Posts tagged with “News”

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.

Yesterday Flower came out on PSN, the second title by thatgamecompany. The game looks absolutely beautiful, featuring some of the most stunning graphics I’ve ever seen with its fantastic grass/environment engine. In the game you control the wind and try to pick up flower petals in the breeze, and the experience is centered around relaxation and exploration more than fighting bad guys or beating levels. A highly innovative offering, I strongly recommend checking it out if you have a PS3, as does everyone else.

The game is especially interesting because it comes from a super talented team coming out of USC’s game pipe lab EA Game Innovation Lab. It’s something of a spiritual sequel to Cloud, a project that Jenova Chen and Kellee Santiago (among others) worked on while pursing their masters. Congrats on the amazing title guys!

Yeah Baby! AudiOdyssey hit the New York Times last week, making it to the big, fat Sunday edition. There was a section on 23 student innovators, and they felt a Wii Remote video game that is accessible to the blind is worth a shout. Apparently the article gained enough attention to even get a Kotaku hit. Pretty cool!

My first reaction was to suspect that they ran out of innovators around the 20 mark, but 23 is such a weird number that maybe that’s not the case? Or maybe the editors just like prime numbers and didn’t want to go all the way to 29? Who knows. What is nice is that the gaming accessibility movement gets more visibility, as it is a super important effort that not enough people know about. Want to learn more? Check out the IGDA accessbility SIG’s wiki, it’s full of great info and links to other smart people doing accessible gaming research.

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We’re live, baby! Welcome to the new Fire Hose home page, home of everything Fire Hose related. We’ll be blogging on a regular basis, and discussing many different topics including:

• Thoughts on new (and sometimes old) video games, especially ones that are innovative and try to shake things up
• Our opinion on games related research, developments, technology, and news, with a special focus on the independent and experiment scenes
• Progress and news about our games and projects
• Whatever the hell else we feel like talking about

So be sure to check back on a regular basis, or hit up our RSS feed on the left. Comments, feedback, and marriage proposals are also welcomed here – just click to add your $0.02 for the rest of the world to see.

Finally, we’d like to thank everyone who helped get us to where we are and make this site possible. Hit the jump for the full list.

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