Serious Sam Double D

Our new game, Serious Sam Double D, is part of Croteam's Serious Sam Indie Series created to help promote the new 3D game called Serious Sam 3 BFE due out later this summer!
Read more about the other games featured.

UPDATE: Here's the link for the up-to-date main page for Serious Sam Double D.

(Original post for the announcement follows:)

Once again, Sam ‘Serious’ Stone must use the Time-Lock to travel through time and destroy the enemies of humanity’s past, in order to save its future. But since his last outing, 2 important new relics have been discovered: the Gun Stacker and the Porta Pad. Only Sam is serious enough – and crazy enough – to use this untested technology.

All that stands between victory and annihilation is a man with a T-shirt and jeans… and a great big pile of guns.

• One gun sometimes not enough? Two still too wimpy? Try firing all your guns at once with the Gun Stacker system!
• New Enemies in glorious 2D! Serious Sam Double D brings the crazy with new creatures like the flying Chimputee and the Etanoh Salvo Spider!
• Porta Pad technology: Secret technology to be revealed at PAX East this weekend!

Remember if you're at PAX East this weekend, come by the Devolver Digital booth (I-16 in the "Indie Alley") to play a demo of Serious Sam Double D!

Screenshots and art below (they may load a little slow, but they're worth it! Click for full resolution.)

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, 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, award-winning games Shoot 1UP and Explosionade are also available on XBLIG. Follow MBG on Twitter to find out more!

GDC 2011 Wrapped

I only spent a day at GDC 2011 but it was jam-packed with lots of useful talking and listening. I had breakfast with an old friend who now helps run Ogmento who recently released a free iPhone game featuring some extremely cool augmented reality technology. Their ghost game has some of the best 'mark' tracing capabilities currently around!

I got caught up with a game journalist friend who's since gotten out of that business as he said big websites continue to turn to younger writers in an effort to find cheap labor, seemingly not valuing any true experience in writing. Don't get me wrong, you very well could be a good writer right out of college, but when big sites are paying less and less and not working to retain experienced writing talent, it hurts the readers and the writers.

Next I journeyed to a nearby hotel to have a very fruitful meeting with Microsoft. More on that hopefully in a few months!

I then swapped hats and went to talk to Sony about another platform of theirs. Very excited there as well.

In the afternoon, I joined the XBLIG panel featuring Ska Studios, Magical Time Bean, Zeboyd Games and Mr. Game Developer Magazine where we talked about what's been good with the Xbox 360 service and what's been not so good. To anyone that attended, thanks for coming! It was a pleasure to be there.

I wrapped up conference, taking in a great talk by the amazing Will Wright. He spoke about what he'd change now with his game from 1984, Raid on Bungeling Bay, and a really interesting side story about Russian space travel.

I got a delightful tour of Double Fine studios from a friend who had worked on Stacking there, and then had drinks with sound design guys from Austin.

Ian (Magical Time Bean) and I closed the night with a round of Deathsmiles on his sweet, big-screen setup.
All-in-all one of my shortest, but best times at GDC!

Oh, and I stopped by the DBP booth at the show and got some sweet Indie Games swag. If you'd like one of these little white stickers that say "Xbox LIVE indie games", stop and visit me next week at PAX East at the Devolver Digital booth (I-16) in the "Indie Alley".

(Link to pdf of PAX East map: http://east.paxsite.com/expo_map.pdf
Booth I-16 is in the middle, straight down.)

PAX East and the Chamber of Secret Projects

2D Game developer Mommy's Best Games will be showing off a brand new game at PAX East March 11-13 2011!

If you're going to PAX East, make sure to check the map for the Devolver Booth (I-16) to find us! We will be in the "Indie Alley" near Ska Studios, and Aksys. 
If you are near the Nvidia, Ubisoft, or Rockstar booth you're getting close!

The new, hardcore, PC-centric, blood-pumping, jive-talking game will have a playable demo, so make sure to come by the booth to taste the future of kick-assery.

Here's a few hints: It's not Grapple Buggy (but you already knew that didn't you? Geez, when is Grapple Buggy coming out?... When we have enough money to keep working on it! Gotta pay the bills, because I don't like sleeping on dirt.), and it's not Explosionade PC, though if you're really nice, I may show you a super-special preview of Explosionade PC at the show as well. Ask nicely, bring donuts, and I'll show you cool games! Okay, I'll show you cool games anyway, but bringing donuts would be super chumly of you.

Oh, and we've got another secret project in the works as well (seriously, how many people work here, a million?) but we're only handling the code and helping with design for that one. It's up to the primary developer to reveal that game, but it looks super sexy as well. Seriously, if I had thought of that game, I would have made it myself. It's pretty awesome. And I honestly don't know when that game will appear, probably not GDC, nor PAX East, but maybe E3?

Let's hear it for secret projects and paying contracts!

High Score Shake-up

What do you think of me resetting the scoreboards for Explosionade with a new update that makes it harder?

A giant new version of Explosionade is in development for the PC, and eventually we'll get to reveal all the cool features for that new edition. While developing the PC version, I've been making improvements to the player controls, player motion, grenade physics, and enemy A.I. that I'd like to bring over to the XBLIG version that's already out.

While the XBLIG version received plenty of butt-kicking reviews and high marks, one of the complaints was the game was either too easy for people, too slow, and/or too sluggish. The PC version will definitely take care of that, but I've been thinking about bringing the new improvements to the XBLIG version. The most controversial change would be to make the game more difficult with tweaks to the player mech and enemies. From what I can tell from gamers' emails and forum comments, I'm sure my special changes will make Explosionade more difficult but also more intense, satisfying, and fun to play. And of course Chilled mode and slowing down gameplay will still be options for those wishing for more relaxing destruction.

The XBLIG version has online scoreboards (Explosionade uses a peer-to-peer implementation courtesy of Spyn Doctor Games). If the game is more difficult on XBLIG, this will obviously skew all future scores that people are getting on the online scoreboards.

Which brings us back to the question at hand, what do you think of resetting the scoreboards with the new update? 

Are there any precedents for Xbox LIVE games of any flavor, with regards to resetting scoreboards?

Explosionade fortunately has filled up all 1,000 high-score slots a while ago, but the top 20 or so places haven't changed in months. I feel like totally clearing the scoreboards will give new players a chance to enjoy jumping into the game and getting somewhere. And gamers who played it originally and ranked high should honestly not have too much more trouble getting back up to the top if they accept the new challenge.

I'd definitely like to make the default, Normal difficulty tougher and play faster, as I think player's are ready for it. If we leave the scoreboards as they are, pretty much no one will ever get to the top ranks. So I guess the question is, will anyone who is already ranked high notice or care that their score was wiped? Or will they be good sports about it and understand?

Note: The proposed adjustments for Explosionade on XBLIG won't be that much higher, and won't feature any of the changes mentioned for the upcoming PC version. But I feel it will be tough enough to make original high scores feel nearly unreachable.

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.