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Monday, October 31, 2011

Minigore Episode 6 is available for iPhone and iPad!

Kaamos Sound sent us this scary Minigore SFX making of video:

Latest News: EP6 could be one of the final updates we're doing for Minigore. It fixes some serious performance issues on iPad 2 & iPhone 4S and adds Bike Baron as a playable character. Content wise it's not a big update because our resources have been focused on getting Bike Baron & Minigore Zombies done. 









Minigore Zombies is a completely new game which takes a few steps out of the dual-stick shooter genre by introducing melee combat. Technically it's much more advanced than Minigore and allows us to do thing which aren't possible on 1st gen devices. It's our most ambitious project to date with many moving parts.

It's our most ambitious project to date with many moving parts and it's also gonna be our next big release now that Bike Baron is out. Hopefully we can reach a similar reception with it!

PS. My last estimate was way off for the MZ release and that's exactly why I don't want to do any release estimates until the game is AT LEAST submitted ;) 

Please no "when it's coming out?" questions :)

Monday, July 18, 2011

Zombie Santa Gameplay Video

Latest News: Footage from the latest development version. I don't usually like to predict release dates but this time I'll make an exception. This is maybe a month away from being finished. Then it could be sent to Apple for approval.



We also announced a new game called Bike Baron. We're developing it with Aqua Globs creator Qwiboo - the programming muscle is coming from that side of the fence and we're mainly focusing on design and art:

Monday, June 27, 2011

Zombie Boss Gameplay Video


LATEST NEWS:

Tim has been working on a shadow system for the tiles & editor. The shadows are looking very cool indeed! There's a few small glitches here and there so I won't post any pics yet.

Kimmo and Tuomas have been doing lots of work on zombie bosses and other crucial gameplay features such as the coins. It's much more rewarding to kill the bad guys when you get some decent loot! The coin thing was mainly inspired by Blizzard's classic PC game Diablo.

There's two games for iPhone which also have some of that Diablo feel, both of them are games by Raptisoft: Solomon's Keep and Solomon's Boneyard. I highly recommend them!

This fellow here has his wide grin on the app icon,
his name is Dead Jester.



To make a long post shorter I'll let this video do the talking and show some of the new features in action:



I'll post more footage later!

Friday, May 27, 2011

Making of Level Editor - Part 4

Latest news: This week we moved to new bigger offices! We also hired a new guy to work on the level creation, his most recent project was PS3 game Dead Nation :)

Let's get started with a brand new level editor screenshot. Tim made lots of tweaks and the pits are a new tile type:


Placeholder tile art by Heikki Repo


Kimmo and Tuomas added support for multiple simultaneous bosses. It means we can spawn five zombie Jerry Gores at once if we so desire!

Some of the remaining issues on zombie bosses:

1. They're still too deadly even though they already have a decreased ammo speed. Their accuracy needs to be decreased.
2. There's a few annoying situations where the bosses walk through each other.
3. Health bar height is not calculating correctly for some bosses - the reason is unknown at the moment.
4. Perhaps all of them could be scaled a bit bigger to make them even more menacing.
5. Spawn animations missing.



Grandpa & Grandma weren't quite as scary when they were alive!


Another thing Kimmo improved is collision physics: it works much better now when you bump into obstacles. In one of those old zombie level videos there is a vibrating camera motion when the player character is walking against the wall. After the fix it doesn't do that anymore.

DISCLAIMER: There's no release dates for any of this stuff. The best thing I can do is keep you updated on what's happening.

Monday, May 16, 2011

Making of Level Editor - Part 3

Latest news: New "in-game" camera angle in Level Editor. Tim also coded in support for more tiles such as the sand tiles and low cliffs. It's easier to see the new things if you compare this new image to the screenshot I posted in part 2:

Placeholder tile art by Heikki Repo


Kimmo and Tuomas have continued their work on patterns and bosses. Here's a screenshot of Zombie Jerry & a bunch of zombies duking it out with John Gore:


They're able to take more punishment than just 3 shots.
That's the reason for health bars.


There's a zombie boss version of pretty much everybody. Though we still gotta ask permissions for usage of few of the visiting guest stars such as Hook Champ & Enviro-Bear... actually it would be Zombie Enviro-Bear :)


Death to the Impostor Bear!



PS. If you have any friends who haven't tried Minigore yet it's currently available for free.

Also our latest co-production Death Rally is on sale for $0.99! It's the number one game in over 40 countries!

Huge thanks for everyone who have supported us!

Saturday, May 7, 2011

Making of Level Editor - Part 2

Latest news:

Tim is working on a smart system which selects correct pieces for the terrain. The user doesn't have to place each corner piece by hand and it saves a ton of time. It takes half a minute to create the following scene:

You can drag those cliffs with a few strokes
Placeholder tile artwork by Heikki Repo


Doing the level geometry is just one thing, but levels also need enemies. Kimmo has been working on a wave system which allows us to define various attack formations for enemies and spawn them anywhere on the level. If you have played Super Stardust HD on Playstation 3 you know exactly what I'm talking about.

This screenshot demonstrates the circle spawning pattern



Line spawning pattern and the new faster joker zombies



Box spawning pattern and a chest full of souls

That's just a simple example what can done with it. There's controls for size, enemy count, location, offset, victory conditions and everything can be combined to create a very complex chain of events.

What's unique about regular and fast zombies is that they can spawn in two different ways:

1. They can crawl out from the ground. (Slower method)
2. They can be dropped from above by the Master of Puppets (Faster method)

All other enemies are dropped from above by the Puppet Master.

Jussi or I'll do part 3 when something interesting happens... Stay tuned!

Monday, April 18, 2011

Making of Level Editor

We've been silent on Minigore blog for the last month. I've been busy with Death Rally promotion and Jussi has been on sick leave. Kimmo has his hands full with programming related tasks and handling the business side of things.

I have a moment to spare here so let's get you up to speed about what's going on:



On the programming side things are catching speed as the new programmers settle in and familiarize themselves with the code: Tuomas is working on enemy waves & boss characters - stuff that's related to the Zombies. Tim is working on the level editor and he's receiving plenty of help from the Cornfox guys.

The tile based level editor is something which started its life in early 2010. These were the first visual tests I did back then:

Wireframe


Textured Version


More visual tests from July of 2010. I recreated a town in 3d tiles from old SNES game called Lufia II. It's a similar tile system as in Minecraft. Most of the textures are from FF6:

Geometry

Textured Version

First screenshot of the actual level editor running on iPad. Visual target renders are more like a dream but working prototype is the first real step towards a faster content creation pipeline:



The problem with our current levels is that you need an artist and a programmer. With the new editor you don't have to be a programmer or artist to create something with it, it could be done by anyone who can use an iPad or iPhone.

The editor is gonna take a lot of effort to finish but once completed it could be the best thing to ever happen for Minigore!

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Minigore HD hits the top 10

Hi everybody!

I'm happy to announce that Minigore HD is in top 10 of the App Store games category, thanks for your support! Here's a pic:




And to clarify, we did submit both iPhone and iPad versions at the same time. iPad version of Episode 5 was approved yesterday. Unfortunately the iPhone version is taking longer time to be approved. We will continue to keep the iPhone version free until the update is out.

As for the future of Minigore: We're already working on the next update but we're not quite ready to reveal the features of that update.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Penguins, also on HD version!

NEWS (MARCH 2nd) - Bugs are fixed and the update has been submitted!




Greetings!

At first, we would like to apologize for the lengthy pause with the blog updates. Kimmo has been very busy showing our new programmers the game code and we are getting good results. If some of you remember, we used to talk a lot about merging the code base with the SD and HD versions (iPod/iPhone & iPad) back in the day. The new release will finally get the HD version of Minigore up to date. It's been a long time coming and I'm sure many of iPad owners can appreciate this! To clarify, this means every new update we do, will update both SD & HD versions simultaneously!


The newest build has been beta tested and is almost ready for submission.

The new version includes:

-Elder Gore AI partner: Grandma is helping Grandpa out
-Penguin Mob: new squad-based gameplay!
-Emperor Penguin: this bird is tough as nails
-3 more Encyclopedia pages

For the HD version it means the following features in addition to the aforementioned:
Undead Jenny, White Gangster Gore, totems, kills instead of "score", kill multipliers, encyclopedia, hearts as health indicators, all kinds of optimizations, remade snow level, Elder Gores and of course wifi co-op multiplayer! The multiplayer works even between an iPhone and iPad :)

Also, if you haven't seen the Death Rally trailer yet, check it out! It's coming next month and it's looking even better than in this video!


Thursday, January 27, 2011

Welcome to Hardland Store!

Hi everyone!

We've finished the Hardland Store! We wanted to provide the possibility to get Minigore related merchandise to the fans because some people told us they can't wake up properly unless John is glaring at them angrily. We are now officially in the coffee mug business, hehe. At first it seemed like a strange idea, but the mugs turned out to be great! The print quality is good and we are happy with the designs. For now, there's 2 mugs with different kinds of prints for sale, which we have ordered ourselves to see that the quality is adequate to the standards in everything we do. We will add more stuff as soon as we have the time. Here's a pic showing the mugs:


You can find the store here: www.cafepress.com/minigore

Thanks to Leandro for letting us use some of his character designs as a reference for the store banner art!

We shipped the Minigore Monster Constest 2010 prizes yesterday! The happy winners should receive their prizes within 2 weeks, probably during next week.

As Timo said, we hired a new full time programmer (also called Timo :D ) last week, and one part time programmer this week and Kimmo is helping them to settle down to our strange working environment.

Encyclopedia is getting more pages! Here's a preview:

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Contest Winners Announced!


Greetings from snowy Helsinki!

We decided to wrap the contest up and declare the winners. A bit over 750 votes were cast and the winner was quite obvious after a few days. The real battle was for the second and third places. We even had some extra excitement when somebody tried to alter the vote results by cheating. However, we managed to keep the contest fair by monitoring the votes and with the help of our active forum admins. Without a further due, I'll announce the winners now. *imagine the drama drums here* The Grand Prize winners for Minigore Monster Contest 2010 are.....


1st place: Granny Gore by Cédric Philippe!!
*insert applause here*
With his amazing finger painting skills, Mr. Philippe dominated the contest and earned himself a shiny new Wacom Intuos 4 M A5 Wide drawing tablet! I'm sure we will be seeing some extraordinary artwork from him in the future!

2nd place: Sasquatch by Philippe Crifo!
*insert applause here aswell*
iPod touch 8GB (4th generation) just found a new home! I bet Sasquatch is nice and calm now for a while.

Yeti trying to smash Sasquatch out of the contest!

3rd place: Yeti called "Billy" by Tan Ming Ken
*applause time again*
This bowling monster who doesn't get cold during winter earned his creator a John Gore coffee mug and a poster signed by Timo, Kimmo and Jussi!

Thanks everyone for being part of this awesome and so entertaining competition! The contest entries we had in the forums are being moved to a new art section on forums as soon as I get it done. I hope people keep on posting their art and being part of this awesome community!

I'd like the winners to send me a private message on the forums with their complete address so that we can send the prizes to their new owners!

If you didn't win anything this time, don't worry! We are planning a new competition to start sometime soon! Any suggestions for the theme?



PS. Please vote for Minigore in the Best App Ever Awards!
BestAppEver.com

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Minigore Monster Contest Finalists!

The moment you all have been waiting for is here! Here is the top 10 that made it to the finals! You may vote for your favourite(s) on the Forums. Everybody has 3 votes. You don't have to vote 3 different entries if you don't want to, however we wanted to leave this option if you have trouble deciding which entry to vote. Overall the contest was a great success and the level of the entries above any expectations. If by any chance you didn't make it to the finals, you shouldn't feel bad about it. We had trouble deciding which of the entries to pick to the finals, and had to leave out very well done pieces of art.

The descriptions for the entries were provided by the artists.

Enough talk! Get busy voting!

TOP 10

1. Cédric Philippe

Granny Gore
"You should never refuse a Grandma pie"










Encyclopedia
One day, when he was still an innocuous little kid, the poor young John Gore refused tasting one of her ever-asked clover pie, and she suddenly went insanely nut ! Since this fateful event, she almost disappeared from the common world. Very seldom, she could have been seen alone, at night, a bunch of clovers in her hand. Rare persons have also been claiming they had heard gloomy cries around midnight, nearby the graveyard…

Abilities

-Appears when a clover falls nearby her grave –to immediately catch it up- and haunts Hardland until you gun her down again.

-Pitilessly grabs any clover which crosses her path.
As soon as she gets three of them, she turns into a huge roaring grandma which trample over any living form, furries and yourself alike. You poor John Gore can only run away as long as she’s burning ! (the only means to lower her deadly headway is to hurt her)

-Runs away as soon as you wound her or when you’re on fire. And gosh, much faster than you !

-Heads for the graves at midnight and falls in gloomy cries for her lost beloved husband. You can gun her down NOW ! (about fifty bullets will do)

-Very seldom, she makes a delicious cake out of three clovers instead of mutate and shares it, which grants you a life up.

I also thought of something like when she sees a box, she catches the weapon and shoots at random, out of joy (mostly killing poor little furries), but I gave up the idea. No left clovers AND boxes for you is too much in my mind.

It seriously lacked some informations about Granny's pie. So here it is ! Granny cooks the pie and leaves it nearby, lurking around to see you, dear little John, tasting her present ! That's a touching moment where Granny looks pretty normal...

Now with all these furries hiding all around, it seems more of a vicious trap !

2. Kevin Barba

The Hunter




Encyclopedia
The Hunter is one of the richest and most private villains of all Hardland. His days are typically spent in the wilderness of the Amazon hunting rare and exotic animals. On this trip The hunter finds himself wanting the head of John Gore for killing the exotic Worm-Wolf and keeping it to himself. The Hunter has grown mad with jealousy and now finds himself hunting down John Gore. He trails John Gore through the hardland Forest tracking him down so that he can keep John as a trophy in his wilderness cabin along side other creatures that he has captured and killed.

Abilities

Hides behind rocks waiting for John gore to cross his path. When you spot The Hunter be sure to stay away long enough to collect a double barrel shotgun. This is the only weapon that can take him out. The Hunter can only come out once the 3rd Worm-Wolf has been killed.


3. Mike Groves

Juicebox




.......all things being equal, JUICEBOX is a fairly nice guy. The best way to get on his bad side is to harm any of the creatures that roam around his neighborhood. As it turns out, his strength and size is directly related to how many minions are dispatched in his general vicinity. The more baddies you whack on your way.......the harder this guy is gona be to take down (and the more pissed he's gonna be). Best to just take the long way around and avoid this situation all together.

4. Kevin Saunders

Flying undead spectral militant squirrels.




They live deep within the woods of the land of Minigore. They are known to stalk their victims from the tree tops and swoop down when least expected. Sometimes they also carry weapons, such as bombs made out of acorns and such, These creatures can be stopped by normal means... however since they are spectral and undead, they cannot be killed and will regenerate over a short period of time. It is just best to stay out of the deep woods.

5. Tan Ming Ken

Yeti monster "Billy"







Encyclopedia

Long long ago, a bowling master named Billy was obsessed about bowling. He was however never satisfied with the smoothness of his ball. No matter how much he polished his bowling balls, it was never enough for him. One day he had an idea to make a bowling ball out of ice; and knows the best kind of ice were the ones in the icy mountains. The villagers warned him of the dangers ahead, but he still decided to go on his journey, as something was clearly wrong in his head. He hiked for 3 days, and found some ice at the foot of the mountain. He began to carve, and finally made an ice bowling ball. Silly as it sounds, it did make some sense. He believed the ice at the top of the mountain must be the best. He continued hiking, and days went by. He never returned, and we all know why.

Abilities

-This Yeti Monster will hit over anything that moves with his snowballs. You are it's bowling pins that need to get out of the way.

-His snowball is able to eat up furries. The furries however do not die; they are freezed and preserved in the snowball untill the snowball explodes. And then all hell breakes loose.

-The only way to get to the Yeti monster is to destroy all the snowballs and furries as it acts as a barrier for the Yeti as well.

-You loose life by touching the Snowball or the Yeti monster.

6. Christian Gimber

Mr. Maguire




Mr. Maguire is a boss. He tends to the clovers and sows the seeds of new ones. He also guards them from abusers of their magic like John Gore. If the player leaves 3 or more clovers on the ground for too long, Mr Maguire shows up. He is protected by a huge fireball, but draws his power from the clovers. If you get rid of/use all the clovers, he loses his fire and is vulnerable to bullets.

7. Philippe Crifo

Sasquatch




Encyclopedia

Few are those who know that hundreds of Sasquatchs used to roam happily around the forests of Hardland. That was until the Furries appeared and started slaughtering them! Their instinct of survival forced them to become more aggressive toward other creatures, but it was too late, only a few managed to survive. Nowadays, they are believed instinct, but some say that a few may have survived...

Behavior

The Sasquatch used to be a very calm an peaceful creature. However, they became very nervous as a result of being slaughtered by hundreds. But as they are not violent creatures by instinct, Sasquatches will only attack if they get attacked first. For example, if John Gore or any other character appends to touch a Sasquatch, he would get hurt. BUT, if the manages to shoot the Sasquatch enough to make him mad, the Sasquatch would go on a killing spree, Slaughtering every Furry or any other enemies around him. As a result, the Sasquatch can be a dangerous foe as well as an useful ally.


8. Jimmy G Tan Jr.

Pyrobat






Ahh, the Pyrobat. Little darklings roaming the nights in search of their one true bliss: fire. Fire's warm. Fire's good. Fire's... strangely delicious (a tad too tart, but delectable).

Abilities

Their arrival is presented with smog coming from the incense burners the Pyrobats carry laying down a sort-of fog of war to your screen. Pyrobats come in packs of maybe three to five.

They swoop down for their primary prey: your torchlight. As soon as they've sated their fiery hunger, they move on to flaming furries (predator furries are too fast for them though). If left at it, these critters can put out all available fires in Hardland.

9. Leandro Aciar

EE-EE Barrel






Abilities

Chain Of Explosions:”throws a chain of monkeys ready to explode diagonally, horizontal, zig-zag and circular”
Pure Rage:”when defeated,EE-EE Barrel rushes at players for 1 last BOOM!”

Story

Deep in the jungles of HARDLAND lives a monkey with a obession for his favorite toy:"a barrel of monkeys"and one day DR.Metusalem went hunting with his igor and they laid their eyes on the marvelous monkey and monkeynapped it and begin to cross-fuse the 2 specimens creating the tall 20 ft monstrosity called:EE-EE Barrel!!! after that,DR.Metusalem left EE-EE BARREL in charge of his dark childhood domain...The Twisted Toy Shop!!!!

10. Anastazja Konczakowska

"Three Brothers"






They are three brothers living in the swamp. The biggest brother is carrying two other brothers on his head. He is the strongest and the most stupid of them. The middle one has the sharpest teeth and is carrying hammer. The smallest one is most dangerous because he can pretend bush.

First you have to kill the biggest brother and then you have to fight middle brother and after his death you have to face the smallest one fighting with the fork.

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Holiday break is over!

Kimmo and I were both on a holiday last week. Jussi was looking after the Sheep Mountain while we were away.

It's been exactly a year since I was on a holiday in another country. Compared to the dark and cold Finland I love the warm south. It's inspiring to get away for while and see some new scenery, and quite the scenery it has been! I snapped a ton of photos: (Btw. that's not Kimmo in the first photo)





In addition to photography we also went paragliding and surfing. They were awesome experiences!

Minigore related news: Three new encyclopedia pages are ready. One of them is the winner of voting: John Gore. The others shall remain surprises.

We've finally shortlisted the final 10 entries, the voting starts tomorrow!

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Contest Deadline Reached!

Hi everyone!

Minigore Monster Contest has reached it's deadline. We are currently trying to sort out the best 10 for the voting. There is about 200 participants in total and picking only 10 has proved to be a challenging task. We have been talking about the entries and for the most part we have also agreed which entries should make it to the final.

The voting will start Wednesday 12th of January and will take place on the Forums. For now we have decided everyone will get 3 votes (note that this might still change if we see a better way of doing this). So everyone who wants to vote also has to register on the Forums. 3 votes because otherwise some people would only vote for their own piece of art ;), and because I know it's going to be a tough choice which one to vote!

Anyway, I want to thank you all for participating in this. It was very enjoyable to see what kind of funny, strange creatures people came up with. I think I even fell of a chair once or twice because I laughed so hard. I also think this competition once again made the Minigore community a bit bigger and better place for all of us to be! I especially liked the way everyone was commenting, encouraging and criticizing each other in a good way!

Good Luck and Thank You!