the rights to Zero Punctuation, but whatever happens you'll be hearing my voice again soon, in a new place. Join this discord for updates in the coming days:

6 November 2023[‡ 4]

On 6 November 2023, Croshaw announced his resignation from The Escapist alongside other colleagues following the abrupt firing of editor-in-chief Nick Calandra that same day, effectively ending Zero Punctuation as a series.[2][3][4][15] Two days later, Calandra and Croshaw announced the creation of Second Wind,[2][4][15] a new outlet on which Croshaw would continue weekly video-reviews under the title Fully Ramblomatic.[4]

Game development

Yahtzee Croshaw in a group photo
Croshaw (second from left) outside GDC 2008, alongside (left to right) Justin Hall, Merci Hammon, and Duncan Gough

Croshaw's first publicly released game was the Arthur Yahtzee trilogy created in Visual Basic 3 and released in 1998.[16][17] He also wrote a selection of interactive fiction games through Z-Code, including Offensive Probing, Arthur Yahtzee: The Curse of Hell's Cheesecake, The Sorceror's Appraisal, and the Countdown trilogy tied to his Chzo Mythos.[18][19]

Croshaw then developed many freeware games[7] in Adventure Game Studio from 2000 to 2007, including the Rob Blanc trilogy,[20] Lunchtime of the Damned (the inaugural episode of Reality-On-The-Norm),[21][22] The Trials of Odysseus Kent,[23][verification needed][24] the four part Chzo Mythos,[25][26][27][28][29] Adventures In The Galaxy Of Fantabulous Wonderment,[30] the 1213 series,[31][32] and Trilby: The Art of Theft.[33][34][35][36][37]

The latter two games were noted for pushing the engine beyond what it was designed for.

icculus.org,[40] later updated in 2015 to the now open source AGS runtime.[41]

In April 2012,

GameMaker Studio,[44] which he would use to make all his subsequent games.[‡ 5]

In a 2014

total conversion mod for the original Duke Nukem 3D called Age of Evil.[45][46]

In 2015, Croshaw released the

PC Magazine's Will Greenwald scored the game 3.5/5, describing the game as "a funny little take on casual mobile games that doesn't offer any depth or complexity," while adding that the game "does a good job of taking the piss out of games (and you as the player) with the sharp-tongued Britishness of Yahtzee's writing and the minimalism of his animations."[48]

In November 2013, Croshaw released the

Frankenstein's Monster than Eldritch Abomination, shambling along [...] with once fresh parts, dug up from here and there."[53] On 20 November, a new version of the game was released on Steam, which included new features.[54]

In May 2019, Croshaw began a new video series called Dev Diary, wherein he would develop 12 freeware games over the course of a year.[55]

His latest game, Starstruck Vagabond, is due to be released in 2024.[56]

Yahtzee does all the artwork for his games himself in

King's Quest 3."[57] The music in a number of his games was composed by Mark Lovegrove.[58][59]

Writing

In the 2000s Croshaw created a number of webcomics, namely Chris and Trilby, Cowboy Comics!, The Adventures of Angular Mike, and Yahtzee Takes On The World!, which ran from December 20, 2000, to September 22, 2002. He also uploaded two unpublished novels to his website, Fog Juice and Articulate Jim: A Search for Something.[60]

Croshaw was previously a staff writer for the Adventure Gamers website.[61]

In 2010, Croshaw's first published novel Mogworld, was released by Dark Horse Books.

Tor.com's Chris Greenland stated that the book "isn't going to bowl anyone over," while adding that "Croshaw undoubtedly has a strong, unique voice and I would hate to see that limited to only critiques."[62]

Later that same year, the short story collection Machine of Death was published, featuring a story by Croshaw[64] titled "Exhaustion From Having Sex With a Minor".[65] The Times Herald-Record's Jim Higgins described the story as "a talky tale of political intrigue that could be straight out of Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, with a snappy twist at the end that O. Henry might appreciate."[65]

In 2012, an ebook version of Mogworld was released, which included an excerpt of Croshaw's second novel, Jam.[63] The novel was published later that year on October 10.[‡ 6] The Quad's Kelly Baker described the book as "very funny, but [...] also surprisingly disturbing to boot."[66]

In 2017, Croshaw's third novel, the sci-fi comedy Will Save the Galaxy for Food was published.[67] In 2019, its sequel Will Destroy the Galaxy for Cash was published as an audiobook on Audible; a print version followed in 2020.[68] In April 2024, the final book in the series Will Leave the Galaxy for Good was published on Audible, with print and ebook versions to follow.[‡ 7]

In 2018, Croshaw's fourth novel Differently Morphous was published as an audiobook,[69] with a print version following on 10 April 2019.[70] A sequel followed in 2021, titled Existentially Challenged.[‡ 8]

Bibliography

  • Mogworld.
    OCLC 589017680
    .
  • OCLC 678476546
    .
  • Jam. Dark Horse Books. 2012.
    OCLC 794973812
    .
  • Will Save the Galaxy for Food. Dark Horse Books. 2017.
    OCLC 950635680
    .
  • Differently Morphous. Dark Horse Books. 2018.
    OCLC 1053611265
    .
  • Will Destroy the Galaxy for Cash. Dark Horse Books. 2020.
    OCLC 1154255211
    .
  • Existentially Challenged. Dark Horse Books. 2021.
    OCLC 1322812492
    .
  • Will Leave the Galaxy for Good. Audible. 2024.

Other works

Game Damage

Game Damage was a planned video game-centred TV show co-starring Croshaw.[71] A pilot was released on YouTube in December 2008.[71][72][73] In October 2009, a trailer for the first season was released.[74] In November 2009, CNET reported that the show was "looking for international funding".[10] The show was ultimately never picked up. In a 2014 interview with Vice, Croshaw stated that he believed the show never saw success because "TV networks tend to be antsy about gaming content because video gaming is one of TV's main competitors".[14]

Mana Bar

Main article: Mana Bar

Croshaw was one of four founders of the Mana Bar,[75] an Australian cocktail bar and video gaming lounge.[76][77][78][79] The bar initially opened in Brisbane in 2010,[80] with a second venue opening in Melbourne in 2011.[81] By May 2015, both venues had closed.[82][83][84]

References

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Primary sources

In the text these references are preceded by a double dagger (‡):

  1. ^ Croshaw, Yahtzee (7 October 2003). "I Am Jack's Thoughtful Introspection". fullyramblomatic. Archived from the original on 22 May 2022. Retrieved 18 February 2024. I am Benjamin Richard Croshaw.
  2. ^ Croshaw, Yahtzee (8 April 2006). "Fucking Ada". fullyramblomatic. Archived from the original on 18 January 2024. Retrieved 18 February 2024. I was born on May 24th 1983 ...
  3. ^ Croshaw, Yahtzee (22 July 2017). Yahtzee annoys his girlfriend with Dark Souls (episode 7). YouTube (Livestream). The Escapist. Event occurs at 39:17. Archived from the original on 7 November 2023. Retrieved 2 March 2024. I'm from the town of Rugby, in the county of Warwickshire; ...
  4. ^ Croshaw, Yahtzee [@YahtzeeCroshaw] (7 November 2023). "Today, I formally resigned from The Escapist and Gamurs. I don't have the rights to Zero Punctuation, but whatever happens you'll be hearing my voice again soon, in a new place. Join this discord for updates in the coming days" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 7 November 2023. Retrieved 14 February 2024 – via Twitter.
  5. GameMaker Studio 2 by YoYo Games
    for this (and probably all my projects), the same thing I used for Hatfall and Consuming Shadow ...
  6. ^ "JAM novel". darkhorse.com. Archived from the original on 13 February 2024. Retrieved 16 February 2024. Publication Date: October 10, 2012
  7. ^ Croshaw, Yahtzee (5 April 2024). "Will Leave This Trilogy Where It Is". fullyramblomatic. Archived from the original on 14 April 2024. Retrieved 14 April 2024.
  8. ^ Croshaw, Yahtzee (10 December 2021). "Existentially Challenged is now out!". fullyramblomatic. Archived from the original on 18 November 2023. Retrieved 16 February 2024.

Further reading

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ben Croshaw.
Wikiquote has quotations related to Ben Croshaw.
Wikiquote has quotations related to Zero Punctuation.
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