As we’ve mentioned before, we’re sitting on a feature-complete-but-buggy Outwitters, which has all of the artwork it needs to be complete. I’ve heard whispers of a June release being “fa sho”, but when exactly, and whether that will truly come to pass, I cannot say with certainty. So while Alex does codes to squash crashing bugs and improve performance, I’ve been looking critically at the visual odds and ends.

And nitpicking.

The original character sprites were done in November/December of 2010, and I’ve hated many of them for nearly as long. So after overhauling map backgrounds and tilesets for the third time, I decided I’d bite the bullet and take another pass on characters. I had the time, and it doesn’t delay Alex’s work. So what ensued was the minor, but in my opinion worthwhile, process of redrawing and reanimating seven characters from facing forward, to facing slightly left. I realize how that sounds.

The difference is subtle, but it makes for slightly more dynamic screenshots, plus I finally got to fix the Feedback medic. You see, all of the one-eyed characters in Outwitters were snipers, except the Feedback medic. And all of the medics in Outwitters had crosses incorporated into their design, except the Feedback medic. It was maddening.

Having turned everyone sideways, I finally feel like the game’s artwork is the best I can do without completely starting over. That’s been my goal since I first “finished” the graphics for Outwitters last June.

Yesterday, we sat down with Owen Faraday of PocketTactics.com to talk about this game we’re almost done with. He threw us some Q’s, and we provided some effin’ A’s. You can read it all right now on the internet!

Now that the Outwitters beta testers have broken it in, the OML Forums are open for biness (big thanks to Mike Berg of WeHeartGames for helping us make that happen). We figure a community-centered multiplayer game like Outwitters is going to require some sort of… community center. So when the game comes out and you’re in need of a serious 2v2 partner, we hope you’ll drop in. Feel free to register and post amongst yourselves in the mean time.

We recently approved this theme song by Mike Reagan, composer for games like God of War and Darksiders. He described his vision for the music as “cute, but maniacal”, and apparently spent a lot of time staring at the evil little imp in our logo.

The X is just a roman numeral for ten. I’m not trying to make this update seem more extreme than other updates; it just happens to look amazing with an X at the end.

Alex is working on adding the store to Outwitters, after which he says we are “feature complete”. My ears perked up a little when I heard that. Don’t let the word “store” throw you, we won’t be selling hats or gold or nuclear arms (you can’t hug the world with nuclear arms). Just teams and maps. We don’t even have plans for bugging you with ads. This is the ideal we’d like to make work. We’ll see how that goes.

In Artland (population: me), the game tiles are getting a makeover. One thing that stood out for me from GDC was art directors talking about focal points, contrast and color. These were important lessons from art school that I’d left to die by the side of the road. I was drawing tiles the same way I drew characters, and everyone kept asking what they did! They are walls. They do nothing. IGNORE THEM.

You may have noticed that Tilt to Live HD‘s retina update hit the App Store last night. That’s the first thing we’ve sent for approval since, like last March. We vaguely remember this feeling. I think it’s called accomplishment.

Meanwhile, in Outwitters

Retina blowup is going smoother than TtL’s did, even though the game is 10 times bigger or something. We were quasi-prepared for this. Alex is still busy fixing bugs and adding stuff, so I have even more time to address bad art. I’m glad we’ve taken so long. The gameplay is better balanced for it, and my art skills have gotten lots of practice redoing things.

Also, we’re in the process of rolling this guy out, which should come in handy when you’re looking for a 2v2 partner:

We’re back from GDC, and only I have escaped the clutches of the conference plague. The one where fluids burst forth uncontrollably from every orifice. That’s what I’m told, anyway. Alex and our sound designer Mike were less fortunate, so they’re both out of commission until the spewing ceases. Then I imagine they have mopping to do. I am the one man left ™.

Our GDC meetings went well, Outwitters got some hot news love, and I got to see a ton of really interesting lectures from people who make games better than me. Oh and the iPad 3 is a jerk, cause now I gotta make lots of stuff THAT I ALREADY MADE AND AM SO TOTALLY OVER bigger. We’re going to try updating TtL HD to retina first, and if these dusty old, unorganized, what-the-hell-was-I-thinking art files play nice, maybe we’ll release it.

You may notice in our news clips that we keep saying we’re about two months away from Outwitters’ release. We’re gonna try really hard to not be liars again. We have in fact read The Boy Who Cried Wolf and taken its lessons to heart. Trailer’s coming sometime soon.

We’re on a plane to San Francisco this morning, ready to show Outwitters to some press folk after a few hard weeks of polish. You might wanna keep an eye on TouchArcade.com next week to see if they post about their hands on experience with the game. Also, I drew you a picture.

Another marathon painting week for me while Alex squashes bugs. GDC… uncomfortably… close. Not much time to get this message to the outside world. Tell our moms we’re okay.

All week, I’ve been hard at work painting level backgrounds while Alex rounds out the game’s feature list. The annual Game Developers Conference is about 2 weeks away, and we need to have something presentable, nay, impressive to show for our year of development time. Here’s a taste of a new Scallywags background, and then I’m back to work.