Graveyard news

Hey all!

We just started beta testing the next update of the game with Gangster Gore in a white suit, dual wielding shotguns. First version of Encyclopedia is included too.

This weeks blog post is about some polish on the future content: graveyard and the zombies. At the end of the post I will make a small Q/A -section from the questions I've picked from the comments and will try to shed some light on them. First here's some new screen shots from the zombie level. The chest you see on the pic is a "treasure chest" that will give you more kills. Also Timo changed the walls on the level shorter so that the enemies wouldn't get stuck behind them. Vlado used his magical programmer skills and shader technologies to make the blood look SUPER.

Questions and Answers:

Q1) What happened to the grenade ability that was going to be in ep 3?

A1) It didn't suite the gameplay fluently, so it became a grenade launcher instead.

Q2) What happened to Old Man Tackle?

A2) Timo says: Work in progress.

Q3) Why playing Sensei Evan leads to a message "Too skilled for leaderboards."?

A3) Currently we are going with a one leaderboard only and Sensei Evan is not balanced compared to other characters. Only a handful of people have managed to get Sensei and we think it would be a bit unfair for everyone if Sensei was the only character you could get to leaderboards with.

Q4) What's the point of the star system?

A4) At this point the stars are only showing the amount of time played with a character. There has been some ideas about how we could use the feature to make it more worthwhile to get full stars but for now we are not planning on implementing any of them. Personally I find this something that could be done after more important parts of the game are done.

Q5) What's the situation with the Ep 4?

A5) Getting there. Multiplayer needs more work. Next in line is a "revival mechanism" in Co-Op. No more exciting news, sorry. Kimmo is working on merging the iPhone/iPod version code of the game with the HD version code to make future implementing easier. Release date is NOT going to be November 2010. That's all there is to say about the release date for now.

Q6) Game Center support for older devices?

A6) Can't be done. Unfortunately it's not up to us (Mountain Sheep). Someone was hoping we could have OpenFeint working simultaneously with GC, but we are not going to go back to OF. This because it requires too much regular upkeeping from our part.

Poll. Patch talk...

Hey!

After the release of the Halloween Episode the feedback has been mainly positive, we are happy about this. The two new dlc contect achievements not working properly is going to be fixed in the next update. The black screen bug is also being looked into.

Anyways, here's a poll about Encyclopedia. The first three pages will be Minotaur, Elder Gore couple and Jenny Gore. We'd like your opinion about what's after them!? Here's the poll:

Minigore Halloween Episode is out!

It’s Halloween, everyone! Let’s see what we got in store for you this year!

- New playable character Undead Jenny who is as lethal as she is dead.

- New scoring system with multipliers.

- Minigore now fully supports Game Center and has removed Openfeint. Don't worry though, the new scoring mechanism will allow you to top the leaderboards once more!

- iPod Touch 4G support.

- Fixed flip screen bug on iPhone 4.

- Multiple graphical improvements, including muzzle flash for all weapons.

- Remade better looking snow level.

- Animated hearts as health indicators.

We've done some major changes in the game logic so if you have any issues please report them in the comments. Next version with the first three Minigore Encyclopedia pages is almost ready for beta testing, so testers be ready :)

Comic!

Hello!

As everyone is waiting for the update to get through Apple (including us), I decided to publish something you guys have never seen before. A sneak peek to Minigore Comic. Yes, that's right. We plan to add it to the game bit by bit, just like Encyclopedia. The purpose of this is to have a way to tell the story behind the game in a nice looking, clear way. Just like Encyclopedia, the Comic will be included in future updates, not as an in-app purchase.

Here's the cover:

As you can see, Tim Mcburnie has been working on the Comic. He's doing a fantastic job! Just in case you didn't know his work before this, here's a link to his website. Enjoy!

Tim Mcburnie: Portfolio

Halloween Episode submission!

Greetings!

It's again time for a weekly post. Got some good news for you! Here goes:

We have submitted the Halloween Episode.

Now it's really up to Apple if it will make it in time for Halloween but we have every reason to believe this would be the case. According to Apple they manage to review 87% of the updates withing a week. Even if Minigore falls in to that unfortunate 13% we still have about 6 days for them to get it done.

Many people were confused this being Episode 4, but It's not. If I have to give it an Episode number, I'd say it's like Episode 3.9x. This is what is included in this update:

-New playable character Undead Jenny Gore matching the Halloween spirit!

-Completely remade snow level.

-Kill multipliers, "kills" instead of "score".

-Gamecenter support.

-Retina Display support for iPod 4G.

-Various bug fixes (including the flip screen bug on iPhone 4).

Minigore HD for iPad will not get this update. We wish to update the HD version straight to Episode 4.

I hope you guys enjoy this version as much as I enjoyed testing it!

About Game Center being compatible only with the newer generation devices, we are aware of this. I'd like to be able to do something about it, but I really can't. We are following Apple's footsteps with supporting the newer gen and Game Center seems to be the way to go. It also works faster than OpenFeint. For the users of older devices, this is unfortunate.

Encyclopedia!

Hello everyone!

This weeks blog post is about a new feature called the Encyclopedia. It's going to be implemented to the current game bit by bit each update adding some more pages. It's a book-like illustration of the characters and the enemies in the game. It shows helpful stats (health, speed, strength, etc) and some information expanding the Minigore lore and universe. Here's a teaser sketch:

The grandpa is my favourite :). The final Encyclopedia is in colors.

For the past week we have been busy testing and fixing bugs found in the Halloween Episode beta. The current testing team is really active and analytic and I'm happy to be able to work with them to make Minigore a better experience. This is also why I wasn't able to write on blog yesterday, the "BUGgers" keep me busy ;D

Multiplayer is taking so long because the game was not originally designed for multiplayer and the code had to be almost completely redone. Timo wrote about this before and it hasn't changed.

Someone also asked my highscore in Minigore. It's hard to say really because I've mostly played the new version with the "kills" instead of the old score method. That said I did get around 3500 kills on insane difficulty with gangster gore and about 5500 with Sensei Evan on insane difficulty. I suck, I know. :D

Cheers.

Halloween Episode

Hey!

As the title says, we will call the next update the halloween episode. Some new features included:

New splash screen.

New start menu background:

And a gameplay screenie with some new stuff on it ;) However I'll let you guys guess what's new here! *BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!!*

EDIT: Removed the contact request, because it was no longer needed.