Eitan writes, "After the dam level we were very worried – the game wasn’t quite good enough to make a full version, and it wasn’t quite bad enough to warrant a new prototype. On top of that we were running low on money and were concerned that if we didn’t figure something out soon we’d run out of gas before finishing the game. However we knew something had to give, as we weren’t getting the traction we wanted that the core fun was lacking."
Lost? Parts 1 http://n4g.com/news/727070/...
2 http://n4g.com/news/727944/...
3 http://n4g.com/news/728697/...
and 4 http://n4g.com/news/731519/...
Cat writes, "After months of planning in my über secret lair, I'm more than a little excited to share that this July we will host our first ever Indie Games Month at N4G! A month-long celebration of indie developers and games, we’re giving indies main page N4G time with demos, trailers, previews, interviews, guest blogs and giveaways."
Slam Bolt Scrappers is a strange game. Strange in an interesting way. The basic premise is that you have a building area and your opponent has a building area. You then fight over crates which can be dropped in your own building area in a sort of psuedo-tetris way. When these crates are arranged into square shapes they form turrets that shoot at the other player’s turrets. Oh! And there’s different coloured crates for different types of turrets. Also there’s ninjas and giant robots. Got all that? Good.
Gamesta.com has yet another round of PC deals for frugal gamers. The latest comes from Groupees and their Be Mine 8 Bundle promotion that packs a ton of games for a low price. Just a buck will get you 4 games already, like the recently released Slam Bolt Scrappers. With $5 or more, you'll get Blood Bowl and more as well.
Eitan stopped by N4G the other week and partly in response to the discussion here decided to create this series. (This is the fifth and final, the earlier ones are linked above.)
In this grand finale Eitan talks about their "last ditch" design and deciding which prototype to run with.
He'll be by to respond to comments and questions, so post away!
Eitan, through all of these posts you've been extremely positive and upbeat - and you've got a game to show for it! - but there must have been some really harrowing moments in this process. What times were you considering burning everything to the ground? Or did you have a different auto-destruct plan? ;)
The last one? I'll miss you Eitan.
Hi Eitan,
Having finished Slam Bolt Scrappers (in a single player sense), I can't help but feel that the game was perhaps a tad over priced and underwhelming.
Firstly the lack of any online multiplayer was a let down. I know you've previously mentioned that the goal was to create a more personal experience in terms of local multiplayer with bragging rights and what have ye, but the core gameplay is screaming out for online functionality. Not everyone is able to get a few friends round at will, have a few drinks and battle it out on our own couch.
The player controlled characters all lack any sort of individuality. I would have liked to have seen a bit more thought put into to their overall design proccess to seperate them from one another. The girl with the rocket boots in one of your earlier video's would have been a welcome addition. Another way to seperate them a bit more would have been through character specific taunts or special moves that could only be acquired through a special Ninja power up.
A bit of a story line for the campaign wouldn't have went a miss. Nothing fancy perhaps something silly and quirky, just something to give you reason to continue on, as other than the bosses (which I'll come to later), the gameplay is no different than the regular battle mode. I agree that this may not fit into the overall gameplay and may make no sense but something to break up the campaign a bit.
Overall lack of polish. More character specific sfx (voices, taunts etc.), improved menu's (the challenge section is in the 'how to play' sub menu), a slightly more detailed world map in the campaign (It's a tad bare with not much going on), tighten up the the way in which blocks are placed (hard to explain but sometimes it's impossible to place block's if their are inserting a piece under another). One last niggle is that there is no option to put the CPU AI on expert and keep the baddies on the easy/normal life.
Sorry for the few negative points but these to me made the purchase feel unjustfied. A better price point on the UK store would have been £7.99.
There are many positives though. The core gameplay is spot on and is highly addictive, unfortunately when I do have friends over they lose interest quickly due to how overwhelming the gameplay can be (There just stupid TBH). The bosses in the campaign are ace, can't tell you how many times I played Skyscraper on Expert (easily the hardest level/map in the game). A bit more variety on the final boss would have been good though. The weak spot is the same as the first boss and he also has a couple of similiar attacks (the falling snow/ash one).
The weapons are brilliant and theres a good mix of defensive and offensive weapons. Ping Pong paddles are easily my fav. The powerups are another plus and are well balanced and thought out.
Sorry for the novel but I've watched you dev videos - which are really beneficial and informative and just felt the need to comment a bit... too much. :)
I have really enjoyed these eitan. Thank you for taking the time to come to N4G and share this with the community.
Feel bad for the people that were too busy worrying about if the new 360 Disc format was Blu Ray, or whatever other poorly written broken English fanboy crap they were reading instead of this.
This was something interesting to look forward to for me personally. =)
Keep the good job!Its actually good to see that this kind of games are not lost in translation among the overcrowded FPS market.