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
Multiple Use Labor Element
Some days ago we released Planet M.U.L.E. together with Blue Systems. It's a remake of an old game from 1983 you may not (but should have!) heard of called M.U.L.E.
Some call it the grandfather of all realtime strategy games, while some call it "the best game of all time". In short it's a 4 player game about economics where players builds factories to produce goods and sell for high prices to other players. The winner is the player who makes the largest profit.
Simple huh? No. If you haven't read the manual or seen the (soon to come) instruction video you won't have a chance to understand this game. It's probably the genre furthest away from Mad Skills Motocross.
About a year ago Blue Systems contacted us with the idea of a remake, and since then we've been working on it. Now it feels great to finally release it. The development has been a bumpy ride where we've tried lots of different play styles and graphics. What we settled on is what you can find here: www.planetmule.com .
As I'm writing this Planet M.U.L.E. has over 2600 registered users and the number has been growing steadily since the release. With all the good feedback from the fans we're now working on getting an update out to improve the game.
Grappling Hook
It's hard for indie games to get attention in today's saturated market where games that cost more than a bag of peanuts gets hate-mailed into oblivion. Therefore we need to stick together, and do a bit of cross-promotion now and then.
Me and Christian of SpeedRunGames made a deal: I review his game, he reviews mine.
Now, don't think I am going to go easy on him just because we have a deal, that would make it all pointless and ruin everyone's day. So let's get on with the review of Grappling Hook.
In one sentence: It's like Portal, but with a grapple gun instead of a portal gun.
Now that's not bad, Portal is in my mind one of the best games ever made. Enough with the portals, this is about grappling.
You get a grappling gun, and with that you can pull yourself towards green surfaces with blinding speed from far away. If you release the trigger while traveling in this manner, your momentum will keep you going. Kind of like a human rail gun, first a large pulling force and then no force at all. Not even friction.
During the level, you collect access codes. When all access codes are collected, the level can be won by entering the portal at the end of it.
Around this mechanic Christian has constructed levels of varying cleverness, where some are ingenious and some are just frustrating. Don't fret though, just do the frustrating ones and you'll have fun again in the next level.
Good points:
- Innovative puzzler
- High velocities
- Frequent save points
Bad points:
- The graphics (programmer art)
- Too much jumping on platforms (more puzzling, less timing please)
- Limited green surfaces (I'd wish you could lash onto anything, except red surfaces, and then design levels around that)
Anyway, the good points are pretty strong so go try the free demo now: Grappling Hook Demo
The Next Feature
The results of the poll? In strong favor of Online Multiplayer:
As you can see, not many voted. So, for the next time you know that your vote really makes a difference.
So, time for me to dig down and start working on those ip-numbers, packets, NATs, latencies, TCP, UDP and what have you. I'm pretty good at this stuff and I think I'll enjoy most of it. The boring part will, as always, be the GUI code.
Most Wanted Feature
Mad Skills Motocross was released two months ago, but that does not stop us from updating and adding new features. However, we are uncertain as to which way to go now. So, we thought, we need quantitative feedback from fans and customers.
Please, help us. Multiplayer or different difficulty levels? Sharing tracks, or scoreboards? Cast your vote now.
Thanks for helping us making Mad Skills Motocross even better.
Mad Competition at Loading.se
Loading.se, a swedish gaming website, recently held a competition. The challenge was to get the fastest time possible on the track 'Andover' in the demo of Mad Skills Motocross. The five fastest times won a free full version.
I don't know what I was expecting really, but the skills of the competitors blew me away. They crushed my best time by almost 10 seconds, and I bloody made the game. Check out the five best races in the video below:
Results:
- Lövet (33.29)
- Avgrundsvrål (37.73)
- Troppi (38.14)
- RoadHazard (38.38)
- Narcissus (39.36)
Congratulations to the winners.
PS. I think a combination of RoadHazard's first few seconds and the rest Lövets race would be able to push below 30 seconds :)
Mad skills Wii remote
As you may know it's possible to connect a Wii Remote to your PC. The guy doing our gameplay videos (hello Lars) did this recently and configured it for Mad Skills Motocross. This was his impression:
Shit, it owns to play with the Wiimote :D. For the sake of the feeling I've also added Rumble on the gas. (H) You notice the difference much more in Turbocharged. It's real lovely to do a backflip and then straighten up before landing by turning your hands instead of pushing a button.
Have a look at the video below to see it in action. If you have a Wii Remote and are interested in how to set it up for MSM, please drop a mail to peter@turborilla.com.
Mad Skills Motocross coming soon
I know you have heard it before, but a release date has been set for Mad Skills Motocross. This time it is for real though, and we have even gone live with the website. Check it out, if you want to know the date of release: www.MadSkillsMotocross.com
The game has both grown and shrunk in scope since the first plan was made. This is always the case in games development, I think, because a very large part of developing a game is to experiment and see what works and what doesn't. Keep reading to find out how the game is structured nowadays.
