And Now There's Xbox 360 in Your Playstation

 Game Type DX is out this week on Playstation 4 and 5!

This is my last remaster of my older XBLIG games for consoles and it does have some new nice features if you played it long ago. And it's gotten some good reviews, and is a solid "high-score" style shmup even if you've not played it! Please consider buying it as it's super fun, has 2-player mode, and is only $5.99. Thanks!

Here's what critics have said so far:

What's in the game?
Well half the draw is a complete Xbox 360 style menu system, within the game, replete with bad gaming jokes and nonsense from 2011. Yes, it's like an interactive time capsule filled with puns and satire. 

The shmup part of the game now has 3 different game modes, and each one has an infinite or 3-minute option. There's lots of new enemies, and even power-ups and "power-downs"! Plus there's online leaderboards on each console, which is perfect for a high-score shooter like this. 

Every so often, there's even a "power-up swarm" that flies through quickly.
Some are power-downs though!

Here's where to grab it on every console and region!

Xbox: https://tinyurl.com/gametypexb1 

Switch NA: https://tinyurl.com/gametypeNA 

Switch EU: https://tinyurl.com/game-type-dx-switch

PS NA: https://store.playstation.com/en-us/concept/10004621 

PS EU: https://store.playstation.com/en-gb/concept/10004621

 

You can get the game in "Original Xbox 360"

Or "Nintendo Switch Red"

 

And now "Sony Blue"!

Happy shooting, and I hope to see you on the leaderboards! 

You Got Xbox 360 in my Nintendo

Newest Pre-order Spot

Great news! Before the funny story about porting the game to the Switch, I'm happy to say Game Type DX on pre-order right now for the Switch!

 Here's the link to the North American store.

And the linke to the European store.

(And is also on pre-order for Xbox One.)

 

Making a Game For The Wrong Consoles

Game Type was inspired and heavily references the Xbox 360.
When creating the upcoming DX version for it, things got pretty difficult considering we're releasing it for the Nintendo Switch and the Playstation 4 and 5. 

Now the worst possible thing to happen would have been for Nintendo and Sony to simply not allow the game in its present form, or to request a complete overhaul before we could release it. That would have stopped all work for the game. I was happy to create some new content for the DX release, and incorporate each platforms achievement and leaderboard systems. But to redo everything would have not been possible. The great news is, Nintendo and Sony are letting us release it!

However, both Nintendo and Sony sure didn't let our game in easily, or seemingly even understand what the game is about. I guess a "documentary style game about a competing game console" IS a pretty unusual concept!

RGB

Not surprisingly each platform, including the Xbox One, has rules about advertising a competitor's platforms. Plus, you have to adhere to each consoles naming conventions. Our game gets pretty "meta" though, because we have a made-up console in which you are playing the game. That console is called the "MediaBall" and its interface is a direct reference to the Xbox 360. To that end, I would have liked to have use terms such as "Dashboard", and "Game Marketplace" to complete the connection to the Xbox 360. 

"Switch Red" variant dashboard color

 But unfortunately for the Switch and Playstation, those terms and several things were required to be changed or removed. Even the number "360" in one of our fake ads got nixed! We also couldn't use the green color from the Xbox 360 Dashboard. In some ways we did end up with some pretty cool changes. Now each platform has it's own version! The Nintendo Switch version has "Switch Red" for the menu. And the Playstation has their blue for the menu tiles. 

I guess what puzzles me is that the Xbox 360 is completely off the market and not a true direct competitor any more, so it surprised me how much they pushed back on every little thing references it. Maybe it's more a long-standing brand concept than one console. I don't know!

You're on the Naughty List

Here is an incomplete list of things we had to change when adapting to Sony and Nintendo (I can't get too specific with the details as they are very touchy about mentioning their internal rules to the public).

• Can't use term "Dashboard" as this is the Xbox 360's term. I chose "Control Panel".
• Can't use term "Xbox 360". So I chose "Certain Game Rival's console" and made sure to print it in green. :D
• Can't use term "Game Marketplace", so we picked "Game Store". 
• Can't use green menu blocks. Green! Okay, they didn't say can't use green exactly, they just said the menu system looked too close to the Xbox 360. So change it some way.
  That's where the red and blue colors came in.
• Can't show a cartoony controller that is even vaguely like the Xbox 360. So I dropped the other stick.
•  

• 

  Microsoft on the left, Sony on the Right
  

  
   
• Can't say "Control Stick". Um... what? I think that was more of a "must use our term" thing but it made me laugh. 
• Can't say "360" or "Rumble" action. So I went with "720" on the fake ad name and "Deep Tissue action" in the text description.
  
  
  
  
  When you click on the fake controller massage ad, you get these texts.
  
  
  
  

All in all, it really wasn't that bad to make the changes. I think it was just funny how it didn't seem like they noticed what the game was doing or what it was about. But I'm thankful we get to release it on all consoles! 

Release in September

Game Type DX is coming out September 8th!
It's ready for pre-order on Switch and on Xbox One.
(PS4 is tough to get a pre-order for it, but that's a whole other story!)

Weapon of Choice DX Out Now!

I'm proud to say that the remastered "Weapon of Choice DX" is out now on all consoles!

Here are all the store links:

Xbox One and Series X (Worldwide)
Nintendo Switch (North America)
Nintendo Switch (Europe)
Playstation 4 and 5 (North America)
Playstation 4 and 5 (Europe)

Way back in 2008, I released Weapon of Choice, my first indie games as "Mommy's Best Games". That was after working in AAA games for 10 years!

A lot has changed, and Weapon of Choice is so old (how old is it??) it was first released in 4:3 aspect ratio, with many gamers playing it on a CRT TV!

The new DX remaster has lots of improvements over the original, and surprising one to need was "16:9 widescreens support"! I didn't just slap some bars on it though, the actual level design and layout was changed to properly support a widescreen play area. In addition the game now blasts along at 60 fps!

There's lots of new changes from the old Xbox 360 release as well, including hidden MBG pies to discover, 7 total difficulty settings, and of course Trophies/Achievements to unlock! 

So grab it this weekend on your favorite console for only $5.99, and let's blast some hideous aliens!

Thanks for all the years of support and happy shooting!

Switch It Up

Pig Eat Ball on Nintendo Switch

The big news is Pig Eat Ball is coming to Nintendo Switch!
Yes, along with PS4 and Xbox One, you will get to play the biggest, weirdest, craziest action-adventure game on any console you want!
(Okay, not Ouya, but hey, we got the big 3 :)

FEAST your eyes on the Nintendo Switch gameplay reveal trailer for Pig Eat Ball!

We don't have a release date yet, but are working hard to secure it.
What stands in it's way?
Console testing!
Yes, for all 3 consoles, there are rigorous in-house testing and requirements set for all games.
The great news is--we have passed Microsoft Xbox One certification!
That means it's ready to go.
But before we can set a date, we want to get PS4 and Switch tests done as well.

Certification Agitation

Both Nintendo and Sony have issues with the game.
Like what issues you make ask? Crashes? Bugs? Level design problems?
Heavens no, it's silly little things, but hey, fixing these details will make a more polished game for you in the end.

For instance, for the PS4 version, when allowing you to remap the controller buttons, we didn't correctly refer to the X button as the "Cross" button.
And for Nintendo Switch, when the game tries to log your score to the global Leaderboards, if it can't connect to the internet, instead of our simple message telling you there's not internet connection, we are supposed to display the specific Nintendo error code telling you, that you can't connect.

But the BEST had to be when we found out we had unregistered UGC. As in "User Generated Content". Now keep in mind, we don't have the level editor on the console version. That's only available in the Steam version.
So how was anyone able to "make" anything on the console versions?
LEADERBOARD NAMES! Yes, because we have global leaderboards for each level, and because you have a username that gets shown, this is now technically "User Generated Content" in 2019.

So yeah, it's stuff like that!
So we're fixing it all, which takes some time, and then sending it back into review takes a lot more time.

 In the meantime, enjoy how cool Pig Eat Ball looks on a real Switch!

Summer Vacation

But fret not!
We are very, very close and have hope to secure a release date soon!

Debug Mystery Theater

Thank you to all that have played it on Steam!

We are busy porting Pig Eat Ball to consoles.

In the process, we found a tricky crash, and a PS4 tester recorded this video.
Watch to the end, and see if you can decide what caused the crash.

Ready for some hints? 

Hint 1: The objects that cause the crash are on-screen (something off-screen didn't do it).

Hint 2: It's not just one object.

Hint 3: The player is indirectly involved.

Hint 4: The text that displays over the Toilets is not the cause.
(That's the fun credits level from the end of the game! Spoiler! Don't worry, it's super fun to play even if you know about it.)

Hint 5: The Pillbugs are mischievous, but they aren't responsible for this one.

Answer: 

Okay, it is a bit of a trick question. It involves 3 objects, not just one.

The Bomb, the Cigar, and the Pinata. When you spit a Bomb at the Pinata, it works fine. The Bomb explodes, and hurts the Pinata. If you spit a Cigar at a Bomb, that works fine. The Cigar lights the Bomb on fire and the Bomb explodes. When you combine all three, there was a crash.

Turns out, deep inside the code, I had a problem. I was not setting the "instigator" for each attack. If the player spat the Bomb, he was the Instigator. But when the Player spits the Cigar, which then lights the Bomb, the "instigator" was not being set in the Cigar. And when the Bomb asks "who lit me" the Cigar didn't tell it. So when the Bomb blows up the Pinata, and the Pinata checks for an instigator, it was "null" (empty) and it crashes!
NullExceptionCheck

The end of the mystery!
I've since fixed this crash (update soon for Steam!) and it will be fixed in the console release.

Make sure to get the game on Steam if you've not already!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/339090/Pig_Eat_Ball

Why Only Steam?

This Thursday, September 27th, after 5 and a half years in development, we'll finally be releasing
our newest, biggest game Pig Eat Ball!
You can Wishlist and Follow the game on Steam:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/339090/Pig_Eat_Ball

But it's only coming to Steam this week.
Why?

For starters, it will be on 3 different platforms: PC, Mac, and Linux. That's no small undertaking to support multiple platforms. In addition to Steam, we're releasing to the popular "Green Man Gaming" store, and we plan to release a DRM-free version on a smaller digital store called itch.io.

But it is true the game will only be available for personal computers this week, and not yet for consoles.

The PS4 and Xbox One versions of Pig Eat Ball are working great!
The trouble is tied up in some red tape and timing. When I made the decision to delay the console releases of the game here's why.

Certification and The Fall

I had to make the decision to "split the launch" months ago. I was pretty sure that we would not get through the "certification" process for each console with much time to spare to hit a release date in September. And it was possible that if we had submitted to review for consoles it could have forced the launch later than September.

This Fall 2018 for games is going to be big. Really Big. One reason is Red Dead Redemption 2 coming out in October. But there are other big games from here on to the end of the year that will take up players' and the press's time and attention.

We're releasing now on Steam in an attempt to come out before all the upcoming bigger titles (even though some big ones such as Spiderman on PS4 has already hit).
Pig Eat Ball does not have millions of dollars to spend on marketing, so it could be very easy to get lost in the noise if we're not careful. By coming out on Steam in the early Fall, and levering the great story-player combined with an easy-to-use level editor we hope to build up the community of players leading up to the console launch.

Time to Market

The other big reason was to ensure that both Sony and Microsoft's internal teams had some time to promote Pig Eat Ball for PS4 and Xbox One. Even if we did manage to squeeze Pig Eat Ball through certification quickly, the console holders like to have some time to promote a title.

If the game had finished certification and then come out within weeks later, it's unlikely that Sony or Microsoft would have been able to move and plan fast enough to promote the game properly. There are many games in development for consoles and one way each MS and Sony *know* a game is serious is when the game is actually finished the review process for each console.

My hope is to get Pig Eat Ball through the review process in the Fall giving the promotional teams time to incorporate the game into upcoming promotions.

Console Me

So when it's actually coming to console? Well I don't have a firm date yet, but I'm shooting for very early 2019. 
In the meantime be sure to grab a copy this week on Steam so you can play the single-player and start to dig into the awesome level editor!

SXSW, GDC, and Framerates

Pig Eat Ball still has single-player work that continues to be done by myself and Matthew. We are currently working on the World 4 boss (the "Kitchen Chaos" area).
But several other areas of work have been happening recently as well!

I took several trips to promote the game and make connections with publishers.

GDC

The first trip was to the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. We were featured at the "Intel Juice Bar". It was nice to have free space around the expo hall, and also pretty laid back. We got this deal through applying to a special promotion and showing Intel the game. They liked it!

The theme was to "juice" your game with their amazing processors. That probably made more sense for a high-end 3D game, but hey, they picked Pig Eat Ball for this, so I'm not saying 'no'! It was 2 hour slots for a few days of the show.

I had a publisher meeting at the show as well. It went okay, but I'm not sure if they can really promote our game much more than we can. Talks continue.

While walking the expo floor, I found another game about barf! It's very different than Pig Eat Ball, but hey "Eggggg" is pretty cool! Plus they called it 'puke' instead of 'barf' for the alliteration. It's out now on mobile!

And another game on the floor had this beautiful diorama.

SXSW

Moving from San Francisco now to Austin Texas, I just recently returned from SXSW. I was invited to a "game pitch contest" for Pig Eat Ball. The goal was to present the most compelling pitch for your game. It was an exercise only, and had four 'industry judges'. There were no actual investors. Still it forced me to focus more on promotion of the game and to consider the target market more and to make some promotional art. I learned about promoting and pitching "the reason you made the game" in addition to what the game itself is about.

We didn't win the contest though as it sounds like we didn't go on and on about the millions of sales we'll have with our game. It feels hard to just wing some numbers out there, but hey, lots of other pitch people do that, so you probably should too.

Before the event I painted this picture of Princess Bow.

Here is what the space looked like for the actual pitch.

That was the end of our recent trips! Here's more about other development occurring with the game.

PS4 Framerates

At Super Soul, the company in Kentucky that is helping port the game to consoles, they are working hard to get the framerate up to a buttery-smooth level. It started a bit ago, around 1 frame a second! Ouch! Then they got it up to 10fps.. much more recently, things have been around 40 fps!
Pretty good, but still progress to be made.
Here's Shea working hard.

And here's a pic of the game in action. Off to the left is the development kit! But I blurred it out so we don't get in trouble. Trade secrets and all that.

Now that the trips are finished I can get back to helping Matthew work on World 4. I'm excited to see how this crazy boss will turn out!