Heading down to Indiecade in a couple days, but we had just enough time to wrap up the new Fist Puncher trailer starring Dr. Karate, everyone’s favorite brain surgeon/martial artist. We’re hoping to release some more character-driven trailers over the next few weeks so stay tuned.
In case anyone missed it, here’s the first Fist Puncher trailer. Enjoy.
I spent the last few weeks of summer on a push to polish up Fist Puncher so I can submit the best possible game to the Independent Games Festival by the October 17th deadline. It’s pretty easy to figure out how to play (mash buttons), but I’ve added an explanation of the controls and now you can scroll through your character’s moves on the pause screen. I’ve also greatly improved the cut scene scripting, so the story takes shape as you advance through the levels. It’s still an action game at heart, but I’ve always intended to include at least a loose plot to tie it all together. You can definitely play it as a straight beat ’em up, but there are also some branching paths and hidden alternatives to solving problems. Oh, and there’s finally some sound beyond the music, it’s amazing how a few little sounds effects bring the action to life. Bam!
A good motto in any type of conceptual development seems to be “stick with what you know.” During yesterday’s SafeBucks (you know, when there’s a Starbucks inside the Safeway) brainstorming session we kicked around the idea of integrating some sort of trading card scheme into our games. Like many children of the ’80s, we spent a good chunk of time buying, trading, and generally obsessing over baseball cards (heck, we even spent summers begging for stamps and packing letters full of cards in hopes of getting player autographs through snail mail). So, why not develop a fun little trading card framework that can be easily integrated into XBox games? With that being said, we are now officially working on our first set of Team2Bit Virtual Trading Cards. Collect ’em all and be on the lookout for appearances in upcoming games! And be sure to get a plastic sleeve for Dr. Karate’s rookie card.
I’ve been developing Fist Puncher for just about a year now. I couldn’t begin to venture a guess about how many hours have gone into it, but I know I’ve worked on it almost every day for the last year. Friday I begin a 10 day vacation to Wisconsin, and since I’m not bringing my computer, that means the first significant break from Fist Puncher. The real vacation is from my day job, but I’m looking forward to clearing my head a bit on the game and energizing myself for the stretch run to completion. It’s time to get some perspective on what belongs and what doesn’t. Hopefully the mosquitoes don’t keep me from relaxing.
Spent the last week working on game state management and a proper saving/loading scheme for Fist Puncher. This is definitely not the ‘fun’ part of making video games. It’s satisfying once you see things working right, but for me it takes some extra concentration to get to that point. Too easy to be distracted by a good baseball game when you’re adding pause menu logic or reading another article on how to avoid code 4s on the Xbox.
I did spend one night adding a new level. Here’s Dr. Karate, tempted to break the Hippocratic Oath with some hoodums he found squatting at the local playground.
Finished adding a new level to Fist Puncher tonight, the laundromat. It brings back a bit of nostalgia for me, because I spent many hours of my younger life playing video games in laundromats. Although I wasn’t usually harassed by some guy with a maul.
Taking it back to the glory days of MTV with a Buzz Clip.
After a few hours of gaming and a few hours of editing, the Fist Puncher pre-release trailer is now live. Fist Puncher is a side-scrolling brawler inspired by classic fighters like Double Dragon and River City Ransom. Coming this Fall to XBox Live Indie Games.
The pieces are starting to fall into place on the website. The design is finally coming together, the first version of Foreign Invaders is available for play under “Our Games”, and the Word Press/Facebook/YouTube/Twitter sites are up and running with live website feeds.
The Team2Bit Word Press blog is officially live!