Posts tagged with “Penny”

OK, I’m seriously pumped. It’s incredible how much of a roller coaster the past 24 hours have been. First the game goes up on PSN. Then BAM, the entire store is reskinned with a SBS theme. AMAZING. And then if that wasn’t enough, today Tycho let us post our story on Penny Arcade. I don’t even know what to say at this point, I’m totally floored at the support we’ve been getting.

So maybe I won’t say anything about the game, and will instead just say thanks to everyone! I hope you’re all enjoying playing Slam Bolt Scrappers as much as we enjoyed making the game.

For those of you new here to the website, welcome! Over the next few weeks I’ll be posting more information about how we created Slam Bolt Scrappers and the challenges we faced along the way, so if you’re aspiring to jump into the indie game dev biz this might be as good a place to start reading up as any. I also wrote a great post last year on last year’s PAX East panel about starting your own indie studio, maybe you’ll enjoy giving it a read.

We just got back from PAX, and the response was absolutely incredible. We got a mention on Penny Arcade, we were interviewed by Gamespot, we got a ton of press, and my panel on indie games went amazingly well. We couldn’t have asked for a better show.

However I need to take a step back and say that ALL of that pales in comparison to getting to spend three days on the showroom floor with real gamers playing Slam Bolt Scrappers for the first time. The PAX community is unbelievable; you guys came and literally attacked our game, and watching the gigantic smile on your face when you built up that 4×4 mega death laser of doom was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had. We saw parents and their young kids teaming up with young and old couples eager to take on giant robots and flying chicken riders, and I couldn’t even keep up with all the amazing feedback we were getting. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; PAX is my favorite show because of the fans.

So THANK YOU, everyone who came to good ol’ booth 3834 and played SBS this past weekend. If you’re here for the first time (and who am I kidding? You probably are) be sure to check back over the next few days, we’ll have daily posts with pictures from the show, video and art from the game, and of course slides from the talk I gave with Dylan, Robin, Andy, and Nathan. If you can’t wait and want to see pictures NOW then I highly recommend checking us out on the facebooks and the twitters, where a lot of this stuff is up already.

Man, I miss Seattle already! Can’t wait to see you in 6 months on our turf!

We’ve been kicking this question around the office for a while and are unable to come up with a satisfactory answer. Is Inspector Gadget a man or a machine?

There is ample evidence that Gadget is some sort of Cyborg with extensive implants; that would certainly explain the fact that his limbs all seem to function in mechanical ways at times and “normally” at other times. It also explains his demeanor and human personality.

But at what point does one stop being a Cyborg and become a full fledged robot? Gadget regularly has things pop out of his head (see above image), implying that his skull is storage space and indicating that he may in fact be a robot. An alternate theory is that he is entirely human and has some sort of advanced nano-robotic implants which construct (and then deconstruct) his gadgets upon verbal “Go Go” commands.

The rabbit hole goes pretty deep on this one; if Gadget isn’t human, what is his relationship to Penny? Is she actually his niece, or perhaps some sort of highly trained and competent caretaker? Evidence in the cartoon show would certainly support this theory. And what about Brain? Does he have some sort of neuro-stimulation of his own going on? How else could we explain his extraordinary intelligence as a K-9?

What do you think? Let us know where you stand on this in the comments!