New trailer giving some detail on the setting of the game along with some extended gameplay scenes (to show you how intense some of the action can be in the game).
We would also like to announce we are looking for play testers for our alpha build! Preferably players experienced with the indie games scene and a large variety of platform games. If a donation of above $15 is made, you will be heavily favoured to be choosen as a playtester, and will also be providing needed funds for our development. Along with finding random bugs, we hope to test the usability of the game and the difficultly for the average player.
And Email me here to apply to be a playtester, or if you have any questions/comments.
Currently we are in the process of approaching Microsoft about getting Capsized on Xbox Live Arcade, which is our main platform/marketplace goal as an exclusive. If Microsoft is not able to we would most likely search for a 3rd party publisher.
Nothing is final yet or even given the green light, so it’s possible we would release Capsized on a PC service like Steam or Direct2Drive as an alternative to Xbox entirely. At the moment we are just focusing on getting the game ready for both the IndieCade competition and Pax10.
Capsized was selected as a top 20 finalist in the Dream Build Play competition, but unfortunately did not make one of the top 6 spots. Meanwhile between judging and results we expanded the game a lot, and now the game is near a beta state. There is still a lot of play testing and tweaking to be done, but as for features the game is basically complete. I think the main reason the game wasn’t selected as top 6 finalist was that it was incomplete, rather than package the current maps we had done as a full game (or quickly finish the maps we didn’t have done) I marked them as ‘in development’ and inaccessible, thinking a small polished game package would be better.
For playtesting we might do some local public sessions at the Saskatchewan university, all with Xbox controllers to get an idea of a player’s first experience (which is the largest problem with our current version, difficulty in controls). Either that or I’ll ask online for some play testers to try a PC version with a variety of hardware.
And for some new game media, here is a shot of one of the new enemies. Basically death from above, it sucks the player in and then flies to the top of the map, biting and then dropping the player.
Capsized’s single player is still currently in development and still has around 2 months left to complete. So far we’ve only released the trailer on our main site, so this blog will be updated regularly on the changes as we get closer to release. While the artist is working on the new level content I’ve been experimenting with split screen deathmatch on the Xbox360. The game was from the start very based on FPS games, trying to give the most motion and freedom possible to the user in non-linear arena like levels, so adding deathmatch to it was a natural progression.
This video shows a few matches between two players new to the game. They are still figuring out how to use the grappling hook (which takes time to learn, it works more like a bungee cord than a hook) so you can see them actually get better as the game goes on. The game definitely has a learning curve, so new players should go through the single player before trying deathmatch.
All the matches are in the ’swamp’ part of the game, which is the main environment in the first 1/3 of the single player campaign.
The levels are designed for 2-4 players. I am still currently working on Xbox live networking, but without a doubt the game will have a few MP modes besides deathmatch, at least 4-6 levels to play on, and up to 4 player split screen.
Capsized is based on XNA so we will either be releasing the game on XBLA or the indie games section, along with a PC version (with some differences). We will be submitting our game for the Dream Build Play 2009 competition, but unfortunately we were too late in our entry for the 2010 IGF in November.
Welcome to the Alientrap Development Blog! This will be updated regularly for news on Alientrap’s projects and community. News on the latest Nexuiz community content such as new maps, podcasts, along with development news such as upcoming releases and plans for development.
We will also post on the indevelopment XBLA game Capsized, showing the latest media and features of the project.
You can subscribe here, or see the latest development discussion on our forum or IRC (#alientrap on irc.anynet.org)
