Things have been crazy since GDC – we’ve been working hard to meet milestones for Reagan Gorbachev and wrapping up Mac and Linux ports for Fist Puncher. All of this is a weak excuse to say so we haven’t had much time to blog about the show. Anyway, the show was, as expected, a blast. We spent 3 days exhibiting Reagan Gorbachev with the folks at OUYA, and we were right in the company of a bunch of slick titles (Duck Game, Amazing Frog, Broken Age). Here’s a brief write-up from GamesBeat about the upcoming exclusive OUYA titles.
As usual, we got gobs of great feedback and hundreds of people played the first prototype of Reagan Gorbachev. At present the game is coming together as an amalgamation of quick burst action and top down stealth – a sort of “Super Meatline Miami”. We’re currently in the process of starting a complete art overhaul so in the next couple of months we’ll start leaking screenshots. In the meantime, we’ll be in the trenches making games!
Our newest game, Reagan Gorbachev, will be on display at this week’s Game Developer Conference here in San Francisco. Reagan Gorbachev is a top-down, cooperative stealth game set in a 1980s alternate timeline. Players take control of both of the 20th century leaders and must use their unique skills to battle through dozens of levels. We’ll be showing off Reagan Gorbachev in the OUYA booth in the main GDC exhibition hall. Here’s the current demo schedule if you want to stop by to kick the tires on our new game or just get some stickable goodies.
Wed: 2-6pm
Thurs: 10am-2pm
Fri: 10am-3pm
Jake wrote an OUYA blog post on Fist Puncher and supporting indie consoles. Warning: parts are dark, but surprisingly faithful to reality (the gluten free pretzel thing is probably not real). We’ll have updates this weekend on GDC and our upcoming game Reagan Gorbachev. Stay tuned.
Fist Puncher is now live on OUYA. I think it’s safe to say that this is the first true brawler to hit the indie-friendly micro-console. We’ve packed in all the same great punch-kick-jump-tase action from the PC and Xbox releases and added 2 new characters for the OUYA release. So if you’re burnt out on running around fictional Swindon in Amazing Frog or trying to park that damn truck full of chickens in No Brakes Valet, then pick up some Fist Puncher and head over to stripper town and dole out some justice.
We’re happy to announce that Fist Puncher is coming to OUYA on February 25th. 19 characters, 50 levels, 0 bird flapping. We’ve been big fans of the micro-console from its early days on Kickstarter, and working with the indie-friendly people at OUYA has been a very positive experience. Now if only someone could push those guys behind Amazing Frog to get a fistacuffs frog in Fist Puncher…
Well, not really. It’s actually pretty tame and generally overflowing with sweaty men and sometimes-amazing facial hair. Here we are one week after GDC, and I’m still recovering from this damn sinus plague (never should have shaken hands with that Somali pirate). But, body malfunctions aside, GDC was, as expected, terrific. Tiring, but terrific. For us, GDC started with the IGN Indie Press Mixer. First, let me just say that Happy Fisting is a real game. I’m not proud of that. That’s simply a fact. But, moving on, the mixer was packed with press, developers and, most importantly, games. Highlights? For me it would have to be Aztez, a visually stunning brawler, and Soundodger, a high octane music-meets-bullet-storm game. Be on the lookout for both of these neat little titles (shout out to Team Bean!).
AZTEZ AT THE INDIE PRESS MIXER:
SOUNDODGER AT THE INDIE PRESS MIXER:
HANGING WITH THE GREAT INDIESTATIK AT THE INDIE PRESS MIXER:
The Press Mixer was just the calm before the storm. We spent the next 3 days exhibiting Fist Puncher as part of GDC Play. Yeah, it was draining, we both lost our voices, and all the standing probably inched us a little closer towards needing to use canes to get around, BUT overall the Play exhibition was a huge success. We had tons of traffic, talked to boatloads of media, met all sorts of great developers and artists, got amazing feedback on the game, and even got a GDC Play “Best in Play” honorable mention. Hurrah! There were also some amazing games besides Fist Puncher in the GDC Play exhibit. Too many to name, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Chasm and Dungeon Dashers. Both of these titles are going to make many a gamer very happy.
FIST PUNCHER AT GDC PLAY:
But, what about the parties, you ask? I’ll be honest, we skipped Pow Pow… and we skipped the Minecraft party… and we skipped the Venus Patrol party… I guess we’re just too cool for school? No, we were just exhausted (but we’re glad we found people to gift our tickets to). However, we did roll to the Adult Swim party where low brow goofs like us were able to mingle with high brow creative types all while watching Aqua Teen Hunger Force. For me, this was possibly the best night of the conference. So many great people attended this one, and the vibe was low-key and relaxed.
ADULT SWIM PARTY:
Although we did cross paths with Misfits Attic, our arch enemies. We went to blows later that night (sorry about the fat lip, Tim!).
MISFITS ATTIC AND TEAM2BIT PREPARE FOR BATTLE:
We also made it out to the Ouya unveiling party. This was also a blast (who can complain about free pizza, vegetarian tacos, and It’s It ice cream?), and getting a chance to actually sit and play some bad ass Ouya titles like Canabalt and Saturday Morning RPG made us believers in the potential of this cool little console.
SATURDAY MORNING RPG AT THE OUYA PARTY:
PLAYING CANABALT AT THE OUYA PARTY:
Some might also know that I used to be an avid classic game collector (Good Luck Charlie Brown! – we owned that!). At the Ouya party we ran into Greg Pabich. Greg owns the rights to Cheetahmen, one of the rarest NES titles ever. This definitely put a smile on my face.
GREG PABICH MEETS TEAM2BIT AT THE OUYA PARTY:
What about loot? Well, I did my best to gather as many stickers, buttons, and t-shirts as possible. No idea what I’ll do with all this junk, but it’s all sort of irrelevant since we scored the crown jewel of GDC swag: a Runner 2 action figure!
RUNNER 2 ACTION FIGURE:
In summary, GDC left us with a little bit of sickness, lots of freebies, and a sweet amount of exposure for Fist Puncher. We’ll be back next year and hopefully Jake will approve the Fist Puncher capes that I want to wear so badly. Onward!
By now everyone knows about Ouya. Everyone. Maybe that’s a little bit of an exaggeration. If, somehow, you’ve spent the last year camping, chasing butterflies, hanging at poetry jams, and doing other gross things, Ouya is a next gen console based on the Android OS that was crowd-funded last year through one of the most successful Kickstarters of all-time. Well, over the holidays the Ouya dev kits began shipping. We got ours and so far it looks to be an impressive little package. Two light-weight controllers and a sweet little console about the size of a coffee mug with everything oozing a pretty translucent aesthetic. The controllers look and feel like lightweight versions of the standard Xbox controller with the addition of a touchpad at the top. The system itself is small. Seriously small. We haven’t dug into the console too much (we have our hands full wrapping up Fist Puncher), but with our next project planned as a multi-console release, we’re looking forward to getting our hands dirty with the Ouya and seeing what it can do. For those that hate reading as much as we hate writing, here’s some pics.
