distractionware: devlog

ChatChat is a game about being a cat, and talking to other cats.

Features graphics by Hayden Scott-Baron!

Ran into some server code problems. Cat chat room is almost complete, though – I’m not in Cambridge right now, but will finish this up when I get back next week.

At CB2 the other day, I asked Dock if he was up for making some nice graphics for this! He was

Meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow

A quick update on this cat game, then. This is one of the five “smaller” games I mentioned in my new year’s post. Been working on it a bit this week.

It’s taken me a long time to realise it, but I think the game is fundamentally broken in its current form – and I don’t think there’s any way to make it work without scrapping everything and starting over. I’m not sure why I stuck with it this long, actually – it was never something I was all that excited about. I think I mostly just liked the cat thing.

Anyway, I figure I’ll just put together a quick chat room thing at CB2 tomorrow with the code from this, and move on to something else.

Yey, it’s that time of the year again! Our next big game jam in Cambridge takes place on the weekend of the 17th-19th February. More details here!

This is a guest post by Souleye, the musician from VVVVVV! He’s just released a new project and wanted to tell you about it.

Hello there, esteemed gamers!

Today, January 10, at 22:22:22, I’m releasing my CD called Adventure. You might wonder why I called it that, and why I’m releasing it at a specific time and date.

Let me first tell you this: It’s about two years since I last posted on the front page of Terry’s blog, just when VVVVVV was released. But VVVVVV remains present and on the top of my mind every single day nevertheless. I’ll always bear it close to my heart.

It’s not hard to see why. Ever since VVVVVV came out, my life has changed. I’ve quit my normal dayjob and started working on things that I think are creative and really fun, and I’m hoping to do so in the future too. My life is now a free-flow of imagination and creativity.

The support for me and my music is great, with people daily encouraging me. It feels weird at times, but this is something I like to do, and I’m well on my path of becoming the kind of composer I want to be, constantly evolving into something even better.

Along the way I learn about so much more than just about making music, but everything rests on the nice gamers and fans who enjoy my music, and without you supporting me, nothing would be possible at all.

So I am very thankful towards the circumstances that led me here. Now, it’s enabled me to go to GDC in March, and meet up with people from around the world that I would never get to meet otherwise.

Exciting times indeed!

So, about Adventure then?

This CD contains remixes of several VVVVVV songs that were remixed for what will be in the next DLC pack in the rhythm game Pulsen, some remixes that I did for other people, such as Danny Baranowsky, Chris Geehan, Mattias Häggström-Gerdt, Gryzor87 and Jonathan Holmes. All fantastic people in their own way.

There’s also my orchestral Zelda 2 remix. I then top the album off with something secret and some lengthy liner notes, for those who wants to dig in and know everything about everything.

The release timing of 22:22:22 is a reference to… Well I think I’ll leave that one to your imagination, but why did I call it Adventure? Because for me, my life has really turned into one, so far! And hopefully it’ll continue to be one into the future.

Thanks for listening to me, I greatly appreciate it!

- Magnus

My site: www.souleye.se
Adventure: www.souleye.se/adventure
My twitter: www.twitter.com/mpsouleye

So, uh, wow. This is pretty unexpected – At a Distance is a finalist at this year’s IGF. (I mean, I think it is. I keep expecting to reread the list and discover that it’s all actually some kind of terrible misunderstanding.)

At a Distance is up for the Nuovo Award, a prize “designed to honor abstract, shortform, and unconventional game development“. I’ve actually played a lot of the other entries up for the same award, and they’re all pretty incredible, to say the least. It’s going to be a tough category to judge. I’m floored to be nominated, considering the competition.

Being an IGF finalist is a dream come true for me – it’s something I’ve aspired to ever since I went indie. I’m incredibly proud to be on that list, and can’t wait to go to San Francisco this year.

Hello everyone! IT IS THE YEAR 2012 NOW.

At the start of last year, I wrote a long post about how things changed for me in 2010. Unbelievably, 2011 went even better. Between the steam sales, the humble indie bundle, and now the recent 3DS launch, VVVVVV continues to reach heights I never imagined possible. I’m incredibly proud of its successes, and incredibly grateful for what that’s meant for me.

Since releasing VVVVVV, I’ve worked on dozens and dozens of games. I don’t know how many exactly – I’ve lost count. A lot of those games didn’t go anywhere, and that’s fine. These past two years have been very creatively valuable for me.

But I’m looking ahead now, and I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the sort of work I want to do in the future. This year, I want to try approaching things differently. This is my new year’s resolution:

These last two years have left me with a number of very promising, incomplete prototypes, and what I’m going to try doing this year instead is focus on finishing these.

This is huge for me! It means no more entering Ludum Dare, no more Klik of the Months, no more throwaway jam games of any kind. It’s a massive, fundamental change to how I’ve always worked. But I feel very anxious to work on something bigger this year, and I want to challenge myself.

I’ve made a short list of my favourite unfinished prototypes. If you’ve been reading my blog before this, you may have seen me talk about some of these games before – there are three “main” projects on it that are the main things I’m going to focus on, and also a handful of smaller games that I’d like to return to if I happen to have the time.

Nexus City Spinoff

Nexus City is a huge RPG that I’ve been working on on-and-off with Jonas Kyratzes since late 2010. It’s a big, scary project, so last summer, Jonas and I talked about the possibility of making this short side game, as a way to introduce both ourselves and other people to the universe of Nexus City. It’s much smaller than Nexus City itself, and very much it’s own thing.

Jonas wrote an awesome script for the game, but other things came up last summer when meant putting it to one side. I’m planning to finally start work on it very soon, and I’m hoping to have it finished before March.

Nexus City

And then of course, there’s Nexus City itself. I’ve been talking about this game for a very long time, but I’m hoping to finally make it happen this year.

____

This relatively recent prototype came completely out of nowhere for me. I’m excited about it because it’s not really like anything else I’ve ever worked on. The nature of this game means that it’s very suited to being chipped away at, and I expect I’ll return to it frequently as inspiration comes and goes.

In addition to those three, there are also a couple of half finished shorter games that I’d like to revisit between projects:

	KittyRPG: I feel pretty attached to this right now, probably because it’s the most recent thing I’ve worked on. It’s a very short, stupid game. It shouldn’t take long to finish up either, so I’m going to stick with it while I still have a bit of momentum on it.
	Big Hero: One of the first things I worked on after finishing VVVVVV, Big Hero is a prototype I keep meaning to come back to.
	Isothingy: In it’s current state, this game is basically finished already. Last summer I had bigger plans for this game, but I’m not sure they’re going to come to pass anymore. In any case, I think it’s something that deserves to be finished properly, in some form.
	Annihilation Game: I worked on this briefly in 2010 – I think I only ever actually posted about it once (under its old working title “Self Destruct 2″), but it’s a game I’ve worked on a fair bit, and continue to think about. I think it has the potential to be a very interesting game, and I’m really itching to make another shooter.
	Not At a Distance: At a Distance was a very challenging project at times, and quite a lot of ideas and content ended up getting cut from the final version. Enough that there’s almost a complete game’s worth of unused ideas still floating around. I’d really like to take some of those ideas and put them together in a playable form, as a short B-Side to At a Distance.

And that’s it. That’s everything.

Of course, like all new year’s resolutions, perhaps this is doomed to fail. I can’t promise I won’t fall off the wagon next time a Klik of the Month rolls around, and maybe it’s no big deal if I do. I’m really optimistic about this year, though. If I can finish even a fraction of these games, I’ll consider it a huge success.

VVVVVV is now available for the Nintendo 3DS!

Merry Christmas, everyone! I have a small bit of VVVVVV related news to share: the 3DS version of the game is finished, and is going to launch next Thursday the 29th on the US eShop!

I’m really happy with how this port came together – Nicalis did an amazing job with it. The game feels fantastic to play on the 3DS.

Stuff:
– We were hoping to launch in both the US and Europe simultaneously, but unfortunately there were hold ups with getting a rating from PEGI. So sadly, we’re gonna have to wait till the new year to launch in Europe.
– The game’s gonna cost $7.99 on 3DS.
– Just a reminder that you can currently get the PC version for as little as $1.24 on steam, or for $5.33 as part of a bundle of 12 amazing indie games!

I spent a little more time working on my old Ludum Dare game over the last couple of days. It’s a pretty silly game, but I’m learning a lot about how to make multiplayer games from it.

I think this is gonna have to wait until the new year for me to finish it up, though – I’m taking a holiday!