Development Blog: T-Minus 4 Days to Contest Submissions
We’re still in crunch hell so no real post today, other than a few tantalizing tidbits of what’s to come in the following weeks:
- Unveiling of our game’s title! I promise it will contain the word “badger” at least 15 times.
- A video showing how we roll here at Fire Hose.
- The first images, teasers, and art from our game.
- Beer. Lots of it.
- Some sweet Halloween costumes.
Wish us luck! Friday is when we pull the trigger on submitting to IGF and the Indie Game Challenge.
October 27, 2009 | | Comments Off
Category: Development Blog
Tags: badger, beer, crunch, development, Halloween, igf, Indie Game Challenge, launch
Welcome to the Ridiculous World of Fire Hose
We know you’ve been anxiously awaiting a taste of what’s to come in the ridiculous world of Fire Hose….so, here’s a screen shot of one of our whiteboards with some very important tasks that we’ve been working on.
All we can share right now is that this has to do with our submission to the Indie Game Challenge, sponsored by SMU/Guildhall and GameStop. Fire Hose is about to enter (and conquer) a brand new world. Word.
More updates to follow soon.
October 21, 2009 | | Comments (1)
Category: Random
Tags: Denis Dyack, GameStop, graphics, Indie Game Challenge, Level 3, NeoGAF, SMU/Guildhall, tighten, velociraptors
Development Blog: Crunch Time at Fire Hose
As you probably already know, we make games. Specifically, we’re busting our ass making one game which we’re hoping to have out next year on XBLA, PSN, WiiWare, PC, or some combination thereof. That means we’re going to enter our game into the IGF and SMU/Guildhall competitions.
But both submission deadlines are only two weeks away (Halloween!), and we’ve still got a lot to do before we’re ready to submit! So we’ve entered crunch, that semi-hellish, always delirious period where we eat, sleep, and live in the office in an attempt to get everything squared away on time. It’s kind of annoying that we even need to do such a thing, but I suppose that the most successful endeavors always come with a lot of hard work.
Specifically, we’re cleaning up a lot of our animations, making our characters and menus look extra shiny, squashing bugs, and trying to create an awesome set of videos, trailers, and wallpapers for all of you who are eagerly anticipating finding out what the hell we’re up to. Keep checking in here over the next few weeks and we’ll finally announce our game! Also, if you live in the area and want to stop by our office with a care package of food, booze, or caffeine, it would be greatly appreciated 
October 19, 2009 | | Comments (1)
Category: Development Blog
Tags: competition, crunch, development, Guildhall, Halloween, igf, SMU
End to End Game Development
Nick Iuppa and Terry Borst have written a new book, End to End Game Development, to be published this December by Focal Press. The title provides comprehensive information on making a game, from top to bottom…er, end to end.
Do you recognize the cover image?
You guessed it…they’ve chosen a still from AudiOdyssey for the cover! It’s really exciting and a huge honor to be on the cover of this title!
You can pre-order the book on Amazon or through the publisher, Focal Press. Congratulations, guys!
October 15, 2009 | | Comments Off
Category: News
Tags: Amazon, audiodyssey, End to End Game Development, Focal Press, Nick Iuppa, Terry Borst
What We’re Playing: Auditorium
I like music games. Rock Band, Guitar Hero, the new DJ games, AudiOdyssey, if it is a music game I’m gonna play it. Auditorium is made by Cipher Prime and Will Stallwood, and is a fun new flash twist on a music game. Rather than being a traditional rhythm game in which you have to “play” (type) notes in order to hear a famous song, Auditorium is a fun puzzle game in which you have to push colored light into music boxes which then play a sort of repeating classical tune. It starts off fairly easy but gets pretty damn hard after a few levels, and most (if not all) of the levels are solvable in many, many ways.
Personally I think the game is great. The pseudo-classical music is nice, and the neon lights on black background aesthetic is quite compelling and enjoyable. I think that normally I would find such a complicated game frustrating but the music is so nice that I don’t mind spending huge amounts of time figuring out each puzzle. I also like how each music box plays a different instrument so you can hear each individually before combining them for the full song. My only gripe about the game is that once you do solve a level you don’t get to hear your composition for long, as the game almost immediately flows into the next stage. Having an option to keep listening for a while would be nice.
Normally we only feature games that are free in “What We’re Playing“, but Auditorium only has a free demo of a couple of levels (you have to pay for the full game). In this case we thought the game was good enough to mention it anyway.
October 12, 2009 | | Comments Off
Category: Games, What We're Playing
Tags: Auditorium, Cipher, classical, music, neon, Prime, puzzle, rhythm, Stallwood, Will
Words of Wisdom: Business Time
On Thursday I wound up spending the majority of the day at two business events – the MassTLC new technologies “unconference” and a panel at MIT on different ways to fundraise and bootstrap in a tough economy. Here’s a quick summary of the interesting things that were discussed!
MassTLC new technology “unconference”
This meeting was a gathering of entrepreneurs, business people, angels/venture capitalists, and just about anyone involved in creating and bringing new technologies to market. I went to a talk on how to raise money from angel investors which went over basic but useful information (know what you’re asking for, get an introduction, have a good story, have experience, find a champion for your cause at the angel group, and give it plenty of time because it’ll take 6 months). Afterwards I attended a talk on standing out from the crowd and capitalizing on your competitive advantages, and I basically got the impression that we need to stand up on our soapbox more and put together a more compelling story for people who want to learn about us. The most fun part of the day, though, was meeting with other entrepreneurs and angels. It’s interesting how different the video game market (and most media markets) are different from other tech ventures – whereas in other ventures you need to show how you’re better than the competition since the customer will only buy one product, in the games market you need to be “good enough” since most consumers will buy from multiple competitors. Really cool stuff!
MIT VMS panel on fundraising/bootstrapping in touch economic times
This panel was a lot of fun since I was speaking on it. I’ll save you the boring bits I spoke about and tell you about some of the cool stories the other guys on the panel told. Ryan Damico from Webnotes spoke about how he got his family and friends to buy into his company by giving them convertible notes, and how they’ve been racing to get customers for their still nascent application. Waseem Daher from Ksplice managed to raise a lot of money through various competitions like the MIT 100K (he won) and even got a European scholarship for development of a Linux version of his product. He ended up moving in to an apartment with his other 3 co-founders to save capital, and by being extremely thrifty they’re going to be able to go to market without investor funding. Awesome! Finally Bryan Schmid of Atlas Devices spoke about getting government contracts and how manufacturing physical hardware changes the game, and what you need to watch out for. All of us then fielded questions for about an hour covering a huge range of start up questions, all the way from how much stock to give advisors and employees to how to hire good employees to how to raise money from your family.
Ok, so not super video-gamey, but I think this stuff is neat to learn about. Don’t worry, next week we can get back to talking about how much Final Fantasy XIII is gonna suck.