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:
Wish us luck! Friday is when we pull the trigger on submitting to IGF and the Indie Game Challenge.
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.
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 
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!
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.
