Just a quick heads-up – our game page for MacGuffin’s Curse has been added, which outlines a bit more information about the game, story and some of the characters. Expect it to be updated as time goes on, but if you’re curious as to what it’s all about, this ought to fill you in.
And if you don’t want to have to keep checking when things are updated, simply click on the MacGuffin’s Curse Facebook “like” button on the sidebar, and we’ll bring the news straight to you.
Some great news this week! Just today, Andrew was able to get a preliminary version of the game running on PC, Mac, iPad and iPhone! And here’s proof:
Hey hey hey, don’t scoff just yet. Like so much game development, the visually impressive stuff turns up near the end of the project. In the meantime, getting the same project to turn up on four different platforms, render correctly, and most importantly, not crash is always a huge cause for celebration. Having things do what they’re supposed to is a wonderful thing.
In other news, I’ve been plugging away at more exciting lists. If you want some lists, I am totally your guy. I’ve been busy outlining boss functionality so that we can estimate and budget for how many different animations we’ll need for all the different characters in the game. This has all been done now, which is a relief. So now I’ve moved from lists…to lists… of environment descriptions! It’s all non-stop action here.
Even though we’ve been working on MacGuffin’s Curse since about September last year, this week has been the first ‘official’ week on the project. Don’t be fooled into thinking it’s all fun and games though! This week has been about working out the finer details of copyright ownership, getting proper contracts with the team, and buying licenses for software we’ll need. It’s a long, costly and mostly boring process involving numerous trips to the scanner to sign and co-sign agreements.
In those 3 days I’ve been able to get on the project though, I’ve managed to get something small up and running in Unity though, even if it is only Gaius walking around on some pixel-perfect programmer art tiles that handle multiple-resolutions beautifully. Because it’s a 2D game, I bought the Sprite Manager 2 and EZ GUI Bundle from Above and Beyond Software right away. I’ve been thinking about how to handle 2D in Unity for a while and it just stood out as the best solution, and means we can worry about making the game awesome rather than mucking around with 2D sprite issues for weeks.
On the design side, Ben has been remembering how much fun it is to create the many asset lists we’ll need, and working with artists to get some initial concept stuff done with very exciting results. Hopefully we can use it to make some snappy business cards to wow the folks we’ll be meeting at GDC.
I first submitted Jolly Rover for a review with GameSpot in about July, a month after its release, and yesterday the review came back with a great result! This is a lesson in persistence for any indies trying to get a review on a major site. You can check out the review here.
During the last week of whirlwind site construction, I also had the opportunity to have a brief interview about MacGuffin’s Curse, and reveal some of my shadowy past. And now it’s up! This has been quite a thrill for me, as the last time I was in the paper was when I was in grade six and I borrowed a book from the new library.
If you’re in the Brimbank area, you’ll probably see it soon (or already?) in the latest Brimbank Weekly. Otherwise, you could just click on the link above. Wonders of the Internet, eh?
Well, it’s finally done! The new Brawsome page is complete (unless you go poking about looking for the bits that aren’t yet, in which case, shame on you). Yes, it was time to move on from the flashtastic site of yesteryear, and step into the realm of the future, with crazy optional extras like accessibility and unified pages. So now, rather than looking at the Jolly Rover website for news (which didn’t really make much sense anyway), you can find everything under the one metaphorical roof.
In other news, our recently announced project (previously known as Urban Wolf) has undergone a change of its own, being renamed MacGuffin’s Curse. There are a couple of reasons for this – firstly, the other one was always a working title to begin with, and we were kindly pointed out by a friend that other things had that name (including a very trendy dog food). MacGuffin’s Curse focuses more on the character than the place, so that was another reason to use it.
For a while though, it was very nearly Streets of Fur (no it wasn’t).
Adventure Productions have just announced the release of Jolly Rover Italian for the 4th of February 2011. As I type this I’m downloading the final Italian localisation to make the master copies.
I don’t speak Italian, so I can’t tell you how good the localisation is, but I’m sincerely hoping the Italian version of Jolly Rover is as well recieved as the English one.
I’m pleased to announce that Brawsome will be working on a new project – Urban Wolf.
Brawsome has again been successful in securing highly sought after funding from Film Victoria, the Victorian government organisation that contributed funding to the award winning Jolly Rover. We are planning on beginning development in February 2011.
This project is a comedy puzzle adventure in collaboration with designer Ben Kosmina, who contributed some dialog for Jolly Rover and was designer on an earlier project that unfortunately never saw the light of day. Brawsome has been working closely with Ben to get this project off the ground since September 2010, and we’re both investing in the project in addition to Film Victoria.
We’re planning on developing the game in Unity for PC, Mac, iPhone and iPad release in 4th Quarter 2011. For this project, unlike Jolly Rover, Brawsome is attempting to secure a publisher to help with marketing and distribution efforts, and while some talks have occurred, nothing is close to being final.
Brawsome will be attending GDC with Ben this year to talk to potential publishing/distribution partners and any interested press about the new title, which will be Brawsomes second original IP and first that isnt a traditional point and click adventure, though will contain adventure elements.
Anyone interested in chatting with us at GDC please let me know.
I’m working on the Jolly Rover German and Italian localisations now, and they’re looking fine! To my knowledge we don’t have a release date set for these yet, but I’ve heard it could be as early as this month!
The Jolly Rover Steam Key is on sale for 50% off for two weeks starting today! Mathematics dictates that this is an excellent bargain no matter which way you slice it, so now would be the perfect time for you to grab a copy (if you haven’t already).
You can also get awesome value from the Indie Adventure Pack on Steam for $4.99. In addition to Jolly Rover, you get 4 awesome indie titles – Gish, Samorost2, And Yet It Moves, Mr. Robot, all for $4.99, if I didn’t own 80% of these already I’d pick it up myself! And really, you can’t get any better kind of endorsement than that now, can you?
