Happy Holidays!

From the card:
* Serious Sam Double D in the Steam Holiday Sale: http://store.steampowered.com/app/111600
50% off, only $3.99!

* Check out Xbox dashboard satire Game Type!

Xbox Dashboard Helps Indie Game

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

December 21, 2011 (Louisville, KY) – Shoot 'em up "Game Type" launches on the Xbox 360 after Microsoft reserved a special tile on the dashboard for the game since the new Fall update.

Mommy's Best Games, creators of Shoot 1UP, present a new, coop shoot 'em up in which you pilot the iconic Hoodie Girl to battle the evil MediaBall.

"Game Type" box art

Think you have what it takes to explode angry cats and raging SUVs into showers of cash? Show the world with the shared, online high scores table. Game Type is a "score attack"-style game in which you zoom your way through bizarre enemies, going for the high score, all while the game-speed continues to climb. Bring in a friend and fire your Kick Beams for extra power--PARKOUR!

Xbox 360 Fall Dashboard update, Game Marketplace (note Game Type tile in upper right--Sweet!)

"I've been thrilled Microsoft created the special dashboard tile just for our game. It's such a terrible name which I created as a placeholder while starting the project." reveals lead designer Nathan Fouts. "With the incongruous stock photo of a woman in a hoodie doing a jump-kick, and the forgettable 'Game Type' title, it's good to know Microsoft was advertising our poorly-named game, and not trying to label the console's entire digital game storefront. Otherwise, it'd be a horrible match that would simply make no sense and generally lead fewer gamers to find the store and browse on their own terms."

Check out "Game Type" on Xbox Live Indie Games. Find it in the Xbox 360 Games Marketplace. Or just do a search on it. Otherwise, you'll probably get lost in the dashboard, stuck watching advertisement for TV shows.

Game Type marketplace link

Game Type screens, click to zoom:

Will you be able to find "Game Type" on the MediaBall dashboard? It's in there somewhere!

Hoodie Girl slaps some sense into these flying nasties!

Award-winning shows like "Fat Guy and Pretty Girl" now streamable on your console!

Hut-hut-hut! Watch out Hoodie Girl!

Deliver swift justice with the Kick Beam in 2-player mode. PARKOUR!

Gameplay footage:

About Mommy’s Best Games:
 Mommy's Best Games, Inc. is a boutique game developer founded in 2007. We strive to deliver games that push the edges of the medium through gameplay, art, satire, and pie. Our first game, Weapon of Choice, is an award-winning, side-scrolling, action game now available Xbox LIVE Indie Games. And our newest, critically acclaimed games Shoot 1UP, Explosionade, and Serious Sam Double D are available on XBLIG and PC. Follow MBG on Twitter to find out more!

Help Translate Shoot 1UP

We're nearly finished porting Shoot 1UP to Windows Phone 7! It probably won't be out on the marketplace till early next year, but it's exciting to have it almost complete.

Mecha Lilith needs your help!

Microsoft is publishing the title, and has been a great help navigating all their tricky rules for being an official LIVE enabled game. But Mommy's Best Games is responsible for figuring out localization. We're looking at various translation houses (and even Google Translate) but I wanted to check in with shoot'em up fans first.

Bullets speak louder than words, but there's menus and tutorials to be translated too!

Are you interested in helping translate Shoot 1UP? 
We need a few translators for each of the following languages: French, Italian, German, and Spanish. There are about 1,100 words to be translated. I say "a few" people to translate, as I think it would be beneficial to have one translate the original text, and at least one proofread.

Here's a random sample of strings needed to be localized:

Title Text to translate Notes AwardsCompleted Achievements Completed! Back Back go back one menu BestScore Best Best score BuyGame Buy Full Game purchase the complete game CalibrateDescription1 Please hold your device in a resting  CalibrateDescription2 orientation that is most comfortable CalibrateDescription3 for you, then press Ready... I'll provide notes as well so for instance, the "Back" word could mean a human's back, or go back to the previous menu. Obviously here it means "back to the previous menu" which is included in each entries notes. UPDATE: Thanks to everyone who's offered to help!  It looks like we have enough people to translate the game to the above 4 languages. If you're interested in translating the game to any other languages (like Brazilian Portuguese for instance) please contact me and we'll see if it would work. If you are interested in contributing, please email me at nathan (at) mommysbestgames (dot) com and specify what language you can help with. Native speakers would probably work best. If it works out we'll definitely get you in the credits for the game, and hopefully be able to compensate you as well. Thanks a bunch!

Serious Steam Fall Sale

Fight holiday food comas with THOUSANDS OF BULLETS!
Check out the Steam Fall sale, running through this weekend, November 27th.

Serious Sam: The Random Encounter, 50% off, only $2.49!
http://store.steampowered.com/app/201480
2 words: Pixel Sam
2 more words: Kamikaze bait

Serious Sam Double D, 50% off, only $3.99!
http://store.steampowered.com/app/111600
2 words: Gun Stacker
2 more words: Pancake monsters

If you've been on the fence about either game, hop down and snap these puppies up! Tell your friends that would be interested (and even the ones that wouldn't be ), and thanks for the support!

And of course thanks to all the fans that have already purchased and enjoyed--it's very much appreciated. We love getting to make games for you.

Flotilla and Weapon of Choice in Sale Promotion

Microsoft has a "Fan Appreciation Sale" going on now on the Xbox 360.
http://majornelson.com/2011/11/22/xbox-live-fan-appreciation-sale/

Lots of games on sale, from Super Meat Boy to Stacking.
And we're thrilled to announce two Indie Games have been added to the promotion!

The first XBLIG is Flotilla by Blendo Games, a interesting blend of tactical space-combat and odd-ball adventure.

The second game is our own action-packed Weapon of Choice!

Both games are now 50% off, making each only $2.50! (200 MS Points)
Tell any friends who've been on the fence to take the plunge. Thanks!
(And both games still have free demos to check as well.)

Just in time for it's third birthday--Happy 3 years old Weapon of Choice (originally released November 14, 2008)!

I'm not certain how long the promotional sale will continue. I'd guess probably through this holiday weekend. Happy gaming!

Add Ringtones to XNA games for Windows Phone 7

(This is for game developers offering ringtones through their games--for end users adding their own ringtones to their Windows Phone 7, check here.)

Shoot 1UP for Windows Phone 7 will be coming out early next year. We're excited to offer 3 custom ringtones created from game music, that you'll be able to add to your phone from within the game. Turns out though, none of the online tutorials explained everything necessary for our XNA game to install ringtones.

When we heard about the Mango update, we were excited to support new features like ringtones and 'live tiles'. Searching for help on creating ringtones in the game we found the official MSDN walkthrough.

You can have MP3s or WMAs of the ringtones and you can add the sound from the XAP itself or pull it from isolated storage. Since our game was not generating the ringtone itself (as they were previously recorded), our ringtones are added to the solution and will be pulled from the XAP as shown in the MSDN example.
This shows a .wma being used, but we used .mp3s which work as well.

try
{
    saveRingtoneChooser.Source = new Uri("appdata:/myTone.wma");
    //saveRingtoneChooser.Source = new Uri("isostore:/myTone.wma"); 

    saveRingtoneChooser.DisplayName = "My custom ringtone";

    saveRingtoneChooser.Show();
}
catch (System.InvalidOperationException ex)
{
    MessageBox.Show("An error occurred.");
}

The Problem?
When we ran the game and checked for the ringtone file--the file never existed on the phone after we deployed.

The Answer?
We had have "Copy to Output Directory:" set to Copy if newer. This isn't obvious since the default which works with all other content is "Do not copy".




From what we've seen, Live Tiles images work like this too. If you want to use them, you must set them to "Copy if newer" to get them to show up on the phone, as they seems they circumvent the traditional content pipeline. And I believe this issue is only for XNA games (not Silverlight) but if I'm wrong, please inform me in the comments.

Good luck to all devs adding additional, cool content made possible by the Mango update! I think the 'new' WP7 is really sharp and it can help all new games really shine.

Shoot 1UP on Windows Phone 7

We're excited to share that we're porting Shoot 1UP to Windows Phone 7 with a bunch of additions and custom changes to fit the touchscreen hardware. Microsoft Studios will be publishing the title as official Xbox LIVE title meaning the game will have Achievements that register to your Gamerscore, and Leaderboards (at least WP7-style leaderboards, which is all it still supports).

If you're unfamiliar with the original version of the game and the concept, check out this short video. The original is available on the Xbox Live Indie Games channel on your Xbox 360. Basically it's a space-ship shoot 'em up, but you fly all your ships at once!

Here are the first batch of screenshots for the Windows Phone 7 version of Shoot 1UP, which we expect will release in January 2012. Screenshots in a press kit are also available here to download.

Click to enlarge!

The bullet count is much higher than the XBLIG version.

Dead whales return!

Yes, it's a lot of bullets, and yes, it's still very possible to beat.

More suggestive lasers!

Screen-filling bosses for all!

In getting the game working on the touch screen we realized it was waaaaaaaay too easy, even for Shoot 1UP standards. We've worked to continue raising the bullet counts, but also making sure it's still easy and fun to play. The main reason it still works is having all your ships active means you may lose all your ships but one--but if you hang in there, you'll get a new 1UP to help you out!

New Features include:

• Touch-screen controls mean better control for players so we added tons more bullets to dodge!
• New Game mode: Score Tilt. Tilt your phone to speed up gameplay and increase your score multiplier!
• An brand-new level, boss, and enemies!
• Unlock official Xbox LIVE Achievements and compete against your friend for a high score!  

We'll be putting out a gameplay video pretty soon and explain more differences soon!

Serious Sam Double D Demo Out Now

Been curious about Gunstacking? Ready to tear into a Biomechanoid with a Tommy Gun, Shotgun, and Chainsaw all at the same time? Then give the Serious Sam Double D Demo a try!

Say hello to "Femikazes". They are in the demo and would love to show you a good time.

Find out what side of the Metacritic fence you're on! Serious Sam Double D has ratings ranging from 95%, 80%'s, 70%'s, ... all the way down to 20%! What's this madness? Talk about a polarizing game--how about we just stack some guns and shoot monsters!

This is the Chimputee BattleMaster, the first major boss. He's not in the demo, but you can see him in the full game.

Here's a few review quotes from places you may trust:

"Mommy's Best Games' 2D shooter is fun the whole way through." - 7/10 - IGN

"Easily the most insane and downright fun 2D shooter I've played all year, if not ever." - 85/100 - Strategy Informer

"There's quite a lot of cathartic fun to be had with such a reckless onslaught of bullet-flavored justice" - 7/10 - Destructoid

"Check your brain at the door, kick back, relax and enjoy a little carnage. It's worth it. Seriously." - 8/10 - Worth Playing

Go on--give that demo a try and buy the full game for only $7.99 if you enjoy it!
There's 18 campaign levels, 12 challenge rooms, 25 weirdo enemy types, and dozens of giant guns to stack!

Double DRM Free

Cracked!

Serious Sam Double D was released on PC for $7.99 on August 30th around 1pm EST and within about 5 hours a crack by the "Theta" group showed up on the web. That seems pretty good in terms of interest in the game to have a crack out that quickly! It's flattering honestly. But I'm worried some of the gamers downloading the game and enjoying it may not have yet purchased a copy as well.

I realize there is no demo of the game currently but we'll be releasing one shortly. 
UPDATE: The Free Demo for Serious Sam Double D is out now!

I also realize that even with a limited demo, some gamers may download the crack of the game to try it out with no demo restrictions to see if they like the whole thing. I'd simply like to plead with you that if downloaded a crack of Serious Sam Double D and enjoyed it, please buy a copy or donate! Thanks!

Don't want to deal with Steam? Just want to keep the bootleg but still pay for it? No problem, you can donate to MBG as well!
(Any Paypal info will not be used to prosecute, belittle, spam, or stalk. But we'll probably send you a thank you!)

Mommy's Best Games is a very small company of passionate developers, but passion doesn't manifest peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on our plates. We also need money in exchange for our fun games--if we miss out on a few hundred or thousand sales of the game due to pirating it's a BIG DEAL for us. You may have played half-way through the game, and thought "Oh, I'll pay for it at some point"--well consider this a friendly reminder to pay via the donate button or the Steam page!


Traffic
The tough part of course is we don't know how many copies we're losing to cracks, but there are tons of pages floating around and we get a lot of traffic to the site from those pages. We've gotten requests that people want to contribute not deal with Steam so there's the new way with the donate button. The game was even cracked a second time after we've updated a few things recently!


DRM Free
I'd like to point out that while the non-cracked version of the game requires an internet activation to play, you can run Steam in offline mode and play the game that way as well.  There is no restriction on the number of installs you can make once you've purchased the game. The Steam version of Serious Sam Double D only has traditional "copy protection".

Thank You! 
Did you enjoy the Gunstacker system? The weird enemies? The crazy secrets? I hope so, and if you did, purchasing a copy of the game or donating helps fund our future projects. Even if you didn't beat the whole game, please think about a purchase.

We'd like to make even more games you'll enjoy! Every sale helps and thanks for your support!
(And we'll definitely get the demo out very soon.)

Double D Second Update

Fixes and additions:

• Unlocking golden guns in the challenge rooms saves progress and sticks you with whatever load out was in the challenge room. -Fixed
• Language setting in-game (you have to set the option, then restart the game to have this take effect).
• Reticule options Can use dual or single reticules now
• Made reticule image easier to see.
• Camera look-forward toggle option (when off the camera won't move if you turn left/right)
• Challenge levels can be cheated by setting difficulty - fixed
• Play the game, get guns, then do Start New Game, then go back and reload old quicksaves. It screws up your weapons. -Fixed, now wipes everything on StartNewGame
• Jump option 2 does not let you drop down.-fixed
• Tweaked enemy attack-damage values on normal/serious (slightly tougher)
• Mouse wheel flip button option added (can reverse direction quick select scrolls through guns).
• 28th connector missing. Fixed, added to "room of blood" secret area.
• Extra translations for Spanish, Italian, German added.

His loadout was trashed too...

If you were effected by the 'golden guns' loadout problem...
(Background: What could happen in the previous version, if you beat the game (and unlocked 1 golden gun) then unlocked another golden gun when saving a challenge, the game would save only those weapons used in that challenge (eg. only having 4 flamethrowers). )
The bug is fixed, but you may have been effected by the problem. That would mean your inventory is stuck with just a few weapons. If you want to get your inventory sort-of back, there a few options
1. You can do a Start New Game and re-find all weapons, secrets, etc (maybe on a higher difficulty).
2. I've uploaded a 'save state' in which I played through on Normal, getting only the weapons in my path and a few secrets (not many at all). If you'd like to donwload that, it's right here:
http://www.mommysbestgames.com/files...amePersist.zip
Go to here on your harddrive C:\Users\<USERNAME>\AppData\Local.
Delete the contents of the SSDD folder.
Take the contents of the NEW folder you downloaded, and paste it into the SSDD folder on your harddrive.

That will give a lot of weapons to start with and you can play something like Serious mode or try out the Challenges.

Unfortunately there was no way to recover the lost inventory for those that had this problem, I'm sorry. But this is a bit of workaround.

GunStacker Strategies and First Update

Serious Sam Double D is out now on PC! To help you blaze a trail through the enemy hoards this weekend here are some:

GunStacker Strategies

 

Don't Blow Your Stack
Put your Rocket Launchers and Grenade Launchers in their own stack. Once you get comfortable with things, you can start intermingly them with Tommy guns and Shotguns. But early on, keep explosives separate. Then you can quickly switch to your big, BIG guns for distant bosses or giant dinosaurs.

 

Playing With Fire
The flamethrower has a special ability of stopping all enemy bullets. If you're having trouble in a level with lots of missiles or Biomechanoid lasers or rockets, add a few flamethrowers to your stack. It sucks down fuel fast, but it can stop enemy shots before they reach you.

 

Order Up
Placement in your bigger stacks (especially 5-6 high) can make a difference when wading into a seething mass of gnashing teeth. Putting a shotgun on the bottom, Tommy guns or laser guns in the middle and another shotgun on top can give it more spread to also handle Chimputees in the air.

Trigger Happy
The Chainsaw and Machine Pistol (your first gun) have infinite ammo. Better yet, the Machine Pistol can fire as fast as you can click the trigger. Putting these two together in a stack can be a "go to" close range stack to save ammo and handle up-close trouble.

 

Fit and Trim
If you aren't using a gun, put it down in your Inventory rather than having it clutter up your Quick Select. This way in the heat of a giant battle you don't accidentally swap to a single shotgun and get your face ripped off. Then when you find more connectors, bring it out of the inventory and put it to use!
That said--it's good to keep around a single shotgun sometimes to swap back and forth when taking out single enemies, then fighting big crowds.

The Vuvu loves you.

Game Update 1

 A new update is available now for the game. Steam will automatically download this. The following is the changelist for all bugs and issues addressed:

1. "Russian crash" fixed! There was an issue with the Cyrillic alphabet causing a crash on start-up. This is handled properly now. 
2. Jump-pad wall glitch fixed.
3. Cursor is now locked to the screen in Windowed/Multi-monitor mode.
4. Video Resolution Menu now has an "Apply Resolution" button. While swapping through resolutions, they won't be applied till you hit this button. 
5. 4th Tommy gun was missing from Dark Harvest. Added back.
6. New "No Blood" option to completely remove blood if desired. (Crazy!)
7. Backgrounds touched up for higher resolutions. (Won't show purple edges.)
8. Translations fixed for guns in gunstacker mens.
9. Golden guns explanations in stats was broken when you beat the game. Now retains proper setting.
10. Vuvuzelators get stuck in walls less. 
11. Player stats have been rephrased before you beat the game to make more sense. 
12. Ammo changing per levels is retained properly now.
13. Secrets buttons in menu sometimes overlayed the level name (adjusted).

That's it for the first update. We will continue to tweak the game and add improvements in the future.
Good luck and Enjoy Stackin'!

Serious Sam Double D Out Now

Serious Sam Double D is out now for $7.99!
Steam page
GetGames page
Direct2Drive page
Impulse-Gamestop page

Launch video courtesy of CEO of the publisher Devolver Digital, Fork Parker.



Go forth and GET TO STACKING!

 ----------
In other news, here are the support display resolutions for those curious:

• 1680x1050 
• 1600x900 
• 1440x900
• 1366x768
• 1360x768
• 1280x1024
• 1280x960
• 1280x800
• 1280x768
• 1280x720
• 1152x864
• 1024x768
• 1024x576

 If you need to run the game with a resolution not shown (such as 1400x1050), you can run it with this debug command.
In Steam, right-click the game and select Properties->Set Launch Options. In the command line, set "debugResX 1400 debugResY 1050"
Obviously substitute the proper debugResX or Width that you need and the proper debugResY or Height needed.
You can actually set just about any resolution your graphics card can handle. But bear in the mind the levels were built only up to 1920x180 as the absolute max. If you go into 2560x1600 things may get unpleasant if you start seeing "outside" the game world.

Click to embiggen

Otherwise, the game looks completely smoking at the higher 1600 resolutions, I hope your card and monitor can handle those! Seems like on average most PC gamers have that covered, based on the Steam computer spec survey. But do people boastfully lie on those? I doubt it. Or at least I hope not.

Serious Sam Double D coming August 30th!

Serious Sam Double D is releasing August 30th on Steam, Get Games, Impulse and other services for $7.99!

We've been working for a while now to get the game ready for Steam and are insanely pumped to have it approved. From what we can tell Steam controls most of the digital distribution game market, so having it available there is very exciting for us.
We've polished a lot of aspects of the game along the way to get it approved including seamless quicksaving, better controller remapping, and better cinematics transitions. I've also jacked up the supported max resolution of the game to 1680x1050.

1600x900 view of the Caterfighter in Pompeii

Chimputees everywhere!

Here's resident gun-nut Huff to explain the glorious Gun Stacker


The page on Steam is not up yet, but should be later this week.
Here's the Serious Sam Double D Get Games page. 
And the Impulse page should be up soon as well. Should be up on IndieCity and Desura too.

Serious Stack of Numbers

Serious Sam Double D's exact release date will be announced very soon! Bugs are almost worked out. All kinds of secrets have been stuffed in and double-checked. Challenge levels are getting tweaked a little more. Things are really close! That means we know all kinds of cool stuff about the game now. So let's see...

Click to gigantify

Serious Gameplay and Replay

Gameplay

First off, let's see some of the insane action in motion for Serious Sam Double D!

That was the first official gameplay trailer for the game. There will be some more trailers highlighting various aspects such as the GunStacker system.

Replayability

With a few weeks before release, Serious Sam Double D has undergone a drastic but excellent change that heavily increases the replayability of the game.

Previously the game followed a simple structure: You battled your way from the start to the end, finding powerups and cool secrets. But if you happen to miss anything, the only real way to get it was to start from the beginning again and hope to remember where it was.

Level Select screen letting you replay any level again, with all your gear.

Not anymore!
Now Sam has a Persistent Inventory system which means any gun, connector, secret, or challenge you happen to find, he gets to keep in any level. Plus, you can replay any previous level you've been!
Yes, you can take all the guns you've been collecting all along the way and head back to easier, previous levels any time you want and search for more hidden guns, secrets, or challenges tucked about.

So while initially you may have only had access to 3 guns in the first level, you can battle half way through the game, then replay the first level, now with something more like 12 guns and tons of connectors! Then you can find more weapons, then head *back* to level 7 or 8 (or wherever you were) with yet-more guns to better even the odds.

Starting level 1 from scratch with the Machine Pistol.

Returning to level 1 with a 5 gun stack, ready to fine more loot!

Plus we have good news that the Secrets menu is working great. You can look any time you want at secrets you've unlocked and revisit the funnier ones, or just use it to know how many are still to be found. And because the inventory is persistent, you can simply play from whatever secret you visit and any more powerups you find will be added to your inventory for access in later levels or your current one.

The black arrow is pointing to the little treasure box icon that shows up when you're near a secret.

And one extra helper is the Treasure icon. It definitely doesn't make it too easy, but it does fade in slowly if you're getting warm when finding a secret.

General Maxilla

Click to zoom

 Serious Sam Double D features a new antagonist, four-star General Maxilla. Little does Sam know, but the General is tasked with stopping Sam while Mental is on holiday. In between levels players are treated to a 'behind the scenes' look at Mental's operations, and how the General works (sometimes unsuccessfully) to wrangle the motley crew and ready them for battle.

Click to zoom

Here's animation video showing the General's talking animations. This shows the General in Mommy's Best Games animation editor, letting you see the animation skeleton and how the joint-connected-sprites form the animations.

All this means, hey--we're finishing up the in-game movies! And that means Double D is getting very close to finished for PC!

Double D Pompeii and Secrets

There's not much left to do on Serious Sam Double D.. and then there's a lot left to do. We're currently finishing up the last area, which is actually two distinct envrionments. The time period and region for both environments is Pompeii around 79AD just before Mount Vesuvius erupts.

The first area is an exterior view of the city of Pompeii with the volcano in the background. And *naturally* the second area is in the volcano itself! Turns out that the evil Mental's henchmen have built massive power sucking devices which hover over the lava and aborb the heat, transferring the energy through time to the Big Bad himself! Sam's job isn't so much to disable the devices, but rather make his way through this area to the final boss.

Early construction of the Pompeii exterior area. Art is still being tweaked, plus there's no cool enemies shown yet!

Currently I'm finishing up art I had roughed in before, Hamdija is still working on music tracks, Richard is coding background effects, and AJ is tweaking story elements and dialog.

What's in the Pompeii area? Well not to spoil everything but the enemies in final levels are more consistently BIG. As in, giant, walking caterpillar as big a building BIG. A caterpillar that stands up and acts like a massive wall. And has 3 different guns. And has a detachable head. Yeah, it all makes sense in the game. Serious sense.


Serious Sam games are famous for the fun secrets, and we're working to make some great ones. We wanted to make sure you get the most enjoyment out of those unique secrets. To that end, we're also implementing a special Secrets Menu. Instead of the typical version of completing a level and seeing you found 4/7 secrets, now you'll be able to look any time at this menu and see any level you've been in, and all the secrets you've found. There will be the full name and full description of each secret.

Secret cave from Serious Sam The First Encounter

And we're even looking at a way for you to visit them! For instance, if you find one of the 'comedy secrets' and really want to show a friend, you can just open the Secrets Menu, find that secret and click 'Visit' and you'll be loaded into the level just before the funnies. Still working out the kinks but so far it's pretty cool.

And then there's installation, localization and all that fun stuff. Oh and still the final boss. So we're close, but still a little ways to go. But we're getting there!

Serious Press and Help

E3 Press

Serious Sam Double D box art

E3 is over and Double D wowed press all around!
Check out this in-depth coverage from Dealspwn: http://www.dealspwn.com/sam-double-preview-guns-tits-corpse-piling-63785
"By far the most surreal moment came later in the demo when Sam found himself mired in a mysterious sticky fluid. “It’s maple syrup, dude,” explained Fouts… as an enormous stack of pancakes studded with vuvuzelas leapt into centre stage. This hilarious monstrosity made me burst out laughing thanks to the sheer unexpected sillyness of it all (and its adorable blueberry eyeballs)"

And a great look at the game from The Escapist:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/110973-E3-Serious-Sam-Double-D
"Double D starts in Egypt, but features other level types such as the prehistoric Nova Scotia that features dinosaurs and tar pits. Sam can hop on the backs of flying dinos to find secrets, and will have to take down giant spineasauruses while avoiding their bites."

I've put together the proper Serious Sam Double D webpage with tons more press, check it out!

 Little Hearts Matter

 In other news, gamer Isaac Hume has asked for help for his charity of choice Little Hearts Matter.


From Isaac:
"This charity helped save my nephew’s life when he was born with a portion of his heart missing and also helped to rehabilitate him into the healthy toddler that he is today.

In order to raise the donation I’m doing what I know how to do best. With the help of a couple of friends, I’ll be running a 24 hour livestream on 15^th July, playing and talking about games. My three friends and I will play games, encouraging people watching the stream to get involved, play multiplayer with us and donate to a worthy cause that helps save lives."

Little Hearts Matter treat conditions like Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome (HLHS). While rare, the condition is fatal unless treated. Learn more about it here: http://www.lhm.org.uk/

Here's the Isaac's donation page for Little Hearts Matter: www.justgiving.co.uk/temporalcortex


And here's the entertainment for the live streaming page for July 15th.
www.justin.tv/temporalcortex

Make sure to check it out and donate to a worthy cause!

Serious Shirts

Speaking of donations, Isaac asked MBG for some promotional help. We're donating a Serious Sam Double D shirt as seen here.

The shirt has the SSDD box art featuring the Gun Stacker on the front, large. On the back, there's a small Mommy's Best Games logo. All printing on cheery, Sun Beam Yellow!

We're only doing very limited prints of the shirts and one will be given away on Isaac's live streaming show on July 15th!

If you don't feel so lucky and would simply like to buy one for $25 + shipping, email me: nathan ((at)) mommysbestgames ((dot) com.

Double D at E3 2011

 There will be an all-new, polished, playable build of Serious Sam Double D at E3 2011 available in a behind-the-scenes capacity. What does that mean?

If you're a reporter-type just email me (Nathan) and I'll find a time slot for you to play the game.
We'll have for you some snappy demo sequences pulled from over a dozen levels of over-the-top, gun-stacking gameplay, plus some E3-special screenshots just for you.


If you won't be attending E3, don't fret! Those journalists at the show will be working hard to bring you awesome preview impressions and previously mentioned game shots.

In the meantime enjoy these screens!

Shooting up some Chimputees in the Amethystine Depths

Gorey globs gliding through the air in a challenge level.

As for actual development, we're currently adding all the polish points like robotic menu display cores and attenuating musical transitions--no Serious game's complete without 'em!