Yahtzee Croshaw facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Yahtzee Croshaw
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Croshaw in 2010
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| Born |
Benjamin Richard Croshaw
24 May 1983 Rugby, Warwickshire, England
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| Occupation | Journalist, video game critic, author, video game developer, humourist |
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Kess
(m. 2018) |
| Children | 2 |
Benjamin Richard "Yahtzee" Croshaw (born on May 24, 1983) is a British writer, video game critic, and game creator. He is famous for his video game review series called Zero Punctuation. He made this series for The Escapist from 2007 to 2023.
After leaving The Escapist, he started a new review series called Fully Ramblomatic with Second Wind. Yahtzee Croshaw has also made many indie games, some for free and some to buy. He has also written several books. He was also one of the people who started the Mana Bar, a special bar in Australia where people could play video games.
Contents
Game Journalism
Discovering Zero Punctuation
Zero Punctuation was a popular video review series by Yahtzee Croshaw. He released a new episode every Wednesday on The Escapist website. The series started in 2007 with a review of a game demo called The Darkness. This review quickly became very popular.
After reviewing another game, Fable: The Lost Chapters, Croshaw was hired to continue his series. His reviews were first posted on The Escapist website. A week later, they were uploaded to The Escapist's YouTube channel. Zero Punctuation brought many new visitors to The Escapist and became its most popular feature. Each episode often got hundreds of thousands of views, and some even reached over a million.
Yahtzee's Unique Review Style
Throughout the years, Yahtzee Croshaw became known for his very fast talking style. This is where the name "Zero Punctuation" comes from. He was also known for his strong opinions on the games he reviewed and the wider video game industry. His reviews often included funny but sometimes rude humor and drawings.
He even created the phrase "PC Master Race" in one of his reviews, which became a common saying among PC gamers. His reviews were usually about five minutes long. He never gave games a number score or rating. He believed that scores were "nonsense" when you are sharing your personal opinion about a game as a piece of art.
Starting Fully Ramblomatic
On November 6, 2023, Yahtzee Croshaw announced that he was leaving The Escapist. Many of his co-workers also left after their editor-in-chief was fired. This meant that Zero Punctuation came to an end.
Just two days later, Croshaw and his former editor announced a new company called Second Wind. Here, Yahtzee would continue making weekly video reviews. His new series is called Fully Ramblomatic.
Game Development
Yahtzee Croshaw has been making games for a long time. His first games that were released to the public were the Arthur Yahtzee trilogy in 1998. He also wrote several text-based adventure games.
He then made many free games using a program called Adventure Game Studio between 2000 and 2007. These games included the Rob Blanc trilogy, Lunchtime of the Damned, and the four-part Chzo Mythos series. These last two games were special because they pushed the limits of what the game engine could do. In 2009, he made all his special edition games available for free.
Later Game Projects
In April 2012, Croshaw released a game called Poacher. This game was inspired by Cave Story. He made Poacher using GameMaker Studio, which he has used for all his games since then.
In 2015, he released a mobile game called Hatfall. A reviewer from PC Magazine said it was a "funny little take on casual mobile games" with Yahtzee's "sharp-tongued Britishness."
In November 2013, Croshaw released a test version of a horror game called The Consuming Shadow. The full game came out on July 30, 2015. A new version with more features was released on Steam later that year.
In May 2019, Yahtzee started a new video series called Dev Diary. In this series, he planned to create 12 free games over one year.
His most recent game, Starstruck Vagabond, was released on Steam on May 24, 2024. It received good reviews from some gaming websites.
Yahtzee Croshaw creates all the artwork for his games himself using MS Paint. This gives his games a cool, old-school look, like games from the 1980s and 90s. The music in many of his games was made by Mark Lovegrove.
Writing
In the early 2000s, Yahtzee Croshaw also created several webcomics. He also uploaded two books he had written but not published to his website. He used to be a writer for the Adventure Gamers website.
In 2010, his first published book, Mogworld, was released. A reviewer from Tor.com said that Croshaw "undoubtedly has a strong, unique voice."
Later in 2010, a collection of short stories called Machine of Death was published. This book included a story by Croshaw.
In 2012, an ebook version of Mogworld was released. It included a preview of his second book, Jam, which was published later that year. A reviewer described Jam as "very funny, but [...] also surprisingly disturbing."
In 2017, Croshaw's third book, a funny science fiction story called Will Save the Galaxy for Food, was published. Its sequel, Will Destroy the Galaxy for Cash, came out as an audiobook in 2019, with a print version in 2020. The final book in the series, Will Leave the Galaxy for Good, was released as an audiobook in April 2024.
In 2018, his fourth book, Differently Morphous, was released as an audiobook, with a print version following in 2019. A sequel to this book, called Existentially Challenged, was published in 2021.
Bibliography
- North, Ryan; Bennardo, Matthew; Malki, David, eds. (2010). Machine of Death. Bearstache Books.
- Croshaw, Yahtzee (2010). Mogworld. Dark Horse Books.
- Croshaw, Yahtzee (2012). Jam. Dark Horse Books.
- Croshaw, Yahtzee (2017). Will Save the Galaxy for Food. Dark Horse Books.
- Croshaw, Yahtzee (2018). Differently Morphous. Dark Horse Books.
- Croshaw, Yahtzee (2019). Will Destroy the Galaxy for Cash. Dark Horse Books.
- Croshaw, Yahtzee (2021). Existentially Challenged. Dark Horse Books.
- Croshaw, Yahtzee (2024). Will Leave the Galaxy for Good. Dark Horse Books.
Other Works
The Mana Bar
Yahtzee Croshaw was one of four people who started the Mana Bar. This was a unique place in Australia that was both a cocktail bar and a video gaming lounge. The first Mana Bar opened in Brisbane in 2010. A second one opened in Melbourne in 2011. Both locations had closed by May 2015.
Images for kids
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Yahtzee Croshaw (second from left) outside a game conference in 2008.
See also
In Spanish: Ben Croshaw para niños
