Whisperings in the Bumpkin Barn

Since out last postings we've mostly been discussing what to do next. There's still more happenings with "The Machine" but we had been looking for something new and exciting to do as a team.

The afforementioned "Penguin Block Pushing Fun" was fun enough, but completely throwing ourselves into a remake of an old project didn't feel very motivating and we soon started talking about games on a larger scale that we wanted to create.

Then, after not being able to agree on a game that we both wanted to work on someone we know came up with a great concept for a game...which we completely changed. For the better obviously, we added blocks! Honestly, blocks make this game better.

So now we're brimming with ideas and, more importantly, playable concepts of the game. So we're already in the design and prototyping phase of the project and we're going great guns at the moment. We have some music (what a surprise) some basic models and this time there's a story planned! Wooooo...

Stay tuned over the next few weeks for when we start to reveal our new masterpiece!

A quick update from the Bumpkin Barn.

Firstly - a massive congratulations to Andy who got married to Jo this weekend. Here's a pic of Andy and me in our finery.



Secondly - a quick update on things game related. We will soon be releasing details of our next game, which is for the iPhone and web. Prepare for some penguin based block pushing fun!

Thanks

Just a quick post to say thanks to everyone who has given us feedback about The Machine. We've already released an update that includes some of the suggestions from our Bumpkin Buddies out there.

Thanks for the support!

The Machine update

There has been a small update released for The Machine. This update prevents the Wakefield exploit.

Please release me...

The Machine is now released. Check out the home page for more details, the epic promo video and to play!

Release candidate 1 - soon

The title of this post has to be the kiss of death but I do intend on having release candidate version 1 of The Machine ready really soon. I'd still like to add some more features but these can be added in later.

To 'celebrate' here's a few artlets I've been working on.

Trying to be clever

Hey, I sold another copy of Block A Drop Christmas Rush...in May :o

Anyway, we at Bumpkin labs are still working hard on our new iPhone shooter project. Obviously that's not a project that involves shooting iPhones. It's going pretty well but my reluctance to learn anything new means I avoided using any kind of physics engine to model the in game entities, and now I'm paying the price.

I have a fairly complex collision set to deal with involving irregular polygons (regular ones are just boring) so now I'm having to invent complex ways to detect collisions. Again because of my lazyness means that enemies are just exploding randomly at the moment and causing the player damage. I need to work more on this but I'm confident I'll get it finished by mid-year and polished for autumn!

I've also made some good progress with menus and the like, getting some of the best UI feedback from testers that I've ever had! Some of the sound effects are also in there which have added tons of atmosphere and "Umph!" to the gameplay.

Expect more news with possibly first screenshots soon...ish!