It is weird how you sort of shut down just before it is vacation time ey? This Friday and next Monday are public holidays here in Sweden, so we all begun a four day weekend yesterday.
I need your help coming up with a great idea! All I could focus on yesterday was snowy picnics and drinking games involving Worms 3D. I love my job, but yesterday my office head was filled with jello and my irresponsible play head was filled with guarana – all n’ all weird n’ wonderful.
Anyways I need your help:
What kind of game would you pitch with the following constraints:
It has to involve a shipbroker, a psychologist and a company distributing plastic cards such as the credit card you used to pay for Mad Skills. The game is NOT supposed to involve pitching the companies and you should play for about an hour. It does not have to be playable in a browser.
Great ideas will be rewarded! Email me at joel@turborilla.com
Happy Holidays!
Joel
Testing a prototype
Besides Joels and Tobias shenanigans we actually do work here at Turborilla. Work is extraordinary fun though. One example is the recurring task of playtests:
The pic above is from the very early development stage of the sequel to Planet M.U.L.E. A few days ago we tested a prototype. We have forked off a few bastardized modifications of PM and reused all graphics, networking and crap, but changed the game mechanics. We wanted to compare the funniness between two of those versions. One was a Real Time Strategy thing with all players running around simultaneously doing whatever actions they like, and the other a Boardgame type game played in phases with more structure and the players having to wait for each other to take their turn. The boardgame type may sound like the original but it had some changes and new expanded, strategic fluff added.
During the test we were three guys crammed in one room at our office. Me, Joel and our conscientious intern Fredrik. We had another dude on loud speakers through Skype and a fifth guy playing from Germany. Three of the testers had never played MULE before and I had to quickly brief them on the rules as we played. That’s why we were in the same room. The boardgame version gave us lots of laughs. After a while all players got the hang of it and they started to screw each other over by some self-sacrificing, mean tactics. There was especially much laughter during the auctions, which some earlier newbie testers have found to be the most boring part of the game. Interesting indeed.
After playing one full game of each version the conclusion was unanimous. All testers found the boardgame style more fun. The main problem with the real time version is that it feels like you’re playing alone with a bunch of other unimportant guys running around in the perimeters. There was not enough interaction between players. Instead of trading with others, which is a core component of Planet MULE, players rather produce all goods they need themselves and sell it to the store. To make the RTS float we’ll have to come up with something to make players more dependent on each other.
Even though we believe that an RTS version could be made fun, and we have some nifty ideas on how to improve it, we’ll be exploring the turn based approach for now. Personally I think a turn based MULE will turn out the most fun in the end.
Happy Holidays!
And don’t forget to hand in your leaderboard ideas to win a full version of Mad Skills Motocross.
Peter
No more acute accent`s ya`ll
T-Bone, has gone through a fair bit of trouble (including coming in on a Sunday) making a VERY important point. More critical than that – he delivers a bitch slap to the linguistic authority here at Turborilla – YEH! – it`s on – that`s right it`s ON!
Joel
We want to try something we have never done before. We would like to invite you to be an integral part of the further development of Mad Skills Motocross. Even though we have sold thousands of games already, we consider you Mad Skills gamers out there early adopters. The development of this game and the possibilities that comes with it are amazing. If our little group here at the office think it is amazing we are sure we can create something even more amazing utilizing the power contained in you guys. Each member of this group are an important part of the savvy crowd that know of Turborilla and Mad Skills, an early adopter. Your ideas and choices are important.
We will test asking you questions, utilizing you thoughts, in incremental steps and hopefully we can deliver value in exchange for your ideas and solutions. Value defined as an increasingly better game, but also in the form of individual rewards and more importantly, cred. If you come up with great code, graphics or ideas, you will be recognized for it.
The first inquire – a Facebook leaderboard?:
We need to create a leaderboard solution, we are considering using facebook and dividing it in to regions but we have not written any code yet. Do you have ideas, applications, examples of games that currently use a great solutions or example code for a facebook application that would work well for Turborilla and Mad Skills? Write to tobias@turborilla.com or joel@turborilla.com. Post your questions as a comment below
The three best suggestions gets rewarded, even if we like a suggestion but decide not use it you’ll get your full version.
all the best
Tobias
NES, Excitebike and the right path
Mr 100% -- Kieren from Queensland, Bloody Bill, lent us a few minutes of his time, we were eager to talk to him since he is the first person ever to finish “Mad Skills Motocross“. In addition to this he has conducted one of the most impressive gaming sessions we have seen in many months. Check the vid below, the man is a SUPERSTAR!
Tell us Kieren -- how did you, as the first person ever, manage to finish Mad Skills Motocross?
I grew up playing quite a few motorbike games such as Excitebike which I still own on 8bit NES.I am not one to give up on something once I start it. If I am ever unable to do something I have set out to do, I sleep on it and I will generally succeed within a short time of starting it back up afterwards.
How long did it take you?
I have been playing Mad Skills Motocross on and off since I got it in September 2009. I tried the Demo first and I loved it so I bought the full version.
Recently I have been playing most afternoons after I get home from work.
Did you have problems with any particular track, which one was toughest to beat?
The hardest track I believe is based on what you aim to achieve, whether it be the best possible time or just beating the computer player in career mode. I didn’t have that much trouble with career mode at all as I find games like this come natural to me.
Alright, so who are you,where do you live and what do you do?
I am 22 next month.I am from Queensland, Australia. I am a desktop support officer, I enjoy my job and the people I work with.
What improvements or new features would you like to see in Mad Skills over the next few months?
Many people have made excellent suggestions to the game on the forums. I believe many of these are great ideas but everyone wants the multiplayer and leaderboards!
Finally, how can I bump my Mad Skills to your level?
Three tips that I would like to share with other players are; Learn the best path in a track, become adept at controlling the bike from all landing approaches and last, persistence. If you think you make a good time on a track, try and beat it, chances are someone else will.
Alright, any thing we haven`t covered or something else you`d like to share?
For those of you who still need the 30 stars in one race to reach 100% Career, Turbo Nitro 2 is where I got it. Get the wheelie and stoppie down straight up, then get your double backflips in where ever you can. (Think outside the box here) the front flips are easily done in the few bigger jumps in the middle of the track, remaining double backflips come at the end and the big air jump, use your nitro and jump over the finish.
From what I`ve understood Kieren will beat Tobias once he get a chance -- I can not wait for the Mad Skills multiplayer to be done
jippikajej Kieren and a happy, Swedish, afternoon to you all!
If you have yet to try “Mad Skills Motocross” you can download the demo here
Joel
joel@turborilla.com
Developers diary and acute accents
Finally we’re going to revive the dev diary. I do love writing, but it takes a lot of time. Now Joel is here to help us with the planning and writing of diary entries. Or rather, blog entries, since it seems this space is now called a ‘blog’. Whatever that is. Remember ‘The Blob‘? I do, fondly.
Speaking of Joel, he is the latest star of Turborilla. We hired him three weeks ago and he still hasn’t learned to use the apostrophe correctly.
Look at all the posts made by Joel, he is writing gangsta like ya’ll but instead of an apostrophe he uses the acute accent as in ya´ll. I find that infinitely annoying. Don´t you?
He is also practicing to be a cheerleader, but more on that later. I am off to work on a solution for choosing tracks in Mad Skills multiplayer
Tobias
Mad Skills in Queensland
100% -- 30 stars
again:
100% -- 30 stars
We here at Turborilla are extraordinarily impressed. Well, everyone but Tobias are impressed -- Tobias is out of this world impressed n` also ein bischen crazy. The reason being the way our Australian mate Kieren, a.k.a Bloody Bill, finished our talk the other day -- “Will I beat Tobias in multiplayer? Of course”
As Tobias is now fine tuning his Mad Skills, leaving work to the rest of us -- I think the multiplayer feature might be somewhat delayed :D
If you want to know more about Kieren just check back here in a couple of days, he`s got a few useful tips for ya`ll trying to finish the darn game
I`m off to discuss addictive flash games -- have you got any good examples I might not know about,email me
- tjimmi
Joel (still not passed f`n Sinks) (still without a tagline)
Mad Skills Multiplayer
jiiiiiiiiha -- The Mad Skills Multiplayer is, sort of, near.
You guys have been pushing hard for a Mad Skills Motocross (our motocross game focusing on pure, fast paced fun) multiplayer. We are therefore working hard on developing the multiplayer feature. We would like you all to be a part of giving it the final touch though. Therefore we want you to get busy with the questions we`ll post here. We really like the idea of involving you in our process. Our plan is therefore to include you in the development of “Planet Mule 2″ as well. Planet Mule has been described as “monopoly mixed with risk -- on crack” and has approximately 15000 online players at the moment. Judging by the initial tests of this version it will be AMAZING!
We hope to get you quite involved, but can only test this in incremental steps, so stay alert.
Since we are superdedicated and fear nothing, Tobias sent us all on a inspirational hillbilly trip last weekend -his buddies are iiiiinsane, check the pic`s above or the movie with the coolest stunt the Mad Skills team could muster below:
I`m off to a meeting bout` leaderboard solutions for Mad Skills -- take care!
Joel -- Turborilla
oh -- I just commenced work with the boys here at Turborilla, they all got cool taglines for themselves, felt like the nerdiest thing ever initially……but now I want one….if anyone got a cool tagline for me…..email me at joel@turborilla.com, the current suggestion is Joel -- the stick, I dont like it
Riding a snowmobile/motocross hybrid
We enjoyed a wonderful day on Sunday, the sun was shining and the snow glittered. Also, it wasn’t very cold. A perfect day for some motocross riding.
A friend of mine have bought a snowmobile traction mat kit for his motocross, along with a ski for replacing the front wheel with. Thus making the motocross able to go in very deep snow like a snowmobile. The kit is called The Explorer.
Check out some pictures where we take it for a spin on a motocross track:
We should make a game out of this :)
Mad Skills Motocross forums
Finally we have sorted out some proper forum software for discussing Mad Skills Motocross. There always was a forum here on Turborilla, but we didn’t really promote it and it was messy and buggy.
Now we have fixed this with a brand new install of Simple Machines Forum, and we are pimping it all over the place. Please help us get some discussions going, since it needs interesting conversations to pull people in and it needs people to provide interesting conversations. Catch 22 in all its glory.
So, without further ado: Brand New Mad Skills Motocross Forums
