I missed last week’s post, I know, but here I am again. Well, there’s someone already working on the game. She’ll do concept design and also 3d modeling, and since she’s a designer you can be sure the final game will not look like crap, heh. I mean, the idea is for the game to look, sound, and play cool!

Since I wanted people to have a better idea of what kind of game I want Enola to be, I made a few changes to the game I made for ludum dare. This new build is what I call a “very small prototype” since it involves some of the gameplay mechanics I want for the full game. It features 1 puzzle, 1 trap, and an additional ending (AKA the “good” ending). You can download this build here. Obviously the full game will be a lot longer than this.

In other news, but somehow related, I’ve been playing some Amnesia: The Dark Descent lately. It’s a very cool game, but so far it hasn’t scared me (I know someone who’d even say that I’m a person without feelings because the game hasn’t scared me). This is not the first time a scary game doesn’t scare me, so I began to think how I could make Enola scary, if horror games don’t scare me (one of the last times I recall being scared was when someone said “we don’t go to Ravenholm.” So I it took me some pretty heavy thinking, but I figured I could use parts of “the human condition” and twist it a little so it could be scary. Pretty much, Enola focuses on a more “real” and more “humane” kind of fear.

It was that or add a bunch of trucks into the game, since trucks do scare me (I was in a car accident some years ago; a truck hit me, and it was like freaking Optimus Prime punched my car).

And since I’m cool, here’s a screen of the game prototype.

Play the prototype, and if you like it make a donation.

I didn’t post last weekend because Sunday was the first day of the year, but here I am again

Today I launched a campaign on IndieGoGo to raise some money to develop a full version of my ludum dare 22 entry, Enola. I am offering different things in exchange of the donations, from t-shirts and posters to the full source code of the game after it’s finished.

The full version of the game would combine the exploration aspects I poured into the original ludum dare 22 entry, as well as puzzles and other stuff similar to Myst. It would be what I call a “horror/adventure” game. I don’t consider this a survival/horror game because there won’t be any kind of combat (and I plan the game to be designed in a way that you don’t “die”) and it won’t be an action/horror game either since, again, it has no combat.

However, there are more things that scare us other than a big monster that can slice you in half, and that’s my plan really.

If the game sounds interesting to you, you can always make a donation

On a side note, and completely unrelated to Enola, you can now buy SteroidS on GamersGate as well.

Shortest post ever: I made a game in 48 hours (actually I only worked 23), using UDK, for ludum dare 22. You can see the game here. Enola is an “exploration” game above anything else.

Screenshot!

A review on Vue 10 xStream should be available tomorrow on Renderosity.

In other news, you can now buy SteroidS directly on the website. I created an account with BMT Micro, they can collect payments, deliver the software, and the whole shebang. Indivania has the problem of being Paypal-only, so if you wanted SteroidS and didn’t have a Paypal account, you can buy it here.

This week I registered for Ludum Dare, and I hope I will have the time to actually make something. We’ll see how that goes one week from now. I will be releasing whatever I can come up with free of charge.

BTW I think tomorrow I will be writing a small impression on the Indie Bundles on my Gamasutra blog.

Note to myself, gotta get a faster internet connection, although internet is very slow in this country (for uploads, at least).

BTW DIYGamer wrote a nice note on the game.

I’ve also been working on Parasite (two projects at the same time, that’s crazy). A lot of things have changed, and I haven’t updated the IndieDB page, but that’s because we’re working out some possible distribution and funding deals, so I figure it’s better not to show anything right now. I can tell you that I am changing some of the melee animations to better suit the character, since she’s not supposed to be a fighter or something like that.

There’s not much to tell besides that, so I guess I’ll see you next week

In the meantime, how about a screenshot?

I was looking around the net looking for (good or bad) comments on the game, and made a small list of what the next update should include. By reading those comments I also realized some people don’t seem to understand what the game is about, since they make comparisons that aren’t really accurate.

SteroidS is not some sort of isometric or (far-perspective) third person shooter. SteroidS is an Asteroids-like game, where all you do is shoot the bad guys and get high scores. It’s like saying SteroidS is Geometry Wars without the glowing shapes, but with shirtless dudes.

Anyway, Indie Game Magazine wrote a little something on SteroidS. More articles will come soon, I promise. Remember you can get SteroidS for $5.99 on Indievania (the $2.99 offer is now gone).

Since this is my blog and I can talk more freely than how I can talk in other media, I can say (based on what you just saw on the video) the idea was to make a dumb game.

I mean, the mechanics are simple and work (shoot stuff, get scores, shoot more stuff before it gets to the bottom, get scores, don’t get touched, don’t get shot), but I wanted to add more to it, so you see there are a few humorous elements on the levels (kernel panic screens, BSODs, and screens with orange characters à la Portal). The game has many many more of these, but obviously I can’t spoil them for you.

All I can say is the game is a lot of fun, and on higher difficulty levels it becomes nearly impossible to beat. So, why don’t you get SteroidS now on Indievania? You know you want to

This week there was a new article on Renderosity written by me. It’d been a while since I’d written my last article, too much time to tell the truth, so I had to solve that and write something. This week article´s was about a game titled 250 indie games you must play. There will be more articles from me on Renderosity in the following weeks, including software reviews and books, so keep an eye on the site.

I plan to write a postmortem on SteroidS. It will be made available on my Gamasutra, and I’ll post the link here when it’s done. BTW I am now an Expert Blogger on Gamasutra, HAHA!

As the title states, SteroidS goes gold, and it’s going to be released “soon.” Here’s the gameplay video (music by Xander Davis, if you like it, make sure you visit the Force Effect website)

BTW I got a hate message from someone hoping the game flops. Can’t you feel the love?

Well, as you know I began a Gamasutra blog 2 weeks ago. Well it seems they liked my second enough to make it a featured post, which is always a good thing (it’s all about the exposure, man). The second part of that series will be on my Gamasutra blog tomorrow, so if you want to know more about how we built an indie game development company in an unlikely place, read tomorrow’s post

Today I finished the SteroidS release candidate, and tomorrow we begin testing it. Actually I did a really small testing today, and found my first two bugs, which sucks… but at least I found them (and they are easy to fix). I hope I don’t find that many bugs. I think it’s safe to say we’re aiming for a release in 7 days or so (you will die in 7 days!!!).

BTW in case you didn’t know, I’d posted a new SteroidS gameplay a few days ago.

This week we also nailed down the design of a new Parasite level, and I’d dare say it’s the most complex level we have so far, which is a good thing considering that level should be really REALLY hard to beat.

As you may or may not know, Parasite relies a lot on choice, and making the players feel lost while making sure they still end up somewhere (we don’t want them to move in circles for hours and hours), and that really shows on this last level.

I have to say it’s been difficult to keep an eye on two projects at the same time, but as they say: “you gotta do what you gotta do.” Some people would argue that doing that was totally insane, but we had developed a plan early this year (when we opened The Domaginarium), and while we’ve been adapting and all, some risky moves had to be made and developing two projects was something we needed to do.

See you next week!