Satan Sam.co.uk

I landed a job as a games designer at Clever Beans – the team responsible for one of my fave games of 2012 “When Vikings Attack”.

FUNNY STORY: We went to E3 in 2012 (we: Caroline and myself) with our publishing bosses at Ripstone. Since they’re ex-Sony we managed to sneak along to thing they held in their hotel’s penthouse bar (I KNOW RIGHT, don’t worry it’s all downhill from here). We met the producers of When Vikings Attack (lovely chap) and got invited to both their private room at E3. It was like a Zelda trade quest. So we dropped the producers name at the door and went in. We played his game. We couldn’t stop playing his game. Seriously, there we were at E3 with Halo Windows 8, No No Kunt, THE WII U but we just spent hours on this crazy game. We (remember, Caz and I) described it as the replacement for Worms; British, crazy fun, great in multiplayer, comic visuals.

(Oh wait it goes uphill now but only for a moment I promise)

That night, or a few nights later, we were invited to a big posh party at a champagne bar or something like that (might have been a fizzy white wine bar) and we got chatting to the team behind Vikings. Turns out they’re based in my nearest town! It was the same night Valve hit me up. It was so eventful, here’s a photo of me napping in the corner with CAZ.

A couple of months later we (CAZ AND I) went back to do a spot of playtesting/balancing for Vikings. More months later I started working there!

tl;dr fly around the world to meet a studio that lives a few miles away from your home and get a job with them.

So what can you expect from here on? Well!

• I’m working on a hobby project for Boss Baddie. Something closer to Sam and Big Sky than Lunnye and Wake. It’s crazy and inspired by a genre I’ve always wanted to make a game in but it’s quite high-budget, so I’m taking concepts I like from that genre and applying them elsewhere. I think it’s a pretty cool little game – I hope you will too!
• Caroline is still at Boss Baddie and has all my old design docs+concepts
• I’m writing a book! A collection of short stories that started out as games. It’s nothing heavy. I’ll probably self-publish in a Kindle-friendly format
• In time, you’ll see what I’ve been up to at Clever Beans!
• I’ll be supporting my games with updates if they need them.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/201570/

One thing that had always bugged me about RBS was the lack of controller support – it worked, but nowhere near as well as it should. So I recoded the whole controller code thing with a new controller extension! It works as it should if you’re using Xbox controllers (real or fake!), and probably just as well with Aldi Discount Controllers.

There’s a new bloom shader too and loads of optimisations. It’s still not perfect for everyone. But that’s just a way of MMF2 telling me to stop being cruel.

Give it another go! If you want. If not there’s always the Lunar Pack

And has anyone else played the new Tomb Raider? It’s wonderful!

http://store.steampowered.com/sub/26391/

Well that’s crazy isn’t it! It wasn’t what I was expecting at least.

Late last year I was inspired to tidy up the Lunar Pack games. I wasn’t happy with them. Around that time (I forget) Indie Royale asked if they could use them. “Sure!” the last Indie Royale bundle we were in was great for us. So to be nice I thought I’d hurry the updates along and give them those games. I expected a bit more of an announcement that they were the only place to get the new games, but oh well! They were both pushed to a place I was very happy with.

But the bundle didn’t do as well as the first one we were in. It happens, even with Serious Sam 3 (great stupid-fun game by the way!).

So I just casually asked Valve if they wanted The Lunar Pack and they casually agreed to take them as a double-pack. Which was nice.

If you picked up the Indie Royale bundle you’ll be getting your Steam key soon or if you didn’t (or just want to support the next BB game) it’s currently 20% off and £3.19.

The only difference with the Steam version is the built-in screenshot taking by pressing the Left bumper using an Xbox controller (or equivalent on Aldi Discount Controllers), and both games have their full FLAC and MP3 soundtracks – something that was only available to IR bundle owners in the past.

Let’s try and be candid yo!

In 2009 I made Lunnye Devitsy. Born on the ride over to my girlfriend’s (and 50% of Boss Baddie) university graduation as I drove over the bleak moors.

It was the start of a little idea I wanted to mess around with, something I could call my own. The idea of having simple controls, simple interactive gameplay but housing a complex, puzzle-like world. It’s something you can see in Lunnye, Wake and Really Big Sky (and Infinity!)

In 2010 I either started or finished work on Wake, which was unashamedly inspired by watching the Poseidon film!

I was flown out to GamesCom to demo Big Sky Infinity, along with Nicklas (off Nifflas fame). At that time we were coming to the end of Infinity. There were plans for the next big project(s) but I wanted something I could do myself. Around this time Indie Royale had asked if they could run any of my other games, so it just seemed like a good idea to create huge updates for both games.

The big thing I wanted was widescreen support, and a big bug fix. Whilst playing them and updating lots of little ideas happened. I wanted to make Wake more dynamic, so I added a ship-randomisation feature that would block off entire paths for each “round” you play.

And we’re also working on making Big Sky Infinity just a little bit better too

So all in all it’s been a hugely massively intensely busy past few weeks.

WAKE 2013

New Boss Baddie logo
Tweaked story elements
Auto detects controller if connected
New controller code
Added widescreen support
Added higher resolution scaling
Added keyboard support for the torch
Darkened the in-game map
Fixed the custom keyboard text not showing up on some buttons
Final score grows as points are displayed
New randomisation system to create more unique play throughs
New obstacle – electricity! Cripples movement above water, quickly causes death under water
Updated ship rotation effect to make it central
Added vibration when water is getting close
Redesigned some areas of the map slightly
Added bonus stuff for completionists
Fixed a but when opening health boxes
Lowered strength of bloom
Remastered music
Fixed control bugs on option screen
Added embers to rooms with fire
Lengthened the life of the flare from 15 seconds to 60
New flare effect
Increased value of meteor bits from 100 points to 200
Fixed bug on title screen preventing menu selections
Oxygen is now instantly refilled
More airpockets added
New airpocket graphic
Change swim animation behaviour
New water colour shader
Handrails added to the airvent tunnels (not on Hard mode)
Added quick-guide when starting Easy mode
Added in light sources to make finding key slots easier
Added pop-up help text
New deep water effect
Added a waterline marker on the map display
Improved lighting system (scaled to difficulty)
Removed the grain effect
Fixed a bug where some key doors couldn’t be opened underwater
Added highlights for key slots and flares when the power’s out
Disabled Hard Mode’s climbing bonus in the vents
Halved the amount of starting keys on Easy mode
Increased visibility in smoke
Fixed a looping death bug with Realism activated
New medal sound

LUNNYE DEVITSY 2013

Widescreen support
Improved visuals
New controller code
Redesigned some areas
Remastered original songs
Added loads of new songs
autosaves when you collect any item
Fixed a music bug where music would fade in incorrectly
Added more end-coins
Tweaked story elements
Rumble based on how far the character falls
Updated foliage/wind system
Extended beach area
Fixed slope sliding bug
Made it easier to get out of water
Toned down the storm effect
Updated sound processing
Added option to disable new post-processing effects

Now… next for 2013…

I think I mentioned this before. I must have! Or if you didn’t know-

Last year I went to GamesCom and whilst there became hugely inspired to tidy up my older games, to bring them up to scratch and fit in with the Boss Baddie style. Lunnye was the first to be updated. It’s been great going through the old code and music.

I’ve done 4 or 5 passes on the new soundtrack. I’ve tripled the number of songs by remixing and tweaking each song 3 times. The original tracks are there, remastered to boot. It took me 4 days to make the original OST, this one has so far taken me 3 weeks. I’ve sampled it through regular JBL stereo speakers, Sony 5.1 surround, built-in iMac speakers, crappy iPhone headphones and some medium-range Sony headphones. In a way it was great doing that, grading each song out of 5 and listening to it nonstop. Some of the new tracks are pretty mental (there’s a brass band one, a banjo one and one that sounds like the song on South Park when Jared is sad whilst walking through a basketball court).

I’ve styled it to look a bit more dream-like. And it’s in 16:9!

Another super important thing was to get controllers working flawlessy, and as transparent as possible. I’ve done this by using a proper XInput extension (used for XNA no less!), and controllers now have no on/off option – keyboards will always be useable but if you have a controller it will also use that too (player 1). So the only option in the settings now is fullscreen or windowed!

It will also be fully compatible with your old saves.

There will be more stuff to announce, and then Wake! (whilst we also work on the new Boss Baddie stuff)

Lunar Pack 2013 should be out this month.

It’s almost the future (2013). The blog has been mostly quiet this year, which is crazy as its been my busiest/most fun year YET. Once we announce the stuff I’m currently working on at Boss Baddie I’ll be much more active with the purpose of gathering feedback and showing screenshots and such!

Also: I never spoke about GamesCom did I!

In September (I think!) I flew out for GamesCom to talk about Big Sky Infinity.

Basically THE BEST ham sandwich possible.

Nicklas/Nifflas and Knytt Underground!

Talking about BSI on stage. Pew pew!!!

Nicklas from Nifflas talking about Knytt Underground, with me as the driver!

Our buddies at Clever Beans and their freaking brilliant When Vikings Attack. Have you played it yet? You should!

Flying home (without the help of a plane! It’s like Chronicle)

http://bossbaddie.co.uk

BSI was approved and we announced the released date yesterday – December 12th for Europe, 11th for US. I know! British studio, British publisher but America wins! Ah well. But we can revel in the fact we have 12/12/12 as a launch date.

What’s next for us? A lot, it turns out and I can’t talk about any of it just yet. But as I said in a Pocket Gamer interview – it’ll be rad (paraphrased).

I like the whole personal side to this site so let’s stick with that.
It’s been a good year this. I’m used to just making projects by myself at home, now I’m travelling about the place promoting or meeting/working with other developers. The scariest bit was going up on stage at GamesCom, but I could take solace in the fact most people in the crowd probably didn’t understand English, or at least my Northern version of it. We had two stage events for Big Sky on different days. It was me, Nicklas (Nifflas) and me again, a day after each other. The “host” guy I was talking to up on stage made a couple of jokes, one of them was along the lines of how the super deep bass in the game made it sound like an earthquake on the sound system (it really did!). The second time we showed Big Sky I took that line from him. Just stole it. “I love how this sounds, it’s like an earthquake”. It was a Peep Show moment (watch it if you never have!).

I’m sure there are more stories, more things to say.

Making games is fun and next year will be great

We’re quite mega into the future at Boss Baddie, and there is no more evidence of this fact than the following;

This is the homepage of the site. Literally everything that happens to do with the company is fed through here. We also have a new image section brought to you by Flickr. Where we also have an account.

YouTube is the name of a fascinating site where people can upload videos. It has been going for a few years but it’s well worth checking out if you’ve never visited.

Twitter is the most new site here, or “social site”. It’s a place where people can engage with each other over topics they like, or become united against things they don’t like. It’s not dissimilar to “txt messaging” on mobile phones, but much more public.

Facebook is similar to Twitter but more private. A lot of people like the strength of privacy on this site so choose to use it over Twitter or YouTube. We like this one because data seems more permanent. We can link to things and people can easily see that data in a nice looking typeface.

By all means follow and like and subscribe to us using those above methods. It’s a good way to keep informed of things we release to the public, and not private conversations, negotiations, plans or anything like that.

One thing that bugs me about high content games is how that content is presented to the player. Especially when it’s unloaded all at once.

The best example of this problem is a newcomer to a fighting game. Last summer I picked up Super Street Fighter 4 AE for PC, and in that time I’ve played with 6 out of the ~40 character roster.

The problem isn’t that there are so many characters, but that there isn’t a system in the interface to quickly play through those. The only way to do it is to log out of a training game. So it loads up the character selection screen, then reloads the game. This process takes much longer than it needs to.

So what would I have done to “fix” this “problem” in SSF4? On the training menu include an option to quickly switch out to another fighter, have a brief pause, and back into the game.

I also picked up Street Fighter X Tekken and Ultimate Marvel v Capcom 3, but again there’s no quick way of playing through and finding out the different fight styles and nuances each fighter possesses.

This problem isn’t just limited to fighting games either. I’ve had the same feeling with Gran Turismo 5, and until the Vita version, Little Big Planet. Any game with numerous modes or characters. Beginning Torchlight 2 I was presented with a selection of fighters that I’ve never heard of before and my only introduction was a short video. Fans of the series will know what does what, as will fans of Street Fighter (which I am – been playing since the vanilla SF2), but these things should be as explanatory to newcomers as possible.

It all boils down to the lack of quick experimentation. Something a lot of games do right – something I feel Nintendo and Valve get totally right. In Mario and Zelda, you’ll be presented with new content and puzzles all the time and you’re free to mess around with them, quickly shifting tactics and items to conquer and master whatever new thing just turned up. In Left 4 Dead or Team Fortress 2 you’re never penalised for taking the wrong weapon, and if it is wrong you can just pick it up again.

I feel as more and more games get full with lovely content, more options are needed to quickly breeze through, to find our feet and get settled in.