Diverging from the norm

Changing the name of the team to Divergent Gaming and going with a new site. Details to follow. Thanks to anyhow who supported Fourth Dimensional Gaming.

New Direction

Here's the deal. I haven't written in a while and while those are conceivably the most common words posted on a blog after a long period of inactivity, I assure you that I have had my reasons. So, loyal legion of viewers, you probably have a few questions, (I'm just pretending that I have viewers) and I seek to answer all of your inquiries to the best of my abilities.

Are you still making games?

Of course I am. In fact we are finally making TTown. I deal with people on a daily basis that make a career out of finding new excuses not to do anything with their lives, but I promise that we will press on and finish the game we conceptualized a long time ago. To be honest, I put it on hold in order to find a job that would pay the bills first, which leads me to the next question you undoubtedly have.

What else are you doing these days?

I'm glad you asked that. I am currently employed as a staff writer for Azubu.com, a major gaming portal and journalism site. You've never heard of them, but you will come E3. Apparently some mega rich dude is backing it and as we all know, an excess of liquid cash is the stuff dreams are made of. In addition, I am the site manager of a Diablo III sub-site under the same company. So yes, I am even more anxious about the impending release of D3 than any of you (unless you really are planning to make a fortune selling Rotting Chestplates of the Bear in the auction house for $$$.) In addition, I have written a few episodes for a secret webseries that will never happen due to a lack of friends that have any discernible interest beyond the fortunes it will make them.

If that weren't enough.

I have a wedding to begin planning for, an engagement ring to pay off, bills up my already smarting asshole and a whole other slew of mental issues pertaining to the inevitability that is growing older.

Enough for now. Going to watch a movie since I can't sleep.

Game #4

So I broke my collaboration for one game so my co-founder could work on the RPG. The result is Who is the Best : Competitive Math. It is currently in review and I'm startled by how positive the feedback is. This is arguably the most simple game I have programmed, with maybe "Ninja Stole My Bike" being on about the same level. I have little to no expectations for the game, although now I'm leaning more towards "little expectations" since the feedback has been so overwhelmingly positive. I'm also hoping that putting the #1 player on the cover of a future update will help push the game. Can't wait to see how people do at the Global Challenge. If the game does well, even remotely, I will turn this into a fun little series of games. The game is inspired by the Brain Age classics, and since I am a big sucker for them I wanted to do something similar. I'm trying to get away from gimmicky games for a while, since they really weren't doing that well for us anyways. This time I was just going for old fashioned fun. For all the viewers out there, my estimate is that a score of 21000 will be just about enough for the #1 spot after 30 days.

RPG

I decided against showing the entire overworld at this time since I'm afraid that the 3 people that read this blog will tell EA and they will steal it. Therefore, I am including a few close up shots of the game that we are working on.

Kotaku Pt 2 - Microsoft Freeze Pt 5320 - Other Random Noise

We got on the Kotaku's favorite list and normally I'd be reporting on what that did for our sales, but since the Top Downloads list has been frozen for the past two weeks and the entire channel was down today, I really can't tell.

I tried to contact the editor of Kotaku to possibly write something about it, but I haven't heard back. They're probably really busy.

Microsoft treats us like a fucking joke. Let that by known. They don't give a shit that some of us are trying to become successful making games and applications. The pick your own release date is only going to lessen the problem. What if Game team A waits until the current freeze is over to release their game, only to have the list freeze again when they launch.

The pick your own release date hasn't stopped approximately 35 games from releasing during the current nonsense. Those 35 games will most likely never get the opportunity to get onto the Top Downloads list, and it looks like some of them would have deserved it. The sweeping epic "Sex or Love" has a lot of ratings and surely would have been on the TD list, and probably lost a bunch of sales because they weren't. I've been writing about this problem forever and I'm sick of it, and I wish I could leave the indie channel, but it's the only place to release on a console right now. Looking forward to the next form letter from Charles Cox or Nick Gravelyn saying that they are investigating the problem. Go shoot yourself in the foot, it's a database query.

Here is the link to the Kotaku article. Almost 50k views, unreal. Thanks Kotaku, you guys are the best. At least someone shows the indies some love. Kotaku article

So we're making an RPG. I'm tempted to post the world map, or at least portions of it. I'll get back to that when it's finished. When will it be finished? To quote Valve: "It's finished when it's finished."

Kotaku

The Red Ring of Death has been out for almost a week now. I didn't think that we going to get any huge press, but we did. Kotaku, one of the biggest gaming publications on the internet, and also one of my personal favorites did an article on our game. I felt the article was more about the title and us sticking it to Microsoft as opposed to the game itself, which they felt was "conventional". It really made me regret not putting the Red Ring in an earlier level, but he's the fucking boss. Still, for all you home viewers, the Red Ring of Death is the last boss in the game. I should have Castlevania:SotN'd it and put him right in the beginning, but hindsight is 20/20.

The article is here: http://kotaku.com/#!5798788/xbox-live-indie-games-hit-with-the-red-ring-of-death

I am super motivated right now, and hopefully now with a semi professional team of vagrants, we'll be able to do something good on its own merits, without having to rely on internet memes and gimmicks. So, with that I announce the title of our next game..."Super Zombie Bros: An Avatar "Do it yourself" MMORPG...Craft".....eh, sorry.

There is a next game, but I'm just going to pretend I'm the king of all things Indie RPG like Zeboyd and not announce it yet. I'll announce it when I'm sure that I can actually do it. Saves me some potential embarrassment that way.

The Red Ring of Death (no not the thing that happens when an XBox overheats)

We have another game coming out. It's mostly through the review process and there is a chance that it will drop today. It's called the Red Ring of Death and ultimately is a satire of a Microsoft headache.

Dear Microsoft lawyers. In no way is this game an attempt to slander your name. Since we never have original ideas, we rely on internet memes to create games that have instant name recognition. We feel by using the term Red Ring of Death we will only be helping you guys make more money.

Anyhow, enough of the aside. The game is far more complex than the last one, which looking back, was a bit of a joke. It was created in exactly two months, and in my estimation will need a small patch once it's released, but mostly for my own satisfaction. I think the framerate could be a little bit tighter in some places and there are a few minor bugs I'd like to see gone.

So, what did we do right and what we did wrong.

Well, I don't exactly know yet. That's best reserved for when I see how the game does. That is, if it comes out at all. The Microsoft legality issue with the cover art and the title does concern me. It's not that we're ripping off anything, it's that Microsoft is going to do what they want, and I have no power to stop them. Would be terrible if all this work went down the drain. Let's hope for the best, I did my best not to cross any lines, but still be referential.

On a happier note, you can see some screenshots of the game.