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News and updates about the games and site.

Hyper Gauntlet Beta 1.0 Release Date

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Hyper Gauntlet header

Hyper Gauntlet: Legacy of Nozzlethruster III v1.0 will launch in 14 days, on March 1st, 2014. Let’s have a look at the features you can expect from the launch release:

  • Hurtle at whiplash-inducing speeds through a never-ending gauntlet of shiny blocks

  • Boost your score with reckless runs and power ups

  • Compete against the world for the highest score

  • Blocks of over 1 colour (2 colours)

  • More polished than the Queen’s cabinets

  • “Just. One. More. Go.” replayability

Not only do you get all that for the low, low price of $5 but if you buy within the first week, you’ll get an early bird special of $3.50!

Hyper Gauntlet whizzing through clear blue blocks

But wait, there’s more!

It’s a beta! So you’ll get the chance to help shape the future of Hyper Gauntlet by suggesting features and complaining when I change things, which I’m sure you’ll enjoy. You’ll also be able to mock the fools who waited until the final release to buy when the price will be higher. When I put it like that, it kinda sounds like an investment, doesn’t it?

Here’s what people who write professionally think of Hyper Gauntlet:

It’s the sort of thing you don’t stop playing until long after your day’s responsibilities have rotted or left you a series of very angry text messages. And then after that, it sits in the back of your skull, screaming to the forefront every time you blink, colorful squares rushing by behind your eyelids like midnight traffic.” – Nathan Grayson, Rock Paper Shotgun

“Give Hyper Gauntlet 10 seconds of your time, and if you’re not gripped by then, fair enough, move on with your life. Otherwise, welcome to the leaderboards!” – Chris Priestman, IndieStatik

“My evening’s been lost to this reflex-based tunnel-racer.” – Julian Benson,PC Games N

Hyper Gauntlet flying through red blocks

So where do I buy it already?

First, wait until March 1st. Your desire to play Hyper Gauntlet right this very second is understandable, so if you want to play the free version 0.9 while you wait, go ahead.

Is it the 1st of March yet? Great! Then you should now be able to buy Hyper Gauntlet from any of the following sites (pending some verification / set up processes):

Hyper Gauntlet flying through red blocks, bottom right corner

What about Steam?

Steam is lovely, isn’t it? It is! That’s why I’ve decided to launch a Greenlight page for Hyper Gauntlet, but I need your help. If you go to my Greenlight page and click the “yes” button, Hyper Gauntlet will rocket up the rankings and with a bit of luck will be greenlit before breakfast. And when it’s Greenlit you’ll be able to buy it from Steam or – if you’ve already bought it from somewhere else by then – you’ll receive a key for the Steam version.

Saturday Update #2 – I am not good at this

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It looks like I’m late, a whole week to be precise, but it’s time (finally) for another Saturday Update!

I started my job last week, and the work has certainly taken its toll on development time, but worry not, for I have still managed to get some things done!

Hyper Gauntlet

I’ve not gotten a huge amount done to Hyper Gauntlet. There’s been a lot of testing undertaken, and some more bugs fixed, but mainly I’ve been video editing and compiling. That sort of thing takes a while and I didn’t expect that.

Done

  • Trailer
  • Launch announcement text

To do

  • Screenshots!
  • Pick a release date!
  • Difficulty tweaks

ZenCell

On the other hand, ZenCell has been flying along! So fast has it flown in fact that I should put a dedicated page up on here soon.

Most importantly, you can now see a trailer of sorts for it, including typical game play. Do me a favour and check it out.

Done

  • Loading
  • Saving
  • Main menu
  • Intro
  • GUI
  • Scoring
  • Trailer

To do

  • Tool-tip help
  • High score system
  • Fixes
  • Difficulty tweaks

That’s it for this week, tune in next time for another great Saturday Update!

Saturday Update #1 – Let’s get this ball rolling

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Welcome to the first ever Saturday Update! This one goes live later than I’d normally like because I was doing old-man things like sleeping.

Hyper Gauntlet

Lots of progress on Hyper Gauntlet this week, the main point being that I’ve finished the beta version! Right now I’m building a folder of PR material before the big push, but expect a release data and price sometime this coming week. Are you excited? I know I am!

Looking for more concrete changes? Allow me to show you using pixels!

hg new

I changed the background colours to ease confusion

New level up

I’ve altered how level ups work (now they give you power-ups!)

transparent blocks

Transparent blocks now show you when you’re immune to certain obstacles.

new menu

I’ve made ever so tiny cosmetic changes to the menu!

ZenCell

ZenCell is a small project I’ve been working on in-between Hyper Gauntlet bug-fixes. It’s a port of my old HTML5 game Cell into Unity. The process has gone faster than expected and after only two days of work, I have a surprisingly polished-feeling game. Given two more days I might finish it, which is a strange feeling after months of Hyper Gauntlet development.

ZenCell, like it’s predecessor is a game about matching colours together. Each cell has a certain amount available colours it can switch to when clicked on. The aim of the game is to find the right pattern of colours such that each cell’s colour is the same as or next to the colours of all neighbouring cells in the colour spectrum. But these are mere words, in the single digits. Lets look at this in kilowords:

Main menu

The main menu

I wanted bright, calming and clean colours here. I took a lot of inspiration from the original Cell, but also from some puzzle games like Sokobond. As you can see, I plan to offer a daily seed challenge where you aim to complete an entire round in as few moves as possible.

initialgame

Starting a game

Every game starts with this 3×3 cell structure. In the bottom right you can see a colour wheel showing which colours will be accepted as next to which other colours. When you hover the mouse over a cell the unavailable colours are darkened in the wheel so you can better plan your solution.

almostcomplete

Almost done

All we have left is the bottom-left cell, and it looks like I can change that cell to the same blue that’s all around it. Bingo!

moreblocks

Now more blocks come into play with a snazzy circle animation!

nearlythere

Keep going in the same way

 

ohnoes

Until you’ve filled the screen!

I find it an incredibly calming game, and it’s filled to the brim with simple, instrumental music from Kevin McLeod’s fantastic website. I’ll make a video for you all to see it in action soon, but the priority for now is getting that Hyper Gauntlet release ready.

So that’s it for this week, tune in some time next week for another Saturday Update!

Missed Hyper Gauntlet on the Indie Dev Supershow?

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Well, now’s your chance to catch up!

I was interviewed by the awesome Man vs. Game on the Indie Dev Supershow, who managed to keep a coherent conversation going while racking up some impressive Hyper Gauntlet runs (and one bug found, yay!). It was a great experience, and the first time my ultra-posh voice has graced the internet airwaves. You’d be a fool to miss it.

It’s been a fairly slow time for me, as you may have noticed. I managed to annihilate my development PC over the Christmas period, and had to send it off for repairs. Turns out I’d fried the motherboard, and my processor wouldn’t fit the new one. Consequently I’m now rocking a pretty powerful new i7 and a large solid state drive. This computer fully boots Windows 8.1 before my monitor has woken itself up. Amazing.

Additionally, I’ve been very quiet on the article front. Sorry about that, it’s become very difficult working on Hyper Gauntlet while keeping the energy to write detailed blog posts. As such, I’ve decided to change my posting schedule a little. From now on you’ll get updates every Saturday (although I’ll probably aim for a time like 3PM GMT instead of this late), which will detail the progress I’ve made on Hyper Gauntlet, etc. Expect screenshots, videos, and detailed bug reports. In addition to this, I’ll try to post some more in-depth articles when I can. This draws the focus of this website away from the technical matters and towards the games, which is something I always intended.

So here’s a quick update: work continues on Hyper Gauntlet, and I’ve swapped out a few of the old systems with newer, shinier, more advanced ones which let me take control of the various systems in much more detail. It also means adding new features later will be a piece of cake.

All new features are complete, and all that remains is bug fixing. Not too many to go now. Expect a new build as soon as I’m satisfied with it, and then a release!

Speaking of releases, Noble Kale – a friend of mine – has just released his awesome rogue-like mining game Quarries of Scred on itch.io. The game is great fun and now you can get it for a discounted price, so what are you waiting for?