From the Desk of Alex Okafor

Hi OML fans!

Just wanted to start off this post with a huge thanks to our entire community of fans, players, and supporters! We wouldn’t have made it this far without you guys. It’s been a minute since our last update, and I wish this was more of an uplifting “bringing in the new year” post. Unfortunately, the last few years haven’t been the kindest to our studio, and to the indie game development scene at large. The combination of difficult market realities, and having burned the midnight oil for years on end is finally catching up with me (oh, to be young).

Going forward, OML is no longer a full-time endeavor for me. I’m currently happily in a new full-time position at another company.  When I think back on the years of development, the thing that sticks with me is the encouragement and excitement from our fans on what we were working on. You guys made it worth all the effort. I’m still in awe at the fan art, tools, community led tournaments, and support our fan base had shown over the years.

• So what does this mean for our online games? Our current game servers will continue to operate. If the situation changes with any of them, we’ll notify players on appropriate channels (this blog included).
• What does this mean for the Hex Gambit Switch port? It’s still in development, but at a much slower pace after hours. As such, I can’t really give an estimate on when it’ll be ready.

Again, I can’t emphasize enough how great these last 9+ years have been, and can’t thank you all you enough for that awesome opportunity.

What About Adam?

First of all, I’m grateful to Alex for taking me on this adventure in the first place, and I wish him the best.

We’d both like to offer a sincere apology to our Switch backers for all of the delays you guys have endured. After a rougher-than-expected Steam launch, we just found ourselves without any options to continue HG development full time. We over-promised, and we’re doing everything we can to make it right. Thank you all for your support and your patience.

While (as an artist) I can’t help Alex finish Hex Gambit any faster, I’m exploring my options for working on another game (don’t worry, there won’t be another Kickstarter) while taking on some contract work. If you’d like to see whatever might come next from me, make sure you subscribe to our mailing list and follow me on Twitter @oneadamleft. I have literally no idea what will happen!

If you’d like to contract me to help out with your project, I do all kinds of art with a specialty in UE4, and you can check out my portfolio right here.

October 23rd would have been the fourth birthday of Tilt to Live: Gauntlet’s Revenge. This insanely difficult, red-headed step child of the Tilt to Live series was unfortunately discontinued when it stopped working on modern phone operating systems. Today I’m going to finally do something I’ve been meaning to do for the better part of a year: preserve the absolutely bonkers final level of the game, the Dot Bot Fortress, for posterity. I think I can count on two hands the number of people that were able to unlock this gauntlet and defeat the Dot King. We worked super hard to make a satisfying final boss for GR, and barely anyone got to play it! So here’s a video to show you what you missed.

Using tools that Alex would make for me, I (the artist) painstakingly crafted all of the obstacle variations and boss patterns for this gauntlet myself. I knew it all inside and out. But this level was so nuts, even I couldn’t earn the game’s toughest medal: finishing this in one try on hard. Hard mode in Gauntlet’s Revenge meant you couldn’t take a single hit, and the one try medal was for surviving the whole thing without using the checkpoints to respawn. I could do the three sections individually without taking damage, so I knew One Try was technically possible, but to my knowledge no one ever earned that medal. AND THEY NEVER WILL.

RIP Gauntlet’s Revenge. You were bananas.

All this weekend, the Tilty-Tilt Boom Boom Bundle is on sale on the App Store for just $2.99 (slashed down from $5.99)! Included, you’ll find three classic iOS arcade games: Tilt to Live, Tilt to Live 2: Redonkulous, and Tilt to Live: Gauntlet’s Revenge. Three great games for just three bucks! It’s a perfect opportunity to complete your collection, or to experience the destructive power of the accelerometer for the very first time.

Tilt to Live is the arcade game that started it all! Using precise, customizable tilt controls you’ll shock, shred, and nuke your way through hordes of relentless red dots using an arsenal of satisfying weapons, including cluster missiles, ice blasts, vortexes and more.

Tilt to Live 2: Redonkulous turned that formula up to 11, adding even crazier weapons like the laser mace and the “perforator”. Also a first for the series were new “weapon tricks” to multiply your points, challenging boss fights for those who lived to find them, and bonus rounds to push your highscore over the top.

Last but not least, Tilt to Live: Gauntlet’s Revenge is an uber-challenging spinoff, a Tilt to Live like no other. See how long you can survive without your precious weapons to help you. If you have what it takes to unlock the final gauntlet, you’ll go head-to-head with the Dot King himself.

All of these for just three bucks! But you’ll have to act fast, because this special sale ends Monday evening. You might also consider signing up for a reminder email for our upcoming cooperative board game, Space Food Truck. It’s coming to Steam later this year, with a tablet release planned shortly thereafter.

So, real talk, Gauntlet’s Revenge has been under-performing on Android as a paid app. By a whole lot. In light of this, in the spirit of making lemonade from our lemons, Gauntlet’s Revenge just went free with ads on Android! Now there’s nothing standing between you and your shot at the Dot King.

A “remove ads” IAP is included so you can play the game as it was originally intended. We are unbelievably sorry to the few players who did purchase the app. There’s just no way for us to exclude you from a change like this, and we totally understand if you’d like a refund on your purchase. Send your request through this form along with your Google Play order number and we’ll get it issued as soon as possible. We wouldn’t consider a drastic move like this unless it absolutely had to be done.

There are no plans to make changes to the iOS version of the game at this time.

We’ve released an update recently giving our latest game, Gauntlet’s Revenge, a little extra Android love. Thanks to those who have supported us this year!

New Features:

• Snazzy new icon.
• Native resolution support and custom UI for 4:3 Android tablets
• Added sharing option for scores with G+, Hangouts, Twitter, etc. on game over screen.
• Fixed graphics display to reduce banding (crisper graphics)
• Android back button now works as expected and consistently throughout the game.

We’ve squeezed in an iOS price drop before the App Store’s annual holiday lockdown. The Tilt to Live Tilty-Tilt Boom Boom Bundle will be available throughout the holiday season for just $3.99 USD (normally $5.99). So for a buck more than it costs for one Tilt to Live, you can grab all three! Would make a handsome gift for anyone unwrapping a new iDevice in the near future. Wink.

Alex is still locked away in his laboratory working on the Outwitters Android port (which is being discussed in more detail over here). That project doesn’t require any new artwork, so I’m left to my own devices for a while longer. To date, I have 7 different turn-based multiplayer games working as paper prototypes in Adobe Illustrator. Alex shifts his focus to prototyping in January, so we’re on track to have a good, large pool of projects to choose from.

I just realized that by the time we shift into production for Game 5, I’ll have been paper prototyping and marketing for more than 3 months. I have not opened Unity since early October. Hopefully I’ll remember how to do my job…

Happy Thanksgiving, Americans! May your turkeys be moist, and your stuffings be seasoned correctly. As we mentioned last week, today is release day for the Tilty-Tilt Boom Boom Bundle on the App Store. Remember, you have to buy before the end of November to get the full 44% off Tilt to Live, Tilt to Live 2:Redonkulous, and Tilt to Live: Gauntlet’s Revenge! Next month the savings will be reduced to 33% off (still not half bad). And if you already own one of those games, the bundle will actually discount itself by the price you’ve already paid so you can complete the collection.

Tilting your mobile device is the perfect exercise to burn off some of those extra calories you’re consuming today. That’s just science.

With Tilt to Live: Gauntlet’s Revenge released, we now have 3 games in the series. A nice round number. It just feels right to put those three Tilt to Live games together in a bundle, and it feels even more right to call that bundle the Tilt to Live Tilty-Tilt Boom Boom Bundle, coming Thanksgiving Day to the App Store.

November 27th, you can be thankful for accelerometer-powered weaponry, the retry button, and 33% off when you buy Tilt to Live, Tilt to Live 2: Redonkulous, and Tilt to Live: Gauntlet’s Revenge in an App Store bundle! If you already own one of those games, the price you paid will automatically be discounted from the bundle price so you can complete your collection. As an added bonus, because the pilgrims told us to, we’re dropping the price even further to 44% off if you buy before the end of November.

Unfortunately, the whole bundling thing doesn’t provide a way for us to include our DLC gametypes or Tilt to Live HD’s Full Version IAP. But you will still get a heck of a lot of savings compared to buying the games individually!

I’m hearing a growing crescendo of curse words in the distance, which can mean only one thing. Tilt to Live: Gauntlet’s Revenge must have just arrived on Google Play. Welcome to the fold, Android users! You can find a spoiler-free mini strategy guide here to get you started. Good luck dodging your way to the Dot Bot Fortress.

Did you know you can stream the soundtracks for all of our games on our bandcamp page? And if you’d like to add the Gauntlet’s Revenge soundtrack to your music collection, go here and redeem one of the codes below for a free copy.  It’s our way of saying thanks for keeping up with us on the blog!

Gauntlet’s Android Revenge is moving along really smoothly. So far, the largest stumbling block has been a 30 character limit for app titles in Google Play. TtL:GR has 32 (when I bother to type it all out), leading to creative solutions like Tilt to Liv Gauntlet’s Revenge, Tilt 2 Live: Gauntlet’s Revenj, and about 30 other totally butchered versions of the name. We finally settled on “Tilt 2 Live Gauntlet’s Revenge”, and moved on with the actual business of porting the game.

We’re shooting for a November 17th release date, and will be pricing the game the same as its iOS brother: $2.99 USD.

In other news, surprise! We’re making it rain App Store promo codes. Get your Gauntlet’s Revenge on while these last: