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Showing posts with label minigore. Show all posts
Showing posts with label minigore. Show all posts

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!

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, 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.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Minigore Episode 4 Dev Diary

We know there's lots of eager fans who want to know what's happening with Episode 4. This gameplay video might shed some light on the current state of the update:

As you can see the zombies are working quite nicely, object collisions work properly and the level art is nearly final. Some sound effects are missing and the music is being worked on. Co-op multiplayer is not visible in the video but even that one is coming along nicely :)

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Episode 3.8 submitted


Episode 3.8 was submitted yesterday. It contains the following:

HD-certified graphics:
-The completely redone artwork brings you as close to the HD experience as you can get on iPhone and iPod touch!


Restore your kills based on OpenFeint achievements:
-If you reinstall the game or install it on another device, log on to OpenFeint and the game will automatically restore your kills based on your achievements. Note that the game cannot know the exact number of kills you had, just the kills it can award from your achievements.

Other improvements:
-Weapon recoil effects for all characters.
-Made it possible switch performance-intensive “3rd generation effects” (bullet shells and fence) on and off.

Visual comparison of Episode 3.7 and Episode 3.8:

Snow level making of

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Get your kills back based on your online achievements

Yesterday I replied to some people who suffered from data loss, had deleted the game and only reinstalled it after the new update was out. In this case the game has no way of knowing that you actually have suffered from data loss as there is no evidence (a save file) of it left.

We discussed what we could do about it and arrived at the same solution I hinted at in comments. Upon logging on to OpenFeint, the next update will check if you have an online achievement but no corresponding local achievement. If so, you will receive the cost of the character in kills. This ensures you get the correct amount of kills. You can then use those to unlock any characters you want.

Hopefully this will remedy the issue for the rest of you out there. We will look into restoring your local scores from OpenFeint in a later update. If you see any loopholes with the kill restoration scheme (being able to choose different characters than you did before does not count), please tell us in the comments. Cheers!

Saturday, April 17, 2010

3.7 fixed update is out

The new update with 100 000 extra kills and unlocked characters for those of you who posted their achievements online is now available. See the previous blog post for instructions.

NOTE: This update is able to grant you extra kills and unlock your characters if your game contains a save file from the buggy Episode 3.7 (v1.27). If you are updating from Episode 3.6 (v1.26) or earlier, your save file is from an earlier version. If you deleted Minigore and are installing the latest update from a clean slate, you don't have a save file at all. The extra kills and characters can be granted for anyone who experienced a data loss and has a save file from the buggy Episode 3.7 (v1.27) when updating to the latest version.

Mountain Sheep is grateful for your patience and wishes you happy gaming. We will be submitting a new graphics improvement update next week, so stay tuned!

Monday, April 12, 2010

The fix

The new update with a fix to the data loss bug and inability to save has begun its journey. Let us hope for a swift passage.

This is how we will thank you for your patience:

1. Anyone who suffered from data loss will be granted 100 000 free kills.
2. If you used OpenFeint, the next time you log on all the characters for which you had an achievement will be unlocked, as well as the next most expensive character you didn't yet have an achievement for (if any). For instance, if you have achievements for Jerry Gore and Zombieville Guy, you will get access to those two characters + the next character, Hook Champ, regardless of whether you had them unlocked previously or not.

We recognize this will not make it up for everyone (particularly those of you who don't go online), but hopefully it helps alleviate things at the very least. The bottom line is the update is on the way, so bare with us a little while longer!

Thursday, April 8, 2010

The save file bug

Sincere apologies on my behalf, as well. :( We, as not only developers but also fellow gamers, know how painful it is to lose your scores, kills and characters (though DLC characters you can always download for free) - something you've worked very hard to get. The fault was in build finalization process. We implemented anti-cheating measures a couple of episodes back which rely on matching version numbers. One of the version numbers was not updated and it caused the game to completely reject new save games. It pains me how small an error can cause such wide-spread havoc!

I just now finished coding a save file loader which takes a different approach to anti-cheating to make sure this cannot happen again. Also, now whenever there is trouble loading a save file, the game will not overwrite your save unless you specifically instruct it to. This means if the game is ever unable to load the save file, you will not lose progress and any bugs causing the failure can be remedied in an update without a loss of data.

I'll move on to unlocking the lost characters based on OpenFeint achievements now. Sorry guys! We'll make this up to you with even better updates.

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

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

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

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

Thursday, November 19, 2009

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...

Monday, November 16, 2009

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:


Saturday, September 26, 2009

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.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

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!

Monday, September 7, 2009

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!