Is it November already? This week we hit a pretty important milestone; Outwitters is finally a universal app! Alex has already taken a few turns from his iPhone, and the transition seems to have gone as smoothly as we’d hoped. There are some nasty new bugs popping up in the universal build, but we’re that much closer to the game we intend to release.
In the graphics department, each race now has one fully-themed map up and running with its animated background, most of them with music. It’s nice to see how everything came together, and to be able to play a few maps that look how they will on release day.
There are still a bunch of menus and level backgrounds to assemble, a sound engine to implement, and some mo’ quality assurance testing to do. So we’re pretty much prepared to walk the release date back to early 2012. That takes our lofty goal of releasing two games this year and whittles it down to… no games. But hey, we’ll be kicking 2012 off with a pretty big one.
iPad Screenshot
Adam the Artist
I love Batman. My last 3 hours playing it haven’t even been on the main story, but the side missions all feel really important. As a result, I do constantly feel un-Batman, because I’m letting people down left and right. But it’s not my fault. I can’t fly three feet without someone screaming, “HELP ME BATMAN, MY PROBLEM IS TIME SENSITIVE.” I can only Batman one of you guys at a time.
On iOS, I really enjoyed Nyx Quest (<- lite version) recently. It’s a platformer with touch interactions; probably the most relaxing platformer I’ve ever played. The music is very zen, and the environments are these bright, beautiful desert ruins. Even the enemies are relaxing, especially after you get the “zap anything you touch” power. It’s not challenging at all, but it’s a pleasant way to spend a few hours. Made me want to make a platformer.
Alex the Codesmith
I recently picked up Frozen Synapse from the Humble Frozen Bundle. I’ve been halfheartedly following it since beta, but never took the time to play it. I’ve apparently been missing out. The game is awesome! Admittedly, I’m not fanatical about turn-based strategy games (and yet here I am making one, hah), but what Mode 7 did with Frozen Synapse is mix turn-based strategy with some interesting tactical action elements reminiscent of an over-head view of a Counter-Strike match. That’s about the best I can explain it on a high level. The multiplayer games are short, satisfying, and intense. I haven’t given single player a try yet, but you should know by now that’s not what draws me in. And the great thing about it is there’s very little time commitment. You start a few games, do a few turns, then leave and come back the next day. It’s got the feel of a well-designed asynchronous mobile game, but on the PC, yet it feels very right. The graphics are clean, but very spartan. The design of Frozen Synapse is the kind of thing that gets me excited about designing games. It’s a very raw “game”, with almost no fluff or padding. Strip away all audio and graphics and you lose almost nothing to the core ‘experience’ of playing this game. Just game rules, 2 players, and a fun game “system” to explore the nuances of.
Editor’s note: Adam has chosen to disregard Alex’s blatant disrespect for his vocation.
This was kind of an odd week, so we completely forgot to write a blog post. Please accept this Adorables Theme concept by Outwitters’ composer Whitaker Blackall in its stead. It’s his take on the Dance of the Sugar Plumb Fairies.
This is probably more than our second update, but I only just started numbering them… so here’s 2!
Adam hurt his wittle index finger working too much, then double & triple hurt it when he tried to treat the problem himself. The moral of that story is: go to a freaking doctor. Luckily, I made enough headway for Alex to not even notice I’m down. This week he’s been working on implementing the game’s very short interactive tutorial, so hopefully next week he can start adapting it to work on an iPhone.
In playtesting land, we’re very close to the point where everything feels properly balanced. The Adorables vs. the Scallywags seems to play out pretty fair, but the Feedback‘s special character still feels kinda useless by comparison. We’ve seen the regular units used in roughly equal measure, though, so I’m pretty confident we can call them ready. Hard to believe I’ve been playing Outwitters since last November (when the game only ran in Adobe Illustrator). I guess that’s one good thing about a long development cycle: by the time it reaches you guys, we’ve had a year to figure out what doesn’t work.
Still have a small backlog of fanarts, or farts as I like to call them for short. Little backed up with all these farts. Today’s submission is from Himanshu Modi, literally hand-painted on his iPad with an app called Procreate. I’ll let him explain it in his own words.
“Can you not make a sort of a platforming game out of Tilt to Live… you know like Gauntlet mode in the iPhone, where you have a sense of going from left to right like a platformer, but where instead of dying, you end a level, say after a minute, with a boss fight? It’s easy enough to picture right? You could have a cool story about how Tilt is out to save the world… or, well, his girlfriend.” (His name’s actually not Tilt, it’s You. That’s a little How to Play trivia.)
Hats off to Himanshu for imagination. We gave him an arrow with a circle under it, and he turned it into a blockbuster!
Your Artwork Here
For his time and effort, Him (can I call you Him?) is getting the item of his choice from our Tilt to Live store. If you have some One Man Left fanart & are over the age of 13, send it over to contests[at]onemanleft.com. If we like your stuff, we’ll post it and send you a free item from our shop.
Another productive week at OML Headquarters! The alpha version of the game now has Unranked Online matches mostly working, which is our last gametype after the League stuff & Pass n’ Play. Now that those big pieces are in place, the bug hunt begins.
I’d also like the world to know that I’m ranked Super-Titan #1 for probably the only time in my career. Just wanted to get that in writing. Feels good. If you’re curious, I won the honor when our friend Josh Macias accidentally hit “Give Up” instead of “Replay”. So “beating” an unbeatable player was worth enough points to catapult me to Super-Titan, where I am currently alone. Still counts, Josh. Suck it.
In other news, Mobi sucks. I hate him more than any idea I have ever been partly responsible for. He is a hellgate which floods the world with an endless supply of deadly snipers. We’ll be addressing that.
Adam the Artist
I recently retreated to a childhood favorite while I wait for Silent Hill Downpour & Batman. Anyone remember Psi-Ops for the X-Box? It was a really creative third-person shooter, with mind control powers and pyrokinesis, and the power to blow people’s heads up with your mind. Sure, the AI is dumb as bricks, and almost all the boss fights are completed by throwing boxes at people to death. But still, mind-jacking a sniper, making them shoot all their friends, then jumping them off a building was an experience worth reliving. You can download a free, ad-supported version somewhere (couldn’t find a good link), or buy it here.
On iOS I fell in love with Gesundheit! this month. It’s a stylish stealth game about monsters that eat boogers… Despite what that might sound like, it’s well worth your money.
Alex the Codesmith
My current playing habits on iOS, whenever I do have time to play, gravitates towards Touchgrind BMX lately. I’m a huge fan of the old Tony Hawk Pro Skater series back in the day, and illusion labs’ latest entry brings back that spark, and also executes it extremely well on a mobile platform.
It’s that genuine feeling of accomplishment that you actually got better at something rather than the game artificially boosting stats as you progress that I find appealing with these kind of games. Starting out in touchgrind BMX my scores were meager and it looked completely impossible to achieve the scores needed to advance to further levels. But after watching a tutorial or two, I immediately saw what I needed to work on, and through practice my scores starting rising and levels started unlocking! A pure game. Love it.
I think these are for Tilt to Live on the iPhone. Can someone check for me?
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6H344NYK7AKL
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YT4XYL967KLP
4PWNFAXWFK6R
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We heard some resistance early on regarding Outwitters‘ lack of a single player campaign, and our reply at the time was that matchmaking would be there to keep people engaged. It was vague because we hadn’t hammered out the details yet. Our goal for this game is to create something more like a competitive sport (for lazy people), and the way we hope to realize that goal is with a nifty League System.
Sure, Outwitters will support pass n’ play games, or unranked online matches between you and your friends, but the meat of the action is in the leagues, where a whole world of blood-thirsty strangers will be clawing their way to fortune and glory. Mostly just glory.
When you first start your league career, you’ll play a few games as an unranked wildcard, hopping between some “best guess” matches to determine which of the 5 tiers fits your skill level. Once your fate is decided, you’ll be placed in a division of (roughly) 100 similar players.
Winning your league matches nets you points, allowing you to climb the ranks toward a possible tier promotion. Losing matches subtracts points, pushing you toward the bottom of the stack (and possibly into the dark depths of the Fluffy League). You’ll hold a separate rank for your 1v1 league matches and each of your 2v2 partners. You can even tackle the 2v2 Leagues with random partners, if you’re looking to scout for free agents.
Progress Report
This week we’re working on implementing the League system into the alpha version of the game. It’s been a lot of work for two people, but we’ve always been a little more ambitious than we probably should be. The 2011 release date we were shooting for is looking a little shaky at the moment, so I hate to say it, but Outwitters will likely drop closer to the end of this year if we make it at all. Rest assured that if we have to delay, it’ll just mean more more features & better gameplay.
We’ve been sitting on more than a few worthwhile fan art pieces the last few weeks, so how’s about a post? Today’s selection came to us from Kyle, a US Marine currently serving in Afghanistan, who enjoys writing comics when he isn’t in real & immediate danger. My favorite panel is definitely the last one, where Link looks surprised, but not terribly upset.
Click to Enlarge
Your Artwork Here
For his time and effort, Kyle is getting the item of his choice from our Tilt to Live store. If you have some One Man Left fanart & are over the age of 13, send it over to contests[at]onemanleft.com. If we like your stuff, we’ll post it and send you a free item from our shop.