Trine

Have been playing Trine for an hour or so every day as a bit of light relief from database coding. It's a great game with sickeningly beautiful scenery and animations (I am green with envy). Gameplay-wise it blends together physics gaming and platforming in a way that works. Switching between characters on the fly makes for some nice moments, such as rope swinging onto a platform as the thief then immediately transforming into the knight to smash up some skeletons.

It reminds me of a few games I've enjoyed in the past such as Ghosts 'n' Goblins, Imogen (and old BBC puzzler with a transforming character) and Spherical. The physics puzzles are reminiscent of Half Life 2, albeit in 2.5D.

This is very different to Frozen Byte's previous games (aliens-esque shooters: ShadowGrounds and ShadowGrounds survivor) but shares an attractive approach to lighting.

I hope to be working on the game again in the next couple of weeks. Coding is complete on the latest release of my database for scale modellers. Just testing to complete - bah.

Game development on hold...

The development of Starfire phase 2 is currently on hold. I need to finish off some work on my other product for scale modellers.

Should be able to work on the next phase of Starfire in the next few weeks. Performance still needs to be improved and I want to add some bonus content for folks who join the mailing list.

When the new version is released, I'll issue some press releases and try to drive more interest. Even though I have done little in the way of promotion, the game seems to have taken on a life of its own in non-English speaking countries. A lot of Brazilian gamers seem to be downloading it at the moment largely due to it being included on a Brazilian gaming site. More than a thousand people have tried it out so far overall.

I have been surrendering money to Steam again now that they are tempting me with their cheap games. My collection now contains Metro 2033, Trine 1 + 2 and Portal 2. So far, I have played Trine a bit and really like it. Kinda Ghosts 'n' Goblins meets Imogen (an old BBC Micro game).

Starfire - Ares Assault, Version 1.01 Released

I spent some time over the last week rebalancing the difficulty of the game, following feedback. Largely this has made the bosses move more slowly sideways, allowing easier escape and reducing enemy damage and speed on Easy and Space Slug settings.

Hopefully this will make the game more accessible and remove the frustration factor when fighting the first boss.

The latest version of the game can be downloaded from here:
http://www.suisoft.co.uk/starfire/index.htm

(if it doesn't say v1.01 on the download link, you will need to refresh your browser)

You can read the full release notes in the 'Suisoft / Starfire - Ares Assault' Start menu folder (under Windows). The release notes are in the resources folder in the APP file on Mac.

The work for the next release consists of:

Screen resolution choice

Performance settings - nebula density and shrapnel density

I also need to spend some time on the website to make it more attractive and show off the game with videos and screenshots.