Explosionade DX, Out Now, Which Explosions I Remastered and Why

Explosionade DX is out now on Xbox, Nintendo Switch, and Playstation!

As with Shoot 1UP DX from a few months ago, this is a remaster of one of my older shooting games. Though we added 2 new levels to Shoot 1UP, I feel like we did even more to improve Explosionade for the 'deluxe edition'.

Discovering the Horronyms surprisingly organized culture is a subtle part of the fun.

Explosionade DX is a run 'n' gun mech game, in which you gleefully blast walls, and squish poor, little critters to gooey bits. I've always enjoyed the game, but one thing felt lacking--the difficulty was always a bit low. The final levels never really challenged you until the literal last areas. 

To address that, I managed to get the original level design program working again! I couldn't believe it, but the program Richard Rosenthal made for me, over 10 years ago, still worked, with a bit of help. The original version of the game had 40 levels. We basically scrapped about 35 of those levels, and created 55 new ones! 

All levels are hand-balanced for Easy, Medium, and Hard difficulty.

 

The most exciting part, is I got to work with my kids on it. Specifically my 10 year old son really took to making new levels. It was a great division of work. He loved making extremely hard levels. I strove to make varied levels. Often I would make new enemies and write new code, to create some original situations, such as the two "all dark" levels, or the new "barf bag" enemies. 

On the right side, is the result of the concrete-like sludge that comes from the "barf bags".

Not surprisingly my son's level designs did need some polish, but it was fun to have him block in the level, with ridiculous challenges. Then I would work with him and show him how to smooth it out just a bit, to make it more enjoyable over all, but still preserve the great challenge. 

In the "all dark" levels you'll have to "feel your way" through by destroying walls.

 

The end result now has at least 5 very tough levels (probably more depending on how you grade them) but these levels are spaced out later in the 60 total levels. I like these difficulty spikes, as you can enjoyably blast your way through several short levels in a row, but then hit a "wall" where you'll have to step back and actually think about how to proceed. These levels aren't that tough, but they offer a good bump in the challenge here and there. 

Cris-crossed by the laser-shooting Bruiser Horrornyms can make for some tricky fights.

 In addition to level design, we've added many new enemies, uprezzed the graphics to 4K, locked the framerate to 60fps, added Trophies/Achievements, and online leaderboards! 

It's only $5.99 on all systems, so if you enjoy shooting up some baddies, give it a go this weekend!

And do yourself a favor, if you've ever played through a Contra game, go ahead and pick the "Serious" difficulty for Explosionade DX. You'll have more fun.

Development Year in Review 2015

We can't find out what's wrong or what went well if we don't take time to see what we've done!
With that, let's look at what Mommy's Best Games did in 2015!

We released a new game this year, Finger Derpy. We also re-released 4 of our classic games, as enhanced ports to Steam, and called it the "Mommy's Best Action Pack".

January

Pig Eat Ball is the main project, but after talking to Nintendo and Sony and wanting to have the game on those platforms, it's clear we can't do it as it stands. The game is written in Java and simply won't run on consoles. I talk to John Meister from nearby game group Super Soul and we start working together. His team starts to port the game to Unity. This will allow us to more easily choose what Pig Eat Ball is available on.

In the meantime I start heavily working on Finger Derpy. Matthew and Andrew continue work on Pig Eat Ball core content. This means Matthew is writing code for new gameplay objects, and Andrew is designing and building new levels.

February

I focus on Finger Derpy and getting deals with local businesses to support the game. Here in the presskit, you can read more about our integration with Louisville landmarks.

March

More of the same, development wise.
Plus we show our games at the Louisville Arcade Expo!

April

Finger Derpy launched April 9th

Released Finger Derpy! First to iOS on the 9th, then to Google Play on the 19th. We held our big "Chomp the BIT" launch party that Friday. We organized the event in which 25 local developers showed off their games at an arcade bar in town.
Apple featured the game in the App Store as a 'Best New Game' which was a big deal and really helped downloads.
Also youtuber 'Cuqquake' featured the game, got plenty of views, and we've gotten a decent number of user reviews saying they saw the game on her channel.

May

During April and May we showed Finger Derpy at 10 local shows (in 5 weeks). It was exhausting. Between all of them, the Pegasus Preview Parade and the Thunderblast were beneficial in terms of download numbers. I think this was a matter of 'correct engagement' with large crowds that actually were interested in games.
Some of the events we showed the game at just had lots of drunken people. There was high traffic, but low interest/engagement/memory retention. Just because there's lots of people at an event doesn't mean you should show your game there.

June

Started porting the Mommy's Best Action Pack to Steam. This involved changing the games Weapon of Choice, Shoot 1UP, Explosionade, and Game Type, and making them great Steam ports. These games were all originally released between 2008 and 2011. They were made in XNA.
This involved adding lots of extra, though small features, which takes time. Some of the games did get new content as well, such as the collectible MBG pies in Weapon of Choice.
Scott Slucher from the U of L area started as a coop student working on the port.

July

MBG Action Pack porting by Scott and myself.
I also help Andrew and Matthew continue on PEB. We try to limit too much extra additions because John has to constantly port things from the old Java to the new, half-working Unity build.

August

Much of the same as July.

September

Shipped the Mommy's Best Action Pack on September 23rd!

For Pig Eat Ball, we're continuing to wait on the Unity build to be finished and usable on our side. Until we can write new code in the actual Unity build and until I can give Andrew the level editor that way, we have to continue with the Java build, which is tough having two versions being developed.
 

November

Finger Derpy Thanksgiving update!
Got featured again by Cupquake, definitely helped our player numbers.
Working on Pig Eat Ball gameplay in Java, as the Unity build continues.
Steam Autumn sale for MBG Action Pack.

December

Finger Derpy Winter update!
Unfortunately no big youtubers covered it, but the numbers were up through Christmas.
Working on Pig Eat Ball gameplay as the Unity build continues.
Steam Holiday sale for MBG Action Pack.

Finances

This was our most prolific game year, if you look at straight 'games shipped'--we ported 4 games and released 1 new game. So 5 games were released in this year. But this was our worst year financially.
Serious Sam Double D XXL continues to sell well and supports us, but it's sales are slowly declining.
In years past we were releasing one big game every two years. 2011 was Serious Sam DD to Steam, and 2013 was Serious Sam DD XXL to XBLA and then back to Steam (with lots more content).
2015 should have been Pig Eat Ball, in theory, but it's simply not finished. So instead, we released a free-to-play game, with ad-supported revenue and In-App Purchases, but while it made some money, it has still not covered it's development costs. Then we also released 4 ports of our older games, but they did not sell as well as hoped.

2016

The good news for January is Super Soul finished the Unity port and the game works great! We're working on the game now in Unity and things are moving swiftly.
This is the year for Pig Eat Ball.
Let's make it great, and get it out the door!

Action Pack New Features

We recently released our classic action games to Steam in the Mommy's Best Action Pack. The games are available individually or in this handy bundle: http://store.steampowered.com/sub/76770/
 But these aren't just straight ports--they're new, improved, and super high quality PC entertainment!
Assuming you already know about the original releases, I'll detail what's new in the Steam versions.

Weapon of Choice

Store link:  http://store.steampowered.com/app/373600

All New Achievements

This game never had Achievements, as such, everything in it is new! Of course, there are some easy ones (such as saving an operative) and some very tough ones. A few of the most difficult Achievements involve getting really skilled at using Xerxes and his Jet Engine gun. Those are 'Snappy Start' which is a speed run of the first level, and 'Airtime' which requires you to float through level 1 to the boss, without touching the ground!

Airtime will take some serious practice!

The most involved Achievement, which really changes the game, is 'Tasty'. This requires you to find 13 hidden MBG pies scattered throughout all the levels. Don't worry, it's not impossible, as there is a list that is shown on the title screen, once you find your first pie, to help you know where to look. "Out of reach places" are a good place to start!

The pie list

This one's a gimmie! Go get it!

Here's a list of more features added to the Steam version of Weapon of Choice:

• Increased player run speed
• Increased resolution in new, widescreen view
• Keyboard controls (in addition to the original Xbox controller option)
• Fully remappable buttons and inputs  
• Steam features: Achievements, Trading Cards, and Steam Cloud for saves

Speaking of which, the Trading Cards and backgrounds are awesome! Enjoy!

Moses Longhorn, taking care of business

Explosionade

Store link:  http://store.steampowered.com/app/373620

New Enemies and Level Layouts

The main issue I had with Explosionade was it was a little easy and didn't have enough unique monsters. I made sure to address that in this new version! There are now nearly double the basic enemy types from the original release! The levels, especially in Serious mode, have all been re-tuned to feature some of the new creatures and bump up the difficulty a bit. The nastiest ones are Horronym Bruisers with the laser cannon. They are relentless and require some real strategy to knock them out of their foxholes.

That laser Bruiser will take you down a notch!

The new Jellies tend to take over you if you don't keep their numbers in check.

Practice Mode

There is now a rich Practice menu system, that let's you select any level, in any difficulty you've already reached, so that you can practice your strategy for the highest score. Whether you want to go for all kills, or go for fastest time, this is the way to climb the leaderboards.

More features added now to the Steam version of Explosionade:

• Improved grenades for better control (you can hold them longer, letting them bounce even further if you want.) 
• Color adjustment to player 2 for better visibility;  laser sight on the mech to improve aiming
• Keyboard controls (in addition to the original Xbox controller option)
• Fully remappable buttons and inputs  
• Steam features: Leaderboards per difficulty, Achievements, Trading Cards, and Steam Cloud for saves

Shoot 1UP 

Store link:  http://store.steampowered.com/app/373610

New Accessibility Modes

Since it's launch Shoot 1UP has been considered by the accessibility world (from One Switch to Able Gamers) as a great shmup with wonderful accessibility features for disabled gamers. We've continued to extend the reach, with new "Goof Off Mode". This changes the game, so it spawns 1UPs at a more frequent rate, making it easier to get to 30 or even 60 ships.
This new mode is perfect for young kids, playing when you're tired, or playing with a casual (non-gamer) friend. The Leaderboards won't register your score, since you're sort of cheating, but it's a lot of fun, and a good way to practice later levels.

There is also the new "Turn-Based Mode", which pauses the game when no input is given. This allows novice or disabled gamers a break, to take it all in first, then make their move (which resumes the action). If you're moving or shooting, the game plays as normal, but as soon as you let off of either, the game pauses for you to start again.

New selection options

With Goof Off mode, it's easy and fun to get to max ships fast.

Additional Shoot 1UP features for the Steam version

• Improved 'score drop' art
• Warning prompts for enemies coming from the sides or bottom.
• Option to *add* more clothing to the robo-girls in Hao.
• Keyboard controls (in addition to the original Xbox controller option)
• Fully remappable buttons and inputs  
• Steam features: Leaderboards per difficulty, Achievements, Trading Cards, and Steam Cloud for saves

Game Type

Store link:  http://store.steampowered.com/app/373630

New Boss

There is now an actual boss to fight in Game Type, and it is of course, the cat from Cat Chat. He hides behind a desk, throwing out different paw, and hairball attacks, along with calling for his tiny, cat minions. The Cat Chat boss shows up at the end of every 3rd loop.

Cat fight!

All New Achievements

Like Weapon of Choice, Game Type never had Achievements for it's Xbox 360 release. Now it has plenty of extra challenges! There's several points-based goals of course, but there's also some fun to be had snooping around the faux Xbox 360 dashboard.

The New Achievements Menu

Rebalanced

The entire game is much more interesting, and playable for the long term as I worked with playtesters from the hardcore shmup community. They really pushed on it, looking for spots where the game was too unpredictable to feel like you could improve at it, or areas that were slow, or boring, or needed clarity. We've improved many of the sprites for the bullets and enemies to make sure everything is easily visible, because when the game starts to *really* speed up around loop 6, you need all the clarity and focus you can muster.


More improvements for Game Type on Steam:

• Keyboard controls (in addition to the original Xbox controller option)
• Fully remappable buttons and inputs  
• Steam features: Leaderboards for All Time and WEEKLY(!), Achievements, Trading Cards, and Steam Cloud for saves

Mommy's Best Action Pack

And that was just the enhanced features!
Make sure to check out the Steam pages for all the original features in each game. Happy shooting!

Case Study: One Game's Amazing Click-Rate on Steam

(Vagueness: The take-away points of this will be intact, but if I act vague about exact numbers or certain practices, it's because I don't want to violate the non-disclosure agreement we (and other developers) have with Valve regarding their store.)

TL:DR

That little, tiny strip of your game logo on Steam is really, really useful. Take a second look at it, and try to improve it to grab more eyes. Also, consider tweaking your Tags.
Unless you've released on Steam before, you probably don't know how extremely powerful that slot is.

We had 4 games released in one day, and we compare and contrast why one game got a lot more clicks than others.

The Steam Front Page

This article is about examining a tiny sliver of art which very much influences how much traffic ends up on your game's Steam page. As we can see by visiting the main page on Steam, there are several categories where games are shown.

Front page on Steam, September 29th, 2015

We can see the large, top part--currently it shows 80 Days--which cycles through many games and the lower, smaller section that reads "New On Steam" just above.

The valuable, New On Steam section.

This "New On Steam" part is where we'll focus on our time and thoughts, but let's first look at a few points.

Front Page Flow

Now, without running afoul of any agreements we have with Steam, we can still determine and talk about some interesting points. Anyone that spends some time analyzing the front page for a few days can see a pattern. If you keep track of games that show up on the Upcoming tab near the bottom, and then compare them to games in the New On Steam section above, you can see that it seems that games that went through the Upcoming section get some time in the New On Steam section.

The Upcoming Games reasonably seem to show up in the New On Steam section.

So we have the idea that, 'Upcoming Games' move to 'New On Steam'.

Lots of Eyes

Without saying how many potential times gamers could be shown your game banner, let me just assure you it's a substantial amount, that any developer would be happy to have.
It's a very nice setup, since independent of your marketing budget the New On Steam section affords (apparently?) every game an opportunity for a lot of people to see it.
So, let's accept the assumption that the New On Steam section is very valuable and powerful.

High Traffic Analytics

Once you have your game on Steam, you get access to some nice traffic analytics, breaking down how many people saw your game banner in the New On Steam section but also how many clicked on it. You get to see total views and total clicks.

I'm personally in an uncommon situation, in that we recently ported 4 of our popular XBLIG games to Steam, and released them all on the same day. From that, I now have 4 data points from the same time period. While anyone could simply watch the Steam front page for a while and track how long games show up in the New On Steam section, I'll tell you, for us all 4 games stayed on there about 10 hours each.

Mommy's Best Action Pack promo

Steam also shares with you the *average click-through rate of other games*.
One of our games matched this average.
Two of our games were nearly twice the average.
And our final game had over *three and half* times the average number of clicks.

The Click-Through Puzzle

All of our games in the "Mommy's Best Action Pack" were critically praised over the years. The popularity of the games goes in this order: Shoot 1UP, Weapon of Choice, Explosionade, and then Game Type. Game Type is a fun but very strange game, plus it's an extremely niche 'caravan' style shoot 'em up. It never sold well, but it was respected.

Of course one has to factor in 'brand awareness' when considering why someone would click on your game banner, after they see it. Maybe they've heard of it before and are interested! (That's of course exactly how brand awareness is supposed to work!)
Instead, in this case, the click-through breakdown went like this: Game Type had 3.5x the average number of click-throughs. Shoot 1UP and Weapon of Choice both were over the average at about 1.8x times. And Explosionade simply had an average number of click-throughs.

What does this mean? For me it shows what I'd expect, that Shoot 1UP and Weapon of Choice had some brand recognition, and brought some people through to their game pages. This is good.

But the puzzle for you to consider is: What happened to Explosionade (average click-through) and Game Type (amazing click through)?

Compare and Contrast Clicks

Obviously we all work hard to create the game logo and the title treatment. But the wide, small game banner used in the New On Steam section is tough. It's horizontal and it's small. You don't have a lot of space to show off your game... or do you?
I took this as an opportunity to consider the art used for each of my 4 games and you should look at yours as well.

Here's what the banners for each game looked like at launch, during the traffic period in question.

Original versions

Here are my notes from looking at the art.
The Explosionade title takes up more room than any other game art here. Game Type text takes up the least space. Weapon of Choice and Shoot 1UP are very colorful by comparison, and bright. Game Type has an identifiable human girl, kicking, which is strange. You can kind of make out a cat in Game Type. For Explosionade, I can make out two bullets sort of, but I can't tell what's happening on the lower left, it's mostly a wasted opportunity. The monster on the bottom right of Explosionade shows his eye, but loses a lot of context, which could mean for some people that the coolness of seeing the glowering monster is lost. The Weapon of Choice 'font' is weird and non-standard and has strange organic shapes all over it. Shoot 1UP has a girl who is peaking over the edge, this is titillating.

Here is the new version of the game art.

New versions (only Game Type and Explosionade were changed)

The main changes to Explosionade are to give things more context, and reduce the text size. Keep in mind players will see your game name, just to the right, in plain text. They will know the game's name, so can reduce your title art somewhat if you have more interesting things to show. I've increased the space the mech on the lower left takes up, and increased the space the monster on the right takes up to indicate the cool fighting in the game. Game Type was made brighter and the other two games were not changed.

Let Tags Do Their Thing

The other thing to consider is that I labelled all my games "Action", and "Indie". There is a *broad* selection of  games on Steam that fall into those categories. I wasted my chance by not labeling Shoot 1UP and Game Type as "shoot 'em up" (much fewer games) and I wasted my chance to label Explosionade as "Mech" (very few games).
Players could have quickly seen those words just to the right and had another reason to click!

What's the Point Now? The Moment Is Not Gone!

Why improve the art, after the games are out of the New On Steam part? Because that same art is used all over Steam, in the 'More Like This' section and the 'Recently Updated'. You get more chances to catch player's eyes!
Redemption! If your game had a poor performing click-through rate on launch, you can do better it!

If you have not released your game consider:
As I said, if I could do it over, I should have added more useful tags to my games (the "User-Defined tags", not the search words, which are also important). Adding custom tags that make sense to your game, but some that are also specific.

In any case, take another look at your game banner, especially the small one, and make sure you're making most of it. There are a lot of eyes on that tiny piece of art and you can get more clicks with it!

----

(And since we're sort of talking about designing box art (but smaller, and wider) I found this to be an inspiring article on how others made some very nice art: http://www.polygon.com/features/2015/8/27/9207581/video-game-box-art)

(And finally, please chime in as to why you think Game Type scored so well and Explosionade only scored 'average'. I'd love to hear different points of view, thank you!)

Cooking in Mommy's Best Kitchen

Hey, time to check out what we're up to.

Those games sure look tasty!
And steamin' hot!

Pump up the Difficulty

Not-so-secret work has continued on for Explosionade! We've got the ExplosionaEditor continuing to improve, with a lot of new features including the ability to add full campaigns easily with a visual interface. On the game side one of the most requested changes for the game were "harder levels"! You guys want to die more, I take it?

With the noble endeavor of trying have the Explosionade's creatures to kick your butt more, I've been thinking of ways to work within the 'language of the game' to create new difficulties. I'm trying hard to not just go to obvious, easy methods for making things tougher like less health for your mech, or bullets taking off more damage, or instant-death spikes everywhere. I like how Explosionade is built and I think it's extremely important to preserve it's unique feel.

The new levels should present new, tricky situations to figure out, not just have you holding down the fire button and charging forward. Explosionade's levels have a 'infiltration' feel to them. You are invading these intricate buildings and strongholds built by the Horronym aliens. In the new, harder levels, you'll have to proceed more carefully, use skill when bouncing your grenades around, and have a real knack for shield bounces, all the while figuring out how to manage plenty of new enemy types.

Here's just a few new enemies that fit into the Explosionade world of tougher levels: 

'Fire spinner' (Horronym construct) mine which triggers on touch or damage. Once triggered, it doesn't explode, but continuously spouts a stream of flames, while spinning slowly in the air. It's invulnerable, but can be pushed and shot around the level as it bounces through hallways and shafts.

'Hopper Hive' (indigenous life-form) is a large fungus-like growth which is found under various overhangs. It drips out gelatinous 'hoppers' which are cephalopodal creatures, encased in protective jelly. These hoppers jump around tight enclosures able to stick to walls, and even jump under ceilings. The active jelly is corrosive and explodes on contact with the player's GRenaDOS mech, and the hive has a surprise of its own!

'Electromagnetic pulse beacons' (Horronym construct) generate a special energy bubble in a medium-sized range. They cause no damage, but your shield is constantly in danger of overheating when you're within their influence. Fortunately, you can destroy these beacons with appropriate force.

There's a gaggle of new tricky creatures like these we're creating for the new, harder levels for Explosionade. Also, one very large shake-up for the overall level structure is in the works as well. I'll explain it soon once we figure out if it works.

But how will these cool new, harder levels be available? We should be able to let you know soon! I'll include cool screenshots and some moving pictures and everything.

Explosionade Postmortem

Explosionade, released October 7 for Xbox LIVE Indie Games, was experimental for Mommy's Best Games in a lot of ways, not the least of which was "just how quickly can we make a great game".

The game's portly main character, Terry Atticus

Development started on August 26th, and the original (internal) launch date of September 25 was set to get an initial sales surge on the books for third quarter of 2010. We missed that goal, didn't make as much money in third quarter as needed, but managed to stay in business full-time through painful but artful money shifting. The good news is the game turned out better!

Explosionade gameplay, invading the Horronym's temple.

What Went Right
1. Focused vision
In a theme throughout the What Went Right section, design direction on Explosionade was like a laser-knife cutting through butter, under a microscope, conducted by Cyberdyne. That is to say, while the actual game ideas may have fluctuated between brilliant and dim, there was no lolly-gagging during actual development.

Various level designs trying to create as much variety as possible.

I picked the design by mashing together several other designs of mine. I had plenty of ideas waiting around, it was a matter of picking something I knew could be fun, but also something doable, and within a small scope. Everything about the design was created to be reusable but still enjoyable and feel original.

The core idea of "invading tiny alien bases" drove everything from the design of intricate paths the player could take to the mocking laugh animation the soliders had when they managed to damage the player mech. If something did not fit this concept, it was cut. Immediately. Each piece had a purpose and we had no time for exploring frivolities. (Trust me, I like late-night, exploratory coding frivolities as much as the next developer, this just wasn't the time.)

Horronym soldier mocking the damaged player mech.

2. Rapid Languages
XNA was used to write the game and DarkBASIC was used to create the level editor. Both languages are well suited for extremely fast prototyping. Richard Rosenthal, our current intern, knows DarkBASIC like some mystical coding wizard, and while I have no working knowledge of the language or IDE, it seemed to produce quixotic code yet tangible and quality final results.

My original idea was to create 'in-code' levels just like I did for Shoot 1UP, but since there was massive amounts more level collision in Explosionade it just made more sense to create a level editor. Fortunately Richard already had experience creating graphical editors before and was able to whip up something in DarkBASIC in literally a weekend.

I've written before about the amazing results one can derive from XNA for both Xbox 360 and PC. It bears repeating that all the robust, well-designed code libraries supported again made it possible to deliver a sweet-playing and -looking game to the home console with very little fuss.

Explosionade's Editor written in DarkBASIC.

3. Pre-existing Engine
Starting and finishing a game is tough even for those who've done it many times, but starting a game completely from scratch is truly a Herculean task that often needs not happen. Shoot 1UP was built on an XNA game starter kit, and Explosionade was built upon Shoot 1UP.

New sprite animation techniques and coding voodoo were further honed for Explosionade which made for massive amounts of polish and detail in a super-short amount of time. From collision, to player handling, to sprite libraries, having an entire game already built accelerated development as much as I could hope for. Special care was taken to make the gameplay feel very different in every way, but things that worked such as gameplay speed adjustments for players, and button remapping were kept.

The peer-to-peer leaderboards in Explosionade were the fruit of Spyn Doctor Games (Johannes Hubert) and his near drag and drop library gave us an effective leg up here as well.

Early mech and player concepts. At one point the character was going to be human with a jetpack.

4. Incorporating Feedback
Explosionade was in XNA AppHub's playtest forums for several weeks before release and it benefited greatly from a wide swath of player feedback. It was difficult actually incorporating the feedback even though some things didn't always interest me.

It's always a challenge trying to balance responsive gameplay and character 'feel' in a mech game. The original walk animation of the mech was very jerky and heavy feeling. During the earliest playtest of the mech walk animation, while I liked the style, many testers hated it, one even went so far as explain it wasn't how a real mech would move.

The final speed of the mech still turns some people off, but I had to strike a balance somewhere as I didn't want the half-ton machine able to jump around like a normal human. I tried to mitigate moving slower with the ability to 'shield jump' which turned out to be one of the highlight mechanics of the game!

Getting closer to the final mech design.

5. Forced Delay
Explosionade was targeted to release on September 25th. I had everything in-line for that date, but when an edge-case crash bug was found I pulled the game from peer review immediately.

This in turn added another 8 days to development, in which time we added a new story ending (there's 2 endings total), a true final boss, a power-up (the Meganade Cascade), and the shield soldier type. Obviously this beefed the game up significantly. Even with a 'small' game extra time really helps.

What Went Wrong
1. Not Enough Variety
When you're trying to finish a game in a month, one of the first things that can go is variety. While we did manage two different soldier types (the shield Horronyms can bounce your lasers and are more aggressive), overall, people wanted more enemies and more levels. This was simply a matter of time, and not being able to fit in lots of variations or new types into the game. It was a calculated move to try to finish a whole game quickly. Many reviews and gamers weren't bothered as much by it but probably just as many were turned off by the lack of environmental variety.

Sketches for the SnakeBat, Horronym soldier faces, and the power core (the level exit).

2. Split Controls
There have been very few console, run-jump-and-shoot dual stick shooters (our own Weapon of Choice comes to mind as does Gastronaut's Small Arms). With Metal Slug and Cybernator firmly on my mind as some of Explosionade's influences, I wanted to cater to the older, arcade crowd. Originally move and look was on the left stick and shoot was on the X button.

But the more gamers playtested, the more they wanted a Right Stick fire option. I added this but now the jump dilemma surfaced. Where does jump go when you have a dual stick shooter? I had several complaints for Weapon of Choice putting jump on the Left Trigger though that still seems the obvious choice for me. In the end, Explosionade defaulted to jump to the A button as an experiment, and the game provided full button remappability.

Plenty of people still complained about jump on the face buttons, but then were happy with the remapping abilities. I think next time I'll try duplicating jump on the trigger and face buttons.

Explosionade gamplay, zoomed in view of the later, electrified levels.

3. Low Difficulty and Slow Interest Ramp
I wanted to make sure as many people as possible beat Explosionade. That worked out pretty well as a lot of them enjoyed the funny story, and played through to the end. But many also complained that the game was too easy, even on 'Serious' difficulty.

I also believe while the conversion rate is good from trials to sales (27%), it could definitely be higher still. I think some of this has to do with the difficulty ramp in the trial. If a few of the first 10 levels could convey a very chaotic feel, rather than ramping up so smoothly through all the enemy types it would have reached the hardcore audience more effectively. Try to get as much variety from the later levels into your trial experience--don't assume people will look at screenshots.

Very early screenshot of Explosionade back when it was called "Take the Base". Check out the pink Shoot 1UP enemy fighter!

4. Subtle Expectations
The design of Explosionade, letting you play full-screen or zoomed in, and in large-but-still-single-screen-challenge-rooms is not exactly standard. Balancing the look of the game, and gamers expectations was difficult as many expected it to play in a longer-level side-scroller fashion probably more like Contra or Cybernator. I had good number of gamers seem lukewarm because the game was not a 'proper' side-scroller (though it scrolls when you zoom in).

It's difficult to address but unavoidable that gamers' expectations will color their impressions even if they end up actually enjoying your game.

The game's psuedo-antagonist, Colonel Bouche

5. Marketing Ramp Too Short
The gaming press is busy. And they have lead times for articles. And I think there's an inherit tolerance of "how popular is your game versus how often can we stand to talk about it". I see that as no fault of the press, it's just something to keep in mind.

By September 20th, I had something attractive enough to show the press, yet I ended up launching only a few weeks later. Three weeks is a terrible way for an Indie Game to build hype. If at all possible, give yourself at least 2 months--though 3 months is probably optimal (or more of course).

As it stood, a lot of sites covered the announcement, some covered the dashboard issues, but not as many covered the actual launch. I think this is a mix of being busy, some disinterest, and also "already covered a small game too recently". It's very important to 'plan and date' your stories for the press with your game coverage. Keep their schedules, and big game launches in mind.

Explosionade box art

When Life Gives You Explosions...
Overall Explosionade came out waaaaaaaaaay better than I expected. That's probably a mix of the art style jiving well, my intern Richard kicking complete butt with an awesome editor, AJ writing a very funny story, and some lucky design inspiration like the shield jump. Though the difficulty is low I still enjoy the 'experience' you get when playing through on a single sitting. I consider Atticus and Colonel Bouche great characters, the mech fun to play, and I plan to expand on the Explosionade universe soon!

Game Data
Project: Explosionade
Developer and Publisher: Mommy's Best Games
Platform: Xbox LIVE Indie Games
Release Date: October 7, 2010

Full time developers: 1
Interns (part-time): 1
Contractors: 3

Development Time: 38 days

Hardware: AMD 2.2GHz, 1GB RAM; retail Xbox 360; 19" flat screen monitor; ancient, giant SDTV, 12" HD TV, Super NES, Sega Genesis

Software: XNA, Dark BASIC, Visual Studio Express Edition, Photoshop CS2, GoldWave

Resources: www.soundsnap.com, create.msdn.com/en-US/

Best late night quote: “Can we take out the one that rapes you all around the edges?” (Referring to a roly bug that rolls around the level edge, and eventually tracks you down.)

For any unanswered questions, just fire away in the comments or email me directly!

EGM: What is Indie?

Electronic Gaming Monthly number 242.0, for December 2010 has a feature article investigating what does it mean to be an independent game developer. They've interviewed yours truly for the story! I think this is the first time Mommy's Best Games has been featured in EGM!

While it's been through hard times, EGM has always had a special place in my heart. I started reading the first issues back in middle and high school. I can still remember trying to get the Simon Belmont code to work in T.M.N.T. 2 which turned out to be their first April Fools prank. Obviously I'm really excited to see MBG in their feature!

Those interviewed were ourselves, Brandon Boyer (current IGF chair), Supergiant (upcoming Bastion), and Twisted Pixel ('Splosion Man, Comic Jumper).

The feature starts on page 40, here's a legend colored text for who said what:

Mommy's Best Games: blue

Brandon Boyer: green

Supergiant: reddish purple

Twisted Pixel: orange

Click to enlarge!

Capybara and Gaijin Games were also mentioned in the article, with a nice pic of Capy's Critter Crunch shown on page 2.

Congrats to all the developers featured--I'm looking forward to Bastion, Supergiant

We always appreciate magazine coverage, and it's nice to see indie game exposure in such a prominent place in a print magazine (with an XBLIG mention!). While it wasn't an extremely in-depth article, the conclusion was interesting, that regardless of big corporations trying to co-opt the word "indie", independent developers are all very different and will continue making games regardless. It reminds me of 'alternative music' from the 1990's and how it's slowly blended into mainstream.

ExplosionadEditor Preview

Making Explosionade and designing all those intricate little rooms to house intelligent and nasty aliens was a lot of fun. It's garnered a lot of praise and we're really proud of it. We used an in-house editor written in Dark Basic to build Explosionade levels.

Early view of the public ExplosionadEditor with a level jam-packed with dangers.

Because it was used internally there were lots of little quirks we let go by. But what if we let everyone use the level editor? Wouldn't that be cool to see what kinds of crazy designs that could be created?
To that end, the ExplosionadEditor has been getting more polish and more features to make it suitable for mass usage. 

Here we see the visual picking tool, which lets you find any gameplay object with ease.

Of course the question on the tip of your tongue may be: Why would I use an ExplosionadEditor if I can only play Explosionade on my 360? That looks like a PC editor, with a mouse--not something I can use on my Xbox 360.

That's true.. it's not for the 360.. if only there were a version of Explosionade coming to the PC soon. If only... then maybe it would include a built-in editor, and the game would let you play custom levels or even custom campaigns... if only. (We should have a formal announcement soon! :)


Check out the video showing a room idea going from sketch, to design, to play!

Reviewsionade

Explosionade is out now on Xbox Live Indie Games and has garnered dozens of excellent reviews, check out some of the highlights!

Eurogamer review: 8 out of 10
"For 80 points, Explosionade is an absolute steal."

1UP.com review: "FreeLoader" pick
"The game, a cross between Metal Slug and Blaster Master's overworld levels, has rightly been obsessed over in blogs and forums."

Kotaku review: "Xbox Live Indie Clip"
"You too can have this much fun running around a mutant-infested warehouse with an extremely powerful prototype mech..."

Game Critics review: 8.5 out of 10
"I'm confident that anyone investing the asking price of one dollar will find that it's one of the wisest choices they've ever made."

Digital Hippos review: 4.4 out of 5
"Slick graphics, easy to get into, co-op play, funny dialogue."

Twin Galaxies review: 8 out of 10
"Bosses are humongous in comparison to the rest of the enemies and take entire arsenals to bring down."

Co-optimus review: 4 out of 5
"Oh, did I mention that you look like a character from Tim and Eric Awesome Show?"



Broke My Controller review:
Xbox LIVE Indie Game of the Month
"The attention to detail is first rate, not just because of the exceptional hand-drawn graphics, but because of the amazing variety. "

RunDLC review: 4 out of 5
"Explosionade is a rare Indie game that is so good, it probably should’ve been a full Xbox Live release."

Blog 'Em Up review:
In Swedish
Google Translate says "When life hands you explosions. Make explosions!"


Dealspwn review:
Xbox Live Indie Game Of The Week: Drink Your Explosionade!
"If you crave big guns, huge explosions and twisted alien enemies, you need look no further than Mommy’s Best Games. "

Console Arcade review:
"The graphics and sprites are all wonderfully hand drawn, and there’s a great level of feedback when you shoot enemies which makes killing them satisfying."

DIY Gamer review:
"Even the smallest enemy soldier has a lot of personality thanks to the little details in his armor and animations as he runs for cover from an explosion."

XBLA Fans review: "Buy It!"
"You can tell just by watching the game play out that each animation was carefully created, and shown lots of love."

1UP or Poison review: "Good" rating
"Your character feels like he's taken all these powers that would have stood on their own in any other 2D game and combined them to make one badass mech."

Gay Gamer review: "Yay!" rating
"Making defensive tools just as fun as offensive ones seems to be a common trait for Mommy's Best Games."

Veteran Gamers podcast:
Listen for tons of explosion sound effects everytime they say the name! (about 55 minutes in)
http://o35s.podbean.com/2010/10/14/the-veteran-gamers-episode-40-chinnys-hair-is-soft-and-shiny/

Signed In podcast:
10 minutes in, "Hilarity and craziness goes from there", http://www.signedinpodcast.com/?p=417

GamerGeddon review: "Geddon it!" rating
"Great graphics and sounds, and the gameplay is good fun."

SuperGhost review: Indie Spotlight
"MBG packed a lot of game into this package..."

Armless Octopus review:
"With forty levels chock full of creatures that need killing, it’s a fantastic value at a buck."


Giant review on Mecha Damashii!


Mecha Damashii review:
8 out of 10
"I heard a rumour (which I started) that Mommy’s Best Games is able to provide these quality sprites by eating live scorpions they find outside exclusively and passing those savings onto you, the consumer."