Ever wonder what we think of Slam Bolt Scrappers? What we feel we did well, and where we think we goofed? Well, today is your lucky day! Last night I spoke at the monthly video game developer meet up here in Boston and gave a run down of what went well and what didn’t go well while we were making Slam Bolt Scrappers (what is called a post mortem in the vernacular), and it was really interesting!

In the talk I discuss how we messed up (tutorial problems, too chaotic), how we did well and got lucky (working with SOE, getting the game out early and often), and what was bittersweet (not putting in networked multiplayer, being especially innovative). If you are a SBS fan or interested in how games are made I highly suggest checking it out, it’s a fun watch!

Also, here are the slides if you want to check them out:

It’s been a long wait, but the PSN store is finally back online! SWEET! That means that you can get your two free games, check out a bunch of new content that updated during the outage, and most importantly, you can buy Slam Bolt Scrappers. Yes, life is good.

We know that a lot of people were bummed that they couldn’t get our game this past month, and of course we’re concerned that some former PSN store users my be apprehensive about coming back. To help sweeten the deal a bit beyond what Sony is already doing we’ve decided to drop the price of Slam Bolt Scrappers from $14.99 to $9.99. That’s means you can get a face full of four way multiplayer mayhem for 1/3 less than before. Pretty awesome, amiright?

So go grab Slam Bolt Scrappers in the PSN store now for the new low price of $9.99. If you like it tell your friends and get them to play it too! If you don’t like it tell your enemies and inflict it upon them.  Happy Scrapping!

By now you’ve probably noticed the PlayStation Network all over the news, it appears that the service was hacked and user information was compromised. It’s recently escalated to the point where somehow Sony is explaining the situation to Congress!

A lot of people have been asking us lately how the PSN outage impacts Fire Hose Games. Obviously it’s been a huge bummer for us as people can’t buy Slam Bolt Scrappers right now, and we hope the problem is resolved quickly! With any luck we’ll be able to get SBS involved in the Welcome Back program or something similar when the store comes back online.

It’s also important to remember not to blame Sony for this. Near as I can tell this was much more a product of competent hackers than incompetent security. Unfortunately this sort of thing does happen on a regular basis (remember back when Gawker got hacked?), and I think that Sony’s handling of the situation has been pretty decent so far. We also feel that Sony has been a good partner to work with, so we’re trying to keep things in perspective and keep our Zen.

In the meantime, while you’re waiting, those of you who were smart enough to download Slam Bolt Scrappers already can enjoy the awesome non-networked multiplayer in the comfort of your own homes.  I recommend surrounding yourself with friends, cursing each other and swearing vengeance after each match.

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.

A quick note: All of us at Fire Hose are really concerned about everyone caught up in the Japan disasters. Our thoughts go out to you, and we hope that our Japanese friends and fans are safe.

YESSSSS!!! Today is the day! After 2.5 years of love, Slam Bolt Scrappers is finally out today on the PlayStation Network! We’re ecstatic here at the office, and can’t wait for all of you to finally have the chance to experience first hand what we’ve put our heart and soul into.

If you’ve played the game before, and you probably have if you’re here, then please go check out the final version online, we’re really proud of it. If you haven’t then go check out the free demo on PSN and see what we’re all about. We know you’re going to love it.

Thanks to all the fans and people who made this game possible! Our full list of credits are after the jump.

People who made Slam Bolt Scrappers possible:

Sharat Bhat, Ethan Fenn, Jeff Ward, Jason Wiser, Jacques Pena, Nico Corrao, David Abfall, Dragan Grubesic, Alec Shobin, Eric Orr, Franco Galletta, Jeffrey Nickel, Abe Stein, Burak Besir, Evan Biela, Jonathan Buonocore, Ethan Fenn, Michael Heller, Alan Lenarcic, Jul Gi Kang, Allie Brownell, Zach Fand, James Lauerman, Duncan MacLeod, Sergio Miranda-Elmaleh, Anthony Novak, David Olsen, Brian Sojkowski, Matt “Dot Zeb” Zaborowski, Tovah Heller, David Nelson, Tiffany Otto, Caroline Himmelman, Jason Beene, Ron Carmel, Mike Cavaretta, Carol T. Chung, Justin Cooney, Dr. Ian Lane Davis, Vicky Wu Davis, Vincent Diamante, Mike Dornbrook, Rik Eberhardt, David Edery, Bill Elliott, Brent Fox, Thomas Garver, Elana, Ephraim, Rinat, and Keren Glinert, Lou Goldish, Elizabeth Irvine, Jamie Jones, Taksapaun Kittiakrastien, Eric Klopfer, Vivian Lam, Ichiro Lambe, Eric Malafeew, Roberta McCarthy, Ravi Mehta, Katie Morgan, Mohammad Musa, Tim Page, JB Parkes, Lydia and Herman Pena, Mike Rapa, Albert Reed, Trey Reyher, Eric Robinson, Jeff Rubenstien, Adam Saltsman, Tony Scelfo, Philip Tan, George Valavanis, Jacqueline Valdez, Nathan Vella, Sara Verrilli, Duncan Watt, K. Adam White, Morissa and Yaela Wiser, Kathrin Witt, and Jerry Wolosenko.

The following organizations helped us a lot too:

Boston Game Development Community, Boston Indies, Indiebiz and the rock star indies on it, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT Education Arcade, MIT Venture Mentoring Services, Penny Arcade Expo Boston Indies Showcase, Sony Computer Entertainment America LLC, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, Sony Online Entertainment LLC, Singapore MIT GAMBIT Game Lab, and of course everyone who played our game!

It has been a long and winding road but we’re happy to announce today that Slam Bolt Scrappers will be coming to the PlayStation®Network in March! YEESSSS!!!!

This is really, really huge for us. If you’ve been following us these past two years you know how much hard work we’ve put into this and how much fine tuning we’ve been doing. We’re super psyched that all the caffeine fueled late nights and open house beta testing craziness is finally paying off, and that you’ll be able to play the game soon.

Best part? The game is wicked fun. I mean, it is getting really, really good. We’re going to have a blast over the next few weeks revealing the new weapons, levels, heroes, baddies, and bosses. Be sure to keep checking back here regularly for updates, or better yet you can be a super fan and join our facebooks so you can talk to us and make us feel loved and special.

March is going to be AWESOME.

Remember when games were hard? No hand holding, no tutorials, just throw-you-in-the-mix-and-let-you-figure-it-out hard? TerRover, by Creat Studios, is a new game out on the PSN ($15) that is hard like that, and in an awesome way. You control a cute little tank, and your only goal in life is to navigate the level and get from start to finish. Of course your path is blocked by lots of sharp things that kill you, but luckily the game provides lots of save points so if you die you are only set back a little ways. And that’s great, cause you’re gonna die a LOT. The controls of the game are what’s really difficult though – you can flip around in all sorts of ways, and between that and the bouncy physics you are frequently surprised by where you end up.

Now I’ve seen some reviews online bashing the controls, but in my opinion they are totally looking at them the wrong way. The controls are hilarious, and you wind up having an awesome time messing around with them (remember, we loved QWOP). Sure, they can be frustrating at times, but if you go with the flow you will find yourself laughing and having fun a lot more than anything else. And when you do get over that challenge hump or past that insane spikey ball of death you have a great feeling of accomplishment.

However, the game has one stellar feature which far and away outshines everything else. The multiplayer race mode in which 1-4 friends can race together is FANTASTIC. I haven’t yelled, screamed, and laughed so much with my friends since WarioWare. The race is really amusing, with people dying left and right, respawning at odd points, and just general mayhem. This feature alone makes the game worth purchasing, and I *strongly* recommend playing this with friends. If you at all like party games and/or hard games, I promise you you’ll love this one.

Full Disclosure: We hung out with the Creat guys @ E3 in the SOE booth and they are local Boston indie devs, so we’re friends with them. That said this review is impartial and not influenced by that friendship.

This talk is awesome. I mean, really, really relevant stuff if you are an indie trying to get your game onto XBLA, PSN, WiiWare, or Steam. Dave Edery delivered a fantastic keynote at the Digital Distribution Summit in Australia on what indies can really expect to have to do to get their game accepted onto the Xbox Live Arcade, where the bar is an how it’s moving, and how to best hedge your bets and make sure that your game does as well as it possibly can.

Skip to 8 min in and then watch the entire video. It’s super business oriented but again, if you make games and are serious about making a living doing so then I would really recommend checking this out.

There aren’t that many statistics on WiiWare, PSN, and XBLA sales out there, and it is very hard to draw a straight comparison between the different platforms. Simon Carless gave a great talk at GDC where he summed up his findings on the state of sales, but we wanted something a little easier to read at a glance.

Enter Dave Nelson, our resident Sloanie (MIT MBA) who took the time to dig up some sales stats on all three platfroms. For good measure Dave threw in some figures on Steam and iPhone sales too, just for comparison’s sake. The work is great, so we thought we’d post it here. Great job Dave!

Full chart is available here, after the jump.

DISCLAIMER: We don’t promise these numbers are right, so take them with a grain of salt. If you want the real numbers go to the companies and ask them!