Today at GDC 2012 we sat down with the folks from BulkyPix to have a look at a host of new titles they will soon be releasing, both internally developed and those from outside development groups.
The SandBox
The SandBox, which BukyPix co-produced with Pixowl, is a charming little pixellated 2D world-creation game -- and, by world, I mean the space inside of a literal sandbox. The player starts out with the four basic elements and combines them in an on-screen sandbox to create vastly more elements -- 40 or so -- and, with those, worlds limited by the player's own imagination (and the bounds of the iPhone or iPad screen).
There is both a story mode with ~30 levels (which serve as a kind of tutorial) as well as a free play mode, which is where the real creation can take place. Once a world has been created, it can be shared with others online, through the game. Players who download others' levels can then have fun, oh, inserting TNT and other nice little items into them and watching the fireworks unfold. New element packs can be purchased with mana, the game's virtual currency, which can be accumulated with skilled play or purchased for cash through the app.
The SandBox is being discussed in a lengthy thread in our forums and will be released as a freemium universal app in May.
Lightopus
"When the Gloom came, we were unprepared. They took away everything, including our homes and our young ones, the bulbies. They took away our light. Now the time has come to take back what's ours. Go, Lightopus. You are the last of our kind. Go into the Abyss, save the bulbies and bring back the Light!"
Thus is the story of Lightopus, a game which challenges the player to steer a strange creature through an aquatic abyss on a mission to save the tiny bulbies in the face of an increasingly menacing enemy horde. The visuals and accompanying ambient audio are similarly eerie and deliver an ambience reminiscent of the PS3 title Flow.
Lightopus is expected to go live on Thursday of this week as a universal game at the price of $2.99. (more...)
Mattia Traverso's soon to be IGF award-winning student project, One and One Story, is set to hit iPad and iPhone within the next four or so weeks. Traverso gave a short demo earlier this morning, and we couldn't be happier with his progress on the project and the implementation of its touch control scheme.
The elevator pitch would go something like this: One and One Story is an experiential side-scrolling puzzle with a Limbo look and Braid-like brain twisters. It's minimalist and moody, but also strangely, warming. The premise revolves around the relationship between a shadowy boy and a girl and it explores the themes of this relationship mechanically and structurally. Each chapter riffs on different aspects of this relationship, including periods of loss and love.
For example, in the loss levels, the boy losses his ability to jump. In the love levels, players have to control both characters and have them meet in the middle of a puzzle. Chapters are bookended with tiny bits and pieces of narrative, each vague enough to allow the user to draw his or her own conclusion.
Our Australian friends from Halfbrick are large and in charge at GDC this week, showing anyone willing to listen to their endearing accents the upcoming Jetpack Joyride [Free]. First off, we absolutely loved the game in our review, but since then it's gone totally free and there's absolutely no reason to not download it.
The new update is slated to land in April, and introduces a "gadget" system which works a lot like the perks system from Call of Duty and other similar games. Using coins, you can unlock different gadgets to equip on Barry which provide constant passive benefits. For instance, there are shoes that allow you to quickly jump to the middle of the screen before needing to use the jetpack. There's a gadget that allows you to start while riding a vehicle, one that adds valuable gems to be collected in game, and so much more. There's 15 in all, and two can be equipped at a time.
There's also talks of more of these awesome trailers coming, showing off some more of the gadgets before the update hits.
My last meeting of day on Monday, here at GDC 2012, turned out to be a real treat. Alex Houdent of GlobZ, a studio formed in 2000 that develops primarily Flash-based games, let me spend some time with his upcoming iPhone arcade puzzler Twin Spin.
In Twin Spin, you control two little smiley blobs (one red, one yellow) connected on a line. Your goal is to move your pair of blobs around the checkered playfield, bumping target balloons, stepping on target spots, negotiating platforms that slide and spin, skidding on ice, dodging spike balls, and contending with various other trials and tribulations. The real trick of the game, however, is moving your smiling duo around. While one blob is firmly planted on the ground, the other orbits about it. A single tap swaps things out, and the other blob takes to orbiting. In this fashion, you can move (stagger, really) about the play area -- or try; it's a pretty tricky thing to get a handle on.
Twin Spin sounds simple, and looks it, too, but trying to time things perfectly and negotiate the hazards to get across the board to pop the right balloons (some of them are color-coded to require a whack from a particular one of your twins) gets madding, and fast.
The one-tap control mechanic, requiring precise timing and a fast reflex to keep out of trouble, makes for a unique and fun game experience I've not encountered before, and one that works perfectly for short, one-handed play sessions on the go. I think I played through 20 levels of Twin Spin before I let Alex get on with his presentation. There's definitely goodness on the way, here.
Twin Spin for the iPhone has been submitted to Apple and should be landing shortly. An iPad version (or a universal update) will follow.
UPDATE: Twin Spin has landed in the App Store [link], priced at $0.99.
Before I get started here, let me offer two disclaimers: First off, the guys from NimbleBit asked me to make it very clear that this game is a work in progress and absolutely everything is subject to change. Traditionally, NimbleBit does extensive beta testing and implements tons of user feedback, Pocket Planes is nowhere near that stage left. Secondly, this is a very difficult game to describe, as I'm really not sure what to compare it to or what genre to classify it in. It definitely has elements of time management, but seems substantially more strategic than your typical time management game. Pocket Planes is definitely a much more "gamery" game, which even has NimbleBit a little worried with how the game will do as free to play games typically require a very large mainstream casual player base to be successful.
With that out of the way, let's chat Pocket Planes.
At the highest level, Pocket Planes is a game of ferrying people and cargo around the world. Each city is home to its own airport, where players will find anxious passengers and cargo waiting to go somewhere else. You must manage your own budding airline, starting at the very small regional level and eventually expanding into a global empire of complete air superiority with planes flying to even the most exotic of locations.
You increase your fleet of planes using what we'll call "Plane Bucks" for the sake of this article, although NimbleBit admits they've yet to decide on a witty name for the IAP currency. Also, since IAP is a bit of a sore subject around here for some of our readers, keep in mind that NimbleBit intends to balance the game just like Tiny Tower and Pocket Frogs, in that they aim to make the game fun, even if you never buy a single IAP item. Just like Tower Bucks, players will have plenty of opportunities to rack up Plane Bucks via various in-game goals, promotions, and other things.
The in-game planes are not only totally customizable via various options (such as color) but they're also all based on real-world statistics when it comes to range, speed, capacity, and the other values under that make the whole simulation work under the hood. Of course they're named something different, but aviation fans should find lots of very familiar planes to load their fleet up with.
With your planes, you'll initially have access to a small pool of local airports. The world map is still in flux, but say for instance you could start off in Los Angeles, where you might initially have access to a few airports in the area, let's say Tucson, Phoenix, and San Francisco. (Keep in mind these cities might not be in the final game, I'm just using this as an example.)
Starting in Los Angeles, you'll have people and cargo that want to go to these different airports, the strategy of the game comes in with how you do this, as flying your planes cost coins the farther you go. So, you could potentially load your plane up with people who want to go to Phoenix and Tucson, potentially making the flight a better bang for the buck since you fly from Los Angeles with tons of people, then dump them off at two very nearby airports. Doing this would net more profit than just flying a couple people up to San Francisco, which is farther away.
As you earn more coins, you're able to buy access to additional airports. Doing so not only unlocks additional destinations to pick up (and drop off) people and cargo, but will also open new flight routes through that airport. With this example we've been using, you'd eventually unlock cities across the southwest towards the east, then eventually get a flight path to Europe, where you'll be able to start unlocking airports over there.
With each new airport, you're potentially unlocking much more efficient and direct flight routes, allowing you to turn even greater profits by offering much more direct flights to destinations. It seems like you can get really obsessive too about your strategy with buying both planes with Plane Bucks and unlocking airports with coins. Also, the game will totally let you lose coins if you're not playing smart and efficiently using your fleet. But, don't worry, you can never go negative.
NimbleBit explained several different viable play styles, such as investing in large and slow planes and doing long haul flights trying to carve your niche in the world as an international airline. Alternatively (or additionally) you could have a fleet of small fast planes to carry passengers that want to go on a long-haul flight to a central "hub" of sorts, where you keep your huge slow planes to do a long-haul flight for tons of coins.
It's surprising how deep this game feels, even at this post-prototype pre-beta phase. I'm sure it won't be long before NimbleBit starts engaging the community and more information on Pocket Planes comes flowing out. If all goes as planned, Pocket Planes will be released sometime this summer.
Check out our write-up all over again! We've added some fresh images and a few more thoughts on Outwitters.
Games like Hero Academy and, surprisingly, the new SSX on consoles, are seeding the opinion that asynchronous play is THE way to do multiplayer. After catching a solid glimpse of One Man Left's upcoming turn-based strategy game Outwitters at GDC, we're convinced that it is. The proof is in the demo, which wowed us on several levels.
As One Man describes it, Outwitters is "a little like Chess, but with spawn points and explosions." It's a solid comparison: both titles leverage the fact that their pieces possess wildly unique movement patterns and attacks. In the same way that Chess players mull over their moves for millennia, Outwitters users will inevitably end up taking the far-reaching, thinking man's approach to play.
Today at GDC 2102 we sat down with Colin Walsh of Celsius Game Studios and took a look at his upcoming galactic space trading game Drifter.
Drifter is a large-scale space action strategy title in the proud tradition of the legendary Elite. The game will feature a galaxy 100,000 lightyears across, comprised of 10,000 stars with systems both procedurally generated as well as custom-tailored for a specific play experience. The systems in question are populated with MPCs, pirates, miners, and even a band of black-hole worshiping religious fanatics that call themselves "The Song of the Infinite Abyss."
In Drifter, you start out in a small craft that you use to get from system to system, trading weapons, ores, and goods of all sorts in order to amass fortune that can be used to trick-out and trade-up your ship, in order to amass even more fortune. Your adventures take place in and among the Unaligned Planets, a Wild West sort of galactic zone, made up of colonies resisting the order of the Commomwealth of Free Stars and the oppression of the Solar Dynasty.
Gameplay involves commercial transactions in various orbiting settlements, as well as heated battles in the void of space, where winner takes all. Accompanying the action is a powerful audio track crated by Danny Baranowsky, known for his audio work in Canabalt and Super Meat Boy, among others.
Colin tells us that he is aiming for a summer release with Drifter, but that the title will definitely land before years end. Expansion packs that add to the game universe will follow the initial release.
Earlier this afternoon, Spaces of Play gave us a first-hand look at how Spirits [$2.99 / HD], it's first and only game, might look on iPad 3's rumored 2048 x 1536 resolution. Like a lot of studios, Spaces is being proactive about the new hardware, and it's hoping to get a double resolution update out within a few weeks of the devices presumed launch a little later this month.
Interestingly, Spaces is leveraging its Mac version of Spirits as the testing ground. It sports multiple resolutions, including 2048 x 1536, enhanced visual elements like a beautiful new "glow" filter, as well as re-painted art.
Music games that use your own songs and then procedurally generate content based on the tones, beats, and melody aren't new. We see a few promising ones every year, but that's kind of the thing: they helplessly remain promising. In large part, this is because the procedural part of these titles, in motion, can feel cobbled together. You can almost see these games' logic piecing together the experience.
Wicked Games' InSong might fix this. It'll use your own music, but it also touches base with a database of over 30 million songs. With this, Wicked will get some measure of control over parts of the experience. With the visuals, for instance, the game will wrap in album art, as well as present interesting tonal elements, to the background as you play.
We met with Pixel Hero Games here at GDC who were showing off an extremely early playable build of their new action adventure title Spiral. Built using the Unreal Engine, the game is looking pretty nice even in its early state. I've always felt that most Unreal titles look a bit "samey", kind of dark and gritty, and the Pixel Hero team made a conscious decision to try and make Spiral look a bit different from the rest. It has a more cartoon/anime edge to it, which not only makes it stand out but also ensures the game can run on 3rd generation devices and up.
First this this morning we met with Emeric Thoa from The Game Bakers, famously known for releasing Squids [$1.99]. We thought the game had promise in our review but weird balance issues kept us from giving it two thumbs up. The good news is, those issues have been smoothed out via updates, and should be totally eliminated in the upcoming sequel.
The working title is Squids Western Kingdom, which focuses on expanding the story of the cowboy squid Clint. This game introduces the above cast of characters, and fleshes out the Squids universe further. The Game Bakers are planning on building up the Squids IP too, working off additional "kingdoms" and potentially even making the jump off of mobile games to other forms of media.
Gameplay remains mostly the same with some additional new features. Maps are more interactive, and features switches and various other widgets to add some puzzle elements to the game. In addition, a new collection mechanic has been added. Seahorses are in game which your squids can mount for bonuses, and you get to capture them for keeps sort of like the Chocobo system in Final Fantasy games.
Of course with the game taking place in a new locale, there's all sorts of new enemies which require different strategies to overcome. For example, we were shown an enemy with a forward facing shield. Defeating this dude requires either mounting up on a seahorse, or attacking from behind.
The Game Bakers hopes to have Squids Western Kingdoms on the App Store sometime this june.
GDC starts… Tomorrow! Most of the TouchArcade crew is already causing trouble in San Francisco, while a few of us (myself included) are still airborne and working via the wonders of in-flight WiFi. Anyway, just as a heads-up this week should be pretty crazy with a constant stream of posts as we meet with the 80 different game developers we have scheduled meetings with.
If you have a meeting with us, please be sure to bring assets for your game with you. WiFi and cellular service in San Francisco seem to be equally unreliable, so we're asking everyone to load some screenshots and any video you can come up with on some sort of USB storage device. USB flash drive, portable hard drive, whatever! As long as we can pull data off of it, we're good to go.
If you don't have a meeting with us, unfortunately our schedule is totally slammed and I can't squeeze anyone else in regardless of how many times (and how creatively) you try to contact me about it! Please be sure to come to our party though. It's at the same place we hold it every year, but a day earlier.
Here are the details:
WHEN: Tuesday March 6th, 7:00 PM until they kick us out.
WHY: Because there's way more cool people we want to meet than we have meeting time slots for!
Bring your industry-relevant business card and/or a GDC pass to flash and we'll trade you for a fancy tyvek bracelet to turn on the free beer. I'm thinking our party is going to be crazier than usual this year judging by how quickly our meeting schedule got booked up, so, don't miss it.
I can't really believe what I'm about to post, but here I am. We're over two weeks out from GDC in San Francisco and we're completely booked up. More accurately, we were completely booked up on Tuesday, and I've been trying as hard as I can to squeeze in a few extra meetings since then. However, I can say beyond a doubt we are at absolute maximum capacity right now.
Needless to say, the demand for meeting requests have completely taken us by surprise. Typically they dribble in for a few weeks leading up to the event, but this year, my IM client was crashing as a result of the flood of messages I was receiving. We're going to have to come up with a better solution next year to handle more developers.
If you're coming to GDC and have a new game to show off, please email tips@toucharcade.com with the subject GDC 2012 to help our email filters out. Shoot us some links to screenshots or video and a brief description of what you've been working on, and if we come up with a solution for somehow cramming more meetings into our schedule, we'll get back to you.
Regardless of whether or not you've got a meeting with us, you should still come to our party. Everyone with a GDC pass and/or an industry-relevant business card is totally invited to stop by and have a beer on us. Here's the details:
WHEN: Tuesday March 6th, 7:00 PM until they kick us out.
As of today, GDC is only three weeks away. 2012 will be the fourth year that TouchArcade will be covering the event, and I'd argue that aside from maybe Apple's WWDC, GDC is the most important event to attend as an iOS developer. (Or, heck, any game developer.) The conference sessions are worth the cost of the trip alone, but the people you'll meet and the contacts you'll make seem to border on priceless per some of the "GDC success stories" I've heard.
If you're interested in attending, the GDC web site has all the details on how to do so. If you already are planning on coming, and would like to meet up with us to show off what sort of games you've been working on, let's do it. Starting today, I'm booking appointments for developers to show us their games for the entire week of GDC. It seems like I'm always striving to come up with more efficient ways to book conference meetings, so this year let's try this:
Today at GDC 2012 we sat down with the folks from BulkyPix to have a look at a host of new titles they will soon be releasing, both internally developed and those from outside development groups.
