The 13th already ? And not a single post.

Like everyone else in the world right now we're just buried in work / seasonal joy.

As an ultra quick recap regards Ionic, I'm just finishing off the Juggernaut baddie right now. I think it's the only one which wasn't in the beta, so hopefully it'll come as a surprise. It's needing some special case code just for it, due to the sheer size of the sod. Also it's got multiple weapons, like all good bosses should.

Hopefully he should be done in the next couple of hours, then it's just tweaking and adding the remaining attack waves, dropping the final assets in from Lux ( Who has done such an excellent job, especially seeing how he came to the project so late and has had to cope with the programmers thing of "NO! It's got to be that size for a reason", which all artists hate ), the final credits at the end for when you complete the game, which are still in draft form as I keep remembering people I forgot, and we should be good to go.

We're still looking to have it up on FGL by close of play tomorrow, and like every big project it's hard to get your head around the fact that the finishing line is in sight at last. I'm sure it'll be tweaked and prodded once it's up there.

We are really looking forward to how it does once it's up for bidding. It's quite a risky experiment doing a AAA game like this, we're really not sure if it will pay for itself, never mind fund the next game. We have a psychological figure in mind that we want it to hit, so long as we get that then everything else is gravy.
In saying that, even if it dies on it's arse in terms of money, I couldn't really care less ( Well, being able to pay the bills would be nice ) as it's the best game I've ever done and I've been so lucky to have the support of so many friends during it's development. Ah, that's beautiful.

I really can't wait until the blog post with the games official link. Hopefully we'll be able to get it out before the end of the year.

Squize.

Still undecided about whether you should follow us on twitter ?

Thanks to the lovely TweetCloud we can give you a preview of the crap we spew out in 140 chars or less

About two weeks later than I originally planned here's the beta of Ionic...

...but first the list of caveats that always go hand in hand with a beta.

* The title screen image is brand spanking new, ie just in there today. I'm not a 100% happy with the flow yet, it needs some tweaking.
* The animated planet is brand spanking new too, so I've not had chance to test it performance wise. It looks like it could be a cpu melter, but hopefully not, 'cause it does look sexy as hell.
* All of the baddie images are placeholders, borrowed from cronusX. It will look more varied.
* The music is a placeholder, nicked from one of the Alien Breed games I think.
* The HUD is going to change, I've got the assets, just not the time to drop them in just yet ( So the door edges which obscure it slightly now won't in the final version ).
* Lot's of little things that need some final love.

I imagine there are dozens more things that I've forgotten to mention, you know how it is.

With this beta I'm basically after views on the gameplay / balance / instructions. Is it fun ? Does it work like you'd expect it to ? Did you manage to complete it ( Or did you give up first ) ? Did you even feel the need to complete it or was is just leaving you bone dry instead of gushingly damp ?

Basically I'm after everything and anything that springs to mind. The more honest the better, if you think it's shit feel more than free to say so, although try and justify it a little please ( This isn't Kongregate, although you will get a point for posting ).

Ok, enough of me being needy. Thanks in advance for taking the time to give it a bash.

<Link removed as the game is gold and up for bidding. Thanks to everyone who played it>

Squize.

PS. I've noticed on the mac running Firefox the scanlines on the radar magically get in the way, making the cursor flicker like a mare between the handcursor and the normal one. If you get that on a non-mac machine let me know please. Joy.

Squize.

Still working on Ionic. It's taking a lot longer than I originally planned to be honest, it's grown into quite a monster.

Because of this our blog posts have dropped off the past couple of months ( Not even a Halloween post this year, which I think is a first for us), where we've not had much to either release or show. There is a cronusX post mortem to be done, but since my host got hacked ( The host was a cheap one which was just to be a dumping ground for our games, it's not the main host on which both this blog and the site ( Along with the client area ) sit ) none of the development pages are online, so until we sort something permanent out there I've got to hold fire.

Speaking of cronusX, the cock who obviously doesn't like me on NG is still voting it down every day. It's about 3.55 from 3.81. Let's wish him luck with blamming it. Prick.

Anyway back to Ionic. After this post is submitted I'm back on adding the last turret type, which will give us 9 in total. Hopefully I can use a lot of existing code, so most of the time will be spent adding the help text for it ( There's a lot of text in this game. It's set up so you don't have to read any of it if you don't want to, but you'll get a better insight if you do ) and then testing it against various attack waves for balance.

We're getting close to the final push now. In terms of gameplay it's only really come together the past couple of weeks, which has been the main reason I've not been posting about it more here or releasing lots of builds like we did with cronusX. It's actually enjoyable to play now, to the point that it's disappointing when you complete the limited number of attack waves that are in there at present.
A lot of the presentation has been added as I've gone, which has taken longer ( I've still not drawn one baddie ship yet, which I'm really dreading ) but it means it won't be a case of the game being finished and then having to do another love pass on it.

The milestone of it being a "proper" game was hit last week sometime, so there is a game complete sequence and a game over one. It's all coming together.

As way of a filler, I've attached the dreadnought as it is in the game, here's the HMS Ionic

More news and grabs as and when.

Squize.

I've got a bug in Ionic. It's with the little remote drones that collect the dropped guineas ( I thought guineas made a nice change to "Creds", plus I'd already done the spinning G graphic for the never to be released Orbs game I started on. The power-source you have to protect in the middle of your dreadnought in Ionic also funnily enough looks just like the orb from Orbs. No point wasting those pixels ).

Anyway, the drones are called "Chrysus". It's from Greek mythology, and he ( It ? ) was the spirit of gold. Naming things is always an important aspect of development for me, it helps settle things in my mind, it sets a tone, and I like that name ( Even though I had to check the spelling lots of times when first getting used to it. And edit the blog just now where I've spelt it wrong. Classy ).
It says what it is nice and succinctly.

Why am I even talking about this ? Yes partly 'cause our posts have dropped off recently, we're just having a boring phase where everything we do can just as easily be condensed down to a 140 words and spat out over twitter ( That's so cheap linking to our twitter account I know ) but partly because all the in-game help is done now.

All finished.

The snag is, no where in the docs do I explain the Chrysus.

The game is quite word heavy, the detail is there if you want it. I've not explained the drones / guineas as I like to credit the end player with the intelligence to figure things out ( Unless of course you're that first poster type on Kongregate. Anyone who can post a comment within minutes of a game being uploaded is someone whose not actually taken the time to play the game they're so keen to say sucks. First posters, you may think you're the Billy Bollocks for getting there first, but I think it's fair to say the majority of developers think you're a cock. And ignore your comments anyway. Well done for "winning" though, good work on that ), and get that "Ah, I get it" moment that is the reward of sticking with something.

So no mention of the word Chrysus anywhere in the game. Bit of an over sight ? Possibly. But I'd have to name it anyway, it needs a class name, and now it's our little secret. Think of reading the blog as buying the limited edition of the game, you're getting the inside scoop that other people miss.

And yes, right now I regret having a little green drone flying out of hatch to collect dropped coins instead of just adding them straight to your bank account like in other tower defense games. A drone with no name and a big fat bug.

Squize.

Managed to knock up a logo I'm happy with last night, then added a bit of RGB Bumb Mapping, like so

In between knocking out a Pac Man clone in a couple of days ( Not sure when that's been released, I'll be sure to pimp it when it's out there ), finishing off DAC and still working on the huge never ending Nat-Geo project, I've managed to squeeze some work in on Ionic.

The UX side of things have had a lot of amends the past couple of days thanks to the guys on the board, and it's feeling a lot more accessible now. There are a couple of annoying bugs, as always, but it's all going in the right direction.
I think next up will be the front-end, which means I've got to figure out what play modes there will be ( Feel free to offer up ideas ) and put the always heart breakingly nasty "More games" button placeholder. For the actual logo I'm thinking 3D text with a sexy bump mapping effect, which should be fun to actually get done.

Once the front end is in place I can actually make it a real game, with a start to play and a Game Over to look at, which is always a great milestone. From there it will be a case of drawing lots of sprites, finishing off the UI and throwing lots of data at it for the attack waves and all the in-game help / info.

Still tons to do, but it's all getting there.

Squize.

AWESOME! Our new great game, Destroy all Cars, is live! WOW!


Play this GREAT physics based smash 'em up right now! Featuring 25 levels of AWESOMENESS with 12 selectable cars to smash. This is super fun, if you're 8 or 88!