But first, we want to thank you again for all the support that Neon Boost has received since its development (even after suffering the last level of Tesla Factory).
At this time, Neon Boost has been downloaded over 200K times with a Very Positive score of 90% based on more than 1,600 reviews. So thank you very much again!
And now let's get down to business:
Neon Boost Origin
That is not the title any kind of prequel. The origin of the game lies in the final work of an university subject. For this, we had to develop a video game from the early phases of concept to the final launch.
Some curious facts about the first concepts of the game that were discarded are:
- The original title of the game was Neon Rockets, but we think Neon Boost sounds more cool. Doesn't it?
- The game was going to have a competitive multiplayer mode in which two players had to complete a level as soon as possible, being able to disturb the other player by activating traps with their rockets. Finally we decided not to make this mode due to lack of time and resources to do it well
- Some of the undone worlds were one based on Japanese Hatsume Miku-style electronic pop and another based on Russian Hardbass. Maybe they can see the light finally on a sequel some day...
- The soundtrack made by our friend Alexei was not planned from the beginning. It was from the game's publications on social media that he noticed the project and became part of the team. And how glad we were!
Development Nightmare
One of the major problems during the development of Neon Boost was the time to make the game. We had only 7 months to get all the work done, with a team of 4 people (1 designer, 1 programmer and 2 artists). Plus that, we had to keep our attention on the rest of the last-year subjects and, in many cases, combine everything with part-time jobs. We got to the point where we knew perfectly well the night hours of our neighborhood shops to get groceries for the night work sessions.
Another problem was the lack of resources. Everything you see in the game is handmade, because we always tried to make all the content artisan and that, although we were very proud, meant increasing the "oh no-meter" numbers.
As you can imagine it was 7 months of constant stress and caffeine shots to be able to make this game without neglecting everything else. But after all we think it was worth it.
Various Questions
¿Why is the game free?
Neon boost was always intended as a game to reach the widest possible audience, with no commercial intent behind it. Our only intention was to test ourselves to see what we were capable of doing. We even considered opening a donations account to try to recover the investment in energy drinks, but the idea was discarded at the end.
¿Why there isn't any post-launch content?
We launched a pair of updates after the game launch but after finishing university we had to dedicate all our time to find and keep our jobs, it is one of the bad things about getting older along with hair loss, so we will not have the opportunity to focus our time and effort back into add more content to the game. Life sucks...
¿Why is the game having performance issues?
From the beginning we had problems with some issues related to game performance. Making a character control system from scratch has its complications. Although with the two post-launch patches we managed to improve performance a bit, there are problems that we should have paid more attention to (and now they haunt us in dreams), such as make different LODs for the models that decorate the levels. Since although the level of detail of the game is not very high, the continuous load of many of them can make your computer sweat.
There is also an embarrassing anecdote with the cameras that we were able to solve with post-launch patches that I think our programmer will want to take to the grave... But just as in some points of the game we had two overlapping cameras activated at the same time. And now silence, there he comes...
¿What about the "0 seconds problem" that many levels had?
Ok i guess if you mess with the programmer now is time to roast the designer.
The way time starts running at each level works with the activation of a trigger box located below the height at which the starting point of each level is located, which as you have see is always the highest area of every level. But if the player manages to reach the goal by jumping between structures that are above that height, you can perfectly complete the level without activate the timer. The problem was solved adjusting the heights and deactivating the colliders of some structures. But some of you insist on breaking our creation... and we are happy to see it in those videos completing each level in the strangest and fastest way possible! We are so proud of you, Speedrun Community!
¿Who are the ones in the easter egg photo?
I don't know what photo you are talking about... but if you refer to the one at Laser City level 10 (come on, go and get that achievement) from left to right we are: Juan Ramón aka Blitzjoans (Programming) Terry and Bernardo (Art) and Carlos Montamarta aka Monty (Design and Production). In the photo Alexei (Sound) is missing, but the flight from Mexico to Spain to take the photo together broke the forecasts of caffeine expenses that we have already told you about before.
¿Are there plans to make a sequel?
At the moment it seems that it will not be possible. But to be clear that if the conditions are given one day we will try to reunite the entire team for a second part. In fact, there are already some ideas on the table for a project titled "Super Neon Boost", a mobile card game with microtransactions and the Denuvo system I guess...
And finally... Boing Noir
Boing Noir is a third person platforming game with physics based puzzles that combines absurd humor with the visual style of film noir in which some of the members of Sample Text Studio have been working for a while.
Jazz, crimes and transcendental conversations with geometric figures await you.
Enjoy the announcement trailer and don't forget to follow @BoingNoir on Twitter to stay tuned to all development news of the game!
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