Anyway, I’ve put together a super-duper Bank Holiday special offer to help those of you not working to maximize your leisure time on your day off. For the meager sum of a $1+ donation, you’ll get not one, but TWO super fun games delivered to you OR a friends inbox! Now that’s value! AND, because i know it’s not Bank Holiday everywhere, I’m going to run the offer until next Monday!

So what are the games in question? Well i’m offering Irukandji, my underwater themed shooter which was considered by Destructoid to be one of the better indie titles of 2009, and Bullet Candy Perfect, my 3d re-working of the original Bullet Candy which most recently has had the double honor of a 93% AND grade A ranking from Indie Game Magazine. You can find a little more info on both games by clicking on the images below:

What’s more, as we’re all in a celebratory day off kind of mood, if you choose to donate $12 or more, i’ll add you to my list of super awesome people who I like so much i’m going to send a copy of Scoregasm to when i’ve finished it. If ever there was a sweetener on a deal, this must surely be it, right?

Even better, if you want to send the games to a friend as a Bank Holiday present, you can do so via the form after you’ve clicked ‘return to merchant’ once your payment has gone through. If you want to send one of the games to a friend, and have one yourself, that’s fine too, just make sure you add a ‘message to seller’ before you click the buy button on Paypal, or send me an email to let me know what you want.

I WANT IT!

That’s the Spirit! Just enter the amount you wish to pay, providing it’s at least $1. All major credit cards accepted (via PayPal). Amounts under $1 will be refunded. Please ensure your computer meets the minimum requirements before you place your order. You get the Windows, Mac and Linux versions when you buy, just pay whatever you want, and remember to click ‘Return to Merchant’ after you’ve paid, or you might have to wait a little while to get your links

(Min $1USD)

After you’ve placed your order, I’ll get your links to you as soon as I can. This is usually very promptly indeed, but sometimes i need to sleep, so it may take a little longer. If you’ve been waiting for more than about 12 hours, then please grumble at me via email.

If you haven’t got a response from me at all, please post a message on the forum, chances are I’m having difficulty reaching you via the email address you provided.

Have a super fun bank holiday!

Cheers
Charlie

I also made a logo, it’s up at the top of the page. I’ve never had a logo before, but I figured I should have one. Here it is again if you can’t be bothered to scroll up:

I’ve also added a forum for Irukandji. Nobody really seems to use the forum much, but it would be useful I think to have any bug reports and fixes there for everyone to see rather that me just providing them via email.

Hope you all like the new look!

Cheers
Charlie

In actual fact, i haven’t fixed the bug, which has to do with applying a cube map to a particular mesh, but I’ve just disabled that part of the code for now so you can play it. I suspect that ATI’s drivers are more finicky about doing this than Nvidia’s or Intel’s. Hopefully I’ll be able to get the functionality back in for that level at some point soon, although in actual fact you probably won’t notice that anything is missing!

Anyway, if you’ve pre-ordered Scoregasm with Beta access, check your mailbox now! If you haven’t pre-ordered, but would like to have a go at the game early, check out the pre-order options at the bottom of the Scoregasm page.

I’ll also take the time to thank those of you who have pre-ordered the game. Without you guys and gals I’d really be struggling now. So thank you VERY much

Cheers
Charlie

And if you’ve got an iPhone and haven’t yet experienced Magnetic Shaving Derby, then you probably need to get your priorities sorted!

Cheers
Charlie

What’s that you say? you want to have a go too? well, you can! have a look at the pre-order options HERE!

Cheers
Charlie

I’ve got several new mini games for challenge levels done this week, here’s a video of one of the:

I’m doing a Linux build of Scoregasm now (just waiting for the files to transfer across to my Linux machine as i write this), so i should have Beta 6 of Scoregasm available in an hour or so. This beta will include the new menu stuff i’ve been working on, and just over a third of the challenge levels that will be available in the final game.

If you want to get in on the action, you can pre-order Scoregasm with access to betas by clicking HERE.

Cheers
Charlie

I’m on track for getting a new beta out hopefully tomorrow, but definitely before the end of this weekend. Beta 6 will include the new menu and just over a third of the challenge levels. I.E most of the game!

It’s a cool feeling being at this stage of a project, it’s very nearly finished at long last! I’m also feeling much happier with the game too, easily my largest project to date, as well as the most ‘complete’ game I’ve ever done!

I’ll post again when the beta is available, and if you want to get in on all the shooty fun BEFORE the game is released, then check out the pre-order options on the Scoregasm page!

Cheers
Charlie

Here’s that trailer again!

You’re basically using the close range attack to blast the ingredients into the shredder!

Cheers
Charlie

Anyway, I’ve been working on the last ‘big thing’ today, and it’s been going pretty well! Here’s what I’ve been getting up to…

I’ve had achievements in all my games except Space Phallus, and while i like the idea of having extra stuff to do once you’ve got to the end of the game, they seem like a bit of a gimmick. The thing is, most developers just tack them on at the end, so they typically something like ‘collect x things we’re already measuring‘, or ‘finish the game‘ and in some really lame cases ‘buy a copy of the game‘ (yep, that one’s real!). Bullet Candy was guilty of a few achievements like this, ‘finish the game‘ was in there, ‘collect 800 things‘ was in there and ‘beat level 20‘ was in there too. There probably was a reason for that last one, but i can’t remember what it is. The rubbish part is that in a lot of cases, you just get achievements by playing the game through, which isn’t much of an achievement in my book.

So I’ve decided to up my game a bit on this front. I had planned for quite a lot of achievements in Scoregasm but i think i can go one better. I will say at this point that there are a few I’m going to keep, some of the more interesting ones at least. All the grindy ones are out, i want what’s left to actually need to be achieved through skill rather than patience.

The more astute of you might have noticed a little button with ‘challenge‘ written on it in the last video i posted, this is what I’ve been working on today. Basically, each level has a challenge, and each one is different! Each one changes the rules and makes you rethink your strategy in order to beat it. Here’s a picture of one of the descriptions in the menu:

The idea is to add something new to the game, so that when you’ve finished the main game, you can go back and try the alternative versions and experience some new gameplay rather than keep going through the game over and over looking for mystic hats or whatever. Here’s another picture:

Those two are some of the less interesting ones, and they’re both really fun! I’ll save the good stuff for now and show it off another time. Suffice to say I’ve got some really cool stuff up my sleeve

Cheers
Charlie

Basically, i’ve been extremely busy working away on a cool new menu/map thing to replace the rotten old menus in the beta versions. This, i’m happy to say, has worked out very nicely, and i’ve now got a 90% complete fully working interface for my game. Check out this video for an idea of how it looks etc., maybe some of you will recognise the odd level

I’ve still a little left to do with the menu, including adding some new icons etc. for Scores and achievements screens but it’s pretty much there now

Still left on the todo list for the game itself is:
Add missing SFX
Tweak a couple of levels
Finish the challenges for each level
add some game over screens etc.
make a new title/intro screen
I think that’s about it!

Hopefully nothing too show stopping will turn up in the next couple of weeks! It’s about time i released this game

If you want to have a go at the game before release, you can pre-order the game from the Scoregasm Page!

Cheers
Charlie