26 Apr 13
Nandrew
Right, so a bunch of you have been complaining about the apparent dissonance between the Transmuter’s lore and his abilities. We’ve attempted to clarify this point with an all-new set of Transmuter challenges that absorb the old storyline and update it just a lil’ bit. Have fun!
As is the norm recently, we’re pleased to announce a few interface improvements and an important development in the war against erroneous logging (hawww yeah!). The inventory and prep panels have been improved and we’ve also removed the questionable Gardening Shears from play.
Enjoy this week’s update, that’s the last of our bonus challenge series. The feedback in recent weeks has been fantastic, thank you! Changelog follows: More…
25 Apr 13
Aequitas
So what exactly did we do at GDC? Among other things, we went to the IGF/GDC award shows (look, Journey won Game of the Year!), and got to congratulate all our fellow devs on their wins/nominations. Watching Tim Schafer and Andy Schatz MC the two shows was a treat as always, and it’s the event where you’re most likely to meet some of the big names in AAA development. And yet, it’s not the highlight of GDC. Not for me at least.
So in San Francisco, there’s a hostel where practically all the Indie devs stay during GDC. This is fantastic. Meeting people at formal events is nice, and grabbing lunch with a random katamari of devs is great too, but heading down to the hostel common room at 2am (because time zones!) to do some browsing, and running into 20 devs in various states of panic/denial is amazing. The casual atmosphere lets you really get to know these awesome people, and learn that they’re all having the same struggle as you: Making a game. Making games is hard.
It was a whirlwind week of meeting people though. I’m just gonna list off some of the favorite moments from the conference now. Going to Supergiant Games to play Transistor. Hanging out with DannyB and Grant Kirkhope, chatting about DD’s music. Meeting Kert Gartner, and asking him to help us make a trailer for DD. Chatting to Lucas Pope about game design. Having dinner with the guys from Cipher Prime, and playing something new from them. Touring EA redwood shores with Paul Barnett. Going to the MoMA to see Robin Arnott exhibit SoundSelf. Meeting Steve Russell, and playing Spacewar! on an actual PDP-1. And about a million other things.
There really is no place quite like GDC
19 Apr 13
Nandrew
The Tinker challenge dungeons are in now!
Aside from that, welcome to the first full update week in a while. Phew. We nailed a chunk of that huuuuuuge bug list that crept up on us over the break, tweaked some minor balance issues here and there (in an unprecedented move, we’ve been quite generous towards players) and performed some well-needed interface maintenance.
Some notable fixes and tasks: we’re working on the login problems that some folks are having (with game sessions repeatedly demanding usernames and passwords), PQI Vicious awards a much bigger chunk of gold to victors and more work has been put into effects icons and information density concerning your heroes. As the past two blog images may suggest, we’re also hoping to get some revised icon art into the game soon.
Enjoy this week’s update, and let us know what you think of the latest round of improvements.
This week’s changelog is slightly bulkier than the last one. Are you ready for this? Okay, brace yourself, let’s go! The list awaits below:
More…
12 Apr 13
Nandrew
GDC is behind us for another year – and so are the long flights, communication delays and jet lag. Our normal update / work schedule resumes next week, but we’ve thrown together a couple of things for the front end that you’ll appreciate, including an all-new set of Crusader challenges featuring the all-new Ratling opponents featuring an all-new story told across several paragraphs of all-new epic writing.
All new!
So this is us getting into gear again. You can expect a full update next week with the regular dose of beta adjustments, poorly-constructed witticisms and life-changing work. Cheers for now!
Our artist is hard at work right now making effects sheet adjustments and fancy new icons for a lot of everyday stuff (half of the ability roster seems to be represented by a pool of blood right now. Seriously). Minor changelog follows, but we’ll actually have more tweaks next week: More…