We made it back from GDC… somehow. We’re still decompressing, but the whole thing was a blast. We set up and demoed Fist Puncher in the GameSpy booth Wednesday through Friday (huge thanks to everyone from IGN and GameSpy that helped us get things working). We had almost non-stop gameplay going on, and we were able to get quite a bit of great feeback and a number of terrific suggestions on improving the game. But maybe the best was just jumping into a game of Fist Puncher with a crew of strangers and punching and kicking the heck out of anarchists, luchadores, and dudes with flamethrowers. Big thanks to everyone that stopped by to play. Sadly, since we spent almost all of our time demoing, we didn’t have much time to see the rest of the show. We didn’t meet Notch, weren’t able to get into a flame war with Phil Fish, and only had a few opportunities to play other games. Still, it was absolutely worth it. Getting Fist Puncher into the hands of actual, real-life gamers was incredible. For those who played, who was your favorite character? Dr. Karate, the Beekeeper, O’Grady? We’ll be posting some webisodes from GDC in the upcoming days so stay tuned. In the meantime, keep punching!
Monthly Archives: March 2012
O’Grady Patrol Diary Episode 5
It’s Friday here at GDC. Keeping with our promise, here’s the last new YouTube content of the week in celebration of GDC, Office O’Grady Patrol Diary Episode 5:
O’Grady Patrol Diary Episode 4
It’s past midnight. And that means it’s time to join us for another episode of O’Grady Patrol Diary as we honor GDC with daily YouTube content. In this episode, O’Grady provides valuable insight into women and relationships. Youngsters, listen up.
O’Grady Patrol Diary Episode 3
Join Officer O’Grady from Fist Puncher for a new episode of O’Grady Patrol Diaries as we continue to celebrate a week of gaming at GDC with new daily YouTube video content.
The Next Game Boss Season Finale
Take a deep breath. Are you ready? It’s time for the finale of The Next Game Boss. Team Fist Puncher (yup, that’s us) vs. Team Mechamagizmo. Washington’s Wig vs. Stariser. We started with 6 teams, and through a series of often brutal challenges we’re now down to just 2. Prepare yourself for the dramatic conclusion of The Next Game Boss.
O’Grady Patrol Diary Episode 2
It’s Tuesday, and as announced we are releasing video content all week in honor of the Game Developer Conference (GDC) in San Francisco. Join Officer O’Grady in another exciting episode of O’Grady Patrol Diary. Since today also happens to be the finale of the IGN/YouTube series The Next Game Boss, this episode also features everyone’s favorite wig-wearing terrier mix and star of Washington’s Wig, Dogsworth McFreedom:
Fist Puncher: Meet Steroid Jackson
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Andre Jackson was a misunderstood man. Fans used to chant “cheater” and boo him mercilessly. But he loved the attention, even had his name legally changed to Steroid. It would be wrong to mistake his bravado for arrogance or stupidity. Steroid is a man of science. He believes performance enhancers will improve the human condition and sees himself as a guinea pig for modern medicine.
Game Sphere Interview Part 2
Here’s the English version of part 2 of our interview with Gabriel Perier and the French indie gaming site Game Sphere where we talk more about our upcoming game Fist Puncher. You can check out part 2 of the interview in French here.
Game Sphere: You took your team name from a game in which you work: Fist Puncher. Can you tell us more about this game?
JAKE: Fist Puncher is an homage to old school beat ‘em up games, complete with retro inspired pixel art and four player local co-op. These games were really popular when we were kids, and although they’ve died off in the mainstream, there’s still lots of people that love to play them. We’re bringing Fist Puncher to Xbox LIVE Indie Games first, sometime later this year although no date is set in stone yet.
Fist Puncher follows a team of vigilantes as they fight their way through the crime ridden streets of a near future city (perhaps as near future as tomorrow). Players can choose to play as Dr. Karate, Kid Justice, Steroid Jackson or Hella Fistgerald plus 4 other unlockable characters, each with their own moves and abilities. As you advance in the game you can shape your characters’ growth by leveling up and assigning attribute points, but mostly the game is about good old fashioned button mashing and face punching.
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Game Sphere: What were your inspirations for Fist Puncher? When I saw the videos I thought Final Fight, but I doubt that this is not the only inspiration!
JAKE: Final Fight is definitely one of the classic beat ‘em up games, I just recently replayed it on Xbox and it holds up very well. Our start with this genre was Double Dragon, which was one of our favorite arcade games back in the day and a huge influence on Fist Puncher. Double Dragon didn’t work as well on the old consoles though, you really had to play the cabinet version. Golden Axe was similar, a really fun brawler that didn’t port well at the time. On NES, River City Ransom was the game that stands out as the gold standard for brawlers. It added some RPG elements, which are also a part of Fist Puncher.
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Game Sphere: You are particulary focused on a old school world. Whether for Fist Puncher or Washington’s wig, or even on your site, the pixels are in the spotlight. Why this choice?
JAKE: This was the look of video games that we played when we were kids, and we want to stoke the nostalgia people still feel for this generation of games. When I see giant pixels I immediately feel a connection to those days and remember rushing home from school to try to figure out a puzzle in Legend of Zelda or Shadowgate. There is also something mysterious and unseen in pixel art. It leaves more to your imagination, letting your mind fill in the blanks instead of putting every little detail on the screen.
There is a practical reason as well. There are only the two of us and neither of us are trained artists when it comes to modern techniques. We’re comfortable making pixel art and in many ways it simplifies the development process, something we have to be aware of since we both work day jobs and really have very limited time available to work on our games.
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Game Sphere: The game is planned for early 2012 on Xbox Live indie. Any chance to see it coming on PC?
JAKE: We’re always looking at other platforms and distribution channels for our games. Since we’re making Fist Puncher in XNA, it’s very easy to port it to PC. We’re just focusing on the Xbox version right now, and hopefully there will be enough demand that a PC version will follow shortly after. Seeing that so many indie games have found greater success on PC, it would be foolish for us not to explore the possibilities.
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Game Sphere: Do you have new projects planned after the release of Fist Puncher?
JAKE: We haven’t done extensive planning on this yet because so much depends on the response to Fist Puncher. We have a wealth of ideas, but we really want to make games that will sell. We’re going to try to find the perfect intersection between a game we’d love to make and a game people want to play. Either way we’ll be sticking to our themes of retro-styled art, colorful characters and a humorous tone.
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Game Sphere: Do you think that, in the world of indie game, beard is synonymous with creativity and success (Notch, Edmund McMillen, Terry Cavanagh)?
JAKE: There are some wonderfully talented women in the world of indie games, but aside from them I don’t think there is any excuse for an indie developer not to have a beard. You can either spend your time researching shaving lubricants, buying razors and picking out ingrown hairs, or you can sit down and work on your game. If Notch had wasted his mornings worrying about razor burn, Minecraft would never have existed.
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Game Sphere: The World of indie game is more and more popular. Do you think this is the future of video games?
Matt: I think indie development has a place in the future of videogames, but people will always salivate over massive, cinematic, AAA titles that can only be produced by big studios with tons of resources. On the other hand, indie games have also shown that people crave uniqueness, quirkiness, originality, and occasionally dogs wearing wigs. None of these require a big studio. As long as people are open-minded and willing to try new things, indie games will have a place in the industry.
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Game Sphere: On behalf of Game Sphere staff, its community and all French indie game fans, we thank you for your time and even if the die is cast, we wish you good luck for the next game and boss for the future release of Fist Puncher. The last word is for you!
JAKE: We want to say thanks to everyone who has watched the show, the outpouring of support from around the world has been really appreciated. Also a special thanks to France for helping us win our Revolutionary War so we’d be free to make a game about George Washington’s dog one day. The best way to keep up with what we’re doing is to check out our website, fistpuncher.com, follow us on Twitter or like us on Facebook. If you don’t actually like us, and think we come across as two bumbling jerks, then don’t bother doing any of those things, it would be a waste of time. We’ll understand.
O’Grady Patrol Diary Episode 1
Join Officer O’Grady from FIST PUNCHER in O’Grady Patrol Diary episode 1 as he and his intrepid partner Beans scour the city looking to put and end to crime and villainy.
The Wisdom of YouTube Comments
One of the best things about taking part in The Next Game Boss is reading all of the amazing comments on YouTube. Supportive, derogatory, hilarious, confusing – you get it all. We felt we’d take a few minutes and respond to some of the better comments.
THE BAD
“yea it is boring, it’s just an 8-bit game somebody could shit those sprites out in less than 10 minutes”
TEAM FIST PUNCHER: We need to speed up our craft. Ten minutes?! You’re telling me we could have been done with each challenge in 10 minutes and could have spent the rest of the time doing our nails or combing our hair? Dang!
“Just because it has that old US thingy going on corrupts the whole contest.”
TEAM FIST PUNCHER: We are very proud that we corrupted the whole contest. It’s the least we could do – take down IGN from the inside!
“man… washington’s wig is like a beginner developer game, why they love that game so much??? try to be serious and leave patriotism because we all know the game sucks and it isn’t even worthy”
TEAM FIST PUNCHER: I tried being serious once during a third grade play about Paddington Bear. It was a disaster.
“dog jumper sucks even worse.. zzz”
TEAM FIST PUNCHER: We actually put this guy to sleep. Like in Dragon Warrior or something. But… Dog Jumper is a pretty good title.
“Who else is not going to play a game where you make a dog jump at the correct moment?”
TEAM FIST PUNCHER: Don’t ask me. I spent years playing games where I make a plumber in overalls jump at the correct moment.
THE GOOD
“Fist puncher! If they don’t win they’ll punch your grandma in the face!”
TEAM FIST PUNCHER: Again, we don’t punch grandmas. We make games about them falling through the sky with a parasol.
“FIST PUNCHER IS GOING TO WIN! (jedi mind trick :P)”
TEAM FIST PUNCHER: And we didn’t shoot first in the Lucas edited version of The Next Game Boss.
“why does naomi keep flipping her hair btw FIST PUNCHER FOREVER”
TEAM FIST PUNCHER: I didn’t notice the hair, but I’m ok with being an afterthought when it comes to Naomi.
“Yes! Fist puncher stayed always trust a man with a beard”
TEAM FIST PUNCHER: Can someone pass that on to the ladies? I’m a trustworthy guy.
“I wanted Fist Puncher to win from the start! I was so worried for them…”
TEAM FIST PUNCHER: We were worried too. Something about this comment felt so sincere. It got me all tingly inside.
“i think the fist puncher should win because theyr game had an sense”
TEAM FIST PUNCHER: That’s right. We have lots of an senses!
“Fist puncher! rulesss!”
TEAM FIST PUNCHER: Cobra Commander? Is that you?
“team fistpuncher all the way!!! I will never watch this show again if they lose”
TEAM FIST PUNCHER: I predict rioting in the streets from the Fist Puncher fans regardless of who wins. Make sure to bring a cowboy hat.
“FISTU PAWNCHER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
TEAM FIST PUNCHER: Say what now?
“Fist Puncher are Mario and Luigi”
TEAM FIST PUNCHER: I always thought Starsky and Hutch, but I see your point.
“I want team Fist Puncher to win. I want to play Washington’s Wig soooooo badly!”
TEAM FIST PUNCHER: Either way, just come down to Santa Cruz and we can all make rootbeer floats and play Washington’s Wig until the sun goes down.
THE ODD
“I don’t care who wins, I just wanna watch Naomi flipping her hair.”
TEAM FIST PUNCHER: An honest opinion.
“Why the fuck do they love that dog game so much? It looks stupid and boring. But I like the guys in Team Fist Puncher.”
TEAM FIST PUNCHER: Ah, the whole love/hate thing. In all honesty I’d rather have it this way than have you think we’re stupid and boring, but like our games.