College-Ruled Universe

Ballpoint Boss Back when this was called College-Ruled Universe, it was one of the first games I helped fund through Kickstarter. It was a pleasant little R-Type-style shooter, written in Flash by an art student, Leo “Zigzag” Dasso, who had built an entire world, in Flash, out of the casual doodles he drew during classes. He had a friend compose an atmospheric soundtrack and put it on Kickstarter. I thought it was an amazing game, not so much for the mechanics, but for the pure expression of art. The funding goal was low, so I put in a few bucks, and the project was successfully funded. ...

College-Ruled Universe I used to doodle a lot as a kid. I’d draw up adventures where, typically, bad things would happen to my kid sister. If those drawings had come to life… well, I would have a very angry sister today (sorry, Val. At least I am comforted knowing you will never read my blog). Artist Leo Dasso had a different vision. While doodling in class one day, he was inspired to turn his doodles into space ships, cities and extremely weird bosses and wire them up in Flash to make an abstract and visually striking side-scrolling shooter in the vein of R-Type and the old Treasure bulletstorms. He tapped a friend of his to do the music and called the game College-Ruled Universe. ...