Tiny Colossus | Dev blog

The brain from Cortex Command in UFHO2

2012-01-23T03:31:00.000+01:00

Day four of our guest characters brings you none other than...

THE BRAIN
(from Cortex Command)

From DataRealms award-winning game in the making, Cortex Command, comes one of our weirdest guests. As the name implies, this is just a brain in a glass bowl. However, just as in Cortex Command this seemingly harmless body part is hooked to some technology that helps it move, and has the ability to mind-control other living beings.

STORY
There was once a great Gooy UFHO commander, who was so able in navigating mazes that he could single-handedly (as if he had hands) outsmart two or three opponents at a time. He was a brave one and always served the Gooy space fleet through all his life.
When he died, the scientists of the fleet developed a very advanced machine to keep his intelligence alive. Their goal was to preserve his navigational experience, to study it and use it from time to time to help the fleet in difficult moments.
The machine seems to have enhanced the brain mental abilities somehow, and scientists have mentioned that they feel like the brain is talking to them at times.

GAMEPLAY
The brain has developed strange ESP powers, so he can control the opponent once per turn. This means that he has 5 moves in total, and as a last move (only the last) he can move another character once. With this possibility, he can move opponents away from the gem, or make space for himself to move (though his turn is now finished).

He can also move a teammate if the game is a 2vs2 match, this way opening new strategic avenues for smart team-players...

I'm thrilled to have the brain from Cortex Command on board, thanks to Dan Tabár. As always with these external characters, they come from games that I deeply love and that influenced me somehow. I got the alpha of Cortex Command years ago and I'm looking forward to see it finished. Maybe we'll launch UFHO2 in the same period, who knows!

Don't forget to back UFHO2 on Kickstarter... Time is tight! Over.

The Tetrobot in UFHO2

2012-01-21T19:33:00.000+01:00

A new challenger appears from France, this time it's...

TETROBOT
(from Blocks That Matter)

From the minds of William David and Guillaume Martin of Swing Swing Submarine, the Tetrobot is the protagonist of the cute and difficult platform/puzzle game Blocks That Matter, for XBLIG and PC, Mac and Linux.
Redubbed "Hexabot" in UFHO2, as the other guests he'll be both a race (even though he's a robot) in the story and a selectable character in multiplayer.

STORY
Built by the Renegooys, the Hexabots are utility robots that help in cleaning and keeping tidy the UFHOs. They are not that sophisticated but they contain the basic algorithms to navigate the mazes of rooms and corridors UFHOs are made of, and get to another spot in the least time possible, for efficiency reasons.
When programmed to look for the Gem, they become difficult to overcome thanks to the elaborate calculations they do about the shortest path.
As if this wasn't enough, Hexabots are equipped with a frontal drill that they can use in case of emergency to pass from one room to the other when there's no other way.

GAMEPLAY
Hexabots are very good at finding the shortest path to Gems, but not as good at exploiting the characteristics of the different powerups.

Their specialty is that they can use the drill once per turn as if it was a normal move. This grants them the possibility to move from one room to the other even where there's no connection, at any time during their turn.
They cannot move through different areas this way though, as areas have reinforced walls that cannot be perforated by the Hexabot's compact drill.

I hope you like this last addition as I do, Blocks That Matter is a game I really appreciated and that kept me playing for a long time.
Until next time!

The Super Crate Box critters in UFHO2

2012-01-20T23:32:00.000+01:00

Another day, another new character. This time's the turn of...

THE CRITTERS
(from Super Crate Box)

The 'adorable' skull-shaped critters that swarm in Vlambeer's hit Super Crate Box will inhabit abandoned UFHOs (such as the crashed UFHO currently used for 2vs2, if you have played the game) and be selectable for multiplayer.

STORY
These creatures are little carnivorous predators that move in small packs, and they can be found in plains on different planets (it is said that they hide in spaceship's cargos, thus their presence in more than one ecosystem).
They are usually not dangerous for anybody bigger than a cat, as they only prey on very small animals. Nevertheless, these critters developed a love for the Gems and will go after them blindly when they see one.

GAMEPLAY
When met during the story, the critters will be quite peculiar: the player will face two of them at a time. This means that after the player's turn, each of them will have his own mini-turn.

They are so small that two of them can fit in one room, so they don't block each other. Being so small though, they have only 3 moves available to them.
Being primitive creatures, they don't conceive the use of powerups: in fact together with the Tremodillos, they are the only characters in UFHO that will not use powerups at all.

In multiplayer, the player will be able to use them but as for other races he will be limited to one. The critter will have 6 moves as usual, and one special perk: whenever the opponent gets a Gem, he becomes infuriated for one turn and gains two additional moves (only for that turn).

This is all for now, next one will come soon... in the meantime, keep supporting us on Kickstarter! :D

Commander Video in UFHO2

2012-01-19T15:53:00.000+01:00

As teased several times before in other posts, I said that several characters from other known indie games would make their appearance in UFHO2. Finally it's time to say the names, and the first is:

COMMANDER VIDEO
(from the BIT.TRIP series)

The first guest star, provided by the nice guys at Gaijin Games, is the black alien known as Commander Video, starring in the awesome BIT.TRIP series (I personally love BEAT and RUNNER). He will not be only one character, but an entire race of aliens in the UFHO2 universe.

You'll meet Commander Video during the later stages of the single-player campaign, and you'll be able to play as him in multiplayer matches. He'll be kinda powerful too, not without some downsides though.

STORY
The 'Commanders' are an ancient race of aliens, which was thought to be extinct long time ago. They were the first form of intelligent jellies, and all the jelly-like races in the universe are thought to descend from them.
There are also legends on how the blue Gems are actually an artifact created by Commanders, to encase and use the power of all the living things in the universe.

In recent times, traces of Commanders have been reported by an UFHO flying too close to a black hole, and getting sucked in. The Gooys on board reported via radio - before disappearing - about the casual encounter with a very dark friendly race, with one white glowing eye. They sad that even if they were black, these wordless creatures left a trail of coloured spots as they moved, as if they were made of the matter of every living jelly being.

GAMEPLAY
When compared to the other races in the UFHO universe, Commanders are very quick and smart.

In fact, they can move 7 times during a turn (vs. the 6 moves of most other races). Unfortunately, being not used to modern mechanisms, rotating an area costs to them 3 moves instead of 2.

When talking about powerups they make very good use of them, and their increased move count allows them to use expensive powerups and still have some moves to spend to complete their strategy. This makes them very complicated opponents to overcome, although trapping them in the wrong area can slow the Commanders down considerably.

Just for the record, some time ago a character (a Jeevil) from UFHO appeared in BIT.TRIP Runner, although he was quite hidden. Here's the proof!

We hope you enjoyed this small surprise! Keep following these updates because Commander Video is not the only guest character, there's still 3 more to go! Can you guess from which games?

UFHO2 on Kickstarter

2011-12-15T12:29:00.001+01:00

After a couple of months of preparations, UFHO2 has been put on Kickstarter to raise funds for its development. For those who don't know what Kickstarter is, or similar sites like it, it is a relatively new way of doing fundraising. People discover project they like, they pledge money to make the project a reality, and if the needed amount is met by the deadline, the project creator gets the money.

In return, people who donate get a bunch of rewards for their early help.

For UFHO2, the plan is quite simple: raise the money by february next year, develop the game in 5-6 months, and then reward everybody! (some rewards may come earlier)

As an example of rewards, pledging 10$ (it's like, less the amount of money you spend on a night out) you will get a digital download of the game for both PC and Mac + a big thanks on the game's website with your name under "People who made it possible". For 20$ you get the soundtrack too, and a hand-written postcard to thank you for the effort. From 30$ and up we start with the physical goodies: in random order, a t-shirt, the physical copy of the game and soundtrack, stickers, badges, posters, up to a hand-painted Xbox 360 controller, or some other cool stuff.

So, if you like the game and you feel like helping us, this is the way to go:

Alternatively, speak about the campaign to friends who could like it, and share it into social networks and similar.

Also, stay tuned because we will be releasing updates to the campaign, with surprises to come!

Let's make this happen!

Back into active development

2011-09-12T00:02:00.000+02:00

After another long pause in updating the blog because nothing really worth in my developer life was going on, I decided this tiring wait has to end.
I have been doing a lot on the events side this last year: I've attended the Global Game Jam in january, been to the Netherlands in february to visit the Dutch Game Garden, NHTV, Vlambeer, Ronimo, etc., took part in the Lunarcade Factory jam, went to Napoli for the Brave New Game award in march, been to the No More Sweden 2011 in Stockholm in august, and at the GDC Europe '11 as a volunteer. Apart from the three small games I made at the game jams, I posted no update on UFHO2 because, simply, there was none.

I am now organizing to resume working on UFHO2 100% of the time and finally see it finished. In fact, I already resumed the work on the graphics as you can see from the opening screenshot.
The full details on how the reboot will happen will be revealed soon enough. Stay tuned!

Vlambeer interviews

2011-04-28T10:28:00.001+02:00

I went to the Netherlands some time ago, and I visited the Dutch Game Garden in Utrecht, which is super cool and interesting for game startups. Apart from a general tour of the structure given to me by Viktor Wijnen and Jan-Pieter van Seventer (the directors), I had the chance to meet a couple of developers that have their offices hosted by the DGG.

As a result, here's a little-big interview I posted on Indievault.it with the guys of Vlambeer, Jan Willem Nijman and Rami Ismail (in english with italian subtitles):

Oh, wait wait wait... first read this blog post to understand the stupid jokes in the videos.

Part 1

Part 2

Coming soon, an interview to Jasper Koning of Ronimo which I took the same day...

Bledge is complete!

2011-04-24T16:36:00.000+02:00

The first LUNARCADE Factory event (read "game jam") is over, and so is the game I made for it. Actually I went a bit over the limit, and the night I completed the game I stayed up until 5 AM just to put a final word on it. It didn't come out too bad, to be honest!

The music is from the always good Francesco D'Andrea.

Bledge is in fact ready and downloadable from the event website! You can play it on the web (it's a Flash game after all), or download it for PC or Mac (the Mac one has a cool icon :P).

(click on the images to see them bigger!)

Oh, and check the other games too! There were a total of 11 entries, which is not bad at all considered the "localized" soul of the event. It was an exciting experience all in all, and cool to interact from home with the guys at the jam.
Try also Cathode Rays, Codardo Bastardo, Line Avalanche, Sky Limit (by Santa Ragione themselves), SPIIIIILIIIIINE... to name a few... well do something, try them all! :)

Bledge and the LUNARCADE

2011-04-16T23:12:00.001+02:00

I want to give you a preview of a small game I'm creating for the LUNARCADE game jam that is going on these days in Milan, organized by the always active guys of Santa Ragione and Cranio Creations.
The theme of the jam is LINEE ("lines") and, unlike other jams, people had the opportunity to participate from home. Since I didn't want to go all the way to Milan -> €€€ (although now that I see the streaming I really wish I had gone) I decided to take part from here in Madrid.

Bledge is basically a two player oblique Snake game, where each player has to guide a small spaceship and make the other one crash on his trail (tail?). Trails are made of three colors, variations in brightness of the same hue, and there's a reason for this: the tricky part is that the other player crashes only if he crosses the trail on its dark side, otherwise he just passes over it.
Each player can always pass over (and overwrite) his own trail, so he doesn't really need to bother about it (this is different from all the other Snake/Tron games).

Apart from that there's two "special moves" to spice the game and create a bit of strategy: one is a boost that lets a player cover two tiles in one move, and the other is a spin of his spaceship which inverts the orientation of his trail (say, if the black side was on top now it's facing down), so he can trap the opponent.
The special moves cost energy which can be gathered by picking up some powerups on the stage.
Simple as that.

Let's see if I can finish the game by tomorrow at a decent hour, the guys at the jam will put it there to be played by all the bystanders if I make it in time. I'm so slow! :D

Some links for the jam:
The threads for the jam on TIGsource and Indievault.it (There's 19 concepts so far!! Although not all will be brought to completion...).
The live feed of the jam (when it's on, don't forget it's italian hours, so GMT+1). There's also a chat, although we usually dwell in the Indievault chat.

Global Game Jam 2011

2011-02-04T02:23:00.001+01:00

Recently I found this nice blog post from William Dyce about the Global Game Jam. The lessons he claims to have learned are really useful, and it was nice of him to share them.

I will instead just post a recap and some impressions on the whole event. With photos.

Last week I went back to Verona, Italy (from Spain where I am at the moment) to attend the Global Game Jam 2011. I could have done it here, since there was a venue at the Universidad Complutense, but the occasion in Verona was much too interesting to lose it.

The fact is that Federico Fasce of Urustar is reorganizing the italian chapter of the IGDA, and he scheduled a meeting just before the GGJ, thanks to the University of Verona that granted a conference room.

The meeting was nice although a bit confused (some people didn't really know what the IGDA chapter was about), and it was followed by some really cool speeches by people such as Federico himself, Paolo Pedercini of Molleindustria (in video form), the guys from Vae Victis, the guys from Darkwave Games, Paolo Tajè of BloodyMonkey, Bernardo Antonioni of Activision, Francesco Banterle, Vincenzo Lettera of Indievault, and many others.

Paolo Pedercini's video, much discussed, was nonetheless very interesting. Most of all, I felt it was a very sincere contribution from Paolo to the meeting. This is the video (in italian):

Matteo Bittanti, a videogame scholar, translated the video for the ones who are interested (although seeing the video has an entirely different effect).

After the meeting/conference, we had the Global Game Jam (starting friday in the afternoon). After some confusion in group creation, I ended up with the aforementioned Paolo Tajè and the two guys from Santa Ragione (the creators of Fotonica), Pietro Righi Riva and Nicolò Tedeschi. I happened to join them almost by chance, but honestly, it couldn't have been better.

For one, I didn't have to program: Paolo and Pietro handled all the coding work with Unity (cool, my first non-Flash game!). They did a good job, the game as it was presented at the end of the jam didn't have any serious bug.

The Game Jam was an extraordinary experience. The atmosphere in the corridors, despite the people being destroyed by the 48h effort, was tangible. Everybody worked really hard, and the quality of the games in the end was generally high. There were cool ideas such as in "Survival Jam", a game that used flocking algorithms to simulate some predator-prey relationships. Cool.
Worth mentioning were also "The Last Birthday on Earth" by Urustar and Leonardo Amigoni, which used the microphone to blow out candles on a cake, and "Happy End", which used both webcam and microphone for interaction.

For our game, we came up with a simple idea in terms of gameplay, but we really faced no limits in coming up with the theme of the game. The premise is that some crazy priests are trying to take control of the Earth and perform some birth-increasing actions, like impeding people from using contraceptives, producing holes in condoms and stuff like that. On the other side, the gay people (called "Joy Empire" in our game because of some image that Paolo found) from outer space are trying to convert the cities to their cause.

The title of the game is "Clergymen from Inside the Earth VS the Joy Empire from Hotter Space".

The game is a one-button two-players game, and the only purpose of the controls is to fire.

Both sides fire with a cannon (the priests from the center of the Earth, the Joy Empire from a satellite orbiting around the planet) to the cities, and they are always aiming to the same point at the same time, so sometimes the projectiles may arrive together to the desired city. When this happens, the game enters a very short button-mashing minigame to resolve the tie.

When the priests conquer a city, the population goes up. Viceversa for the Joy Empire.

You can download the game from the GGJ website here.

Being the theme of the jam "Extinction", I liked the idea that if the priests won the struggle, humanity would become extinct because of overpopulation. At the same time, if the gay side wins, humanity becomes extinct because no one is left on the planet.

This way, the only way for humans to survive is actually to have the players still play, but this - alas - doesn't happen for very long.

A very personal side note: I always felt "Clergymen" has no real social critique intent, the introduction of priests and gays was a product of our wicked minds and of the fast brainstorming made at the beginning of the jam, and we took the images in the game to the extreme just for the sake of fun. If anybody is offended by the game, I apologize, but really nothing was meant to be a judgement on clergymen or gay people.

This time, it's just a game :D

There is so much more to say about the game jam and the meeting... in the meantime, you can take a look at the photos here.

Enjoy folks, and viva la Global Game Jam!

Stickers and minicards

2010-11-27T23:34:00.000+01:00

Finally, the stickers are here!

Click for a bigger image

As before with the minicards, I ordered them on Moo.com. The print quality turned out great as always, even though the guys at Moo managed to cut out a very small part of the 'y' letter. I am sure I followed the guide files they provide though!...
Well, not too bad. The stickers are still very nice and the text is readable enough, considered their small size.

A sample of the music for UFHO2

2010-11-17T00:29:00.001+01:00

Hey guys, Francesco here.
Being unable to show you some progress on the gameplay, Ciro handed the proverbial "hot potato" to me, so here I am to give you something about the game.
This is a sneak peek on the UFHO2 soundtrack, taken directly from my Bandcamp page. They're just a few tracks, however I think they're enough to get what the overall groove and ambience may sound like in the final game.

The first two are actual game level songs. The third one, Nice to Bit You, is UFHO2's main theme. The final one has been used on the trailer for Space Academy.

Tell us what do you think about them in the comments!

Ticketless is live!

2010-08-15T12:49:00.001+02:00

Even if this blog may seem only UFHO-related, actually it's about all things Tiny Colossus. So here I am, to present you our latest game: Ticketless!

Actually it went live one week ago, but since I've had quite a few adventures and a new life in the meantime, I didn't have the time to post it here. Ok, I'm also very lazy.
So, here's the game on the sponsor's website:
http://www.gimme5games.com/play-game/ticketless

Or on the classic portals that we all love, if for any reason you want to play it there:
http://www.kongregate.com/games/TinyColossus/ticketless
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/545295

The game is very simple, and instructions are provided. Even if the game was intended as an experiment to test the FlashGameLicense platform (thanks guys!) and Flixel, feel free to give us any feedback you want, even if harsh, we would appreciate it!

UFHO2 at the No More Sweden 2010

2010-07-22T17:49:00.000+02:00

After rumors of my presentation being lost because the streaming was interrupted (with cries of people from Italy calling for an international scandal), it turns out that someone really captured my presentation (and others) on tape. I guess I have to thank Jeb from Oxeye Games!

Here we go:

No More Sweden 2010

2010-07-16T15:16:00.001+02:00

After much toil, the No More Sweden 2010 game jam has come and gone. It was a wonderful experience for me, personally, for I have seen the whole trip somehow like an adventurous journey (fantasy helps making things better). The fact is that it's a long way from here (in Rome) to Skövde, but it was surely worth it.

Skovde university

Cutting away all the unnecessary and personal details of my experience in Sweden, I found a lot of cool people both at the jam and out of it.

Erik Svedäng, which invited me in the first place, and Daniel Kaplan (head of Ludosity and co-organizer of the jam) were both very supportive to me, and offered help for housing and such in more than one occasion. Help that was not needed, fortunately.

Daniel Kaplan of Ludosity

Another cool guy is Daniel Remar, which ultimately won the jam too thanks to a very crazy game (aided, to be honest, by the funny theme made by Erik Sjöstrand).

Niklas Akerblad

Speaking of game making, I had the pleasure of working with Niklas Åkerblad, which is the bearded guy that made the music and art of Erik's game Kometen. He's a very talented painter just taking a look at games to see if it's worth it, but mainly he's a funny guy and a good co-worker. He even gave a very cool speech (in my opinion at least) about art in general, and its relation to games.

On to the jam then. The rules were that on the first day, everybody had to suggest some themes and write them down on a piece of paper to be put in a bowl. After that, each team picked up 3 themes and started making games.

Our themes were initially "Window-licker", "Idiot" and "Co-op". We felt like the first two were almost overlapped, so we traded "Idiot" with the Erik Sjöstrand team, getting in return the word "Mus" (mouse, in swedish).

Niklas working on the graphics of our game

After a bit of brainstorming, the idea for our game, later called Rowtard, was to do a navigation game in which there's to retarded guys on a boat trying to save mice from drowning (because the mice are their best friend, you know). They have to work together, because each one of them has one oar.

After some time, the wind will go up and the sail fills, and the retards have to take turns on the rudder and ropes. There should have been also a random disability that showed up affecting both players, making the game less controllable and more difficult, although hopefully more fun.

Actually, not much of this worked at the end of the jam, as I incurred in some very bad math obstacles (very bad for me, being a mediocre programmer), but trying to put it all together certainly was a good experience. Also, Niklas was not mad at me for not finishing the game in time. He surely understood the spirit of the jam.

I had also the chance to present UFHO to the developers there. It was very nice to show my work in front of such an audience! Unfortunately, the cam for the streaming was out so I wasn't recorded... I hope they have a backup registration, as I've heard...

Assorted Swedish devs

All in all, the whole trip was a refreshing experience because the guys were all very akin to my thinking. All cool guys with a passion, ready to jump with all their clothes into the realm of perilous game development. And they were nice too, not the average nerd that people expect :)

Among the others, I had the chance to meet my drawing idol Niklas Jansson, Dan Tabar (which is a very kind guy), Bernie Schulenburg (Die Gute Fabrik), Gualtiero Tabacchi, Kian Bashiri (the man who has asked us to burn the rope...), Martin Jonasson, Jonatan Söderström (also known as the Cactus, a guy who likes to tease me), Petri Purho, Michael Todd, and a host of other guys...

I have also made some funny interviews to all the participants, they will be edited together and put on Youtube as soon as possible! (read, next week)

We're on IndieDB too

2010-06-22T18:16:00.000+02:00

What to say, another good thing for indie devs! ModDB, the site dedicated to mods and one-man-band games, felt it was necessary to create a whole new place for indie developers around the world. The name says it all, IndieDB. We as Tiny Colossus couldn't miss the appointment, so we jumped in the DB.
Tiny Colossus' page is here: http://www.indiedb.com/company/tiny-colossus
UFHO: Space Academy page is here: http://www.indiedb.com/games/ufho-space-academy

By the way, they also have the group for the italian indie game portal, IndieVault.it. If you happen to be italian and indie at the same time, and you're reading this, head for this page immediately :)
http://www.indiedb.com/groups/indievault

It's all for today. I know, only links... next time it will be better.

E3 and stuff

2010-06-17T00:37:00.000+02:00

They say we are indie game developers, and this is unquestionably true, for the most common definition of 'indie' revolves around the money available to the developer, and that money surely isn't here.
With this cleared, I feel the need to spend two words on the big game fair that is the E3, taking place in Los Angeles in these very days.
I think some indie game blogs have chosen not to speak about it, like some form of silent acknowledgement of distance from the mainstream scene. I don't share this line of thought: after all, they are games all the same, their players are driven by the same instincts to play, and most of all, a lot of the indie reality is interwined with the big industries, from the tools we use, to the digital delivery platforms, and so on.

On to the thoughts... First of all, as a Nintendo fanboy I greatly appreciated its conference, especially after thinking about it a little. They showed that they cared about the players by listening to the complaints that were raised at last year's E3. I'm talking about the big deal of core games versus the small presence of casual games. While the last year's situation didn't bother me so much, I felt embarassed now and then by the sheer amount of shovelware that was presented by the infamous Cammie Dunaway, PR of Nintendo of America. She symbolized, for me, the failure of the Wii console as a gaming platform and the terrible perspective of a market dominated by waggle titles.

Thankfully, while still winking to the casual audience, Nintendo also showed a lot of remarkable titles for gamers. I'm only sad for Zelda, the motion controls are very cool, but the series already needed a reboot in gameplay, puzzles, dungeons structures, and story. I fear all of this will be left the same, compared to Twilight Princess and Ocarina of Time. Too bad.

What to say of the other two console holders. Both of them seem just late on the motion band wagon, with Sony clearly mimicking the Wiimote and Nunchuck setup with its Move peripheral, and Microsoft letting people down with the allegiances of its Kinect not really working at all (proved by some actor pretending to play Kinect games on stage).

What does this all have to do with us, poor indies? I bet in some years we are going to work on motion control or 3D titles in our comfy bedrooms or basements, so the conference offered us a glimpse into the future.
I don't know if those technologies will be available for us soon. I hope they will eventually, so that indie development could have the same 'horsepower' in controls like the mainstream titles. What could a wiimote do in the prolific (and free from the main market) hands of an indie dev studio?
Truth to be told, this year we already saw something unexpected even 10 months ago happening: every major engine developer released its free version, with Crytek to follow soon. This is absolutely outstanding and a HUGE opportunity for people looking to create 3D titles on par with the AAA ones (not in scope, but in quality). Who knows when an indie console (I'm not talking about the Wiz for now) will be available for all to create their games on, together with all the cool features (controllers, connectivity, ...) these things sport.

UFHO in BIT.TRIP Runner!

2010-06-01T11:03:00.001+02:00

I found it! It took me a lot of time because it's very hidden and more concealed than the other pixel art, but at last... it's actually everywhere!

Check it out, in the lower left corner of the screen (the purple pink jelly, on the wall in the underground).

(Click for higher res)

By the way, this game is totally awesome. I was not convinced at first, I thought it was something like a Canabalt clone. (we are doing a 'runner' game ourselves...) IT.IS.NOT. It's a wonderfully constructed game, with an appealing soundtrack. It's actually the most melodic of all the BIT.TRIP games, and for me, the best of the lot.
I hope the quality of its two sequels will be as high as this one, or I'll be disappointed!! [insert emoticon shaking its fist]

UFHO in BIT.TRIP Runner?

2010-05-26T12:45:00.002+02:00

Some time ago, the cool guys at Gaijin Games proposed to the readers of their blog to create some pixel art to include in their latest game, BIT.TRIP Runner. I managed to sneak in a piece at the last second (last hour actually), and being without inspiration, I drew some UFHO characters in pixel art style.

That night Alex Neuse of Gaijin replied to me telling the characters were very cool, but I never figured out if they decided to include them or not.
It turns out that they did! They revealed the art that made into the game, and a Jeevil has sneaked in as a graffiti in the urban level of Runner!

Here's the full image that I sent to Gaijin Games with all the other discarded characters, 1x size. It's a shame for the Tremodillo (the yellow one)..

(Click for a larger size image)

Memory management in Flash

2010-05-18T18:55:00.001+02:00

Ah, the joy of the first tech post in this blog! Don't worry, it will be a quick one, and easy too. This post speaks about memory management, some issues that I had in UFHO with memory and persistency of objects, and the conclusions.

Introduction
In every programming language, there's an entity called garbage collector which handles memory and frees it from unused variables. Now, everyone knows that, in Flash, there's no manual garbage collection. That is, you can't say to the player "Hey Flash Player, I'm done with this object, release it from memory"... no way! Everything is automated, which is cool at the beginning.
What the player does is to check periodically for objects that have no references, and remove them from memory. What is a reference? It can be a couple of things. Let's see:

private function getGlobalPosition(_clip:DisplayObject):Point
{
  var theGlobalPoint:Point = new Point(_clip.x, _clip.y);
  return _clip.localToGlobal(theGlobalPoint);
}

The point of this simple function is to get the global coordinates of an object passed as a parameter.
The Point object created inside the function has a reference pointing to it as long as Flash is still executing the code inside the function. As soon as the function exits, the Point object is marked as eligible for the garbage collector, because there's no more references to it (so it's, in some way, unuseful). At the next pass of the garbage collector, it will be released from memory.

The Display List

Another way of keeping an object in memory, is to add it to the Display List. Example:

function createEmptyClip():void
{
  var theClip:MovieClip = new MovieClip();
  stage.addChild(theClip);
}

Compared to the example above, even if the function has ended, the MovieClip created here will not be released from memory until we call a removeChild on it. That's because, otherwise, the object would disappear as soon as the function has finished its tasks.

Islands

Objects can have many references, and the Flash Player keeps track of them all and moreover, it keeps track of their number. When an object has 0 references, it is garbage collected. There's another way to have an object collected though, and it is to leave 0 references for the object that references to it (its parent). For example, if you create a MovieClip and then add a child inside it, when you remove the parent clip from the display list, both are eligible for garbage collection.
This is called sometimes an 'island', because the isolated movieclips, while still connected together, are cut away from the mainland... the mainland being the stage (for the graphics) or the document class (for classic references). If a group of object is not added to the display list or doesn't have any reference to the document class, they are removed from memory.

Event Listeners

This, is the tricky part, and where I met problems in making UFHO.
The basis of event management, the addEventListener function, is a mischevious one. After adding a listener to an object, even if you remove that object from the stage and delete all references to it, it will still be kept in memory because a listener is still... listening for something. Even if it can't be clicked (MouseEvent), it may still do something like send ENTER_FRAME events.

Bottom line

That is why you should always call removeEventListeners when you are done with an object, so you don't have that object stuck in memory and you don't know what caused the memory leak.
In my classes, I usually have a method that is responsible for removing all the listeners from an instance. You can remove listeners without any fear, because differently from removeChild, which yelds an error if you try to remove a clip which is no longer in the display list, removeEventListener will not give any error. So it's safe to try to remove anything and everything, and if the event listener was already removed... no problems!

private function removeListeners():void
{
  graphicalBoard.removeEventListener(BoardEvent.ROOM_CLICK, onRoomClick);
  graphicalBoard.removeEventListener(BoardEvent.AREA_HANDLE_CLICK, onAreaHandleClick);
  graphicalBoard.removeEventListener(BoardEvent.AREA_CCWROTATION, onAreaCcwRotation);
  graphicalBoard.removeEventListener(BoardEvent.AREA_DOUBLEROTATION, onAreaDoubleRotation);
  graphicalBoard.removeEventListener(BoardEvent.AREA_MESS_UP, onAreaMessUp);
  graphicalBoard.removeEventListener(BoardEvent.START_DRAG, onStartDrag);
  graphicalBoard.removeEventListener(BoardEvent.STOP_DRAG, onStopDrag);
  (graphicalBoard.stage != null) ? graphicalBoard.stage.removeEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_MOVE, onDragUpdate) : null;
}

Anyway, for the removeChild error, there's a quick patch: just check if the DisplayObject's stage property is null, and if it's not, remove it from its parent. This way you don't even have to remember from which clip to remove your object.

Notice how I remove the MOUSE_MOVE listener from the stage only if the graphicalBoard stage property is not null (that is, the graphicalBoard is still on the stage).

I also use this for special effects clip: I put on the last frame of the clip this code:

this.stop();
this.parent.removeChild(this);

This way the clip will automatically remove itself from the display list, and also stop its timeline. This is because... I fear that if you don't stop a clip, sometimes, it will stay in memory. I made some tests and I'm not sure about the results, but better to prevent than cure!

Powerups galore

2010-05-15T14:11:00.001+02:00

I'm working on the implementation of the new powerups for UFHO: Space Academy. In the first version of UFHO we had six powerups, which are marked with a white dot in the image below:

As you can see, there's four new powerups! Can you understand what they are for? Consider their color too, for I have divided them in categories based on their purpose. For example, the purple ones add something (moves or time). The green ones work on areas... can you figure out the purpose of the new ones?

The Humble Indie Bundle!

2010-05-10T23:10:00.003+02:00

Those crazy geniuses (geniuses? is this the plural of genius?) of the Wolfire team have created another crazy initiative. But this time for good.
The Humble Indie Bundle is, like the name implies, a bundle of indie games. It's humble because you pay what you want. That's right, you can have all 6 games in the bundle for as low as 1 cent. It's crazy.
The games are World of Goo (2D Boy), Acquaria (Bit Blot), The Gish (Edmund McMillen), Lugaru HD (Wolfire Games), Penumbra Overture (Frictional Games), and at the last second, Samorost 2 (Amanita Design).

So, you can pay what you want and you can decide how to split the payment between all the indie games and two no-profit associations, Electronic Frontier Foundation and Child's Play.

It's crazy. It's indie. It's humble.
Head over to the bundle page to know everything.

UFHO: Space Academy

2010-05-03T18:34:00.005+02:00

Announcing... UFHO: Space Academy!
While waiting for UFHO2 (which will take a little bit to be ready), we will launch this episode in a month or so.
Rise to the top, and become a master of rotation and powerups. Defeat your foes with strategy, and earn the rank of UFHO Commander.

Coming out in June.

Watch it on Youtube for higher quality!

By the way, the trailer is a parody (if you want) of a famous Army promo, the Army Strong campaign.

The next couple of weeks

2010-04-22T02:47:00.000+02:00

So the next couple of weeks will be really busy. The fact is this: in Naples, inside a big exposition called Comicon (and her sister GameCon) I will participate in a speech about indie games in Italy.
The speech will be called: "Italian videogames, or: how I learned to stop worrying and love the indie scene". It will speak of the difference between working in a 'regular' game dev studio and an indie team.

To some of you it may sound ridiculous, it may sound... obvious. In Italy, this is nothing to take for granted since here the culture of games is not so developed as in other countries.

The speech will be hosted by Vincenzo Lettera of Indievault.it. Before speaking together about this topic, we will be allowed to show the project we're working on. My project as a member of Tiny Colossus is, of course, UFHO2.
But, I have big news that I will be telling during the Comicon about the development of UFHO2, about the release dates and the features in the game.
If you live in the south of Italy, please join us on friday the 30th, at 16:00, at Castel Sant'Elmo. It will be cool.

Moreover, the next two weeks will be busy because I will make a trailer to show at the conference, so another reason to come and say 'hello'.

PS: Also, I set up a page for Tiny Colossus on Facebook. Become a fan, to follow all of TC's adventures in indie-land!

Spotlight: Tiny & Big: Up that mountain

2010-03-27T14:17:00.001+01:00

Ok, here we are, another spotlight. I know, you'd die for more UFHO news, but I couldn't help myself but share this with you, it's too cool. It's from a game called Tiny & Big: Up that mountain, in development by a small studio in Germany:

I'll leave any consideration on the awesomeness* to you...

* like a friend of mine would say

Spotlight: Love

2010-03-26T11:14:00.000+01:00

I've got a bunch of UFHO-related news, from the recap of the recent event I've been to, to minor improvements to the game. While I wrap my head trying to post about it, why don't you check this other great game: it's called Love, and it's a first person shooter/action game, with a lot of strategic elements, an incredibly fresh graphic style, online team play, and what not.
Be sure to watch this video to understand what it's all about. You'll be blown away...

About the development of UFHO2 Soundtrack and sound design

2010-03-19T12:32:00.002+01:00

Right now while I'm writing this post, Ciro is madly working to implement the music layers that I scored for the first level of the game, and some sound FXs that I gave to him last night.
As the composer for UFHO2, this was the most crucial moment of the production for me, because I knew that the first music piece that I was going to write was kind of defining the whole sound and ambience of the game, and of the entire soundtrack.

The first music is done. After introducing the setting, the music changes dynamically with the actions of the player: the more gems he gains, the more the music changes, introducing the main theme proposed in some variations. This happens because the UFHO inhabitants are divided into different alien races, each one playing the main theme by themselves, in their own way and personality. So you will hear the tune repeating with different instruments and orchestrations, from theremin to synths, as well as a Bosendorfer, ending with a choir of funny creatures and then a clarinet.
Through the layers you'll hear a bass line continuum, which is the junction between layers.

For this and for most of the sounds I mainly used some synthesizers, like the FM8 and Massive. With these programs you can achieve some of the best, creamiest and punchiest sounds. I am using them through Cubase.
During the research of the sounds (I tried to avoid the use of old fashioned videogame synthetic quirks) I really enjoyed the indie VST scene. For an indie project, it makes sense.
I discovered a bunch of free plugins made by music enthusiasts, music forums are full of them, and there is a so immense panorama of sounds that you can easily go crazy choosing "yours", combining them, and achieving your sound pretty much more easily than using the current major VST products alone, which are abused by everyone nowadays and sometimes flatten soundtracks' personality.

Well, I decided not to post the music yet, just because I like the idea that you will hear it for the first time directly along with the entire experience of the game, at the event in Empoli which Ciro mentioned before. But as soon as UFHO2 will be revealed, I will be glad to put some mix of it and the other tracks here on this blog.
I hope you'll love it!

Francesco

Various UFHO news

2010-03-16T23:02:00.000+01:00

I bet the gaming world is really focused on the GDC these days, but there's little news from the other side of the pond too.
Development on UFHO2 is going on nicely, this week I implemented the structure to support powerups, and the Block powerup as the first one.

As I said before, in the weekend I will be in Empoli for an event, where UFHO2 will be showed in public for the first time, and in playable form too!

Also, Francesco (the composer of UFHO's score) has composed a beautiful music piece for the first level, he will post it here in a short while. By the way, did I tell you that UFHO's music will be dynamic? Francesco is working hard to build layered musics which will evolve during the course of the game, to mirror the progression of the match.
I got the first layered tune today, and it rocks! It reminds a bit of the music from Spore, but it's not a bad thing because I actually asked him to take inspiration from it! In the end though, he added some quirks with the use of a Theremin instrument, and the voices of the Gooys themselves. At the very end of the song then, there's Francesco's touch, for he is fond of classical instruments.
A very good mix in its whole, I ask you only to wait some days and I'll post it here.

Ludicomix event

2010-03-11T14:18:00.002+01:00

As I wrote before, the GDC has started and is going on nicely. There's already a lot of reports on the speech detailing the Indie Fund, or how to make games without caring about your player (by Cactus).

Having said that, I won't stay here in front of my PC for the whole month. On saturday 20 / sunday 21 of March, I will be in Empoli (near Firenze) to attend Ludicomix, an event about comics and videogames. I will be bringing UFHO2, as much playable as possible, and maybe even hold some improvised contest to hand UFHO t-shirts to the passers-by.
I will be there together with the guys of IndieVault.it, and other italian indie sensations, like Studio Evil and others. So come and say hi!
Ah, I will bring a big banner for the game to the expo, it's almost as tall as I am! The image shown here is the graphics I made for it.

The GDC is starting!!

2010-03-09T20:04:00.000+01:00

The Game Developer Conference has started in these hours... how I wish I was there! Italy seems to be far from every place where videogames things are happening.. Surely though I won't miss this year's GDC Europe!

In the meantime, it has been reported to me that Ron Carmel's Indie Fund talk just ended... what did he say? Does anyone have insights?

Family portrait

2010-03-04T01:39:00.000+01:00

Ok I know, you all think I am slacking, because I don't update the blog as often as I used to do. If you took a glimpse at the calendar though, you would see that work on UFHO is going on and while I can't show you the latest programmed features, I can show some graphics.

In this issue, a family portrait of all the races in UFHO2. Two of them (the foremost) have already been covered on the blog (Jeevils and Gooys), the other two will be soon. And the dark shapes on the back?
They are two extra races that will be revealed sometime soon, the only thing that I can say is that they are reference to characters of other indie games, but of course they have been reworked to fit into the UFHO2 universe. Stay tuned.

Indie Fund

2010-03-04T00:57:00.002+01:00

Just a little bit late on the news bandwagon...
The day before yesterday, on the blog of 2DBoy a new announcement was made: a group of 'indie superstars' will begin a funding source initiative for indie game developers. From indies to indies, that is.
The authors of such a primer are Ron Carmel and Kyle Gabler, 2D Boy (World of Goo), Jonathan Blow, Number None (Braid), Kellee Santiago, thatgamecompany (flOwer), Nathan Vella, Capy (Critter Crunch), Matthew Wegner, Flashbang Studios (Off-Road Velociraptor Safari), Aaron Isaksen, AppAbove Games (Armadillo Gold Rush).

From the official site of the Indie Fund:

Indie Fund is a brand new funding source for independent developers, created by a group of successful indies looking to encourage the next wave of game developers. It was established as a serious alternative to the traditional publisher funding model. Our aim is to support the growth of games as a medium by helping indie developers get financially independent and stay financially independent.

The announcement made on the 2DBoy's blog was soon followed by an interview to Ron Carmel. From what is known now, some games are already being funded and they were selected for the fund thanks to word of mouth and first hand friendships. In the future though, more indie devs will be able to ask the fund for, ehm, funding. (sorry I'm out of words).

Google Wave

2010-02-20T13:43:00.000+01:00

By the way, I just noticed that I have got something like 15 Google Wave invitations left. If you still haven't tried Wave and need an invite, email me at c [dot] continisio [at] gmail [dot] com
You can even ask me for 3-4 invites together, just send me all the addresses and make sure they are Google accounts.

I found only one practical use for Wave, but I can't say that it's a stupid tool. Maybe it will slowly get the attention of people, and indeed it is something to try at least once.

Spotlight: Strangers

2010-02-16T13:13:00.016+01:00

I just found this very very nice little game on the forums of TIGsource, created by Jan Willem Nijman. Maybe it's impulsive to say this but I think it's a very, very good game. Be warned though: it's very short.
Also, the graphics are sweet.

Play Strangers

Navigate!

2010-02-14T14:04:00.000+01:00

You may have noticed* that the blog has got a new navigation system, just below the header / trailer. Now you can get info on the game, and take a look at my/our everyday schedule.

By the way, if you think I spend too little time on UFHO, think again: I consume my head on it day and night, but like any 'indie' we have to divide ourselves between pleasure work, and money work. :)
Ciro

* = or you may have not, and that's why I wrote this.

Still thinking about the Global Game Jam

2010-02-11T00:35:00.000+01:00

More than a week after the Global Game Jam ended, I am still thinking about it and what a great experience it was. I know that maybe someone, reading this post, may think that this is childish. I can hear them saying: "Haven't you ever been to a serious event about videogames before??"

Well, no.Actually, to be honest, I've been to a couple of conferences, like the IVDC in Milan last year. It was ok, it was interesting now and then, but it was also full of lecturers that were only trying to advertise their company or product, disguising their spot as some lesson or post-mortem.

What I felt at the GGJ in Catania instead, was a real love for videogames: people had gathered there ONLY to make games, to talk about them, to breathe them. No one had commercial interests, and also our chapter (unlike others, I read) didn't have a competition going on. No winners, no losers, all for fun. And fun is what we had!

I teamed with a couple of guys that I met last year at the above mentioned conference, and we created a small platformer, nothing revolutionary to be honest (you can find it here). We worked well though, and it's not excluded that we will be working together again.
Moreover, the day after the GGJ I took part in a very funny Micro Jam with another guy in the train back to Naples. The tales of those moments are narrated here. In those 4 hours of creativity, we created a small game, Battery, that will maybe see the light of day in the near future, if I can find a moment to finish it. In the meanwhile, here's a couple of screens of the graphics:

This improvised Jam concluded my 3 days of sick game development, leaving me wanting for more. Anyway, it's in these moments that I really feel that games are the right way to thread for me.

Spotlight: David Lanham

2010-02-09T08:11:00.002+01:00

David Lanham is a graphic artist that has worked for years in the icon design. He also devoted his life to vectors, it seems. I first discovered his works in 2005 when I was starting to use vector drawing softwares, and since then he became one of my inspirations everytime I find myself in front of an empty Illustrator canvas.
He also made some incredible icons working at the Iconfactory.

But... he's a graphic artist, what am I talking about? I should let his works speak for him, enjoy! David's works

Spotlight: Niklas Jansson

2010-02-07T09:12:00.001+01:00

Niklas Jansson (no, he's not the guy above) is a factotum: he draws beautiful concepts, he is a good game designer, and he knows programming too (for what I know). His website, PSG, is not updated anymore, but you can find his latest works (and ramblings) on his blog.
I will always remember him though for his original rendition of old concepts, there's a lot of them on the site of his company, Android Arts, and they really stand out.

He's also the guy behind the spectacular pixel art of Cortex Command, which was covered some posts ago. I don't know how he managed to produce alone all of those pixels, but hey, that's why I'm mentioning him right now.

Spotlight: Moonloop

2010-02-04T09:01:00.004+01:00

This time it's the turn of Moonloop, a dynamic duo based in south Italy: Giuseppe Navarria and Rosario Milone.
I've met them at the IVDC last year in Milan, and beside being very nice guys they also know what it takes to be an indie developer, and they are really focused on the work and know what they're looking to achieve. Self confidence is ok, but you must admit your limits and, moreover, the limits of the industry you work in (someone said Italy?)

I've had the chance to team with them at the recent Global Game Jam in Catania, where we created the game The Secret of Donkey High-hat.

Moonloop's first big project is a platformer for XboxLive, ZombieDog. The game is still in the early stages, but you can already find the main character adorable, and assess the quality of Moonloop's work.

Their website may be a little empty at the moment, but if I were you I'd check it regularly because Giuseppe and Rosario are working hard and will publish new materials soon.

The universe of UFHO

2010-02-01T08:57:00.006+01:00

Things happening in the UFHO universe are set in a very far galaxy. This galaxy, whose name is Sticky Way, is a conglomeration of stars just like our Milky Way, but its laid out in the form of a hexagon.
In this galaxy exists a great source of power that was created many ages ago by a race now exinct. This power has been sealed inside the Gems, which look exactly like very shiny and bright blueish gems.

The most intelligent living forms in the Sticky Way galaxy are all jelly-like, like the Gooys or the Jeevils. They have learned in time how to harness the power of Gems for their daily use, powering their technology and giving them comfort and power over the other life forms.

In time though the Gems have become more and more rare. There seems to be a shortage of them and all the jelly aliens are setting out from their respective planets to seek for a new source of Gems in the center of the galaxy. It turns out (but they don't know yet) that the center of the Sticky Way is not a star but a planet, an enormous blue planet called Spacebook. The planet is emanating a lot of energy and this could mean a lot of Gems.

The jelly aliens are leaving their planets in hexagonal-shaped spacecraft called UFHOs (Unidentified Flying Hexagonal Objects). Each UFHO is powered by one Gem, placed in the center of the ship in a hidden location. The UFHO is internally built like a maze, with hexagonal rooms connected by doors.
It's not uncommon to see aliens board other UFHOs to get hold of the big central Gem that is giving energy to its engine. When this happens, aliens usually engage in a tactical battle to see who is the best at navigating the maze inside the UFHO and get the most Gems before the other party.

Global Game Jam in Catania

2010-01-29T17:21:00.000+01:00

As everybody knows already, this weekend a lot of Global Game Jams will be hosted around the world. We didn't want to miss this funny event, so I went to the nearest chapter in Italy, that is in Catania. Sadly, Francesco (the audio man) couldn't join me because he was withheld in France for work reasons.

Speaking of the Catania chapter, the nice guys of e-ludo organized the event in the faculty of engineering in Catania. Incredibly, the university's headmaster agreed in hosting the GGJ. Looking at GGJ experiences in other countries, one would think that this is something to take for granted. Knowing Italy, I think not.

At the time of writing, I'm listening to an XNA conference just before the start of the GGJ. The theme will be given in half an hour, and then we can start working! Wohoo!
The blog will not be updated in the next couple of days, so see you at the end of the GGJ!

Spotlight: Cortex Command

2010-01-26T09:13:00.002+01:00

Cortex Command is an awesome game in the works by DataRealms. It's a 2D scrolling shooter with a very interesting gameplay: you control an army of droids through a remote brain hidden in a bunker. The game is usually a skirmish, although in the campaign sometimes there's more elaborated tasks to perform. There's two things I love about this game:

The inspired retro-look: the game sports some beautiful pixel art, made by Niklas Jansson (I'll cover him in another post). Everything is pixel, and everything is destroyable. And when pixel start flying... Mmm...
The buy/sell mechanic: things are delivered on rockets from the outer space, and you can even take control of the rockets and use them as explosives to bring the pandemonium to the enemy lines.

Yeah one last thing: the game is HEAVILY moddable, you can create characters, weapons, maps, the AI, campaigns, and program everything to create custom behaviors. I gave the modding a spin, and produced the Lost Boys mod, consisting in a rocket and a character, available on the DataRealms forums.

Cortex Command is far from completion but it had already got some awards, the most notable ones being the Technical Excellence and Audience Award at the IGF2009.
Personally, I bought the game a year ago although it's really far from being complete. And who cares? It's already incredible.

Introducing Jeevils

2010-01-22T14:23:00.000+01:00

The Jeevils are the nemesis of the Gooys. They are wicked, and they're only worried about Gems. They want them at all costs but, being cold and deceptive, they never lose their minds and are really focused when they meet a worthy opponent. They are masters when it comes to rotate rooms and areas to get an advantage, but they lack the brains to make a thoughtful use of powerups, like Gooys do. This doesn't mean they are to be taken lightly.

Their appearance is similar to the Gooys', but they look more fluid and less compact than their good cousins, and in fact often lose pieces and drops of jelly. They have two very bright eyes, without pupils, and spots on their back. Their usual colors are red, pink, brown, orange, scarlet, fuchsia... and all the variations of red.

Hex-Man

2010-01-20T08:16:00.001+01:00

UFHO + Pac-Man

Spotlight: Studio Evil

2010-01-18T09:07:00.008+01:00

Today I'd like to talk a little bit about a fellow italian studio that has done some interesting things and, most important, has lasted for some years in the italian indie panorama without crumbling.
StudioEvil is based in northern italy, mainly in Bologna, and is composed of 4 members: Marco Di Timoteo, Christian Meneghini, Mosé Bottacini and Antonio Teglia. I had the pleasure of meeting two of them at the Italian Videogame Developers Conference last year, and they are really motivated.

Their best work (for me at least) is a small game called G, a Spacewar 'relative' with very interesting mechanics, and it was also nominated among the best 5 games in the XNA Dream Build Play warm-up contest of 2007.

One of the members of StudioEvil also worked on a side project under the umbrella of another company, but since he has put a lot of himself into that game it has to be mentioned... the game is Enua Online, a very good strategy browser game that is astonishing for the cure of details, at least for me because I know the size of the team.

Now the StudioEvil is working on a new, undisclosed project. Who knows this time may be their big hit, I wish them good luck.

Introducing Gooys

2010-01-16T16:34:00.003+01:00

Like any respectful galaxy, also the universe of UFHO is populated with different breeds of aliens. Today we're going to talk about the most common one and actually also the most important for our game: the Gooys.

The Gooys are the Good guys of our story, they live their lives peacefully, minding their own business. They are faced though with a sudden shortage of Gems and set out from their homeland, Goonia, to look for a new source of Gems or, maybe, another source of energy altogether.

They are the ones that appear in the teaser, as navigator (Navigooy, the green one) and radar officer (Sensorgooy, the blue one) of the UFHO. Their commander belongs to another race though.

Calm and inoffensive, the Gooys sometimes are very easy to fool because they trust anyone. That's why they can sometimes be not too smart in a match, since they often fall in carefully laid traps. They are not easy to beat though, because they are not stupid and make very good use of powerups.

They come in green and blue hues, and are usually very bright. Their distinctive tract is the single big eye that protrudes from their... front face. Curious and deep, it gives up their true innocent nature.

New year - Work is starting

2010-01-09T20:57:00.006+01:00

Hi all, happy new year! I know I'm late, fact is that 2/3 members of the UFHO team - that is, me and Francesco - were trapped in London by the snow on the 6th, just at the end of a big vacation. Now we're back and work is going to start really soon on the real production of the game.

I'm happy that a lot of people that have seen the first game, seen the teaser or just heard about the game have shown a big interest. I myself have big expectations for it.

The only let down is that people show a lot of interest talking to me in person or in chat, but never comment on the blog or on Youtube. Are you shy? :)

Spotlight: Every day the same dream

2010-01-02T19:55:00.001+01:00

I want to point you out to a very good game made by an italian independent game maker, Paolo Pedercini, who in turn is part of a small-but-very-famous indie reality called "la Molleindustria".
La Molleindustria's goal has always been to create games with a deeper theme than the average player would expect. They delved into unthinkable themes for videogames, like theology, religion, the role of the Pope, environment preservation and even pedo-pornography. Every time they did it with a strong and black humor, every time outputting though a game of great quality and, above all, of great meaning.

This game has been made by Paolo for a competition at TIGsource, and the theme was "art game". This time the execution is a little bit more easy compared to their other games, but the end of the game is really bitter. Try it for yourself:

Every day the same dream

UFHO2 teaser

2009-12-28T11:06:00.000+01:00

The new teaser for UFHO2 is up!
Watch it above, or directly on Youtube here!

(and tell us what do you think of it)

A Christmas present to all our readers...

2009-12-20T13:18:00.011+01:00

Hi everyone! I'm Francesco D'Andrea, and I am honored and thrilled to be part of the UFHO Team! I am currently writing the soundtrack of the game and working on the sound design. A lot of ideas are coming up to intepret this charming world of UFHO... It continuosly stings my imagination, I really feel part of an amazing tale to translate into notes!

It's almost Christmas, so I felt I had to make a present to all of you UFHO enthusiasts. Here is a simple, short Christmas tune I made based on a similar ambience of the UFHO Main Theme:

If you see this text, your browser doesn't support the player. Get Flash now!! Or you can't even play UFHO2 when it will be released.

Have a nice listening! I hope you'll like it, and... Merry UFHO-Xmas and a Happy New Year to everyone! :)

Francesco

Welcome to UFHO

2009-12-17T12:31:00.003+01:00

Dear players, welcome to UFHO!
For those who don't know UFHO yet, let me explain now what it is, what has been so far and where it will go.

UFHO is a puzzle game, so simple, so addictive. You are in control of a jelly alien and you must move him through a hexagonal maze of hexagonal rooms, in pursuit of the gems that contain the energy of the universe.
So simple? Yes. An easy game? Not so much. Addictive? I think (and hope) so.
UFHO is all about strategy: the player can modify the connections between the rooms of the game board, blocking his opponent or creating new paths for himself. All of this in a turn-based struggle where you can challenge your friends in a match of strategy a little bit like chess, but with less rules and more action.

The first UFHO has been launched in february 2008, playable for free on www.ufho.it. We pushed the game a lot, and it received a good response from the players. However, we're an "indie" reality and we can't provide the game with the advertisement campaign it deserves. So we're moving UFHO to a new location, a place where it will be easily playable by everyone. Where? I will tell you in a while.
UFHO had a good multiplayer mode, but one of the biggest problems of the first edition was the lack of a single player mode, something that is needed while waiting for people to come online and play.
We listened to the feedback left by the users and are ready to come back with style.

UFHO2 will be released in a few months, with a new graphical style, a background story, new gameplay mechanics, a new dynamic soundtrack, and a single player mode complete of a full-fledged Artificial Intelligence. And more I don't know yet.

In the coming months, I will update this blog with development milestones, small updates on the game, graphical sneak-peaks, chatting about other indie developers, maybe interviews and whatnot, with the help of the others in the UFHO team.
If you are already a UFHO player, stick with us. If you never played the game, stay tuned and give us a chance. You'll love it.

the UFHO team