Minigore New Year's Episode submitted!

Episode 3.5 has been submitted for App Store approval!

-Gangster Gore: a more sinister side to John Gore... what dark secrets lie in our hero's past?

-New guest stars: not only do Lizzy and Ninja Man from Sway make an appearance, but the Zombieville guy from Zombieville USA sets foot in Hardland, as well.

-Dual wielding: see what kind of havoc you can wreak with double grenade launchers! Or double shotguns!

-Kid Gore redux: re-done Kid Gore complete with new voice. To thank you all for the support, Gangster Gore is now included in for free for everyone who purchased or will purchase Kid Gore.

-OpenFeint 2.4: much improved user interface, location awareness and lots more

Dual wielding

We wanted to wait until the new OpenFeint comes out (which should be any day now) and decided to add dual wielding into the game while waiting.

Oh, who's the little guy? He's non other than Kid Gore, now cooler than ever! In case anyone's wondering whoever Kid Gore is -- he is the young John Gore. Upgrading Kid Gore is our way of showing gratitude to everyone who's supported us by purchasing his character. In this next picture you see him wielding the grenade launcher and a shotgun. Yes, you can wield them in any combination you like and it's supported by all characters... except Enviro-Bear (since the bear is, well, one-armed and all).

The final big surprise of 2009

Want to end 2009 with a bang? What if you found out we are about to submit Episode 3.5 for approval? Cos we are! That's right, and what Episode 3.5 brings you is many new cross-promotion characters.

Zombieville guy from Zombieville USA:


Lizzy the lizard from Sway:


Ninja Man from Sway:


All these cool characters are unlockable using the kill currency which I bet you all have been saving up like mad trying to reach Sensei Evan. These new ones you can unlock a fair bit easier than Sensei, though. :P

There are also two super secret characters we'll reveal a bit later down the line...

During the holidays we're gonna recover a bit from the hard year of work and come back as energized as ever to continue work on Episode 4. 2009 has been a great year for Minigore and all of you guys deserve a big thank you - and let's make 2010 even better!

Minigore Christmas Episode is out now!

Thank you Apple for the swift approval process!

Work is already underway for Episode 4, which includes even more cool stuff! Lizzy and Ninja man from Sway and a third secret guest star. It also comes with entirely new level and... monsters!

Christmas Episode launch trailer!

Christmas will never be the same again.

Minigore Christmas Episode submitted!

Episode 3, The Christmas Episode, has been submitted for App Store approval!

New features:

- Enviro-Bear as a playable guest star
- New playable characters: Jerry Gore, Evan Hsu, Xmas Gore, Sensei Evan, Kid Gore and Santa
- New boss unit Wormwolf who comes in several sizes
- Grenade launcher
- Upgradable weapons
- Day & night cycle
- Snowy forest level
- New voice acting by Egoraptor (Jerry Gore and Santa)
- New achievements
- New sound effects
- PlayHaven community features

Even zombies run from Evan...

...for a good reason:

Introducing Evan Hsu and grenade launcher

As some of you know Evan Hsu won the Minigore tagline contest with his creative entry "Tiny creatures, giant adventure". The main prize was getting made into the game as a playable character, well here he is:

...but wait, what's that in his hands?! Oh yes, a grenade launcher! You wanted grenades and let me tell you a grenade launcher has plenty of those!

Next we'll reveal what happens to Evan when he gets his hands on some clovers...

From Mini Gore to Minigore

One year ago, if you searched for Minigore you got about 100 search results and Google actually suggested perhaps you were looking for "mini gore". This is what it looked like:


Today, it knows better than to suggest you might be looking for creepy photos of Al.


We did the math; Minigore is 10 000 times better than the miniature version of Al Gore. Duh.

Next up we present Satan's... sorry, we mean Santa's beast mode!

He goes absolutely wild when he overdoses on clovers and that's exactly what happened here:

How many clips does it take to save Christmas?

Minigore Episode 3, Christmas Episode is shaping up beautifully. In addition to Wormwolves, upgradeable weapons, grenade launchers and day/night cycles there is a huge batch of playable characters coming up. We'll show a picture of each one here on the Minigore blog.


First up is Santa, the very definition of Christmas. This ancient protector of peace in Hardland was so busy pacifying furries he didn't even notice the photographer taking pictures.

Sun sets on Hardland

When does the Wormwolf sleep? At night, like everyone else, and that is exactly when the reckless shooting most bothers him. It really is very dark out there and John would be in so much more trouble than he already is if he didn't bring a torch with him. Heck, all he needs now is a pitchfork!

Then again, it's probably best to stick to the ol' boomstick when it comes to getting rid of them Wormwolves.

Code for the Sheep

Update available

A new update for Minigore rolls out - go claim yours from the AppStore! Do that especially if you like to play with the screen flipped and/or suffered from the update freeze bug. The new things in this update include:

-Update freeze/flip screen bug fixed
-Improved Furry Sense, shows you ammo and clovers
-Extended battle music, 33% percent more goodness
-OpenFeint 2.2
-Minor fixes

Enjoy!

Jump!

As I told you a few days ago, Wormwolf, the Episode 3 boss has a few tricks up its sleeve it uses to confuse its prey. This is the first one them: not only does it move entirely by what reminds constant jumping, it sometimes leaps so high into the air that John is actually able to escape by running from underneath it. Take a look.


It is surprisingly agile for a big, heavy worm...wolf. There are many rumors around the supernatural abilities of this beast and one of them has Wormwolf suddenly developing such abilities in the 1980s after being subjected to a nearly fatal dose of Van Halen.

Introducing Wormwolf

Next week we will be learning all about the headline of Episode 3, Wormwolf. Today it's time for an introduction.


Wormwolf is one of those creatures that confuses you with its radical hairstyle and harmless appearance. Normally a vegetarian, if Wormwolf finds its sleep disturbed by loud noises, which there seems to be plenty wherever John Gore goes, it forgets all about its normal eating habits, finds the culprit and barely even leaves the bones behind.


We will be looking into all things John has to go through when dealing with Wormwolf next week. It's not a one trick pony... worm... wolf.

Minigore v1.11 submitted

Immediately following the release of the new update, we decided to take Episode 2, add in the fix for the flip screen bug, include a few extra goodies and submit a new update. A new version of Minigore (dubbed v1.11) was submitted on Saturday.

-flip screen bug fixed
-added clovers and ammo to Furry Sense
-extended battle music
-OpenFeint 2.2
-music stops when OpenFeint is opened to work around the occasional music playback issues with OpenFeint


In the meanwhile, remember, if the game is unresponsive after update or if you accidentally select "flip screen" from the options, delete and reinstall Minigore to solve the issue.

Do not flip the screen in Episode 2

Do not flip the screen in Episode 2. There is a bug in the game which causes you not being able to control it after you do.

SOLUTION: Delete the game and reinstall it.

Episode 2 is out!

The wait is finally over - get the update while it's hot! Thanks everyone for your patience. Now go enjoy the game!

Testers

We have handed out a bit of over 70 beta spots thus far. People who have already received it have been notified. If you haven't received a confirmation of your acceptance into the beta program yet, fear not - we still have spots to fill.

Cannot believe this!

It has happened again. The submission for Episode 2 came back rejected due to a corrupted binary. We could blame this on bad luck, we could blame this on conspiracy, personal incompetence or even our dear friend Santa, but what we cannot do is stand by watching the hard work we have put in Minigore and its updates bounce around in what seems like an infinite loop between us and Apple. These updates should have been out there for you guys to play ages ago! We realize we can't change the past, but we can shape the future and that's exactly what we are going to do now.

We want to give you the possibility to play the new Episodes ahead of time before they are released on the AppStore and contribute to the development of Minigore in a way that goes beyond commenting on the blog. We are going to do that by opening up 99 new spots for beta-testers. This is not going to make up for all the delay in bringing out the update, but I am sure it is going to make 99 Minigore fans very happy. We want to show you that despite any hardships and regardless of the number of rejections, Mountain Sheep is holding onto the promises made.


So send us the UDID of your iPhone or iPod along with information of what device you have, how much you play and your age to the address above. Active members of the Minigore blog, top Minigore players based on the online leaderboard and Touch Arcade's Minigore thread contributors will get a priority, so make sure to mention who you are if you are involved in one of the aforementioned.

Lastly, Episode 2 has been re-submitted and every measure taken to ensure it's free from corruption. We are also trying to arrange a fast lane for it in the approval process.

Zombies and John

I'm so glad it's zombies and John and not like Zombies and... me! These little creeps are looming on the Minigore horizon and have got their entire family with them. I, for one, will be taking my railway engine (well, actually it won't be mine) and getting the hell out of here well in advance. Oh, and the railway engine is because the depot is going to be a pretty quiet place when everyone is running for the, yes -- boats and ripping each other to pieces before the zombies even have a chance! Well, luckily John is sticking around as you can see here. He looks determined.


Episode 2 is in the pipe as some you might have read from Minigore Twitter along with a fix to the OS 3.1 music problem. I was able to fix it in a bit over one day after submitting, so we took it and resubmitted on 11th (for those wondering, we did submit once on the 9th, as well, but felt music was important enough to warrant a fix).

I want to let you guys in on something we are planning and I also want to get some wild ideas from you on something.

Let's talk about our plans first. We are going to introduce a new mode in the next update! The new challenge mode gives you a possibility you test your survival skills against a predetermined number of furries. It's complete with online leaderboards, of course, so it's going to be ranking the performance based on time.

Now, about the wild ideas... you guessed correctly, it's the zombies. If you could have the zombies do just one thing, what is the thing you always wanted see them do? The only requirement is that it significantly impacts the way you play against these brainless fellows. Other than that, it can be anything you want - maybe it will involve crowd behavior. Permission to go crazy officially granted!

Episode 2 rejected, submitting with more features on the 9th

After four weeks at Apple's, the update was finally given a verdict. It is not the good news we were expecting and as bad news it is not quite as controversial as we envisioned. Episode 2 was very simply rejected for crashing at launch on one of Apple's test devices.

We have fixed a crash bug during the development of Episode 3 and are looking at a few more potential offenders for the re-submission of September 9. The re-submission will have Episodes 2 and 3 bundled together with the exception of the grenade which will be fine-tuned for gameplay and comes out with the next episode. I will update the episode tracker at the top of the page accordingly.

Our list of things that take four weeks currently looks as follows:

1. Fly 11 times around the world
2. Milk 18000 cows
3. Launch Minigore

While all of the above are a fun way to spend a month, let's hope we can tick the last one off the list with the next submission!

Plan of attack

With Episode 2 fumbling about in the dark trying to finding its way out of Apple's approval maze, we have made the decision to take the following from Episode 3, bundle it up with Episode 2 and resubmit on Wednesday next week:

-Achievements (expert and insane)
-Big Flamefurries
-Gameplay improvements (you can now hit a furry standing right next to you)
-Miscellaneous bug fixes
-OpenFeint 2.1 (it looks a lot nicer!)
+
-Furry Sense
-John Gore with the headband (third health)
-full save and restore of game state
-faster firing rate on the shotgun

The above features will be ready for Wednesday (September 9, that is). Episode 2 may still come out before that; we won't be canceling it until right before resubmission.

Where'd the furries go? Just swayin'.

Our friends at Illusion Labs have just released a new update for their hugely cool physics adventure Sway, and guess what - John Gore is in it! If you still don't own the game, I suggest you get yourself a copy right away. It's a great one!

Extraordinary fan-art

Every now and then you come across some great fan-art. This one is not only awesome, it's pretty unusual, too. Gupu, the mastermind behind it, has even given instructions on how to make one of your own and suggests you start with the larger one if you're new to papercrafting.

Another version built by Hmar9333 based on Gupu's instructions. Moody lighting in this one: 

John Gore caught hanging around the PSP

What, is Minigore coming to the PSP? John Gore has been seen running around recklessly and hibernating them poor furries over here.

Rumor has it there's going to be helluva lot more furries on screen and while the game is definitely Minigore, there is something distinctly different about it this time around...

On Episode 2

Yes, we are waiting. No, still no word from Apple. Yes, we did submit on the 6th. C'mon Apple, it really shouldn't take three weeks to approve a simple update! People want updates, we have them, and they are taking forever to emerge from the other end.

What's your current mood - feeling insane already? That's the one on the right.

Vote on John's new ability

Things are looking very infernal in Episode 3 right now. Oh, what do I mean? Two new enemy types have been implemented: the Flaming Furry which runs very fast and the Giant Flaming Furry which spawns furries of the fiery kind. When you set the difficulty to insane, things get very infernal indeed.

Today's topic is something different, though. To celebrate 100 000 sold units of Minigore and to give John a fighting chance against the infernal furries, he is going to learn a new ability for Episode 3. The new ability is something that we are planning to make unique for each character in a later episode. The ability is activated by double-tapping the right pad (the one you shoot with). It's always available and you can use the ability as many times you want, but it will take a certain amount of time to reload.

VS

Contender number one: Power dash. Power dash literally makes John dash towards the enemies and get out of tight spots while causing damage. John will slice through the larger furries and knock off the smaller ones.

Contender number two: Grenade. John gets a new weapon he can toss into a pack of furries chasing him. The grenade will bounce a few times after landing and explode after a few seconds or on contact with any of the furries.

Vote for your favorite! Also, note that the details of an ability may change slightly during implementation according to our internal play-testing.

UPDATE: This time around the winner wasn't as clear as before, but still the grenade ended up a gathering the majority of votes and did that by a pretty wide margin. Therefore Episode 3 will contain the grenade as a new ability for John Gore!

Episode 2 submitted, episode tracker available

As some of you may have noticed from our Twitter, Episode 2: Thousands of them... one of you was submitted last week. I'm hoping it is going to be available later this week!

We also added an episode tracker as a sticky post of sorts on top of this blog where we are posting what's going on with each episode. Voting and discussion takes place in the actual posts as usual!

Another thing people have been suggesting is we release new episodes more often than initially planned and that's exactly what we are starting to do right now. Instead of a huge co-op update, we already submitted the second episode as mentioned and we'll also release a third one before co-op goes live. It's going to bring you all kinds of flaming furries and an insane mode for those who feel expert is too easy! Probably some other stuff, too, so let me hear what you'd like to see next and I'll see if we can make it fit into the update!

Let's vote, folks

With Minigore loose out in the open, we can finally ask your opinion on stuff!

We have the radar, the third health (John Gore with the bandana), automatic saving and loading of the game and all new OpenFeint version in. Should we sit on these features until co-op and achievements are done or release the update right now so you can start enjoying it?

UPDATE: The final verdict is over 80% of you want us to submit the update now! I'm sending out copies to our testers now and submitting as it as soon as it gets cleared.

MINIGORE IS OUT!

Minigore is OUT! Get it while it's sexy! http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=324016249&mt=8

Dinner time baby!

Remember, this is only the beginning - there's a journey of crazy updates ahead and you get to vote on the content! :)

Enviro-Bear in Minigore!

I've got some great news to ease the pain of waiting! You get to play as everyone's favourite bear in the upcoming co-op multiplayer update: (No, it's not the South Park bear...)

Minigore gets great reviews

ZTGD got their hands on Minigore and awarded it 9/10 and the Editor's Choice! Go read all about it! The game was submitted to Apple earlier this month and it is going to be available for $0.99 on the AppStore soon.

Minigore HD on PS3 or Xbox 360

If you had to choose, which platform would you like to see Minigore on?

There's a poll you can vote on at TouchArcade: http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=19500

New Minigore gameplay!

The clip is from the Minigore launch version. Coming up in the first update: two-player co-op over bluetooth, a radar system to show where the furries are, the mysterious mushroom and more! Can you guess what the mushroom does?

What you say counts!

It really does. The addition of online leaderboards using OpenFeint, one more enemy type in the fast-running Firefurry and the expert mode for people who can handle the heat were among the things added into the launch version of Minigore, because you guys wanted these things! See the updated feature list.

Be sure to keep the feedback coming -- we are hard at work with the next version and we are listening!

John Gore released into the wild!

John Gore has been released into the wild!* Hardland Magazine photographer managed to shoot this exclusive photo of Mr Gore before he himself was shot dead.

*TRANSLATION (for people not yet members of Minigore Anonymous): It has been submitted for AppStore approval!

It speaks!

...or rather tweets.

What Minigore is...

This is what you are going to get for less than a dollar!

-One level of full 3D world rendered in the beautiful storybook style of Minigore, full with bushes, trees and props. Be sure to avoid the terrain with poor visibility… there may be a summer camp for vicious Furries in there!

-The furries come in four shapes and sizes: the small Minifurry, the Furry, the lamentable Giant Furry and the most dangerous of them, the Firefurry, a fiesty flaming furry that is able to outrun even John Gore himself. Be warned — blasting a Giant Furry will split the creature into several furries that, if destroyed will split into Minifurries. It’s Russian Nesting Dolls with a vengeance.

-Three different weapons: the trusty machine gun with unlimited ammo, a double-barreled shotgun to give you an extra boost and an exploding booby trap to catch unsuspecting furries with.

-Feeling cornered? Turn the tables by collecting enough four-leaf clovers to unleash your inner beast and become the new worst enemy for the furries by running them over to really awesome banjo music! Seriously, not kidding about the banjo! Perform clover combos to maintain the beast for as long as possible.

-Conquer the online leaderboards with your crazy scores and brag about them using the built-in chat. Minigore is fully OpenFeint Enabled.

-Play while listening to the fully orchestrated original soundtrack with a taste of Monkey Island atmosphere in there, or if you prefer to blast away to your favorite trance beat, you can access your music collection directly in the game on the iPhone OS 3.0!

-The Egoraptor, Arin Hanson, creator of the insanely popular Metal Gear Awesome and other videos in the Awesome-series, starring as the voice of John Gore is something you don't want to miss!

-Support for both left and right landscape orientations for the screen.

-Expert mode: after learning the ropes, switch on the expert mode to unleash the full fury of the furries! Very useful for people who want to focus on improving their score.

-Automatic save on exit to never lose your new highscore.

Sound good yet? For the same $0.99 you will also get a free update with co-operative multiplayer, the mysterious mushroom and, of course, our contest winner Evan Hsu appearing with really weird goggles in the first update of the game.

Light at the end of the tunnel

Been working like crazy on finishing up Minigore and now I'm starting to think there is an end to the list of issues to be fixed and features we want to get into the launch build! There's so many things we could add into the game, and we will, but right now we really want you guys to be able to play it and tell us what you think and what you want to see in the updates.


Co-op multiplayer has been voiced a number of times by a lot of different people and I personally think it couldn't be a better fit for Minigore! We have a really neat idea for it, too; in single player Minigore John Gore can take one hit which makes him lose his hat and go really angry. The second hit kills John. This how we thought co-op should go: with two players, whenever either one of the players has full health, it doesn't matter if the other one dies -- he will come back to life. But if both are down to one health, the next death ends the game for that player.

I think it makes for some really interesting gameplay. What do you think?

Evan Hsu wins the Tagline Contest!

Minigore has a new tagline: Tiny creatures, Giant adventure. It was voted the best of the six finalists getting over 37% of all votes! Even though the runner-up, Thousands of them... one of you, got up to a respectable 20%, Evan's line took the lead from the beginning and ended up winning by a wide margin. Congratulations Evan -- you get to be in the game!

On Minigore's submission to AppStore

Some unexpected work regarding iPhone OS 3.0 came up and I just wanted to drop by to tell you we are going to take the time to implement those before submitting. If you feel like you already can't wait for the game, don't worry, it won't take that long and Apple will get to approve the game soon!

Awesome Minigore Tagline Contest - now voting!

The finalists for the competition have been chosen, so go cast a vote for your favorite on Touch Arcade!

Legendary Egoraptor to star as John Gore!

The father, mother and the uncle of Internet phenomena Egoraptor is going to voice John Gore in our upcoming survival shooter Minigore, and it is going to be Awesome! We can't even describe how very excited we are about this and we literally laughed through the entire 15 minutes of the previews he sent us!

We want to make sure this thing gets done properly and push the game's estimated submission date to Apple 10 days forward to June 25th. Let me tell you, it is going to be worth the wait!

Dev Diary - A look into past and present

Top image: A screenshot from the latest Minigore build (June 5th)

Bottom image: This is the very first concept art I painted for Minigore, it's interesting to compare the two :)

E3 Exclusive on AppGamer!

Head out to AppGamer for exclusive screenshots from Minigore!

The Awesome Minigore Tagline Contest!

So, what's the deal? Create a really catchy tagline for Minigore! You may use up to six words for your unique creation.

To remind ourselves, let's go briefly over what Minigore is: an awe-inducing representative of the survival shooter species. You step into the shoes of John Gore who finds himself lost in a strange place called the Hardland. Everything would be suitably nice and peaceful if it weren't for the darned furries. These black creatures seem to have an unexplained grudge against our blue-coated hero, and with so many of them out there John is very lucky to have managed to hold onto his machine gun!

Post your entries to the address in the poster and do it by June 13, 2009. The grand prize is truly epic in proportions; you get to be in the game as a professionally modeled 3d-character, executed in the true Hardgore style! The model will be added to the game in the first update.

The finalists will selected by us at Mountain Sheep and there will be a public vote for the finalists on the Touch Arcade forums where there the talk on the subject is heating up!

These new and never-before-seen screenshots from Minigore should help you find the inspiration.

Our official embassador, Santa, thought up a few example taglines to get you started.

Minigore: Just bleed! (yes, Santa watches the UFC)

Minigore: I ain't got time to bleed (for all the Predators out there)

Minigore: When the going gets tough!

Minigore: It's a strange world out there...

Minigore: Die Hard Gore

If more than one people enters the contest with the same entry independently and it so happens that this entry wins, then the Mountain Sheep team will make a Frankenstein model with features from all winners in it!