My 7DRL entry is bagged and tagged.
I plan to do a longer post about the week… there was so much… but for now, I’m going to take a nap!
My 7DRL entry is bagged and tagged.
I plan to do a longer post about the week… there was so much… but for now, I’m going to take a nap!
Beat! Bop! Beat! 1.0.0 is now available on the App Store!
In all reality, it has been for a long time.. however apparently the App Store has been down all day long. Great!
It’s free to play, with a $0.99 unlock for more features, less ads, and more music!
Beat! Bop! Beat! – Based on my Ludum Dare #31 entry was approved for the iOS App Store!
Planning on a release later this week.
Check out the main page for it here : Beat! Bop! Beat!
And I made a presskit() for it as well : Beat! Bop! Press!
It’s been a while. Can’t believe it’s been over a year since I was at E3 with In a Window. Since that time, I’ve been relatively quiet. Still working, but pretty quiet. Just not a whole lot to get excited about, really. No project I’ve worked on recently has really just caught my interest in such a way that the good projects usually do.
A game about monkeys fighting over bananas
A submarine game
A procedural spaceship game
A Combat game where players can copy themselves as a defensive stategy
Countless takes on the Hex Grid
Ascii Helicopter Game. Plus many… many more.
I keep going back to this, though.
Voxterium was received so well, however, Revision was not. Why? Well, that’s really easy. I took out too much from the first, and added too much to the second. The criticisms I received on Revision were very hard to hear. Not because they were mean, or because they were “insulting my baby.” It was because I completely agreed with (most) of them, and were related to decisions I made that I wasn’t comfortable with.
Looking through my history of notes, I was always negative about the campaign mode. I felt that the campaign mode was not a good fit for this game, it felt forced. I didn’t listen to myself. I put it in the game because :
Long story short, I created a game mode significantly weaker than the others, and virtually forced all my players to choose it.
Of all the game modes, all of them are completely neu
tered save two. Even those two are cut down from the original betas. I balanced the game completely wrong.
Not necessarily a bad thing, but they really don’t add anything to the game and were kind of an afterthought. Again, the game has achievements because games have achievements. The time I spent on these, could have been invested in other areas.
The music for this game is great. Zeph’s tracks fit well and I believe added so much to the game. Much of even the majority negative feedback I did give praise to the music. However the rest of the audio could have used some work. Some of it was “grating” and a lot of it could benefit from some of the audio knowledge I’ve gained over the last 2 years.
One thing really bothers me, however, and I want to address it. More than one set of submission feedback referred to the game as a “rhythm” game, and one kindly suggested a number of rhythm games I should play to get a better handle of the genre. I don’t know what to say. This is not a rhythm game. Not even close. All I can do with this feedback is take it as a compliment to the “marriage” of the gameplay and the soundtrack.
When I played Terry Cavanagh’s Hexagon for the Pirate cart, and then played Super Hexagon when it came out, I immediately noticed a similar story… I’m not comparing my game to his, as his is absolutely brilliant, but it is the same story of refining an original idea. But where Terry Cavanagh made the right decisions, I made the wrong one’s. He listened to the game, while I spent my time listening to other games and trying to make mine more like others. This is not how you do it.
I learned a lot from that experience. and I feel I need to spend some time giving Voxterium the remake it deserves. There’s a good game in there, and I completely let that idea down.
So my new game I am working on, is my old game that I was working on. Up to this point, I have concentrated on stripping stuff out of the game, and refining the survival modes, as well as a few graphical updates. Stay tuned for more updates, as I hope to be posting some more info and updates soon.
IndieCade has selected in a window for it’s 2013 E3 showcase. I’m thrilled to share a booth with some really great games.
Super excited to get a chance to hang out for 3 days in LA. You should come by and check out the booth if you’re headed to E3.
Los Angeles Convention Center June 11-13
Booth #3035, South Hall
See ya there!
in a window is out for windows. and its definitely the best game i’ve made this month…
you can download it from the game’s page.
there is currently an installer download, and a plain file download available if you happen to have all the xna goodies installed. i’m hoping to find some time in the next few days to get back into monogame to get a linux version up as well.
thanks for trying it! let me know if you run into any issues.
After a “soft” release earlier today, and a couple wonderful lessons in “if it can go wrong, it generally will”, Voxterium : Revision is out!
Get information about the game, download the demo, or at least purchase the game at www.voxterium.com. Currently, the game is available only on the website. It will be available on more distribution sites in the next few days.
I highly recommend that you download the demo first, just to make sure your computer will run the game. If you run into any issues at all, stop by the support page and check out the common issues posted, or send an email to me or support@picardy-third.com.
If you enjoy the demo, or even if you don’t, you can purchase the game from www.voxterium.com.
And as always, I appreciate any feedback. Let me know what you think about the game via email, or via twitter.
No go blast some bytes!
Picardy Third’s first official project is called Voxterium : Revision.
My first entry in Ludum Dare was a small little arcadey shooter called Voxterium. It was a blast to develop, and the feedback was overall pretty good. I finished in the top #50 overall (number 48 to be exact), and placed in the top 50 in 3 other categories.
The reception coupled with the fact that it’s about the perfect sized project for an initial release, has made me push everything aside to work on the sequel.