Let’s go exploring

Terry Dec 31, 2009 50 Comments

Time for an announcement! 🙂 After almost seven months of work, I’m nearly ready to release VVVVVV. Over the last few days I decided on a date:

VVVVVV will be available on Sunday the 10th of January, 2010.

That should give me enough time to get everything ready – make a demo, make a website and set everything up, all that stuff. I already have lots of plans for the games I wanna make next year if this works out! 🙂

So, here’s the plan:

– The game will be sold through its website thelettervsixtim.es for $15.

– I’ll continue taking preorders for $10 for another few days through paypal, up until a week before the release (the 3rd of January). (edit: no longer available! 3rd Jan)

– It’ll be available as a downloadable game for Windows, Mac and Linux.

– I’m not using serial codes, online activation, or any other DRM.

– There will be a demo!

– I’ll probably be updating the site quite a bit over the next fortnight or so. Be sure to check back!

I think that’s everything. Are you excited? I’m excited! (also; sleep deprived)

Potential For Anything

Terry Dec 24, 2009 24 Comments

Behold the Super Gravitron! It’s a mini-game found in the game somewhere after the ending, which I added over the last few very productive days.

I’m really really happy with how it’s ended up – in fact, I think this alone completely justifies taking some extra time to finish up the game. It’s something I’ve had in mind to make since day one, and it almost didn’t make it in – if I had rushed this to completion last week, it absolutely would have been cut. (Interestingly, this brings the project back full circle to the original KOTM prototype that brought it to life!)

In other news, Souleye has completed the new track for the game, titled “Potential For Anything”. You’ll have to wait until the game’s ready to hear it, but there’s a 16 second preview of it on his site! (under downloads)

Since giving myself a little more time for this project, I’ve been having a lot of ideas about new things I can add, which is great, but I think I have to draw the line somewhere. Otherwise this will just drag on and on forever and I’ll never finish it. I’ll think about it over the next few days.

Merry Christmas!

Ok, maybe more like the penultimate push

Terry Dec 14, 2009 41 Comments

Hello again! For the last week or so I’ve been crunching to finish up VVVVVV. It’s been really productive – the intermission levels are finished and most of the extra game modes are in place now. Souleye‘s been working on a new song that’s absolutely blowing my mind. The game finally has an ending written. But even though I got an awful lot done, it’s still not finished. I have a checklist of about 200 things I want to fix or change in the game, and I’ve barely made a dent in that.

My gut reaction after all the drama last week was get it out the door as soon as possible before it had spread too far and wide, but an awful lot of people have been telling me that that would be a big mistake. And I think they’re right.

Two reasons, mostly: First of all: it just makes way more sense to add as much extra stuff as possible to the full game at this point, to give people a good reason to get the full game even if they’ve played the beta already. Secondly, and more importantly, rushing the game means cutting corners and leaving things out, and I’m just not sure I can bear to do that after working on this for nearly six months now.

The fact is, I’d very much like to still be able to make games next year – and my ability to do that depends entirely on how well VVVVVV sells. The best thing for me, and the best thing for the game is take a little more time to finish it up properly. I don’t know exactly how much longer that’s going to take. Christmas may slow things down a little. But I think it’ll be worth the wait. 🙂

Final Push

Terry Dec 7, 2009 108 Comments

VVVVVV got leaked on 4chan 🙁 I’m really, really shaken up about it and I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do. Nothing, I guess. There’s nothing I can do. I’m pretty upset.

I’m going to try to finally get the game out for the end of the week. With moving and everything I’m a bit behind schedule…

sorry, I don’t know what else to say right now…

[edit] I’m changing the donation conditions – beta access is no longer available, and the patron list is final. If you still wanna preorder though, that’s fine. I’m working as fast as I can to get this out.

Impressions

Terry Nov 28, 2009 11 Comments

Time for a quick update, I think! I’m preparing to move out of Dublin at the moment, which has slowed development down a bit. Hoping to pick things up next week, though.

For the last fortnight I’ve been mostly working on the final bits of the game’s content, the two intermission levels. Both are a bit of a departure from the gameplay in the rest of the game, so there was a fair bit of work involved in getting them right. “Intermission two” is basically finished, but there’s still work to be done with “Intermission one”.

A few people have written up their thoughts on the beta, all of which is very motivating! Dustin over at PlayThisThing wrote a review, Rob Fearon explains why you should play it, and Mike Rose gave his impressions!

This is probably a good time to clear up something I’ve been asked a few times over the last few days – yes, you can play the beta right now if you donate. Everything in this post still applies until the second/final beta is ready! This isn’t available anymore. (7th Dec)

Thanks to everyone who’s sent emails and feedback 🙂 I really appreciate the support, and I hope you’re enjoying the game.

VVVVVV, Beta One

Terry Nov 15, 2009 21 Comments

VVVVVV hit a really important milestone last night. Its first beta. I sent it out to all the donors with beta access, but there were a few technical problems and some of the emails weren’t sent originally. So if you haven’t gotten an email yet, get in touch and I’ll sort you out!

I’ve been so exhausted today that I can barely keep my eyes open. My body’s reacting like this monolithic project is finally finished, but it’s not. There’s still a final stretch to go before it’s done…

Mini LD #14

Terry Nov 13, 2009 0 Comments

Developers! I am hosting this month’s Mini Ludum Dare, and it’s happening this weekend. More info here, if you’re up for it.

Ludum Dares are normally solo events, but this one requires you to find a partner!

Eurogamer Expo 2009

Terry Nov 5, 2009 15 Comments

Last weekend, I was at the Eurogamer Expo in London, showing VVVVVV publicly for the first time! There’s a photo of big bearded me getting very worked up. It was pretty exciting stuff!

The show itself was a really amazing experience – I’d never been to a games expo before, let alone demo something at one. I met up with some really great people and played some brilliant games (the line up was phenomenal). A number of people at the event have written up summaries that you should check out – David Hayward, Mike Rose, Mike Nowak, and Rob Fearon (who I was gutted not to have met!).

This is the first time I got to see the game being played live, so I spent most of my time there hovering around and taking notes, chatting to the people who tried it out. While I’d gotten some feedback on the individual levels as I made them, it was really helpful to actually see where people where getting stuck, or lost, or overly frustrated. (though I have to admit I got a kind of sadistic pleasure when people got stuck in the really hard parts or decided to go for a shiny trinket!) I’ve gotten a lot of notes for little things to fix.

I couldn’t be happier with how the game was received. There were some people who didn’t really go for it at all, and that’s fine – I had one or two people pick up the controller and just give up at the first sign of any challenge. There’s no way I could make the game work for them without ruining it for everyone else.

But a few people really, really got into it. I expected with the whole setup of the event that players would give up when things started to get hard, but that didn’t happen at all. I had more than a few groups decide to tackle the hardest level right away, die dozens and dozens of times in the same room but persevere, pass the controller around and give each other suggestions on how to get past each bit. If anything, the hardest rooms really seemed to go down the best.

I’ve been getting back to work on VVVVVV this week at a less rushed pace. Should have more info soon!

gyaaahhh

Terry Oct 29, 2009 8 Comments

Bah. It was worth a shot.

It’s not looking like I’m going to have any of the stuff I wanted to have in the IGF version of the game – although the game is playable from beginning to end, teleporting around works and quite a few of the important cutscenes are in place, it’s 5am and a major feature, saving – something which I just added for the first time today – is completely broken. And broken in some intricate flash specific way that I’m not going be able to fix tonight with any kind of certainty! (I’ve also taken far too many shortcuts trying to get this out in time, and I’m not happy submitting it like this – there’s far too much rushed placeholder dialogue…)

Not a big deal though! Instead, I’m just going to submit the Eurogamer Expo version.

Night!

Tick tock tick tock

Terry Oct 29, 2009 5 Comments

My flights leave for London tomorrow morning! I still haven’t finished or submitted VVVVVV to the IGF yet (or Don’t Look Back, unfortunately), so it looks like it’s gonna be another all nighter…

I may have to cut some corners.