Now simply tap the green-arrow button on the right. If you haven't yet set up a free OpenFeint account, the app will prompt you to now. Go through the easy steps, and make sure you pick a good username, because other players will be able to see it. (Once you've enabled OpenFeint, you'll see your best global leaderboard position for that track above the green arrow.)
With this one tap, the app will line you up against a real player's time that's slightly better than your best time on that track. This is "playing up." Beat that time and play up again, and you'll be racing an even better time on the global leaderboards. You can literally pick one person off at a time this way, all the while having a blast and learning ways to make up fractions of a second here and there. It's very helpful to see how other players navigate obstacles to save time. You'll see your global chart position skyrocket. Give it a try; it takes the addiction to a whole new level. Please let us know what you think of this new feature in comments.Make ‘em Up Winners Announced
We have finally decided on a winner for the game development competition we organised. It is Zordix from Umeå in Sweden with the game Furiae, a 2D role-playing game.
Furiae is a fresh take on a stale genre. It is hard to innovate in such a well-defined area of gaming, and Zordix has managed to keep a fine balance between innovation and familiarity. We are going to receive quite a bit of criticism for choosing someone from the same small town, but Furiae is worth it.
Their prototype and concept document really showed us that the game will be fun, which is where most entries failed.
We'd like thank all the applicants. They really showed passion just by entering, it takes a fair amount of work to make a playable prototype.
Make 'em Up Media Kit
We got haXX0r’d
So for the past I-don't-know-how-long we have apparently been promoting some kind of drug that will enhance your penis/mood/sleep/life. Yep, turborilla.com got hacked. Pretty embarrassing.
The hack only showed itself to the googlebot, so it looked ok to all humans. To the google spider, however, it looked like a pharmacy. The only immediate effect of this that I can tell is that our title in the listings on google was changed.
If you hurry up you might still catch it live on google. I don't know what the hackers would stand to gain from this. Can anyone enlighten me as to the purpose of this?
Multiplayer Chase Mode Teaser
I'm working hard on Multiplayer as usual, and I though I'd share some of it with all of you. So here's a teaser video of Chase Mode:
The point here is that both players see the same view of the game, so that when you outrun your opponent far enough he can not see his bike anymore. Increase the distance a bit more and he explodes and you get a point.
On the other hand, you will not see much of the track ahead when you are in the lead. This provides a quite natural negative feedback loop, which is good. Negative feedback loops means that the player in the lead is given a disadvantage.
What do you all think? Looks fun?
vote for Gore and three Monday links
"Moonstone" from the weekend post below got me thinking of our moon. Thinking about our moon led to remembering this pic from a couple of weeks back:
This is a heat pattern from "Mima", one of the moons orbiting Saturn, you can read more about it here . The reason for this post is not to share space gossip with you though. I was responsible for a nasty scare a few days back. My victim, Profilar Per, has requested various pastries and lazy Monday afternoon diversion as redemption:
Have a great day and remember to vote for Gore
Joel
Moonstone Gore Mode?
Turborilla is proud to be Bloody Bills's friend. We recently discovered an old Mad Skills suggestion of his and got excited: He points out that crazy crashes calls for crazy blood splatter. We are thinking "Moonstone gore mode":
Unfortunately the post got lost in a pile of changes going on at the time. What do you guys think?
We really want a "gore mode" ourselves so if we get 20 comments, from different individuals, saying "Yej - give us a Bloody Bill mode", we will give you (and ourselves) a "Bloody Bill mode" as a thank you for patiently waiting for the multiplayer (and to Tobias for working really hard on the multiplayer):
I am taking the rest of the day off as I have to prepare for a weekend long NHL 2010 war by zoning out to "Mogwai fear Satan"
Take Care!
Joel
Replays in Mad Skills Motocross
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To decide who should get the rights to the one glorious cream puff (got a better word for it? - let me know) that arrived here at the office this morning, we put together a comp inspired by the contest the Swedish MX site, MX Star, is currently hosting here: "Vinn spelet Mad Skills Motocross". Feel free to go tease, push or compete with our Swedish friends.
While competing I realized that some of you might have missed out on last week replay update.
You have to download the game again as the update did not roll out with the autoupdate. Just go to your Mad Skills account , log in and download the new version. In time attack you will be able to check your replays!
The 1 kilo cream monster got us all a bit shaky - 20 minutes of hardcore office swearing and the heavenly pastry was MINE - my stomach aches now.
Before I got to enjoy my prize we had to quickly go through the results though. The competition triggered a couple of wagers, as you can see below, we believed Tobias would win....but he did not:
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Have a great Wednesday!
Joel
Cortex Command – have you tried it?
It's important to play a lot of games if you aspire to be a great game developer. Or so I keep saying to myself anyway.
I want to let you know about some of the games I play and that I find inspirational. This post is about a game with really, really nice physics: Cortex Command. The developers, Data Realms, also use an interesting business model.
What's it all about then? Well, it's not finished yet, but it's a great sandbox to play around with. It's got pixel-perfect physics. Also, you know how recent big games brag about "destructible terrain"? Cortex Command has destructible everything. Blow stuff up and watch the pixels and parts flail around, or dig a tunnel with the "digger" to get to your enemy (Worms, anyone?).
Check out the video below, it's a bit hard to see the details so watch it in full screen. Then go to the official site: Cortex Command
There's a free demo to try out.
"But", you are probably not thinking, "What about the business model?"
Well, Cortex Command is not nearly finished and they have been charging for it for years now. The money they get from that helps them keep developing the game. And that is interesting to us. By accepting pre-orders, we could embark on making a bigger game.
But, even more important, they get valuable feedback from their customers. Potential customers might say that they would like to have this and that feature, but do they pay for it? By charging money during development, Data Realms get hard data on what customers really do like as they put their money where their mouth is.
Money and Feedback. Sweet. In Sweden, we call that "killing two marketers with one blow".
Motocross outfit
Our Mad Skills hero seem to have a leather outfit and what appears to be a MC helmet on - why?
