That’s A Fact: ‘Apple Jack 2′ Coming To XBLIG June 14th

Richard Glenn — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 22:06:02 +0000

Economically efficient indie studio My Owl Software has announced that its winsome puzzle platformer, Apple Jack 2, will be landing on the Xbox Live Indie Games service on Thursday 14th June at a more than reasonable price of 80 Microsoft Points.

Among the plentiful attractions on Apple Jack 2‘s menu are a 60-strong assortment of rapturous and vexing levels, a motley crew of antagonistic monsters and a combo system to make the staunchest of die-hard Mortal Kombat aficionado leer in a fit of submissive entrancement. And there’s some fruit in there too because goodness knows we’d rather not have Vitamin C deficiency get in the way of our platforming jollity.

Giant pandas, time reversal and the blissful tones of Ennio Morricone – could you ask for more? OK, maybe it could do with more unicorns and a Brian Blessed voiceover, but we’re just being picky.

But what’s even more impressive about the Apple Jack 2 project is that it’s serving as a continuation of My Owl’s commitment to zero-budget video game development. If that’s not a clear enough derivation of the common noun phrase, let me spell it out in plain English for you. The game cost nothing to make. We’d call it a shoestring budget, but given that a shoestring requires some level of monetary exchange, that probably wouldn’t do this particular metaphor justice.

Look out for Apple Jack 2‘s arrival next week, exclusive on the Xbox Live Indie Games channel. In the meantime, more information and footage from the game is available on My Owl’s official Blogspot page.

‘ASDFPLANE’ – Proving There’s Life In Keyboard Interfaces Yet

Chris Priestman — Wed, 02 May 2012 00:17:20 +0000

Of the many quotes that people extract from the airy words of Peter Molyneux, one of the most recent and relevant to this article is when he complained about the lacklustre state of controllers – “[A controller] is about as experimental as a brick these days. Because you know what it is, whatever game you do, you pick up this controller and you do the same. Your thumb moves here, you can’t move your thumb like this, you can only move it like this.”

We all know that the reason for this is so we can pick a game up and get going with out any faffing about before even getting to the playing part of game interaction. However, indie developers have the opportunity to experiment with these established norms in gaming and where better to start than changing how players directly interact with games upon first contact. Of course, many developers have already been doing this on a grand scale with the swish touchscreens on mobile devices. Tilts, swipes and prods have breathed new life into games on these devices, the same can be said of the motion controllers for consoles – while some despise these experiences, they are at least something different. What platform seems to be missing out on all of this interface innovation though? PC gaming. Either stuck with gamepads or the more traditional keyboard, any innovation to be had with these interfaces was presumed dead and buried a long time ago. It’s completely wrong to think that though as has been proven recently and is being continued to do so with ASDFPLANE.

You’ve no doubt heard of and hopefully played QWOP and GIRP, yes? Now, these games take the keyboard and make it something alien by using a different set-up from the common WASD or directional arrow controls. It is this tweak to the keyboard controls and the player’s inability to master them immediately, that the entire game is based around in these examples. QWOP is less intuitive than GIRP though, merely because its controls are just plain awkward when combined with the gameplay.

Why is GIRP any more intuitive than QWOP? It’s simple really – the game has you climbing up a side of a mountain and this is actually emulated on a smaller scale on the player’s keyboard. Your fingers have to contort as if playing finger Twister in order to make sure your avatar reaches the foot and hand holds needed to ascend. Later on in the game, the player will have to let go of certain handholds and swing in order to reach higher places – all of this still be perfectly matched by the player’s fingers. Playing ASDFPLANE creates a similar physical connection between the player, the keyboard and what happens on screen and it’s great fun for it.

ASDFPLANE won’t be played by a vast majority of people simply because it is a local multiplayer game only (at least for the moment) and to play it each player will need a keyboard. The reason for this is because the act of flying a plane in ASDFPLANE requires the use of all of the lettered keys. You press Enter to join the game – players can drop-in and out at will – at which point your brightly colored plane will fall from the top of the screen amidst a heavenly ray of light. Immediately, your plane will start dropping to its untimely doom, unless the player has understood the controls; that’s rarely the case. Luckily, at least one person in the group can act as teacher, passing on their knowledge of this interface of which no one has encountered before. “How do I join?”, “Why do I keep falling?” and other questions of a similar ilk are heard from the pupils while the teacher holds the keyboard up and makes educatory gestures in demonstration.

What they should be telling them is something like the following. Using the lettered keys from here on out, the player will have to continuously mash the direction they want their plane to travel by hitting the corresponding direction on the keyboard. Simply put, hitting the bunch of keys in the top left of the keyboard will make the plane travel to the top left of the screen, the top right to the top right and so on. After about 10 minutes with these controls, the player will have advanced from crashing every five seconds to outmaneuvring the other players by taking risky dives across the screen and perilous ascents followed by sudden changes of direction. When not playing, it’s great to just watch new players slowly grasp the controls during the humming chorus of five keyboards being subjected to a barrage of eager finger bashing. You’ve never seen anything like it.

The way you accumulate a score in ASDFPLANE, because this is of an arcade styling, is to simply stay alive on the screen and the points will rack up. Flying to the sides of the screen will result in a wraparound effect such as in Pac-Man and flying up will just move the playing field higher. Fly beyond the bottom of the screen though and your plane will be lost until the Enter key brings it back again. This isn’t a game of just flying around though, by pressing the Space bar players can fire at each other with ballistic contact sending the receiving plane hurtling towards the dreaded depths of death at the bottom of the screen. They are given a chance at revival, though it’s not easy. The word ‘REPAIR’ will appear on their plane and the player will have to type each letter in sequence (mistakes don’t matter) with success in typing the whole word meaning that they will survive, presuming they can pull up before they reach the limits of the screen. Like the rest of the controls, this seems like an impossible task at first but a few minutes in and most players are making swift recoveries and partaking in quite the aerial battle.

What is really great about ASDFPLANE is that it puts everyone on an equal playing field, firstly by having a completely unique control system but also such a simplistic one. Keyboards have always been precise with their button presses and require hours of getting used to – think RPGs and FPS’ in particular and how intricate their control systems are. ASDFPLANE rids itself of that in every way and presents what is almost a keyboard resembling a touchscreen – a giant direction-sensitive interface. If you get the chance to play ASDFPLANE how it’s supposed to be played then you definitely should.

ASDFPLANE was developed by MESHOFF, who you can find out more information about and their other games over on their official website.

You may be interested in:

No related posts were found, so here's a consolation prize: The Great White Destroyer Trick or Treat Sale, the sale that IS a game..

Free Indie Game Friday – Legionwood, Alien, Dead, DoomRL, Plactoid

Chris Priestman — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 05:01:43 +0000

Huh, what? Oh it’s Friday again. Well thanks for telling me everybody – now I’ve got to find you free games as you forgot to remind me. Oh wait, I did remember, what a good boy I am. So this week we have a rather excellent collection if I do say so myself

This Article was originally posted on our sister site, The Indie Game Magazine written by Chris Priestman.

DIYGamer » common

That’s A Fact: ‘Apple Jack 2′ Coming To XBLIG June 14th

You may be interested in:

‘ASDFPLANE’ – Proving There’s Life In Keyboard Interfaces Yet

You may be interested in:

Free Indie Game Friday – Legionwood, Alien, Dead, DoomRL, Plactoid