Ok. So it’s March. That kind of snuck up quick. Just wanting to let you guys know where the game is at as I’ll be caught up the next couple of weeks.

I’m off to San Francisco for both the Game Developers Conference and the Flash Gaming Summit on Sunday. Really looking forward to meeting up with some of the other great Flash and Indie developers out there. Learned a lot the last time I attended back in 2007, so hopefully there’s been plenty of movement in my area since then.

Now to the game. It’s coming along well, but it’s a far bigger beast than I’d ever anticipated and trying to get it done in the timeframe I’d set out to do it in just won’t be possible. At this stage, I’ve got GDC (that’s 10 days down), some artwork to do on an upcoming game with Joey Betz  (another 10 days) and to complete Union City, it’s going to be a late April release at best. Sure I could rush it and drop heaps of features, but I know that you guys would prefer a more complete product.

I know a lot of you are borderline wanting to freeze yourselves until the game comes out, but please relax. It’s a free flash game after all.

Keep an eye on my Twitter while I’m away, no doubt I’ll be telling everyone how awesome San Francisco’s Japanese restaurants are.

Merry Christmas to everyone. Thanks for your support during 2009. I’m off to the beach for 2 weeks, then back for a huge 2010. All the best for the break.

-Con

An infection has hit Union City, no-one is sure what is happening. Authorities have told citizens to stay in their homes and to wait for updates. The chaos outside your apartment is growing, looting, savage beatings, people killing each other in broad daylight. It’s safer inside.  A week goes by, the transmissions stop, the food is running out. The situation can only get worse, it’s time to leave…

The Last Stand: Union City, the third installment in the Last Stand series is currently in production and will be released in Q1 2010. It will take place during the first few weeks of infection in Union City. Taking the role of a survivor who holed up in their apartment during the initial spread of the infection, the player will be forced to venture out and make their way in the city. Escape will be the ultimate goal.

Features Include:
- Side Scrolling Open World
- Scavenge for weapons and items
- Custom character creation
- Level and Skill progression
- Living city: Day and Night cycles, Weather
- Dynamic driven enemies: “Zombie director”
- Two game modes that affect the style of the game

Union City will be side scrolling open world for the player to fight the hordes in and search for weapons and food. You will mould your character from the beginning, deciding appearance, background and skills. During your time in Union City you will earn experience and gain efficiency in a number of different skills, how you progress in these skills will be based of your actions.

During your travels you will encounter other survivors, they will help you get a grip on what’s happening, tell you their situation and in some cases join your fight.

Union City itself is a living city with day and night passing as you travel, it’s once living citizens will be driven dynamically, no street or building will play the same each time you enter.

The game will have two seperate game modes - “Run’n'Gun” and “Survivor”. The Run’n'Gun game mode will be more in line with the original games and have a focus on action and lessen the RPG elements. Survivor on the other hand will have common survival problems such as hunger, need for sleep and conservation of ammunition to deal with. Much of the story and gameplay will be identical in both modes.

I’ll be posting more in-depth and specific information over the course of the next week as it’s finalised in the design documents.

It’s come a long way from it’s humble beginnings back in January, but after a 6 week haul it’s finally done. Juggerdome is an action shooter with a few little twists to it. Feel free to leave feedback here or on the Armor site, right now though, I’m going to get some rest.

—– PLAY JUGGERDOME —–

VERSION 1.1 WILL BE UP SOON
ChangeList:
- Fixed Inventory bug where weapons were “lost” on aborting a mission.
- Improved Laser effectiveness, upped damage and collision size.
- Made final boss resistant to electric trap shutdowns.
- Fixed “Slaughtermaster” achievement, was requiring 7 kills in a second rather than 6.
- Made Bertha easier to find. You still need to get all the achievements.
- Fixed spelling errors and misc. event descriptions.

Juggerdome will be out some time tomorrow, keep an eye out for it on Armor Games. I decided to play with a few new things with Juggerdome and one of them is everybody’s favourite meta-thing, achievements! There’s 20 in total, get ‘em all and there’s a pay-off in game rather than just boosting your e-peen. Here’s the details:

I present a solitary screenshot of Juggerdome* a game of much killing and upgrading and arcade type stuff. Figured that I’d kept you guys in the dark long enough. Should be done some time tomorrow barring any acts of God. Release has been shifted to the middle of next week, Armor Games’ decision, they want to spread out releases as Demolition City 2 has just come out. Go play that in the meantime.

And now a message from the Warden:

CONSIDER YOURSELF ONE OF THE LUCKY ONES, PRISONER. YOU HAVE BEEN GRANTED THE PRIVILAGE OF PILOTING A JUGGERNAUT.

EACH WEEK YOU WILL LEAVE YOUR CELL TO PARTICIPATE IN THE WEEK’S SCHEDULED EVENT. SURVIVE, EARN CREDITS, ENTERTAIN THE CROWD, UPGRADE YOUR JUGGER AND YOU’LL EVENTUALLY EARN YOUR FREEDOM.

- WARDEN

* does not contain any actual domes

Seems that  I’ve run into a series of “delays” over the course of this month.

Between two total reinstalls of Vista and now my video card up and dying on me, even though it’s only 2.5 years old, I’ve been trying to finish a game.

It’s been somewhat frustrating not being able to finally nail Juggerdome. It has given me the chance to get further into planning the next Last Stand. I can safely say that it’ll be the biggest project I’ve ever worked on and I’m busting to get started.

Here’s to hoping the next week or so goes smoothly once my new graphics card arrives.

Con Artist continues to hack away at things…

It’s been an odd month or two, I’ve had a lot of things going on and as a result it’s slowed things down a bit. Least of all including:

- Turning 30 years old.
- Trip to Florida with Armor Games team.
- Friends having babies.
- Friend releasing his first book.

Celebrations etc have been in constant flow since about the start of July. Now it’s nearing September and there’s not much to show of what I’ve been working on.

I’m doing a quick project that I started way back in January called ‘Juggerdome’ which will be done in the next few weeks, then it’s on to the third installation in The Last Stand series. I felt it was necessary to get another game out there before starting on the new Last Stand to generate some income while I spend months developing it.

I’ve got big plans for my beloved zombie killing series and I’m excited to start divulging information about it once I get development rolling.

For those that’ve left the bazillion comments on the forums and on the front page, thankyou. I’ve got a lot of great ideas for the Last Stand series from them and it’s cemented a few others that I already had come up with. It’s good to see you guys want the same things I do from the game.

I’ll leave you to speculate on what ‘Juggerdome’ is exactly. Enjoy.

- Con

So the game has been out for just over a week now. It’s getting good press and the reviews on Armor Games have been good if not all too often incoherent.

I have to admit, I loathe the first few days after a release. I’m generally exhausted having been up until 5am a few nights in the week prior, only to be confronted with thousands of people filling my comments pages with bugs and ‘glitches’ (I hate that word). Then follows the week of fixing, more late nights, the constant urge to keep checking the score, plays, comments.

As it stands though, the rating is 9.2 and it’s had over 1 million plays during this first week, but it’s raised a few concerns about the future. Why? Well there’s a few reasons…

Expectation.
It’s a curse. A lot of initial reactions were that the first game was better, too many bugs, didn’t live up to what was shown off. I’m not really sure how to handle expectation at the moment, especially with a third Last Stand game on the horizon. In Warfare’s case I think that it had a bit of an impact because it was only a sidestep from the original, so the two were comparable but not identical.

Complexity.
Really, Warfare 1944 is pretty basic as far as Real Time Strategy goes, but it seems it went waaaaay over the heads of a lot of people. I’ll admit there is a fair chunk of assumed knowledge in there, short of delaying the play of someone for 10 minutes while you explain it all, I’m not sure how much more I could have laid it out.

On top of that, the game does force you to actually play it though, unlike 1917 and it’s passive sit back and spam away tactics. It’s more challenging and makes you think, unlike 1917 where you didn’t have to consider resources or micromanage units. As far as I can tell from the polar nature of internet comments, some enjoyed it, some hated / were confused by it.

What I’ve learned.
I need to address all of my audience and cater to them. Some of them are a hell of a lot younger than I had counted on. I think I can safely say that a majority of my future games will have difficulty settings, different play modes and other functionality to broaden the play opportunities for everyone.

- Con