blog
02/07/08 - Interview-age...
Way of the Rodent interview/feature piece, thanks to OddBob.
[02/07/08-MattV]
09/03/08 - Pixeljunk Balf...
At the Indie Game Summit, which was the one of the best bits of the GDC I just attended, I saw a trailer for the next Pixeljunk game. Pixeljunk is an indie brand, or maybe it's closer to a sublabel, for game releases on the PSN by Japanese studio Q Games. The Pixeljunk games are simple 2D games focusing on gameplay, I've been playing Pixeljunk 1-2 (the games are number defined in a cool record label type way) Monsters this weekend and it's excellent. Q was founded by Dylan Cuthbert, alumnus of the now defunct UK studio Argonaut. He's most famous for programming Starfox and subsequent 3D Nintendo games. Anyway the trailer was for a game called Eden which looks very cool.
The game reminded me of the mechanics of a project I was working on right back when I started hermitgames, a game called Balf. It shares the same "choose angle to fire ball idea" although Balf was didn't have the cool organic stuff and was more about physics of the ball, which was what ultimately killed the project, I couldn't get it feeling right. Anyway I though now might be a good time to put up an old video of Balf:
[09/03/08-MattV]
08/03/08 - Fren-ze v003...
Just put up a new version of fren-ze: v003. Pretty much a bug fix version:
- too many triverts bug fix
- 30hz in fullscreen bug fix
- midboss energy bar dissapear bug fix
- enter/return works as select in menus
- improved and fixed level end summary
- move mouse pointer offscreen if fullscreen
Previous buyers should already have an email with the update, if not just contact me via email (matt @ hermitgames . com) or the forum and I'll sort it.
[08/03/08-MattV]
02/03/08 - Noitu Love 2 trailer...
Konjak has just released a new trailer of his mental 2D game Noitu Love 2. I got to play the game at GDC and it's crazy genius.
[02/03/08-MattV]
19/01/08 - Frenze screens...
Uploaded a new set of screenshots for frenze that show how the game (and demo) looks now. The old shots were from before the first release and so didn't have the improved bg effects and particles of the latest.
[19/01/08-MattV]
07/01/08 - New interview...
The Indiegames Weblog is the new version of Tim W's excellent indygames.blogspot page. This is the best indie news site on the web, more factual, comprehensive and faster than the also brilliant tigsource (which is more opinionated and feature-like). Tim has just posted a hermitgames interview too.
[07/01/08-MattV]
06/01/08 - Oh eight...
More games coming this year than last. I got: a cold, some fudge, a blender and a black eye (self inflicted) over the holiday. I have sorted out the blog archive and the links page. James is upgrading the forum. Back to Work.
[06/01/08-MattV]
16/12/07 - Monkey eats my memory...
So the development of Ooki has been bringing my computer to a crawl and I've just had to go and order another gig of RAM. My machine was running a little creaky on only 512mb anyway and while that'll be easily enough to run the final version of the game the development version contains all the game tools as well. It's a lot easier to manage the codebase if your level editor, audio editor and game are all the same project, plus it's mega convenient design wise to just press a key and jump into the editors immediately. Unfortunately it means a lot of the assets need to be uncompressed and ready to fiddle with all the time, hence the need for large amounts of RAM.
I expect it will arrive just after we submit our "judges" version, doh.
Here's a little glimpse of the audio editor, lots of buttons!
[16/12/07-MattV]
03/12/07 - Ooki Going to San Fran...
So we got into the IGF: http://www.igf.com/02finalists.html. Excellence in Audio! We're chuffed, need some time for it to sink in.
[03/12/07-MattV]
01/12/07 - Excellent stuff...
My friend the esteemed Zmoose has started writing a blog recently. Excellent musings on nationality, cooking sausages properly on all sides, Sumpy the cat, fruit machine technology and being a brilliant failed creative genius:
http://blameuncleclive.blogspot.com
I've just finished a major bit of work on the map screen for Ooki. Areas can now be unlocked and travelled to and generally explored. Back to coding the actual game bit now!
[01/12/07-MattV]
01/11/07 - Ooki interview...
Gamasutra have done an interview with me and Brian about our IGF entry OokiBloks. Here's an embed of the trailer if you've not clicked through to see it:
Right time for me to get back to the autumn games backlog, Everyday Shooter is next on my playlist.
[01/11/07-MattV]
19/10/07 - OokiBloks Teaser...
An OokiBloks teaser video is online: http://www.ookibloks.com/. This is not a new hermitgames game, OokiBloks is a collaboration between Studio Work3 and hermitgames, it's not my art or music, I'm providing the code.
[19/10/07-MattV]
09/08/07 - Version 002 online...
The new version 002 of fren-ze is online now. The demo has the changes as well as the full version, so you can see what's different by grabbing that, or you can read this:
- launch dialog
- joystick AND keys input at same time
- more resolutions
- new better bg effect
- new muzzle flash effect
- no pause at end of level 1 midboss on early kill
- colour tweaks to a few enemies
Previous buyers should have got their emails by now, if you've bought fren-ze and not got an email with the new version then let me know.
As ever if you like the game and can link it on forums and websites please do, but don't annoy anyone!
[09/08/07-MattV]
05/08/07 - New Fren-ze version...
If you check out the forum then you can try the beta of the next version of Fren-ze. There are some nice additions, better backgrounds and a clean launch dialog etc. We expect to put up the final on thursday, people who have already bought fren-ze will get a link to the new version emailed to them before it goes live to everyone else.
[05/08/07-MattV]
18/06/07 - new forum...
The talented Mr Norfolknchance has setup a much better forum for hermitgames which you can get to here. The old one had a bad spam problem and adverts all over the place, plus I didn't have any help moderating it. I'll update the main site links later.
[18/06/07-MattV]
13/06/07 - Fren-ze fave indie game...
Oddbob / Bob Fearon claims fren-ze as his current favourite indie game in the latest arecast interview. We are pleased. Graham: the next one will be less (and more) bullet hell.
[13/06/07-MattV]
12/06/07 - Raidien...
[12/06/07-MattV]
28/05/07 - Fixed files...
I've fixed several of the files linked off the site that were not working. Mariopac, troid and the redannick projects should now all be downloadable again, off the real hermit webspace rather than the odd pipex space I was using before. I cancelled my pipex account about 6 months ago now, I wonder how long those files were broken? Fingers crossed that the bandwidth holds up anyway.
[28/05/07-MattV]
11/05/07 - Three-Crapsy...
So my Xbox 360 has died, one year and five months old, which is probably about 107 in (useless, shoddily built) Xbox years. Now I have to spend £85 to get it repaired and, get this, I have to find a box to send it back in. Where am I going to get a cardboard box from? I'll have to go out to the supermarket and beg one or something, bloody Microsoft and your useless manufacturing quality. The Crackdown downloadable content is out today as well.
The upside is that I'll be spending my weekend coding rather than throwing skips about and driving cars up walls.
[11/05/07-MattV]
01/05/07 - Still working...
Thanks to everyone who's bought a copy of fren-ze or 'troid recently. Still working away on new games and updates to the current stuff. Something interesting (z*******m?, radien phaec?, gloworm?) should appear this summer.
[01/05/07-MattV]
07/02/07 - Enjoying It...
I'm really enjoying the home project I'm doing at the moment. It's all a bit undercover at the moment but we will be revealing the game soon. Coding is going very well, gfx and music wont be a problem with this one.
I want to plug the arsecast too. An excellent and funny indie game podcast.
[07/02/07-MattV]
31/01/07 - What's Happening...
It's been quiet recently eh? There has been some work going on behind the scenes. The next mashup game is coming along nicely. There's an entire game finished there but it's only one half of the mash, so I want to introduce more elements of the other game before release. I've been looking at retrofitting 'troid with some of the newer bits of code, stuff like different resolutions etc. I don't want to spend too long playing with old projects but I think it'd be nice if the game was a little more windows friendly.
Weirdly I read on another site that my next game will be Radien Phec, so I better get on and finish that eh?
[31/01/07-MattV]
