The Company of Myself just won the award for Best Indie Game at the 2010 Mochis, which is a part of the Flash Gaming Summit.  I couldn’t make it out to the event because it’s in California and I’m not, but David, the music guy for Company, got out there and accepted the award in my absence.  I’m also nominated for some kind of “rising star” award from the Tech Council in my area, but that’s not until early April.  Interestingly I got the phone call for that while I was waiting on the announcement about the Mochis.

I keep track of all the comments on the site, but I watch the comments for the Grief demo particularly closely, because it’s the project that stands as the most important to me.  Company did extremely well and got me a fair bit of recognition, and a lot of that is due to extensive testing and feedback from Average Joe, the very best and most influential member of my audience.

(For those just joining us, Average Joe is anyone and everyone in my audience.  That includes you.)

Something that comes up here and there is the green square that you play as in the current demo.  A lot of people seem to think that this is actually the art for the character (Henry) in the game.  As it stands, I haven’t locked in a character artist for Grief, so I don’t have an nicely animated man running around, and instead, all we get is a lovely little placeholder graphic, which is the green rectangle.

Way back at the beginning of my work on Company, I used similar placeholder art for the character, Jack.  Instead of green, he was a red rectangle.  The same assumptions were made back then–People thought that the red rectangle was the final character art, and I had to explain myself, much like I’m doing now.

So, then, here’s The Point:  As with everything in the Grief demo, the character graphic isn’t final.  Even the things that already look “good” (backgrounds, crates, effects, etc) aren’t final.  It’s all going to change in some way or another before the game is released.  And as it stands, there’s no story or puzzle solving in the demo, but of course, they’ll be in there eventually.  And yes, the gun fits into the story.  And no, this isn’t a shooter.  For a more detailed explanation, check the beginning of this post.

Breach is close to finished, now, as is YFYIAR.  They both are mainly just missing sound.  YFYIAR also needs a sponsor, but it’s understandably difficult to find one–The game is pretty risky from a business perspective, just because it’s a text game.  If you’re a sponsor with some cojones, be sure to give me a ring.

Most of my dev time lately has been spent on Breach 3, which won’t be called Breach 3, but that’s still what it is, so whatever.  YFYIAR is pretty close to being done, and at this point I’m waiting on David to hammer down the music (which is approaching something awesome very quickly) and sound (which ought to add something nice to things).  Grief is briefly paused while I finish up these other projects.  Chris is still messing around with art styles in various mediums, so progress is being made there, it’s just not progress that I’m responsible for.

Anyway, Breach 3.  I haven’t said anything about it yet, other than tossing out a quick demo (which is updated now, by the way, so go play it).  The game is my attempt to maneuver around modern casual game design–Upgrades are very prominent, because they give you a very direct sense of progress.  It’s also very un-punishing:  When you successfully complete a round, you get a bonus.  When you fail, you aren’t penalized, but you just don’t get the bonus.  Even though it’s still obviously better to complete a round, losing doesn’t seem to be a bad thing.  Instead, it’s just not as good. The bonus is extra, so failing to get it isn’t bad.  It’s just not as good as it could have been.  It’s a euphemism for failure.

Also, something that I enjoy way more than I should:  When you complete a round or visit the upgrade shop, the titles of the screens are randomized.  You get a different “you win” or “you lose” message each time, and the upgrade shop has various titles.  It doesn’t add anything in the utilitarian sense, but it’s just some extra flavor.  We did this a bit in Spewer, too–When you completed a level, you were given a few statistics (steps taken, jumps, etc).  The last statistic was always a random statistic with a random value (for instance, “Laws broken: 6”).  I got a shitload of chuckle-worthy emails asking about some of those.

Oh, and one of the titles for the upgrade shop is “Happy Item Room.”  If you understand this reference, then you are a superhero and I’m sending the president to your house to give you a handshake and a beer.