Hey guys! Here are some promotional things for State of Decay I am working on tonight. I’m trying to promote the game where I’m at and couldn’t find high enough quality logos to work with, so had to make my own. Hope ya like it!
Shphrd out_
State of Decay
Hey guys! You know all those games that have promised a great post-apocalyptic zombie game with real survival elements? Ever found a game that satisfied that? Well this one might just be exactly what you are looking for. State of Decay, a game in development by Undead Labs, seems to have enough thought behind it to keep you playing. From gathering resources to finding survivors, this game puts you in a world where you not only need to get through the fast paced firefight but you need to build up a base and live through the weeks after. Don’t just read what I have to say though, watch this live stream to see all of these features working in a playable build, hosted by the devs. For any more information just head over to their site from the first link in this article and be ready for this game to drop sometime next month. It will be a downloadable title for Xbox 360 and PC.
As a recap-
Thanks for reading guys!
Shphrd out_
Hey guys! Here is an interview I did back in January of 2012. This was one of the first Indie Dev Interviews I did, and I’m not really sure how it didn’t make it to the site. DLC quest is one of my favorite Indie titles and I hope it can be one of your’s too. Head over to Ben’s site for all the info on how to pick up this game. Its available on steam and has been for a bit now. Hope you enjoy the read!
Q1: What was your job on creating DLC Quest?
In a word: everything. Well, almost everything. It’s a one-man show here at Going Loud Studios, so I’m responsible for all the concepts, design, writing, coding, artwork, marketing - you name it! The one exception is music, which I choose to outsource for the sake of everyone’s ears. Fortunately, there are some really great musicians out there willing to share their work.
Q2: Were there any problems you ran into, during development, that halted progress for a substantial amount of time?
Normally I’d have a good anecdote for you here, but the development of DLC Quest was a bit of an anomaly for it. From start to finish, I spent about 7 weeks on the project and everything just went really, really smoothly. I had a solid idea of what I wanted to do from the beginning, so the execution was a flurry of coding, pixel art and energy drinks.
Q3: Do you have any tips for Indie developers, on how to get back on track after running into a problem in development?
My best advice is to take a break, then reassess, make a decision and move on. Go get some food, some sleep, some fresh air and just give your brain a chance to think about something else for a while. Working on a side project, or some completely different aspect of development (like art versus code) is a great way to keep up momentum when you hit a roadblock. Later on, try to take an objective view of what the problem is and think about how it can be fixed, worked around or dropped altogether. Seek advice if needs be. Then you really need to just pick a resolution and move on - sometimes the best solution is just the one that gets you moving again.
Q4: Did DLC Quest start out as something different than the finished game?
It’s startling how similar the final game is to my initial “vision” for the project actually. Normally things evolve quite a lot through development, but DLC Quest was a bit of an exception. I did originally have grander plans for the platforming aspects of the game, such as enemies and ways to fail, but I felt they added little to the game and existed only because it seemed like a platformer “should” have those elements. Those sorts of things were cut pretty early on in the concept stages though.
Q5: Are there any plans for an expansion for DLC Quest?
For the moment, I’m not working on an expansion. There are so many things to poke fun at in the industry that it’s hard not to come up with ideas for a follow-up of some sort though…
Q6: What was your favorite part of the game?
I personally love the sheep in the game and the way players react to them. Without fail, everyone attacks the sheep as soon as possible. There’s no reason to, but it seems ingrained in the a gamer’s mind to do it. It’s an interesting result, though I won’t read in to it too much :)
Q7: Were you playing anything during development, that helped you continue making the game?
One of the great downsides to being a full-time indie developer is that you can end up dedicating all your time towards your own games and not play anything else. I definitely put my head down and worked in a vacuum for most of the project. I think the season changed without me noticing.
Q8: If you could tell any Indie Developer one thing, to help in creating their game, what would it be?
My best advice is to pick something really small and finish it. Finishing a game is much different than taking a game 90% of the way to completion. You learn a lot about polishing and the user experience by doing that. So just take a small idea, like cloning Pong or Breakout, and make a complete game out of it. Then share it with others to get feedback. You’ll learn a lot more than you’d expect and then you’ll be hooked!
Thank you to Ben for such an amazing interview! Thank you for reading everyone and please share this is you enjoyed it.
Shphrd out_
Waiting for Starbound to come out? Super excited about it? So are we! Don’t know what Starbound is? Head over to playstarbound.com to see for yourself. Good news is you can go here and create your own Starbound character while you wait! Once you click create character it will save as “download” on your computer. Just rename the file whateveryouwant.png and send them our way! We will pick our favorites and build a crew. Just send all the submissions to atebitmonster@gmail.com.
Thanks for reading guys, can’t wait to see your characters.
Shphrd out_
Hey guys! Just wanted to do a quick write up on a pretty cool FPS I found out about last night called Wrack.
Wrack is an a cel-shaded fps action game with ties to old school shooter such as Doom and Quake. Quick movement, maze like environments, the works! From what I’ve seen so far the game looks very promising and the devs, Final Boss Entertainment, have put a lot of work into the game thus far. Check out their site HERE and their YouTube channel HERE. Currently they are working on getting the game through steam, so please check them out on greenlight and vote for them! If this looks like something you would like to support just head over to their site and preorder through them!
Thanks for reading and please share Eight Bit Monster with your friends!
Shphrd out_
Video that manuscript page 1 is based on. Enjoy
You know that feeling when you build up your little sentry turret only to have to sapped or blown up by a soldier? This is an incredibly tale of one such event. Keep your tissues handy guys, this one is a real tear jerker.
Shphrd out_
Manuscript Page 1 - Familiarity
This is a very familiar place to me. Out in the dark, alone, and threatened. I tend to play best in these types of situations, or at least enjoy them more than the run of the mill action game. Alan Wake is one of those worlds that really stops you dead in your tracks to let you know you aren’t safe. I respect that in a game. After two encounters with old foes, I stumble across a manuscript page. My comfort is increased hearing the voice of Mr. Wake bringing the words on the page to life. A glance down the hill shows what would be a nice motel,but in the midst of shadow and chaos it looks like just another battleground for my war torn character.
Entering the complex, I hear music coming from a nearby garage. Walking in, I meet Emma, a mechanic who I fear is in the wrong place. After a few words with the first patron of this odd world, I receive my second page. Alan has written these in a different time and place. The page tells me of a satellite that will crash into the Oil tower outside town once the stage is set. I need to find three items. This seems like somewhat of a fetch quest, but in such an atmospheric world I can let it slide for the time being. Just as I collect the first item to rewrite reality I am shocked by…
To be Continued…
Welcome to the Jungle
I am one guy you don’t want to mess with. Sharp claws, matted fur, blood dripping from my teeth - a true killing machine. What kind of monster am I? One that was made to survive,
So, what if I’m…well…cute?
This is Tokyo Jungle and our little furry ball of fury up there is one of the two starting animals you can play with. This is, perhaps, one of the most interesting games I’ve played in quite a while.
It takes place in the future and all of humankind has disappeared. What remains is pets that have gone feral, big game animals that have escaped from the zoo, and a few dinosaurs as well. Your goal is to survive while completing tasks and unlocking clues to the fate of humanity. The more tasks you complete, the more playable animals you unlock.
Now, the move-set is the same for all animals, but the particular stats vary making each animal play different from the last. There is also a division between carnivore and herbivore. While both can fight, herbivores are weaker and would do better sneaking around, though they are faster. It’s easier to find food for carnivores, but they have to fight for it since your food source is also trying to survive.
At first, the game seems almost two dimensional, but there is 360 degree movement so don’t be fooled. there are several paths that can be taken at most points along your journey. Try finding your way out of a croc infested sewer as the little puffball mentioned above.
Any animal you cross may potentially attack or may decide to run. If you are hunting, or just defending yourself, there are only three moves you can use: 1) the kill move (pretty self expanitory) works when you have successfully snuck up on a creature or have knocked it silly using 2) the claw attack. This is how you fend off enemies and make it where you can go for the throat. 3) You may also dodge using the right joy stick. All attacks use up stamina so pace yourself. While only two attacks and one passive defense may sound constricting, remember that each animal you face will fight differently and you must adapt how you will attack and defend accordingly.
Aside from other animals, you are also in danger of air pollution which starts to kill you if your toxicity meter reaches 100. This almost doesn’t seem fair considering the only way to escape this is to leave the (rather large at times) area or go into a sewer which is not always available or desirable.
One last danger that this writer has seen is that you are constantly getting older. I’m not sure how it effects all of your stats, I do know that the hunger meter held less and less until it held nothing forcing my old pomeranian dog to die of starvation while in a fight with countless cats. You fight old age by marking four posts in a territory making it yours. Once this is accomplished you find a mate. Mates have three ratings which effect your offspring’s starting stats. When you have pups, kittens, or what have you, you start out in a litter which is now your pack. You can also find others of your species scattered around the city and add them to your pack. This is easier for herbivores I hear.
Overall, this game gets a high rating from me for its originality, fun yet simple gameplay, aound the challenging, but rewarding experience.
This game fails on its lack of internet gameplay. It does have an online leader board, but only supports local multiplayer (which I have yet to test)
Despite this, I would highly recommend this for your eclectic collection.
Oh hey there! What? The screaming? Oh, that’s just research for The Psycho article i’m writing for Borderlands 2. It should be up in the next day or two. Just follow the dead bodies and you should find it soon enough. Happy hunting!
Hey guys! There are 7 days left in the Double Fine Bundle by Humble Bundle and they have added some pretty cool stuff today! Along with everything previously available, Psychonauts, Costume Quest, Brutal Legend, and Stacking, they have added Windows only prototypes to the mix! As an avid beta tester myself, I LOVE getting a hold of early builds of games to see the rough creative process at its start. This is a great way to show the gaming community the kinds of ideas they are fleshing out at the studio right now as part of
Please head over to HumbleBundle.com to get your copies today! The average to beat is currently $8.10!
Thanks for reading guys! This is the first post as part of our new daily content promise. Please share this with your friends!
Shphrd out_
Wanderlust: Adventures
Hey guys! CmdrShphrd here with a little update from our friend Matt over at Yeti Trunk, the guys that brought you Wanderlust: Rebirth (Available on steam right now). Their new venture, Wanderlust: Adventures is an open world beat-em-up retro style rpg. Very similar to that of Rebirth, but with some major tweaks an polishes as well as an open world. I could go into detail about every nuance, but I would be doing you a disservice. Do yourself a favor and head HERE to read all about their dev process. While you are doing this, share it with your friends. These guys are incredibly talented and deserve all the attention they can get! For more information on indie releases and upcoming interviews keep checking out the site. Thanks for stopping by.
_CmdrShphrd out
Eight Bit Monster is hosting a Don’t Starve race tonight, May 8th, at 10:30 o’clock CST! A group of our friends are going to be competing for glory. Make sure to tune in HERE to watch the craziness unfold!
GUILD WARS 2 FREE TRIAL WEEKEND
Try Guild Wars 2 for Free This Weekend April 19-21
For those of you who haven’t picked up GW2 yet, they are having a free trial event this weekend! Head on over to any of the sites listed in the link to hopefully get one of the remaining trial keys. Then just head back to the link and follow the instructions! EASY AS THAT! Keep in mind while playing this weekend that there isn’t a monthly fee. This is a huge selling point for this game. That and they have released more new content in the past few months than blizzard did in the first year or so of WoW being live.
If you happen to hop on this weekend, please join the Blackgate server. Send Shepp Keenblade or Leafygreen a message and ask for an invite to the Eight Bit Monster guild. We would love to have you join our ranks! Good luck and see ya in Tyria!
CmdrShphrd out_
Defiance Review: Lost in Translation
What’s the definition of squandered potential? Like a masterful musician managing a Burger King in a small town. OK, maybe not that dramatic, but this is what Defiance is: a great, albeit unoriginal, idea that doesn’t live up to what it was meant to be. For few things that Defiance gets right, there’s one or more things there that counter it and poops on your gameplay.
So, what is Defiance? It could easily be summed up as a third person shooter MMO that mimics Borderlands in almost every way, except: It lacks any kind of personality or style and is void of any design intelligence. The main character, an “Ark Hunter” that has a choice of 4 abilities at character creation (Cloak, Decoy, Overchage and Blur), basically boils you down to a henchman for hire. With every stereotypical Syfy character lining up to buy your services, which mostly involves holding the “E” button for a few seconds to complete an objective and killing a few waves of random bad guys. The Ark Hunter that you play is mostly a silent protagonist, aside from the one off shouts of “OMG I’m hurt” while taking too much damage. This, tied with the underwhelming NPCs and bore of a story, left me really not caring at all about what happens to my character or the what happening in the game. The show tie-ins are the only quest lines that interested me, but after watching the show’s first episode, that appeal quickly vanished as the show was a huge bucket of meh.
The quest/mission structure, as I shed light on earlier, is as non-pulse as it can come. “Run to this location and hold “E”, but watch out, there’s bad guys around!” pretty much sums up the entirety of the PVE content of the game. Except for the Ark Fall encounters, which after you’ve seen the 4 or 5 different varieties loses it’s luster, even though it’s a welcome break. These mostly include a central object or enemy that requires the player to damage to a point, kill enemies that spawn, then back to the boss/object. It’s the same mechanic repeated and reskinned in most cases.
The only driving factor that comes from the game is it’s loot and perk treadmill. The carrot on a stick loot grind is great at low levels until you realize that gear upgrades don’t upgrade your character the way you’re used to. Once the realization hits, you just don’t care about other weapons and equipment. You pick up the weapons you’re comfortable with, mod them accordingly and all of a sudden, loot means nothing. For example: two weapons may be the same type, but one may be “epic” and be of a different sort of damage type and have a mod slot or two, which allows you to extend clip size or add a scope, etc. Where the other may just have a slight damage modifier. Two different people with these guns will do roughly the same amount of damage, but not enough to really show a moderate difference and the former spent a lot of time, effort and resources for a minimal payoff.
Which brings me to another point: PVP is broken. There are standard team deathmatch maps available pretty soon in the game, but matchmaking and weapon balancing is all over the place. A player with cloak and a shotgun is more powerful than any other combination in my opinion. Which in turn leads players to spec this way just to be overpowered/competitive. The multiplayer maps themselves are serviceable but nothing really stands out.
Defiance is the first “AAA” title to explore this MMO sub-genre, so I suppose I can’t be too harsh on the game. It just oozes mediocrity and begs to be moved to the Free-to-Play tab. There’s more to discuss about the game, but I believe too much time has been spent on it already. I can’t honestly recommend anyone shelling out $60 bucks for this game. If it were F2P, I think it might be worth tooling around with and maybe with future patches they can fix graphics and sound issues, introduce more meaningful content. I want this kind of game to be successful, I really do. Firefall and Defiance had their shot. Destiny, you’re next.
Darf
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