Getting some nice mentions!
First off, the fine folks at Level Forty-Two got to see a prerelease copy, and have a review up. They seem to like it! Yay!
Also, getting some mentions in blogs!
Very cool!
Game Set Watch this space…
Nice! Got a very nice mention on Game Set Watch! It’s dated last Tuesday, so apparently I completely missed it in the thanksgiving buildup. Nice! They were even nice enough to link to my trailer!
Update: IndieGames.com has also given me some ink. Double-nice!
Justin, on Music
Artist's Conception of Justin
[Justin Mullens, the man behind the fine, fine music in Boss Rush, has graciously offered write down some of the thoughts he had while he was composing. For anyone interested in how the music came to be, it's a fun read, and offers a fascinating glimpse into what his creative process looks like. He clearly knows what he is talking about, since he specifically calls out the Moon Level music from Duck Tales. 
-Montoli]
First of all, a little personal background: I loved shooters when I was growing up. I was addicted ever since I first laid my hands on Defender in the arcades, I got really into them with Gradius and R-Type on the NES & SNES, and was completely hooked when Square released Einheinder on the Playstation. There was a ton of shmups I didn’t play, but the ones I did play left an indelible impression. It was around this time that I first started making electronic music using Impulse Tracker in DOS, which is basically the origin of my career as a sound designer in the video games industry. Even though shooters and tracker music were two of my loves growing up I’ve never had a chance to work on a “classic style” 2D shooter before now, and I was really excited by the opportunity to work with Chris (Paper Dino) when he asked me to do the music and sound effects on Boss Rush.
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Music for Bossing to!
Justin Mullens, Sound Designer and Composer Extraordinaire, is the brain behind the excellent music in Boss Rush. He has thoughtfully sent over some of the music, in long-format MP3 files designed for listening. (As opposed to, say, looping in-game.)
What’s neat about this is that the actual game only contained TWO pieces of music. The other two are pieces that never made it into the game for various reasons, but were composed during the same period, with the same sort of mood in mind.
Have a listen! Continue reading
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Delays!
Bah! Am all poised to start releasing and sending emails and trying to make this thing go, when BAM, tool problems. In this case, with SecureSWF. Which worked fine about a month ago, but since updating to their most recent version, seems to be hanging when I try to use it on things.
And of course, because trouble never shows up alone, I’m wasted a couple of days before realizing that somehow their web support form wasn’t working, and I wasn’t actually in their support system yet. (Finally called them on the phone this morning, and the person was very nice, and it sounds like I have a support ticket now. I’ve heard good things about their customer support in general, so hopefully now that I’ve got their attention things will get resolved.)
Current issue aside, I’ve been fairly happy with the product so far. I confess, the personal/lite version is fairly limited though. If we can get this current problem sorted out, I am seriously considering upgrading to the standard or professional version, since I’m missing some of the finer control options that were present in the demo.
Anyway, delays, delays. Nothing to do for it now though, except wait while their programmers try to reproduce my problem.
Update: Big thank you to KindiSoft’s customer service! They were extremely helpful, and have resolved the issue! I’m back in business!
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Submit!
That last item is the doozy.
And… It’s over.
Whew.
The game that I have slaved over for several months is now off in the hands of the IGF, and I can finally think about something else.
I’m very happy with how it ended up! I didn’t finish everything I wanted – I still have at least 5-10 more ideas that would make great levels, that I never quite had time to do – but still, it’s a complete game experience, with at least several hours worth of content, and all-in-all, I’m pretty proud of it.
Now to take a few days off, before I start working on the actual public release!
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Still here!
Busy weeks!
Not a whole lot to say here, but progress on Boss Rush continues well. At this point, the game is basically nailed down and probably a good 90% complete. Most of the work at this point is down to playtesting and polish, and occasionally adding a new level or two if I think of one that seems like it would be fast, easy, and safe to add.
In addition to the occasional friend or family member that I can rope into playing my game, I have enlisted the aid of some forumgoers over at TIGSource. I have to say. They have been wonderful fonts of information, suggestions and excellent feedback. (Frankly wishing I had gotten around to adding more playtesters quite a bit earlier. One more data point for the postmortem I guess…)
It’s getting close though! I finally realized just how close when I watched a friend play on Sunday. I think he spent a good hour playing through levels, and still didn’t get through all of them. (And he didn’t even touch multiple difficulty levels.) It was an interesting perspective moment, where I realized just how much I had completed, and started to feel, really feel, like “huh, it’s starting to feel like a full game now.”
It was a good feeling! I’m feeling kind of proud of my game at this point. Now to just finish it!
Posted in Boss Rush, Dev Log, Playtests
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Imperishable Lessons – What I learned from Touhou
Ahh, Touhou!
I had the chance recently to sit down with Tim and Hal of Final Form Games, and talk shop on shmups. I mentioned that there were at least a couple of good lessons that I felt I head learned from playing Touhou games, and Hal asked what some of those might be. While I was able to glibly rattle off a nice truism or two, it got me thinking. Just what had I gotten out of trying to deconstruct Touhou? I felt like I’d received a lot of good info from playing it… What things had worked well, and what things hadn’t?
So I started a small list, and was somewhat gratified when it quickly became a moderately large list. Not knowing what else to do with it, I now post it here, since that’s the sort of thing I do with lists that I find interesting and want to share.
Warning, long post ahead! (To keep it from getting [even more] unwieldy, I’m going to restrict this to “shmup-specific lessons”, since it’s lengthy enough as is.)
Posted in Game Design, Other Peoples' Games
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Funny how things work out
So my original plan was “I’ll start a dev log over at the TIGSource Forums , and link back to this page, for even more detailed information!” I really did intend to do that. TIGSource was going to be for big updates and news, and I’d have all the nitty gritty here on this site. But TIGSource had one thing I hadn’t counted on…
An audience.
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Other Peoples’ Games: Tower of Heaven
A tower of heaven.
I was vaguely aware of this game for a while via the TIGSource devlog forums. Eventually one day I noticed it had “complete” next to its name, and decided to give it a shot. As it turns out, it was actually pretty awesome! And then, apparently because I have my finger on the pulse of the indie gaming scene, other websites started mentioning the game and giving it glowing reviews, and I discovered that I was not the only one who thought this game was, in fact, the bee’s knees.
Read on to find out why!
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