Carter Dotson, professional journalist and notorious playboy, invited us to talk about Outwitters on The Portable Podcast this week. Hear me make a bad joke about introductions, then we talk about our game. And at the end of the podcast: Grandma Tank.

Not really a red band trailer. Outwitters is out tomorrow!

In a landmark decision, the Supreme Court of the United States of America has approved our game for sale on the App Store. You can get your hands on Outwitters next Thursday! That trailer I’ve been promising you has been cut together, it exists, we just need to get some music for it. Hopefully we’ll have it ready before launch, so keep a peeper on this blog.

Outwitters began with a copy-pasting Adobe Illustrator prototype, and that was in November of 2010. Today we submit it to Apple as a real, finished game. Hallelujah. If everything checks out, you can expect to have it on your device in July. We’ll set a concrete release date for you once we’re approved.

Hey, now we finally have time to make you a trailer.

We made a decision this week that the Outwitters soundtrack would release with one of those “pay what you want” deals, starting at 99¢. Then we made another decision that the Tilt to Live Soundtrack should match that… and now it does. So if the $1.99 price tag was preventing YOU from owning this-two-year old slice of Americana, I’d like to offer my sympathies, then inform you that you can grab that sucker half off if you act now! Or later! It will probably be this price forever!

We’re still on track to submit Outwitters for Apple’s review next Friday. Also in the works:

Click to enlarge

We’re aiming to submit Outwitters to Apple this month, so… we’re busy.

Alex is squashing bugs likes it’s Men in Black 1 up in this. I realize I never have anything interesting to say about what Alex is doing anymore, and that’s because he’s on the “little fixes” phase of production. The accomplishments are still important, and it’s hard work, just not that sexy. Like this latest build he made blurry sprites look sharp.

And me? With the game artwork done I’m shifting over to some trailer stuff, and trying to get together a commemorative poster for the release like I did for Tilt to Live. My plan is that for every game we make, I want a piece of artwork to hang on my office wall. Nothing with logos or marketing poop all over it, just a cool little scene. Something I can look at when I’m feeling insecure and say, “oh yeah, I have made some games before.” Here’s the work in progress:

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.

Adam the Artist

I recently finished an XBLA title I’d been itching to play since GDC, Bastion. Their creative lead gave a talk on atmosphere in games that I really enjoyed. At the end of the game you’re presented with two pretty heavy choices which determine your ending. That’s not unusual, but what I really loved about the way they approached this was that none of the endings is “right”. The game just asks you to consider what you would do, without “gotcha” consequences for choosing wrong. It’s also a fun hack n’ slash with a lot of imagination, so you should pick it up if you haven’t already.

On iOS lately I’m mostly playing the Outwitters beta. And I tried a few bad games that I can’t recommend.

Alex the Codesmith

I actually turned on my Xbox 360! I did it to play Awesomenauts for a couple hours. It’s a 3 vs. 3 side-scrolling DOTA/Team Fortress mash up. Hilarious fun and love the style. Definitely worth checking it out if you’re looking to play a fun multiplayer game with some buddies.

On the iOS front I highly recommend checking out SpellTower if you haven’t already. Do it.

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!