Robit Studios Blog

Secrets among friends

2012-05-14T01:15:21Z

So, there are some very exciting things happening with me at the moment. Some of them I can't yet talk about but hopefully will be able to shortly.

First. There is a secret project in the works. I'm working with another indie game development team and it's going to be fantastic. Hopefully I'll be able to reveal more about this very soon.

NovaraX is being developed but at a much slower rate to make time for the new project. Brian (@StudioWaveland), who's doing music for the game sent me the first track. It's got a great sci-fi feel and it gives the game a great mood.

I had some inspiration for another side-project. It's a single-screen arcade style platform shooter. I decided to work on a protoype and share it with you. I think I'm going to take this prototype further so I'd appreciate any feedback you have. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/28484936/planet_builds/build_0.0.1/index.html

In personal news: my gal-pal got a job in Bronx, NY so it looks like we'll be moving to the greatest city on earth. I'm very excited about this. Living in NY has been something I've always wanted to do. Hopefully I'll get a chance to meet some other NY-based game developers. We'll be moving in late July. In the mean time I'm going to soak up the Virginia sun, fresh air and mountain views.

That's just a short update about what's going on with me.

Regarding the secret project; I'm sorry I can't tell you more but I'll just say, if you're a fan of my previous work, you will like this.

Video Post-Mortem Series

2012-04-04T23:24:34Z

I've been recording a series of videos that are essentially a post-mortem of Treasure Adventure Game in video form. I play through the game and give some insight into the development process, answer fan questions and ramble about other things. I don't know how far this series will go, but I'll keep it up as long as it's interesting and people have questions for me to answer. I'll keep this post updated with the entire play-list of videos. Here they are:

Part 1 (audio quality is poor - it gets better in the other videos)

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Space Shooter - Video Sneak Peak

2012-03-17T21:33:08Z

I put together a short video showing off some of the recent devleopment of my new space shooter. Enjoy:

What's new with Robit

2012-03-12T21:00:50Z

I just wanted to post about what I've been up to lately. I'm horrible at sharing my life with the internet, but I want to be better at it. I feel that the best way for me to find success in game design is to nurture the great community and fan-base that TAG has garnered. I'm really hoping that I can turn all the good-will that TAG has brought me and convince you all to support my next game when it's available (which will attempt to be a commercial success).

Most of my free-time in the past month has been split into three endeavors:

My next game, the as-yet unititled, 2D asteroids-style space shooter
Fallout 3 (my first foray into the world of Fallout)
Robotics (aka learning electronics from scratch)

The new game is really shaping up nicely so far. Here's a few things that have happened recetly:

The game's story is related to TAG - It takes place in the not-so-distant future of the world of TAG. The game has a mission-based structure and the story will play-out in mission brefiings as well as ship-ship radio communications as you're playing.
Robert Ellis is returning to do some music for the game. But, I've also got the talented Brian Klima on board to do music as well. I'm really excited about what he's going to bring to this project.
The game's menus and HUD are coded and may need some graphical tweaking but otherwise are good.
I have 5 of the 12 weapons coded and implemented.
All of the player and enemy ship desigins are finished and have been implemented.

After putting well over a hundred hours into Skyrim, and hearing many good things about Fallout 3 I decided to jump into the post-apocalytic world for myself. I can't believe I waited so long. I really enjoyed Skyrim but I find the world of Fallout to be much more interesting and filled with great characters and missions. There are so many things that this game does right. I know this probably isn't news for most of you who played the game 3 years ago when I first came out, but I just wanted to let you know what I've been playing.

I've also been playing Gargoyle's Quest on the 3DS (from the eShop). This is another gem that I missed the first time around. It's a really great metroidvania type game that manages to feel fresh regardless of it's black and white GameBoy visuals.

Finally, when I'm feeling sick of video games all together I've been learning about elecritcal systems and robotics. I have a rudimetary understanding of electronics and it was enough for me to follow some tutorials to create a simple robot. It rolls around, searches for obstacles in it's way and tries to avoid them. It was a fun project, but it made me realise that I had a lot to learn. I'm now starting from the beggining and reading a great book by Forest M Mims III called "Getting Started in Electronics". I'm hoping to eventually be able to design, develop and program much more sophisticated robots.

This is the tutorial I used to create the robot - letsmakerobots.com

An Interview.... with me!

2012-02-07T17:13:44Z

This is the interview I did with Josh Mathews, that I mentioned in the previous post. It's the first time I've done something like this, so I think I sound a little overly earnest. But, it should be interesting to anyone who wants a little peak behind-the-scenes of the creation of Treasure Adventure Game.

And Onward!

2012-01-29T22:04:04Z

I've been meaning to write a post-mortem for Treasure Adventure Game. I keep putting it off because I find the idea of putting all the things I've learned, experienced and observed into words to be a daunting task. Today I was interviewed by Josh Mathews (@GamingFTL) (which will be available soon on YouTube). In that format I found that I had no shortage of things to say about my experiences during TAG's creation. I'm looking forward to the fans of TAG getting to hear it. It also has made me think about the idea of using audio (maybe video) as a way of keeping in touch with fans and followers as I develop games in the future.

Speaking of future projects. After spending some time with Construct 2 (which is a phenomenal no-programming 2D game-development platform) I've started developing an asteroids style space shooter game. It currently has no title. It uses Construct's built in physics engine which has really sped up the basic game play mechanics. I'm having a lot of fun with it, so far. I've already developed some convicing enemy AI that I'm really happy with. I think you can expect to see this turn into a full-fledged game. Like TAG, I'm hoping to give it a lot of depth, a good story, and quirky characters.

Here's a teaser screen shot:

I'll let you know when the interview is available and I'm also going to consider doing my own podcast/videocast sometime soon. Let me know what you think about that idea.

Music to Adventure to...

2012-01-03T20:47:42Z

The response I've received from the internet, upon releasing Treasure Adventure Game has been overwhelming. So many kind words have been sent my way. I've tried to thank everyone who has contacted me, but if I missed you, hopefully this will work as a catch-all: Thank you!

I couldn't have asked for a better reception for the game. I feel justified in spending the last couple years of my life toiling away on this project.... frankly, it feels amazing! I'm super pumped and I'm ready to get started on another project.

The only thing that's been holding me back was wanting to get the Original Soundtrack for Treasure Adventure Game out to the fans. Many of you have asked about it and I wanted to do it right.

I'm happy to announce: Treasure Adventure Game OST is now available for digital download at BandCamp.

You can purchase any individual track for $0.50 or the entire album for a minimum of $6. If you buy the full album it includes 8 bonus tracks (some never heard before), a PDF file containing 99 sketches used in the creation of the game and an interactive map of the entire game.

By making this purchase you not only get over an hour of great music by the talented Robert Ellis, but you're also going to help support the development of future projects by Robert and myself. All proceeds made by the sale of the soundtrack are going directly to the budget for the next game.

Thanks again to all the fans of TAG. I look forward to a beautiful friendship with you all!

Done is better than perfect.

2011-12-12T21:24:48Z

Might as well keep this short and sweet: Treasure Adventure Game is finished!! Over the past month or so of public beta testing I came to the realization that this game will never be perfect, but I'm really really happy with it. Finishing this game is the fulfillment of a lifelong dream for me. Ever since I played Super Mario Brothers I dreamt of making my own little virtual world to run, jump and have fun in.

And here it is: http://www.gamefront.com/files/21080788/treasure_adventure_game_1.0.1.zip

I hope you enjoy playing it as much as I enjoyed making it.

Beta 0.6.1

2011-11-27T19:45:03Z

Well, Beta 0.5 wasn't the last public beta after all. The amount of bugs and gltiches that the play-testers have found was staggering. I've always heard that the hardest part of making a game is the last 10% and I'm finding that to be true. I know that TAG will never be 100% perfect. If you could see the house of cards that holds this game together, you'd know what I mean. I'm not a programmer by trade and this is really my first fully fleshed out game. I made a lot of poor decisions early on that make's it difficult to change certain elements that should be easy.

Regardless, of that, the game has been getting so much great press and wonderful comments from the people who've played it. It's really amazing. I really wanted the game to be "gold" by now. But, I think I owe it to all the people who've playtested and wrote about the game to get it as close to perfect as possible. Therefore I opted to release another beta (0.6.1).

http://www.gamefront.com/files/21033504/treasure_adventure_game_beta0.6.1.zip

As long as there are no major game-breaking bugs in this version you can expect the final build soon. So, go ahead and try it out. If you find any bugs you'd like to report you can post them here:

http://www.robitstudios.com/treasure-adventure-game-forum/post/1659851

Thanks againt to everyone who's enjoyed TAG. You're all amazing people and you've made me so happy. There were so many times during the creation of this game that I thought "Will anyone even care about this when it's done?" Now I know that's not the case! All I can say is, "Thanks!". I've got the game-dev bug now and I truley think this will be my life's work.

P.S. You can move your save-files from previous builds into the new one if you don't want to start a new game. Just copy the contents of the "save_data" folder.

Treasure Adventure Game beta 0.5 available. Also: new trailer!

2011-11-19T19:16:34Z

I have released, what I hope to be the last, public beta for Treasure Adventure Game. Unless a major bug shows itself I'm planning on having the final game available next weekend. The play-testers have been doing a fantastic job of weeding out the bugs. I've also been receiving so much great feedback. A lot of people seem to be really enjoying the game and I can't describe how great that feels.

Hopefully you will enjoy it too!

Download Treasure Adventure Game Beta 0.5

Also, since I haven't posted it here on the blog yet, I wanted to share the final trailer for the game as well.