- New game 'The Last Gig', and Jean-Paul Software live on 'Inside Unreal' tonight - 1 May 2025
I've been working on a game, and there's now a store page for it- it's called 'The Last Gig' and it's about putting on humanity's last ever rock concert in the midst of an AI apocalypse. You can wishlist here- please do! https://store.steampowered.com/app/3680580/The_Last_Gig/ I'm going to be talking about some of the technology I've used to make it LIVE tonight at 7pm UK / 2pm ET on Inside Unreal - check out the announcement here - https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/inside-unreal-taking-pcg-to-the-extreme-with-the-pcgex-plugin/2479952 I'll be turning a single cube into a world-class arts centre, live.
- Screen Explosion @ Electro-Magnetic Field - also, could you write a review? - 29 March 2024
Screen Explosion Live! The Jean-Paul Software Screen Explosion! will be on display at the fabulous Electromagnetic Field Festival this summer! Running from the 30th of May to the 2nd of June, EMF is probably the most unique festival going, featuring everything from games to music to talks that show TED to be the bland agglomeration of self-promoting midwits it really is. Tickets are sold out, but keep checking the website and you may get lucky. They're also open to submissions for exhibits and talks, so if you've got something to show, or a talk about how to hack your toaster so can embed QR codes into your breakfast, then get in touch with the organisers. If you're already coming down sure to say hi- you'll be able to tell who I am, because I have a beard and glasses, which is a very unique combination, particularly amongst people who work with computers. And also... if you're enjoying…
- Small patch for "Here's Looking At You Kid" - 25 October 2022
Very quick patch for the exciting new Hallowe'en screensaver "Here's Looking At You, Kid". I don't think anyone noticed it and as such I'm not going to say what was wrong. Oh, and there's 20% off for Hallowe'en!
- Here's Looking At You Kid (and a rather big bug fix) - 18 October 2022
Here's Looking At You Kid - the new Hallowe'en screensaver is live. Early! ...because unfortunately there was a very large bug in the install script that meant that the app wouldn't have worked for anyone who installed it after the last update, so I'm pushing a fix for that now along with all the other code. For anyone who has installed since about 1 month ago, and finds the screensaver isn't starting in Windows, please uninstall and reinstall the app, and it should work properly. Major thanks to DivviSmalls for helping me to track this down! And I hope you enjoy your eyeballs!
- The Jean-Paul Software SCREAM Explosion - 17 October 2022
Bats and blood and witches and politicians representing Florida / North East Somerset are fine for a regular Hallowe'en, but here at Jean-Paul Software things are done slightly differently. Last year it was the fear of death, this year it's the fear of being watched*. Releasing for this year's Steam Scream Fest is the new "Here's Looking At You, Kid" screensaver- thousands of mad, staring eyeballs, a bath of blood, and another screensaver that straddles the line between "nice to look at" and "quietly horrifying". As ever, this is a free update, but if you would like to buy an additional copy for your local stadium or courthouse so they can stick it on their public information system that will be very welcome. *If you have a fear of pylons, fish, clocks, council estates, hyper speed, carpets, higher dimensional geometry, Santa's logistical operations, or subliminal messages The Jean-Paul…
- Hallowe'en screensaver available for testing (and a bug fix for palettes) - 8 October 2022
It's October, you're cold, and Hallowe'en is nearly here- and so is the second annual Jean-Paul Software Screen Explosion Hallowe'en Screensaver! "Here's Looking At You, Kid" is currently available for testing in the beta branch- if someone with an AMD GPU could give it a whirl I'd be extremely grateful as I only have an NVidia one. To access the beta branch, go to the app in your library, right click on it and select 'Properties'. In there is a "betas" tab- use the password ilovetestingsoftware to unlock it. The new screensaver will be officially released alongside the upcoming Steam Scream Fest on the 25th of October. This update should also fix a rare issue with custom palettes where deleting one that you were using could cause the app to crash on load.
- Custom colour palettes now available - 28 July 2022
The four screensavers with user-selectable colour palettes now have the option to create your own! Now you can finally create your country's flag with fish. You can add as many palettes as you want, and select whether they're enabled or disabled for if you have the 'random' palette on. You can also disable the native palettes if you want. Some tips- There's a maximum and minimum number of colours for each screensaver. When you create a palette, it will be set with the minimum. The maximum for most is 20, except The Sublimnotron, where there have to be three colours- no more, no less The first colour is usually the background the colour. The exception for this is The Haunted Carpet, which (for now) always has a black background Colours for fish will probably have to be relatively light, since that one has lighting applied, and the colours will spend at least some time in shadow. If the c…
- Quick fix for the 'set as screensaver' dialog - 27 July 2022
The 'set as screensaver' dialog should work again now. Apologies!
- Random colour palettes now available for more screensavers - 17 July 2022
All screensavers with colour palettes now have a 'random' option that can be ticked, which will get them to pick a random colour scheme at start up.
- Demo now available! - 17 June 2022
If you've been on the fence about trying out this sublime piece of software, now you can try the demo, 100% risk free! Two excellent screensavers to try! Full calibration with no obligation! No time limits! No watermarks, purchase reminders, or dark marketing patterns! No Discord server! Because I don't have a Discord server! Upgrading to the real thing is a breeze too- all your settings from the demo will be carried over. Any issues, please let me know, but in the meantime, as ever, keep on saving those screens Cheers, -Ed / Jean-Paul Software
- The Jean-Paul Software Steam Deck Explosion! (Updated 20/07) - 11 June 2022
UPDATE 20/07/2022 Officially the app is "unsupported" on Steam Deck, which is consistent with the below. Some bits work, some bits don't, I'm not going to fix the bits that don't because you don't need a screensaver on your Steam deck. --- Hats off to Valve, this actually completely works on the Steam Deck! A pleasant surprise given I've done absolutely nothing to make it compatible. There are some caveats however: Pylons of the World and Deadline aren't rendering properly. LIDAR Land is really slow. The settings app works, but it's not really designed to be used with a touch screen, so expect things to be a bit fiddly. There's no good reason to run The Jean-Paul Software Screen Explosion on your Steam Deck, except maybe to impress people in bars, so I'm not really inclined to spend time fixing any of the above... but let me know in the comments if it's something that you absolutely hav…
- Sublimnotron now capped at 60fps as well - 11 June 2022
This is the last one that doesn't have a sensible framerate cap. I hope.
- Hotfix: cap framerate for Tunnel O' Fun - 9 June 2022
Tunnel O' Fun now has it's framerate capped at 60FPS. Let me know if that's too much, or too little.
- Added a preview button to the settings app - 23 May 2022
Small update to add a preview button to the settings app, which should make checking out the different screensavers and any settings changes a lot easier. This update also caps the frame rate of the test card at 60fps; previously it was uncapped, which there's absolutely no call for.
- Fixes for achievements, pylon names not displaying, and the 'random' option - 22 May 2022
Three quick bug fixes! - Pylons of the World should now display the name of the country the pylon is from somewhere it can be seen by everyone - The "Put on the Glasses!" achievement won't just trigger automatically, you'll need to work out what film it's referring to - The 'random' screensaver will no longer (hopefully) try and display the corpses of unused prototype screensavers that are buried in the code Any other issues, please let me know! Cheers, -Ed / Jean-Paul Software
- "Dark Mode" now available for Pylons of the World - 22 May 2022
I had a request to add a 'dark mode' to Pylons of the World, as the colours were a bit aggressive late at night. That's now in- enable night mode in the settings, and you'll either be able to keep it dark permanently, or schedule when you'd like it to start and stop. Night mode uses more muted set of colour schemes, such as this one: Ironically (given the subject matter), this does make it look a little like you're driving through a power cut- rewriting the lighting calculations to allow the streetlamps in each scene to turn on is a fair bit of work, so until I port this to Unreal Engine 5, they'll remain dark. But I quite like it this way. Please let me know in the Steam forum if you have any other feature requests or bugs that need looking at Cheers, -Ed / Jean-Paul Software P.S please leave a review if you haven't done so already, partly to let me know what you don't like, and partly…
- Minor update - Steam API is now optional - 20 May 2022
I've added an option to disable the Steam API, which means you can now choose whether or not you want Steam to show that you're using the software when it gets started by Windows. Note that this will also disable achievements, workshop items, any other app integrations that you have enabled (e.g. Discord), and the record of your play time. To toggle the setting on or off, go to 'Display and Quality Settings' in the settings app, and toggle the option at the bottom labelled 'Enable Steam API', as shown here. Any other requests, please let me know! Cheers, -Ed / Jean-Paul Software P.S. please leave a review, if you can, a) to let me know what you love and hate, and b) to kick Steam's recommendation algorithm up the arse a bit.
- This new 3D screensaver collection includes a driving tour of global pylons - 19 May 2022
The first time a PC seemed magical to me was when it dozed off and colourful lines twisted across its screen. I'd launch Windows 3.1 just to watch screensavers, marvelling at Mystify and staring at Starfield. How wonderful that our computer needed to dream as preventative medicine! I relived this today with a new collection of customisable 3D screensavers, watching shoals of fish, taking a road trip through a museum of global electricity pylons, watching housing estates rise and fall, and seeing so many swirly colours. Read more
- Version 1.0 Out Now! - 18 May 2022
After a long and occasionally torturous development period the Jean-Paul Software Screen Explosion is DONE. Here's a run down of everything achieved with version 1.0: 11 screensavers, most of which are good, plus a 'random' button! No more bug reports! Workshop support! Over 93 copies sold! Functioning code! PYLONS OF THE WORLD! Really cool multi-monitor support! Steam achievements! Thanks to everyone who has supported this so far, I love you all. I'm going to take a break and then move on to the next thing, which is a game, and probably an easier sell. Probably. Happy screen exploding, -Ed / Jean-Paul Software
- New Screensaver: The Nth Estate - 10 May 2022
Keep it quiet but the Screen Explosion is almost done. This release contains the final thing that I wanted to get out of my head and into the computer, which I'm calling "The Nth Estate" - procedurally generated social housing, inspired by my lockdown bike rides around Tottenham. There's a couple of small things to tidy up, and I might try and stick a generator based on Trellick Tower and perhaps another few window and balcony shapes in, but this is pretty much it. All that's left to do is put together a launch trailer and then press this button... ...and it will be a real, actual product. Many thanks to all of you who have come along for the ride, you're all my heroes. Enjoy! -Ed
