Oh wow, I just updated a few things on the blog software (it so needs some more work visually) and notced how many month I have been silent ...

Well while Squize had all the fun with games, I had ... none - ok, one finished game but that hardly counts.

I must admit I lost a good deal of faith in flash game coding when 3 ideas I had for games didn't make it to much more than a beta due to the fact that I imagined them to be fun but only if you played them the way I imagined, some of our fellow mates found out that it just would be easier ignore my "gameplay" idea and just "collect" scores and woooosh all the fun was gone - freedom in games can kill the fun :|

So I wasn't too unhappy that we would be doing some LARGE scale none game stuff - a drop dead huge web based training plattform, lots of backend stuff had to be written (I so do hate forms is all I say), the whole administration stuff, special stats, the why-the-fuck-is-this-fucking-css-not-working-in-this-fucking-browser css and a lot of content.

So far we got 159 pages of information, in there are 162 swf files containing animations/learning stuff and 16 pages of final tests (so can get a piece of paper that shows you've done it all). The animations are mostly rendered videos - some 3 hours of that.

Not to mention that I coded some pretty complex simulations for the lessons like a door communications system (one to rule them all - from single family homes, to 6 family condos with 2 entrances) that you can "wire" up and then programm ...

Meanwhile ....
Whenever I had a free minute I dived back into 3d, to get my first character done but it's a slow process if you only invest a few hours at most in one go ....

Next year we're going to translate most of the wbt stuff to EN and NL so I'm not going to be doing games as soon as I like to ...

Wow no image.

... and now I make room for Squize again ...

nGFX

I don't know about you, but I think I'm suffering from Turkey blindness. I've still got about 8 stone of turkey to eat my way through yet too, Christmas really is the only time of the year that turkey curry seems like a good idea.

Anyway, on to the point of this post. Look at this bad boy,

If you're doing a big family thing tomorrow and sprouts are on the menu, top tip, have a box of matches to hand.

And on that fart related note, we'd both like to wish you all a Merry Christmas. We hope Santa empties his sack and you're left delighted with the results. I'm going to stop now before the spirit of Christmas is spoiled any further.

Have a good one, and we'll see you all after loads of turkey. And sprouts.

Squize.

Not really much to say, aside from Ionic is officially gold and up on FGL panting for someone to pay money for it. It's a whore of a game.


Squize.

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.