I’ve got some old news and some new news. Let’s get started with the old news…

Back in January I joined the Global Game Jam. It was a great success! I had a lot of fun (in between the hard working) and our game ‘B-minus 50‘ did not only get finished, it was pretty fun to play too and a professional jury declared it the best game at the Amsterdam site!
You can download B-Minus 50 here.

So, on with the new news! I’ve been working on another sequel of the old ‘Kill to Kill‘, this time called Kill2Kill. I’ve made some changes to the design, most notably a complete new way of aiming. I call it the MYATA mechanic (Move Your Ass To Aim). It basically means the characters auto-aim at the nearest opponent, but limited to 8 directions. This way you aim by moving and you can focus on moving entirely.
Other changes are the single screen view and support for up to 4 players! Check out the video and let me know what you think. All feedback is welcome! Thanks!

For all my fans I wish the best for 2013 and for everybody else as well! Hope you all survived the fireworks and are still in possession of eyes and fingers, because they will be used for gaming again this year!

In 2012 I released my first game on the Xbox360 and that felt great. Sticky Bump was received positively overall and I had a blasting time playing the game with fans on fairs throughout the Netherlands. Commercially the game was never gonna be a winner and I was right about that. After a little over 4 months, the game got around 1500 trials and 100 sales on Xbox Live Indie Games. Good thing I haven’t quit my job yet

This year I hope to release another game on PC and Xblig, before the Xbox360 will be replaced and who knows what will happen with Xblig. My new year’s resolution is to give an old favorite *yet* another chance to revive. See the prototype’s screenshot below for the current state.

Oh, and I’ll be joining the Global Game Jam this year in Amsterdam!

Almost a year and a half ago, I wrote the first line of code for Sticky Bump, then called ‘CatMouseProto’. Today, it was placed on the Xbox Marketplace. I’m happy.

Download for Xbox360 (Xbox Live Indie Games)
Download for Windows (Windows XP SP2 and above)

I hope all who take it for a ride have a blasting time!

Special thanks to Wouter de Vries, Maarten Wesselius, and Daniëlle v/d Wijngaarden for their help. And cheers to everybody who joined the many playtest sessions! You’re all in the credits.

Press

Sticky Bump will be released on Xbox Live Indie Games and Windows somewhere during the first half of August. The full Xbox version is priced only 80 Microsoft Points (around 1$) and the Windows version will be available for free on this website.

By the way, KeeWeed became all social and stuff! Hit the buttons on the right to follow my game making adventures on facebook and Twitter!

Yes! I’m getting there. Sticky Bump has gone through many changes and improvements, but finally I can say the game is getting close to being finished.

Work left is some finishing touches and getting it through peer-review on XBLIG. If you happen to have a developers account for Xbox, please do me a big favor and review my game (I can let you know when it’s on). The quicker it’s reviewed, the quicker it’s in the market!

Some other exciting news: Sticky Bump will be at the Festival of Games! So, if you’re close to Utrecht on the 19/20th of April, be sure to drop by! You can play the game and, hey, even meet the creator

HyperDodge for Windows Phone 7 got a real fancy update! It now features Online Global, Online Daily, and Local Leaderboards. But what’s really cool, is that it tells which position you’ll take on the leaderboards, while you’re still playing!
Grab it now if you’re owning a Windows Phone, it’s free and add-free!

HyperDodge is also on FaceBook!

HyperDodge SpaceStuff was ported again! This time, to the Windows Phone 7. It is now available for download from the Marketplace.
Thanks to my colleague and friend Wouter de Vries!

I held a test session with a couple of friends lately, and made some recordings at the same time. As the video shows… we had kind of fun

It’s still a work-in-progress, but it’s getting along nicely. Won’t be too long anymore!

If you’re wondering what I’ve been doing all these months, here’s your answer. I’ve sidetracked from the Fishbowl a little bit and worked on a small Xbox360 multiplayer game.
A game called Sticky Bump.

It’s a basically a cat-and-mouse game between bumpercars. It can be played by 2 to 4 players and so far the testruns show it’s great fun! Will be available on Xbox Live Indie Games by the end of this year. Hopefully.

And for the Fishbowl fans (if there are any); it’s gonna be #1 priority when this thing is out of the way

Found a hilarious “Speedrun” for my old game Arabian Nights today. As it was Prince of Persia inspired (and partly stolen, I have to admit), it got listed on the Prince of Persia Unofficial Website.
It’s mainly about how to avoid the bugs in the game

Great read with lines like:

Take the sword one screen more to the left, if you want, but that would be ridiculous, because the guards actually don’t awake. Anyway, climb up to the highmost level, press the switch and make your way as fast as possible to the other room, because it could be, that the guard really awakes.

And:

And I don’t think the movement sucks, the sword sucks! You don’t even need it! The guards almost never awake (unless you’re as slow as a grandma) and at the 2nd guard, if you’re right before the spikes, you can’t even shoot!

But honestly, I’m kinda flattered. It’s pretty cool that people take the time to try and write about a speedrun, in a game filled with bugs. It’s the kind of thing that keeps you going. So, thanks Maurice Kaltofen! I hope you enjoyed it