Lifeline – A gamejam game made in 28 hours

This weekend I participated in the HOGJam gamejam at REACTOR.  The theme of this weekend was Perseverance.  While most teams had a couple people, our team ended up having eleven people!  This led to everyone else calling our team ‘the big ass team,’ and we rolled with the name.  Even though we had so many people, we were able to create a cohesive game that’s pretty neat.

LIFELINELOGOIn our game, you are a team of two rock climbers trying to reach the top of the mountain.  Each player has normal movement buttons, a persevere button, and a let-go button.  The let-go button can be used to swing, but be sure your friend is tapping their persevere button or you’ll both go flying off the mountain!  How high can you reach?

Release notes:

  • You will want a second player to join you
  • Keyboard controls:
    Player 1: Movement WASD, Q let-go, E persevere
    Player 2: Movement arrow keys, Enter let-go, Spacebar persevere
  • You can also plug in two game controllers and use those instead of keyboard
  • Persevere must be tapped repeatedly to reach maximum grip — but if someone is hanging off you it will decrease, and it will decrease much faster over time.
  • Game is designed to be played in 16:9 resolution (ie, 1280×720, 1920×1080, etc), but will probably work in whatever.
  • The scream audio is the dev team actually screaming (recorded at 2am in a closet with the lights off :P)

Windows exe download (md5sum: d222f9bec102f67ac7512d8cc8a1382f)

It’s been a fun weekend, and I’ll be back to work as usual tomorrow on 8bit 🙂

Thursday Night Update

  • Local/global chatting
  • Fixed bug where Pixel Pistol could be dropped anywhere in Origin
  • Fixed bug where enemy text hovers in top left of screen momentarily
  • Server Optimization: regions can be sent to the client faster
  • Server Optimization: faster connection switching

Local/global chatting: If the server ever hits 60 concurrent players, by default chat will then only go to areas near you.  You can override that and chat with everyone with /g <text>.  Last time we hit that many players, the chat window was basically unreadable, so this is being proactive for when the Steam launch happens.

PS, here’s a fun pic of some load testing 😉

10-24-2013 local load testing

Hat Vote!

I’ve created five new hats! Users who have bought at least the 49.99 tier at the Octoberbit Promotion are now able to vote for which hat they’d like to see be the exclusive 49.99 tier hat. The hat that wins the vote will be granted to backers of the 49.99 tier — it will never again be offered for sale after the promotion ends.  The other hats will be available in-game later.

Note – if you have kicked in $24.99 previously, you can buy an additional 24.99 to get this tier. Yes, that technically adds up to 49.98, but the system will round up in your favor and let you get the hat 🙂

To vote on the new hat, go to this page.  Hurry – votes will be tallied on the 15th!

showHats

Now Accepting Bitcoin

BC_Logotype

I’m excited to announce that you can now use Bitcoin as a payment method for purchasing gold/plat packs!  This option has been added to the payment select screen for users using the 8bitmmo.net edition of the game.  Like the recently added Wallet option, the Bitcoin option also supports gifting.

Bitcoins are awesome because once you have them, they’re super easy to trade between users online.  You can manage your own electronic wallet on your desktop or phone (like Electrum) and you don’t have to worry about having a bank account or credit card.

If you’re interested in learning more about Bitcoin, you can read more about it here.  Want to get your own bitcoins?  Head here to learn how to get them.

Google Checkout -> Google Wallet

Today I upgraded our integration of Google Checkout to Google Wallet for Digital Goods.  Checkout is being retired, and Wallet is replacing it.

The upshot of this is that you no longer have to worry about typing in /redeem whatever.  The gold/plat is now deposited directly into your game account.  If you wish to purchase gold/plat as a gift for another player, that is now also possible using this page.