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!

Louisville Arcade Show Wrap 2014

The past weekend we spent showing Pig Eat Ball at the Louisville Arcade Expo and while I'm still a bit hoarse, it was pretty great. Definitely something I would go to on my own even if we weren't exhibiting at it.

About a hundred arcade and pinball games open for free play, and some to purchase

So many interesting old consoles I'd not played.

Here was an Epoch console with Yosaku on display here. You chop trees while avoiding bird droppings. I tried to pretend they were eggs but my kid was certain it was bird poop.

Some very nice, large, bead art of Super Mario Bros 2.

Our own booth changed over the course of the weekend. The show started Friday and ran through Sunday. On that first day we brought Pig Eat Ball and let people play the 4-player local version, or the single player.

Family time!

Ladies enjoyed it as well.

It was fun roping in a parent to play the game with their kids. They'd think it was too complicated, but once they got the hang of it, they were trying to win as much as anyone. Being able to touch on some of the family fun of Wii Sports or Just Dance is very exciting. It's great to see families enjoying themselves.

Mario and crew pigging out!

I didn't know Fox McCloud was sexy, but it works.

Guys whom we affectionately called "Yin and Yang" playing Serious Sam Double D XXL. On the second day we brought out the Xbox 360 to show that game as well. Some gamers had even heard of it or already owned it!

Even traditionally angst-filled teens and 20 somethings enjoying themselves!

My own personal find was Dragon Sabre on the Turbo Graphx 16. I had known of the game, but nevery paid much attention. But once I played it, I found out it was excellent! So many wild monster designs and some pretty good art and gameplay. Excited to add this to collection some day.

Thanks to everyone to came out to the event!

Development Year in Review 2013

Time to take a look back at last year and see what we got done! I encourage other indie developers to do the same. Really interesting going back through my notes, and seeing where I spent my time.

January 

From the 14th to the 23rd, I participated in the Ouya CREATE game jam.  In it, I created the initial concept for Pig Eat Ball. It started out as a simple, 4-player party game, but has evolved into a full-blown, puzzlish-action game. I worked on Pig Eat Ball throughout the year in between other projects and plan to finish it this summer (2014).

February

February 20th, Serious Sam Double D XXL launches on XBLA! Our first game for Xbox Live Arcade, and our fifth game for the Xbox 360.  I recorded several videos explaining the gunplay in the game, in an effort to get the word out. The game was published to XBLA with the help of Mastertronic and Devolver Digital.

 

March

We had our launch party for SSDDXXL at an event we ran called "Shave and a Haircut 8-Bit" in nearby Louisville, Kentucky. The show was great and we had an amazing turn out from the public. We invited other local game developers to show off their games, in addition to showing our own games.

April

Microsoft published Shoot 1UP for us on Windows Phone 7 back in August 2012. Since then Windows Phone 8 came out, but Microsoft couldn't give us a WP8 on which to test during the port. They said they checked it and the game ran fine. Turns out the game ran fine, unless you wanted to beat level 3. SIGH. Cue the bad user reviews for our game, after Windows Phone 8 launched. (Plenty of "crashes after level 3...1 star", etc)

So with that, I bought a Windows Phone 8 myself, retail, got the game running and found it was as simple as specifying a certain memory flag in a manifest file. MS helped us get a hotfix through. Good ding to our review score.. at least it didn't go below 4/5 stars.

May

Pig Eat Ball's early overworld map, that's since been scrapped

Pig Eat Ball continues to evolve.  At this point, a human player can control the first pig (Bow) while computer AI controls 3 other pigs as they battle it out in different game modes. I added a lot of game mode variety this month.
Also began work on an overworld similar to Mario 3, where you move around with tiled-based movements, as opposed to the free-flying in the regular game. This game has been very experimental for me, in terms of design. I've been working out a lot of prototype ideas, to see what's most fun.

June

Started intermittent fixing, menu clean-up, and port changes for Serious Sam Double D XXL with the eventual goal of bringing all the new XXL content to Steam again. The XXL content was added to the game on XBLA. But along the way lots of hacks were put into the code to make it work on the Xbox 360 (leaderboards, hard-coded buttons for menus, etc). It takes a while to clean them up.

July 

Starting to add the "single player only" levels, that we now have--much more fun to play.

Gave up on trying to make the game work always with three AI characters. Competing against them never felt satisfying enough to make a whole game of it.
Switched to "eat all the balls" as a single player game mode and it's instantly a lot more fun. It's got action, but also a slight puzzlish element.
Eventually dropped all the work done on the 'music world map'. It was cool, but did not fit.

August

Had a new coop, Matthew Barnes, start programming this month on the editor for the game. Prior, we only had text editing for levels. I've got him working on a visual editor for Pig Eat Ball, and he's turned out great.

September

Work continues on the SSDDXXL Steam port. Very tedious, but necessary to continue to diversify and revive cash flow.

October

October 21st, Serious Sam Double D relaunched on Steam with all the XXL content!
In Pig Eat Ball news, we hired a level designer for the game named Andrew Curry. He worked on some previous student games and impressed me with his design skills and concepts. He's since made dozens of great levels and turned out to be a real asset.

November

We got to travel down to Orlando to show Pig Eat Ball at Minecon! It was a pretty great show. Well done, plenty of people. Good playtest feedback on the game, seeing where people had problems, also seeing what they enjoyed.

December 

Still helping people on the SSDDXXL Steam forums with requests. Released update v1.0.2. Gotta support your games after launch. No fun working on "old games" when your new one beckons you, but it's good for everyone.
In Pig Eat Ball, after lots of reviving old code, the visual editor now supports all the single player levels, but also the cool game modes I had working months ago for multiplayer. Tons of new content being added.

2014

And now, on to finishing Pig Eat Ball. Hopefully by early summer this year. The game's evolved so much, it's been hard to keep the game page updated with the newest look.

Hmmm..updating the game page...that should probably be next on the list...