With an early build of the new gametype in tow, we’re off to the Game Developers Conference for a week of learning and fellowship. If you stumble across us at the conference, be sure to ask for a demo of Brimstone Pinball. It’s still young and in need of feedback, especially in regard to difficulty.

This is Baron Brimstone, our sinister pinball mascot. He looks forward to incinerating you with his army of tricked-out, evil pinball bumpers. If you’d like an email reminder when Brimstone Pinball hits Tilt to Live 2, you can sign up here!

This was an idea we thought had some promise: bat the brimstone into goals that appear along the arena’s edge, while beating up some new and more durable enemy types. The little ice bricks would destroy your brimstone on impact, so you wanted to try to dribble around those. There was also a shot clock component, where you’d either lose your combo or die if it ran out before you could score your next goal.

The prototype felt decent, but it just wasn’t that fluid. It was while we were spit balling ideas for improvement that this mode took on a whole new life. Next week, we’ll finally show you what you can expect for the first Tilt to Live 2 expansion.

Today is Tilt to Live’s 4th birthday, and we’re celebrating with the long-awaited release of Tilt to Live 2 on Android! Now more people than ever can experience the magic of the laser mace, and the child-like wonder of the hungry shield. It plays on both Android mobile devices and tablets, and will run best on mid-to-high end devices made within the last few years. If you experience any technical issues, don’t hesitate to let us know.

Tilt to Live 2’s Android release is just around the corner, and we’re zeroing in on our favorite new gametype idea.

When Tilt to Live 2 was still in development, we considered doing a “Boss Gauntlet” mode for the first big update. You’d go through all of the Classic and Code Red bosses back-to-back, seeing how far you could make it with a single life. We were even going to create a new, bigger boss fight with the Dot King if you fought all the way to the end. The sketch above was one of my favorite background concepts.

Ultimately, we scrapped that idea in favor of creating a fresh experience, since you guys have been battling these bosses since November. We’ve started prototyping a different idea, and it’s showing a lot of promise so far.

Tilt to Live 2 will be available on Google Play February 24th, and will run best on more recent, mid-to-high-end devices. You can sign up for an email reminder here.

At the same time we’re putting that together, Alex and I are debating and prototyping a brand new gametype, coming to all platforms a little later. Our list of weapon and gametype ideas is the sum of almost four years of “hey, that’d be neat”, so now we just have to narrow it down and philosophize until we arrive at something we both get excited about. We’ve started by each bringing our top three gametype ideas to the table, and we’re narrowing that down to two.

I got engaged! And that means I don’t have to write a real blog post this week.

Hold on to your hat, get out your wallet, and put some pants on. Was your wallet in your pants? Okay then, now get out the wallet.

Every single game & IAP in our back catalog has been slashed to 99 cents for a very limited time! This includes:

• The original Tilt to Live
• Tilt to Live HD‘s full version IAP
• All Outwitters teams, maps, & game list upgrades

We tried to slash the price on Tilt to Live 2, but our money-knife exploded into hundreds of pieces upon striking its titanium hide. You’ll have to settle for everything else we’ve ever worked on being ONLY 99¢.

Act now, these prices won’t last! Hnnngh… I can already feel the normal prices returning. I’ll hold them at bay as long as I can. Don’t worry about me! Go! Save your money! Hnnnnnnnnnnnnnnngggggghhhhhhhh.

In an overdue effort to keep things balanced in the land of Outwitters, 2v2 has been updated with a first-turn advantage fix similar to our 1v1 rules. This solution addresses the concern that when second player takes their turn, their team starts 5 wits behind first player and plays catchup. The new way this works is:

• Team 1 gets 5 wits.
• Team 2 gets 7 wits (starting 5 wits behind, but ending the turn 2 wits ahead).
• Team 1 gets 5 wits (starting 2 wits behind, ending 3 ahead).
• Team 2 gets 6 wits (starting 3 wits behind, ending 3 wits ahead).
• From here, all players get 5 wits at the start of each turn.

If all this sounds odd to you, know that it sounded weird to us too when the concept was first introduced on our forums. With this tweak, each player starts their turn playing catchup on wits, but gets to end it a little bit ahead of the person before them.

Click to enlarge.

Since the original Tilt to Live hit the App Store, we’ve had people requesting an Android version on a just-about-daily basis. Finally, thanks in large part to some new development tools we’ve adopted, Tilt to Live 2 is coming to Google Play on February 24th! That’s Tilt to Live’s 4th birthday, coincidentally. I’d like to thank Google for leaving the little green Android open to editing for advertising purposes, because this is just about the most fun I’ve had making an ad.