We’ve been seeing some blog comments and emails lately describing a scoring bug in Tilt to Live. The story went that when you beat your highscore, it wouldn’t overwrite the old one on the Gametype Select screen. It’d show up correctly on Game Center, but not in-game. That’s odd, we thought, but Alex wasn’t able to duplicate the event on any of his devices… so we just went back to work on Outwitters.

One day last week, Alex and I had the idea of running a small Tilt to Live Tournament using Game Center. As we were experimenting with different ways to manage it, TA-DA, we encountered the mythical scoring bug! So now available on Tilt to Live Lite & coming very soon to the other versions is a patch for that scoring problem.

Coming soon to this blog (once those updates are live), will be details on our first ever Tilt to Live Tournament. So brush up on iPhone’s Code Red if you got something to prove.

Adam the Artist

Ms. Splosion Man is pretty tough. It’s a hardcore platformer for X-Box Live Arcade, but I’ll admit it doesn’t have to be as painful as I’m making it. You see, they have optional levels on the world map that glow red, indicating heightened levels of danger & difficulty. Against my better judgment, I play those levels. They also have a pair of shoes hidden in each level, usually taunting me from some hard to reach death trap off the beaten path. Against my better judgment, I go for those too. The result: loud and constant profanity. Still, it scratches my Donkey Kong Country itch. Probably because they added mine cart and barrel sections.

On iOS I’m playing Highborn‘s Chapter 3 expansion. A two hour marathon of it last night, in fact. For whatever reason, I just find the game charming… Even when its sense of humor gets downright stupid.

Alex the Codesmith

Given my current gaming habits it would seem at a glance I don’t intend on playing anything else for the foreseeable future other than Starcraft 2. You’d be right, except that 2 new games are scheduled to be released this year that I’m sure I’ll be playing the crap out of. Those games would be Tribes: Ascend and Battlefield 3. But until then, every other game can wait patiently. Every now and then I explore other games (usually of the co-op variety) almost as  ‘snacks’ between SC2 sessions. One that stands out recently was Realm of the Mad God. A Co-op MMO RPG Shmup with perma-death as a central feature. Played in a browser.  And is fun. Win.

On the iOS front, the stand out game for me recently was one Matt Rix, of Trainyard fame, suggested over twitter a while ago. It’s called Async Corp. A puzzle/match-em game that I found hard to put down. Something about that genre scratches an itch for me. You’re presented with 2 ‘areas’:

You tap on a square in one area and tap on another square in the opposite area to ‘swap’ them. Make a group of 4 or more of the same color and they combine into larger squares. Tap the large squares to ‘ship’ them out (remove them). There’s a few game modes in there, but they generally revolve around “getting as many packets shipped out as possible’. Also the whole vibe of the game was charming. It had a very ‘happy but sinister’ feel to it I couldn’t help but notice. Maybe I’m looking for something that isn’t there. But it’s great a game like that can make you think about it in that way. Reminded me vaguely of Portal because of that.

Click to enlarge.

Ever wonder where pirate fish come from? Well, it’s obvious really. A network of reef-filled fish tanks dotting the coastline, interconnected by a highway of pipes. Do they breathe air or water? I don’t pretend to know. Pirates breathe air, fish breathe water… I’m inclined to say they got the best of both worlds.

With the Scallywags’ look nailed down, we’re turning our attention to bringing things to life and tying them all together. Did I mention we’re hard at work on menus? So. Many. Menus.

It’s been quite a week for us. Our fake Pinocchio placeholder menus are slooowly being replaced by their “real boy” versions, and we’re starting to wrap our heads around what life will be like in the menus outside the game. There’s a lot more going on in Menu Town than we had in Tilt to Live. Alex hopes to have online matchmaking working in some form soon, so we can start playing asynchronously with friends and family (that feature had been lost while we focused on other stuff). 2v2 is working, and Whitaker Blackall is polishing up a pretty sweet Feedback theme. Lots done and lots still to do!

Here’s a screenshot of the Arrow doing what he does best: pointing at things.

Submitted by Danny Trewin.

I like to imagine that the Arrow sawed that ‘stache off with a spike shield, using a custom tilt calibration. Then attached it to his face with a tiiiiny vortex.

Your Artwork Here

For his time and effort, THOUGH HE DID NOT PUT FORTH THE EFFORT TO COLOR IT, DANNY… Danny is getting the item of his choice from our Tilt to Live store. If you have some One Man Left fanart, 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.

So we went with both. Meet the Scallywags, the third team chosen for Outwitters’ release, and scourge of the seven seas. My favorite touch, personally, is that their Runner apparently lost his butt in some kind of horrible accident. Or maybe that’s considered his legs? I’ll have to look up where seahorses’ poop comes out and get back to you.

Aquatic Team, Splash Damage… Get it?

The special character for this race is called a Bombshell. In our first pass for balancing, he’ll function as an alternative to your Sniper. Where Snipers deal massive damage to a single tile in range, Bombshell’s mortar will deal less damage to your target, but extra splash damage to the surrounding tiles. That makes him the only character in the game capable of damaging multiple enemies with a single strike.

Being a crabby character, we’re also going to try giving Bombshell a unique way of getting around. Out of the shell, he’s slightly faster than a Sniper but super-vulnerable to attack. In order to fire his mortar, he’ll have to take a turn to fortify. In his shell he benefits from an armor boost, but becomes completely immobile. He’ll have to re-emerge in order to relocate.

Quality Over Quantity

In order to release this game on time (and have more time for quality assurance), Alex and I have decided to pull our remaining, incomplete teams from the release version, to be worked on as updates down the line. That plant team you’ve been staring at on our banner the last few months: shelved for now. C’est la game design. The Adorables, Feedback, and Scallywags will be at your disposal on launch day, and then more teams and map themes and schemes and dreams will be added further downstream.

Adam the Artist

I recently completed yet another playthrough of Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath, one of my very favorite games of all time (available now on Steam, currently being revamped for PS3). It’s a first-person shooter with a sci-fi western theme, where the main character acts as his own horse. Plus it’s not set in the Middle East, which is incredibly novel by today’s standards.

On the iOS all I’ve been playing recently is Velocispider (Universal, 99¢), a nifty arcade game by our friends at Retro Dreamer. It’s kinda like Space Invaders or Galaga, if that’s your cup of tea. You can tap and hold to charge your shots in this game. I was ready to quit at like stage three until someone told me that, so now I pass the knowledge on to you.

Alex the Codesmith

Not much has changed on the non-iOS front for me. I’m still neck-deep into Starcraft 2. With a game this deep and with such a high skill cap, I don’t see myself getting ‘tired of it’ for an extremely long time. I have *intentions* on finishing up Uncharted 2 after seeing the E3 footage and I still want to check out L.A. Noire.

On the iOS front, the game I’m playing at the moment is Match Panic by Chaotic Box. I tend to have a soft spot for extremely simple game concepts executed well on the iOS, and this one’s no exception. The difficulty ramps up nicely for my tastes as well, but given what I know about *my* tastes it’s probably a bit on the hard side for the average player. The concept of the game is to tap the left or right side of the screen that has the matching symbol of the one that is in the middle of the screen. The faster you go, the more points you get, and there’s an actual time limit for getting through a ‘stack’ of symbols. Getting a match wrong penalizes you by slowing you down. The game’s responsiveness is definitely appreciated, as I don’t ever feel like I missed a symbol because the UI was lagging or delayed.

There’s a hot new game sweeping the iOS world, and it goes by the name of Tilt to Fly (99¢). Some people seem to think that sounds similar to a game we made, but that’s more than a little presumptuous. See in our game, the goal of the tilting is to live. In their game, it’s to fly. TtF also features a robust and satisfying weapon arsenal, including the Frost Circle, the Squiggly Push, and the Not-a-Burnicade. Buy it right now. We certainly can’t put it down!

Click to engorgio.

I present the current incarnation of the Adorables’ Map Theme. Their metropolis is made of candy, and their cliffs of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Like it was with the Feedback, that game board in the center is not an actual map.

The Adorables is a pretty goofy team, but you’d be surprised how much effort and research went into crafting the look. I seriously took time to google pastries, watch My Little Pony, and listen to Danny Elfman, all to engage the little girl that dwells inside me. Because apparently one does.

This is actually my second pass on the Adorables’ map design, which used to look like this:

Tilt to Live‘s one year anniversary may have come and gone, but today marks the end of Alex’s first year as a full time indie developer. I don’t remember when I went full time, so I don’t get a post. I’m okay with that.

You can read about Alex’s experience on his secret developer blog.