So.  Um.  Happy new year everyone!  Things turned kind of busy for me around the end of last year, so updates have been a bit sparse and I haven’t posted much since IndieCade.  (Which was awesome, btw.)  So where are things now, and what’s up next for Paper Dino Software?

Well…  The most interesting news is probably that HOLY CRAP SAVE THE DATE IS AN IGF FINALIST I GET TO GO TO IGF AND SIT AT THE COOL TABLES AND IT’S GOING TO BE AWESOME AND FRANCISCO IS FLYING UP AND HE’LL BE THERE TOO AND THIS IS AMAZING AND…

Ahem.  Right.  Yes.  So Francisco and I will be at IGF this year!  I mean, I’m usually there most years, poking around and playing cool games.  But this time, I’ll be there from the other side of the booth, as it were.  It probably goes without saying that I’m a bit excited about this development.  The games this year look fantastic, and once again I find myself a bit humbled to be in their company.

More of my thoughts on the matter below the fold:

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Save the Date now has a trailer video! As anyone who has played it might guess, it was not an easy game to make a trailer for.  Since I couldn’t really show much of the story (because, spoilers) or gameplay (because, lot of text = boring), I instead went with the tried and true method of “saying nothing at all, very slowly, while distracting the viewer with impressive sounding testimonials.”

It’s not my solution!  It’s history’s solution!

Have a look!

A huge set of thanks go out to Justin Mullins and the Brothers Ambrogi. Basically, I showed Tim a trailer I had put together, and he said “not a bad first attempt.  Needs work.  Give me all your assets, and I will do AfterEffects to it.”  And then he and his brother did exactly that, with Justin making a surprise guest appearance to provide a much better gunshot noise.  It looks (and sounds!) so much better now!

Hmm.  Looks like IndieCade has announced their list of nominees for 2013.  Let’s see…  We’ve got Gone Home… no surprise there…  Kentucky Route Zero… That Dragon Cancer…  Yup, most of the awesome games I’ve heard about this year seem to be represented… and HOLY CRAP SAVE THE DATE IS ON THE LIST I’M GOING TO INDIECADE OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG!!!!11!11

Important, serious, real people, made this list, and put our game on it!

Ok, in the interest of full disclosure, they actually told us a while ago, so we could plan.  But that’s still a pretty accurate representation of my train of thought a couple of weeks back.  They just asked us not to tell people until the official announcement.

So yeah!  Francisco and I will be down in IndieCade in a month, and if you are in the area you should totally stop by and say hello!

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG!!

I am great web dev!

And… I think we’re back.

Downloads for Save the Date should be working once again, and I set up what I hope is a cache system to make my web host generally hate me less, and the main downloads should now go through a CDN, also to make my web host hate me less..  (Yay!  I’m a web dev!  I know what at least half of those words mean!)  I’ll try to keep an eye on it for the rest of the weekend.

Sorry for the inconvenience!

Wow.  That was unexpected.  My webpage broke, apparently because too many people are trying to download my game at once.  That’s…  kind of impressive, actually.  I was not expecting my random, free, experimental game to be averaging 20k-40k hits per hour. (!!)

I’ve temporarily disabled the download, while I try to get the actual game moved over to some kind of hosting that can handle this.  (I am not an experienced web admin, so my site is brittle, like fine porcelain!)  Hopefully everything will be up and running again within an hour.

Sorry for  the inconvenience.  And thanks everyone for enjoying (or at least repeatedly downloading?) my game!

Hey internet!

Did you play Save the Date yet?  Did you enjoy grooving to its rich melodies and sick beats?  Did you then whisper to yourself “My word, this music is amazing, I must possess it at any cost?”

If you answered yes, yes, and yes to this highly contrived string of events, then you are indeed in luck!  Because the extremely talented Francisco Cerda has seen fit to SELL you this music, ALSO at any cost!

If you visit his Band Camp page, you’ll see that he has thoughtfully put the entire game soundtrack up on the internets, for the low, low(?) cost of “whatever you want to pay him for it”.

So what are you waiting for?  Get grooving!