Fun Infused Friday 2
Fun Infused Friday 3/18/2011
It is time for our second weekly Fun Infused Friday. This again has been a busy week though I sadly don't have a bunch of new videos to show off like I did last week. I will try and get a new video for one of our games available next week.
World of Chalk
Slowly this game is coming along. Mainly just working on getting items into the game and solidifying the attack mechanic. The June deadline for Dream Build Play is fast approaching so we need to get some serious work done on this soon.
Volcano (working title)
Volcano has seen the most progress of any of our games this week. We contracted out for the artwork and much of the new (and good) artwork is now in the game. The game plays well through 9 levels and is a lot of fun. I've been playtesting the levels a lot and trying to make them all unique, fun, and challenging.
In order to get 100% completion on a level, you need to collect all the gems in that level. Because of the lava-rising mechanic, this can often be very challenging. Beating a level outright isn't often that hard but completing it with all the gems really can be. Trying to collect all the gems and finish a level is probably the most fun aspect of this game.
I would like to do a playtest soon and see how other gamers feel about the difficulty level and fun factor of the game. The biggest holdup on that is the naming of the game... it won't just be Volcano. I've been kicking around a few ideas for the final name but haven't settled on one just yet.
Hypership Out of Control WP7
We also started on the long awaited Windows Phone 7 port of Hypership Out of Control. The new game currently compiles but saving, loading, and sound effects need to be adjusted. The WP7 port will also see all new levels. Because of the narrower screen size on WP7 devices the existing levels would need some serious modification. Rather than doing that, I'm just going to make some new ones! Chances are they will look similar to the Xbox levels and even incorporate some elements from those levels, but they won't be the same levels you're used to.
I'm also very excited about the prospect of doing true global leader boards with this game too. I will be setting up a web service that allows you to save your high scores to a database and compete against the entire world for high scores. I believe this will work far better than the peer-to-peer sharing in the Xbox version. While that worked well initially, there simply aren't enough people playing Hypership anymore to make it worthwhile.
Hypership Out of Control Online
The HTML5 version of Hypership has seen a lot of progress too. Besides the PowerShot item, all items are now in the game and working. Many of the game's sound effects are in there too. Most of the remaining work to the game is adding in some graphical effects (particles, animations, etc), figuring out how to save high scores, and improving performance.
The game is very playable, try it out for yourself at funinfused.com/HypershipOnline. Depending on your computer and browser (Chrome seems to work better than other's I've tested) you may run into some performance issues.
Other Stuff
This past week Trivia or Die surpassed Abduction Action! as our best selling game. Not bad for a game that took 1-2 months of development time and only a few out of pocket expenses (music mainly). It feels good to have a game that is doing well, even if some of that success is because the game includes Avatars. A few more games that do this well (or better) and I could realistically do indie game development as a full time career.
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