Monthly Archives: July 2010

Slam Bolt Scrappers takes place in Slam Bolt City, but the world containing SBS includes several different environments. One of the discussions we had here at Fire Hose Games was, “How can we create an exciting world full of color that takes place in urban and non-city related environments?” The answer boiled down to identifying exactly which elements were affected by the chaos. Slam Bolt City is a world by itself, your kingdom, where things are influenced by outside events. The rest of the world is a battle ground for events that will tie into Slam Bolt City. This mindset allowed us to create some interesting 2D level concepts.

Below is a concept of Slam Bolt City that was designed alongside our other promotional piece – the Slam Bolt Scrappers wallpaper. It does a great job of using color to emphasize the different environments, hinting at the yet to be disclosed storyline.

We’ve also been putting a lot of thought into the scenery of tutorial levels. Many of the later stages have busy backgrounds that are not really conducive to tutorials. One idea we toyed with was creating a Tutorial Island isolated from the craziness of SBC. This concept shows our try at building a less chaotic environment that still captures the excitement of SBS through its colors.

Check out the full sized images in our Slam Bolt Scrappers gallery.

More to come soon…

(inspired by Bill Reed’s post over at the Demiurge Blog)

An Open Letter to Curt Schilling (because I don’t have his e-mail address)

Dear Curt,

Dude, seriously? You’re leaving Boston for Rhode Island? This city MADE YOU. Before coming to here you were just some pitcher from Arizona, a state best known for their iced tea and cacti. You’ve upgraded! When people think of Curt Shilling now they think of the Red Sox, Fenway franks, and maybe your new video game push. Hell, your studio mascot is even a green monster!

Boston is a great city! We’ve got a growing, vibrant dev community full of brilliant and generally balanced people who are experts at making awesome games. We’ve got some of the best universities around pumping out students who are basically free slave labor *wink wink*. And we have a higher burrito joint/game developer ratio than any city east of the Rockies.

And what did you even leave Boston for? A mere… 75 million dollars? WHAT? You can get that much for moving to Rhode Island? I didn’t realize….

Hey Rhode Island, wanna cut us a piece of that action? We’re ready to move tomorrow!

ps. 38 Studios guys who don’t feel like moving, perhaps it’s time you considered an exciting switch to indie game development? We’re always looking

Some of you may know that in a past life I worked on Immune Attack, a game that teaches immunology to high school students (be sure to check out the new version coming soon!). It was a great project and I loved working with the team on it. However, we had a lot of challenges in development regarding tradeoffs in how to present biologically accurate material and how to keep the game fun and engaging.

Enter CellCraft, an awesome game that is about cellular biology. The game is basically a microscopic RTS in which the player controls a single cell and has to perform the various actions real cells perform to defeat/survive bacterial and viral infections. What *I* find shocking is that:

• They didn’t dumb down any of the terminology in the game (one of the first instructions you get is to create a pseudopod (latin: fake foot, it’s how cells move around). Your fuel is ATP, your units are the organelles themselves, and as a result when you are done playing you know all the terms. Awesome!
• The behaviors taken by the cell are realistic too. At no point do you whip out lasers to kill bacteria, but you do get to go all pac-man-y on them and eat them.
• The game is legit fun! This is a huge accomplishment; when was the last time someone told you that biology is fun?

If you haven’t tried it yet, you really need to go play this game now. If you really like it you can even download it for free onto your computer. Hooray for government grants leading to free games!

One more thing worth noting is that there has recently been some controversy about the game concerning whether it endorses evolution or creationism. This is, of course, a bit ridiculous as the game has absolutely nothing to do with either and is concerned with cellular biology, but hey some people like to dig for meaning anywhere they can. I’m glad the controversy happened because it’s driven many more eyeballs to a highly deserving game (sure, it was for the wrong reason but who cares?). If you’re curious you can read about the developer’s thoughts here.

I don’t know what’s going on lately but it seems like Fire Hosers and Slam Bolt Scrappers have been popping up in the news all over the place. You probably already heard the good news about our impending release on the PlayStation Network, but in case you missed it here is a sampling of all the other fun stuff out there on the intarwebs!

The Dejobaan guys have a kick ass new website, Indie Superstar, and in their debut Indie Water Cooler features a ridiculous conversation between Andy Moore (Fantastic Contraption), Jeff Rosen (Humble Indie Bundle), and yours truly! Best Quote: “What you produce with your Indie status may very well be shitty, but it doesn’t make you less Indie. You’re just a Shitty Indie. “

Gamespy also has a kick as new column (apparently kick ass new things are a trend?) called the Indie Spotlight, and their first highlight is Slam Bolt Scrappers! Nathan Meunier’s article is fantastic and definitely worth a read. Best Quote: “Fire Hose Games’ debut puzzle brawler is soaked in awesome.“

James Bishop over at DIY Gamer wrote a well written and thought provoking article on a “less is more” philosophy where game developers are sometimes better served by trying to do one or two things well instead of spreading themselves too thin, and used Slam Bolt Scrappers as an example. Best Quote: “Simpler does not equate to worse in any way.”

Rodney Brown over at Mass High Tech put out a nice article on us getting picked up by Sony Online Entertainment, but was that picture of me really necessary?

Oh, and let’s not forget the E3 coverage! Josh Fernandes at PlayStation LifeStyle wrote a nice piece on us about his impressions. The Couch Athletics guys called us one of the 5 games you don’t want to miss from E3, and actually had us in company with Comic Jumper and Bionic Commando Rearmed 2! Wicked.

We’re super psyched that everyone likes our game, thanks for the press! If anyone out there is looking for info on us or our game please reach out to us, we’re happy to chew your ears off.

The good people at Boston Post Mortem will be reprising the PAX East panel, “Indies Will Shoot You in the Knees,” for the meeting coming up this Wednesday, July 14th starting 7PM at the Skellig in Waltham. Eitan, our Fire Chief, will be moderating the panel, so it’s sure to be an interesting night!

Here’s an excerpt from the BPM site:
“Everyone is talking about Indie games ”” titles like World of Goo, Braid, and AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! ”” A Reckless Disregard for Gravity are making press and making money. But they’re fighting against games with $200 million dollar budgets and 100+ person dev teams. How do Indies compete? Three Boston-based Indie developers will check their water-guns at the door and tell you why and how Indie games are kicking more ass, taking more names, and chewing more bubblegum than their AAA rivals. You will hear from the Ichiro Lambe (IGF Finalist Dejobaan Games, Aaaaa!), Scott Macmillan (Macguffin Games, All Heroes Die) and ex-Bungie AI wizard Damián Isla, founder of the new indie Moonshot Games. The panel will be moderated by Eitan Glinert, founder of Fire Hose Games.”