Genre: Role-playing (RPG), Hack and slash/Beat 'em up, Adventure, Indie
Sir Whoopass: Immortal Death
Tales from the dev side #13
Hey all, we've received some negative comments lately about us using "stock assets" in the game, after watching the gameplay teaser trailer.
That's sad to hear, as we've put tons of effort (2+ years!) developing the game. It's not something that we've whipped (flipped?) together during a coffee break. :-)
But still, the stock asset part is true - we've used a lot of (awesome!) assets. That was the only way we would be able to create a game like this, being the small self-funded studio that we are.
And of course we do have the permissions to use these assets in the game from the creators - we haven't stolen anything :-)
We're no professional 2D/3D artists or animators, we're just a few sweaty developers - gluing together these (awesome!) assets into a unity(!), to produce the game that we wanted to create, with a story and a soul.
It's still not flawlessly good looking by any means; animations can be a bit off, the lips don't move as characters speak and such things.
But we don't have that multi-million-dollar budget to create everything that we would like to, it's not an AAA title :-P
Our goal is to get the game to be fun and smooth to play, despite these quirks. We hope that when you play, you can overlook the non-moving lips etc and enjoy the whole experience. If you do find a major bug though, please let us know and we'll do our best to fix it ASAP.
Some info on what we've been up to lately: find and bash bugs, general polish/wrapping up, optimizing and try to get the word out about the game. We noticed some issues with auto saving games where it could affect the game flow, we found some situation where you could get stuck and some tooltips showing up where they shouldn't. Those are hopefully fixed now :)
We've tried hard finding and eliminating major bugs, but we'll probably miss a few that might still be in there somewhere, lurking in the digital shadows..
Think of the old saying; "If you like our game, tell your friends. If you don't like it, tell us!".
Anyways, we hope to be able to afford hiring some great artists of our own in the future! That would be totally awesome. Plz help us get there. Plzplzplz. :-D
...That said, we have also received lots of positive feedback from the teaser trailer! That feels super great and we sure hope you'll have a fun time with the game when you get your hands on it.
And meanwhile, check out another (developer-designed!) marketing poster!
Please keep on having a great summer, and stay tuned for the release @ August 19 ! ːsteamhappyː (ps Actually it's totally OK to also tell us if you like the game, not just your friends ;) ds)
Tales from the dev side #12
Hey all, things are happening fast now :-)
Release date is set to Aug 19, 2022 ! - Yess, finally. Set up a reminder :)
Steam page updated - Yup, check it out, there is a new "Gameplay Teaser Trailer" and updated screenshots, updated description/texts about the game etc.
Dev update video Acually these movies are almost starting to get outdated, but here is a "old sneak peak" at Skeleton cave, a hostile place that Sir Whoopass, our hero, needs to fight his way through in order to retrieve a can of elbow grease for Goddess Cling. If he succeeds, he will get a jetpack as a reward :)
Posters! We've made some marketing posters! Here is the first one. What do you think? :) Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead - or other posters - is purely coincidental..
Have a nice weekend, all ! ːsteamhappyː
Release in sight
Hey all, yeah, long time since last update .. (have you heard that one before).
But lots of stuff has happened, We mentioned in a previous update that we had a first round of beta testing. We collected feedback, adjusted stuff, added more stuff, removed stuff, balanced stuff, and ran another round of beta testing - and the updated feedback hinted that we were probably moving in the right direction :)
We've been working on this game for a long time now, 2.5 years-something. That's crazy long :D ..We actually had something pretty nice, rather early on in the development - but we felt that .. yeah, it's OK.. But honestly, it wasn't that fun to play. Something was missing, and we couldn't release a game that not even we ourselves thought was fun - and expect others to appreciate it.
So, that's what we've been struggling with now, for a loooooong time. Make it fun to play! It's pretty hard to tell exactly what makes a game fun - it's some magic combination of bits and pieces matching up together that gives that nice feeling when playing it.
And now, we think that we've gotten it in place pretty good. Of course, every gamer out there probably won't think the same - but at least we ourselves think it's "actually" fun to play now! And that even after having played and tested it over and over and over and over again during development. We should be sick of it - but we're really not! That gives us a nice feeling :) (or, should we be worried...? :-P)
It's not perfect, it still has bugs, and will probably have bugs for all eternity - we're a tiny indie studio, remember? "Six sweaty developers" .. Or rather two, actually. The other four of us are just sweaty :-P. And, we still have tons of features we think would be cool to add to it .. But we think that the known bugs are "manageable" and doesn't break the game play (ok yeah, that'll probably bite back later ^^). And we have lots of features now, making it a fun experience that can be enjoyed for quite some time.
So, we are confident enough to actually declare that the game will be released in late August! (yes, this August, 2022) Nice, huh?
Until then, we're going to continue polishing it, do some stuff that needs to be done in order to release a game, try to figure out something around marketing etc. Stuff like that. And - we're going to enjoy the summer.
We hope you will too! Thanks for sticking around :)
Some more gameplay videos will be posted soon also. Checkout these screenshots until then, where our hero enjoys some views and engages in various combat.
Glad Midsommar / Happy Solstice, all !
Tales from the dev side #11
Stonedale is a (so far) safe haven, shielding from foul creatures by its thick stone walls. Here can Jens the Blackschmidt be found, to aid our hero with better equipment on his adventures. This is also where The Jolly Barrel Inn is located, where Melisande hangs out, serving the locals who have come to quench their thirst and to enjoy some tunes from the very capable bard.
Melisande hangs out there after having been resurrected by our hero (Sir Whoopass), following a little.. mishap, accidentally caused by the very same hero. And, since the resurrection ritual didn’t go perfectly well, our hero needs to take Melisande's place in fighting The Immortal and his evil empire - while Melisande takes care of the Inn and does some strategic planning.
[previewyoutube="54HFxCh7gNk;full"]
Have a nice weekend, all! ːsteamhappyː
Punch Line Challenge!
Hey all !
As a little follow-up to the previous post with a sneak peek of the Wildwood are - we want to go on and try a little crowd-generated content thing!
In the game, we have this narrator voice, reading and commenting stuff. And when our hero finishes off an enemy in a spectacular fashion, he tends to comment that - a "punch line", sort of.
So, we thought that You - The Community (TM) - maybe could help us to come up with some more fun punch lines for the narrator to choose from? :-)
If you can think of something catchy that he could say after a nice punch, feel free to add it in a comment to this post! And if we like it, and feel it would fit, we'll record it and use it in the game. And in that case, as a THANK YOU - we will add you in the credits of the game (your Steam nickname), as a contributor.
How's that ?
To get an understanding of some of the current punch lines, we've created a small Punch Line Demonstration Video, with some extraordinary bashes + punch line comments so you'll get a hint of what we're talking about :)
So - check it out, and comment with some more suggestions if you'd like .. And get the chance to be credited in the final game! (and nopes, we won't reveal the winners until in the released game ;-))
Thanks alot, potential contributors !
[previewyoutube="EvD8jCp2P8s;full"]
Tales from the dev side #10
Hi all, we want to share more of our progress and what's going on in the development of the game - so here is a first short little development preview of Wildwood, the main overworld area in the game.
[previewyoutube="nbn8PUn1QMU;full"]
Have a nice weekend, and stay tuned for more updates :)
Tales from the dev side #9
So, what has happened since September -21 ?
Well, 2022 has happened, and earth seems to continue it's morphing process into total chaos. Our thoughts are with all the innocent people suffering in this madness, and are hoping that it will come to and end soon, and that the world will turn into a nicer place again.
That said - what about Sir Whoopass then? We're still working hard in getting the game ready. We've actually had a first round of beta testing! How about that??
We have collaborated with a local school, "NTI Gymnasiet" - where the pupils are studying game development and such stuff. So cool! Most of us in Atomic Elbow are so old that when we were in school, games weren't invented yet. No, all we had to play with was sticks and "kottar" (fir cones?), building our own primitive toys to play with in the forests here in Sweden. Getting bitten by mosquitoes. Stuff like that. A little bit like real-life Minecraft. But not so much TNT.
OK, that might have been a bit exaggerated. But at least we didn't have game development as a school subject, and we're quite jealous. I mean, who wouldn't like to beta-test Sir Whoopass during school hours? And we got alot of constructive feedback - suggestions, complaints, praise. Win-win !
It was very rewarding to watch them play - it's easy for us working with the game to get home blind and play the game "as intended". We discovered some new fresh ways to play it during this test, both good and bad things :-)
"Oh, this player managed to push the bard step by step to finally get him on the other side of the wall. That's .. innovative!" "How did that player get the jetpack so soon? Oh, wearing the bunny hat he managed to find a shortcut beside the gate, up the hill side." "I found a way to hit faster with the big sledgehammer by fast-clicking left+right button, that makes the blocking move disrupt the sledge-hitting animation." Etc. :) (yes, we're (probably/hopefully) going to address these exact issues before the release)
And yeah - we got hats and a jetpack now. And a bard.
...And lots of other fun stuff! Stay tuned, thanks for being patient with us :-)
Tales from the dev side #8
Hi all! We've been busy reworking parts of the game and story, adding puzzles, cutscenes, improved visuals, day/night, quests, done lots of testing, bugfixing and iterating over and over, striving to be able to finally wrap it up. It looks pretty awesome now but there is still work to do :)
Here are some recent screenshots from the game
Have a nice weekend, all! ːsteamhappyː
Tales from the dev side #7
Hi all, yeah it happened again, long time passed with no updates. This time we know what to blame though - another project "popped up", that we decided to give some focus and resources (and since we don't have that much resources, SWA progress takes a hit, unfortunately).
That project is Switchball HD , a remaster of an old Atomic Elbow gem! We're glad to have been able to get it out on Steam. Check it out, it's fun! Something to play while waiting for Sir Whoopass... :)
However, all progress for Sir Whoopass is not stalled. We have worked alot on the story, trying to get the big pieces together - and we've put effort into making the outdoor environment look nicer and with better performance.
Here, doesn't this look pretty nice? :)
Have a nice weekend, all ! ːsteamhappyː
Tales from the dev side #6
Hey again!
Another week passed by, a bunch of new cool game features have been implemented, and we're up for a little bugfixing/stabilizing/polishing period. Expect some cool screenshots coming up!
Until then, enjoy the weekend together with Cupcake, the not-so-deadly prison guard Orc :-) (and also, get a glimpse of our development environment!)
