Today we are launching our game and starting off with a Live Stream!
Come see our game streamer "Bumpy McSquigums" play "Something Ate My Alien"! Developer Rob Donovan & Artist Kat Langwagen will be in chat to answer any of your questions, during the stream.
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Starting at 12PM ET / 6PM CEST
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The Game
Something Ate My Alien is a 2D, digging and puzzle platformer game where you take the role of the AI Antalasia, and control your little Alien blobs to explore the planets you visit! Your task is to dig through the ground of the different worlds and find all the items required by the pirate that is hijacking you. During the adventure on each planet you have to battle environmental dangers, fight off wildlife, solve secret puzzle chambers, and all this while surviving on a depleting oxygen supply and a threat far scarier than the local wildlife.
Key Features
Dig through the depths of 4 different planets and collect as much loot as possible.
Solve puzzle chambers by pushing and pulling blocks to reveal secret treasures.
Survive by finding oxygen recharge stations and dodging environmental obstacles.
Fight the hostile flora and fauna with your choice of 6 specialized weapons.
Upgrade and build your equipment by collecting items and energy.
Find hidden relics and collect achievements.
Engage in bigger battles with the scary huge threats guarding the hidden secrets.
Come see our game streamer "Bumpy McSquigums" play "Something Ate My Alien"! Developer Rob Donovan & Artist Kat Langwagen will be in chat to answer any of your questions, during the stream.
Stream is currently here: https://steamcommunity.com/broadcast/watch/76561197968521358
It is not working on the store page for some reason :(
Something Ate My Alien is a 2D, digging and puzzle platformer game where you take the role of the AI Antalasia, and control your little Alien blobs to explore the planets you visit! Your task is to dig through the ground of the different worlds and find all the items required by the pirate that is hijacking you. During the adventure on each planet you have to battle environmental dangers, fight off wildlife, solve secret puzzle chambers, and all this while surviving on a depleting oxygen supply and a threat far scarier than the local wildlife.
Key Features
Dig through the depths of 4 different planets and collect as much loot as possible.
Solve puzzle chambers by pushing and pulling blocks to reveal secret treasures.
Survive by finding oxygen recharge stations and dodging environmental obstacles.
Fight the hostile flora and fauna with your choice of 6 specialized weapons.
Upgrade and build your equipment by collecting items and energy.
Find hidden relics and collect achievements.
Engage in bigger battles with the scary huge threats guarding the hidden secrets.
Something Ate My Alien is a 2D, digging and puzzle platformer game where you take the role of the AI Antalasia, and control your little Alien blobs to explore the planets you visit! Your task is to dig through the ground of the different worlds and find all the items required by the pirate that is hijacking you. During the adventure on each planet you have to battle environmental dangers, fight off wildlife, solve secret puzzle chambers, and all this while surviving on a depleting oxygen supply and a threat far scarier than the local wildlife.
In this demo you get to try out part of the first planet 'Metis' which included 3 puzzles and fighting enemies, while collecting lots of loot.
[previewyoutube="RM2m1_v33Bo;full"]
SAMA Steam Game Festival - Discord AMA
Discord AMA
With our Demo launch on Steam coming on 16th June, we are having an AMA on Discord right after our Live Stream of Bumpy McSquigums playing SAMA!
We (Rob, Developer & Kat, Artist) will be in the chat answering any questions you have about us or the game.
Come hang out with us, and we are looking forward to chatting with you all!
We will also be having streaming all week long, during the Festival, so look out for those broadcasts!
[previewyoutube="RM2m1_v33Bo;full"]
Release date announcement!
We are extremely excited to announce that our 2D puzzle and digging adventure game “Something Ate My Alien” is finally in a complete state and will be released 18th June 2020!
If you have not yet added SAMA to your wishlist, now is the time to do it so you get notified when it launches.
After 3,5 years development and basically working around the clock, we have almost achieved our goal of finishing SAMA. Another month of polishing and bug fixing before the big day, and we are more than ready to make this happen.
We promise a chill game with a slight strategy tone where you will explore big levels full of things to collect, puzzles to solve and a fair amount of shooting action occuring. All this while listening to a lovely mix of music tracks suited for this type of game. The most used words testers seem to use describing SAMA are “chilled explorer game”.
SAMA will be available on Windows, Linux and Mac and it also has controller support if you prefer to play with that rather than the keyboard. We also offer visual aid for the puzzle rooms for those who struggle seeing different colours which can be toggled on/off in the settings menu.
As a 2 person dev team we have learnt a lot during this time, and feedback from testers has been invaluable to us. Reflecting on the time that has gone by since the first story line of SAMA was written down, and seeing where we are now is quite a satisfying feeling. Not only have we proven that if you really love what you’re doing and put your mind to it, you can make it happen, but we have also proven to ourselves that we make a good team which bodes well for future endeavours.
We hope you are as excited for SAMA as we are, and that you will enjoy playing it once it is out.
Development news
With the release date being pushed to June 2020, this has now given us a little more time to polish and test the game.
This week has been quite busy. We went out with a PR to the media about the release date and we also have a demo of the game up on Game Jolt, where you can try out and play a portion of our game right now. It runs on Windows, Mac and Linux and we hope this little teaser will make you feel that push to make “Something Ate My Alien” part of your wish-list.
This has encouraged some Streamers to play the game and create videos, which we have been watching and scrutinizing for tips and ideas for things that might need tweaking.
[previewyoutube="CWhCC08xe4k;full"]
Everything seemed to go smoothly, although we noticed a few minor things, and they are in the process of getting fixed right now.
We also have to make a few tweaks to balance the "Insane" difficulty level, as we think the HP of some of the enemies is a bit high and needs some thinking about.
It's always nerve wracking when you go public with releases like this, but we think generally people have liked the first experience they have had with our game, and we are happy to see people playing it.
If you haven't seen our latest trailer, then take a look below, as this will give you some more ideas of what the game is like.
[previewyoutube="RM2m1_v33Bo;full"]
If you like the look of our game and think this would be something you would enjoy then we would appreciate if you would add us to your Wish List, so you will get a notification when we release the game fully.
In the meantime, we are polishing, bug fixing and we keep looking at videos with people playing our demo or Beta to pick up feedback on possible changes and improvements that we can work on.
Keep safe out there and why not try out our Demo for something fun and relaxing to take your mind of things?
Progress Update
General
Well the good news is we’re very near the end of our development. We’ve implemented everything we wanted to, and the game is quite stable. There has been lots of help from our testers and we believe we have a good and solid game.
But the bad news is, we are going to have to delay a bit more. We would have liked to release towards the end of April, but we’ve had a few issues, above the obvious one. Some of the finishing touches took longer than we expected, and also our Steam Wish List numbers aren’t quite as good as we had hoped for, as we haven’t spent as much time on marketing.
With that being said, we’ve re-planned it all, and we are now going to aim for June 2020.
During the time between now and then, we will be concentrating on more polish and bug hunting.
Updates & Changes
We entered ‘Beta’ testing a few weeks ago with our testers, and the main difference is that now we will not be adding any major features or changes. Along with bug fixing we will also be balancing play, enemies and other small changes. So far, it’s proving to be stable and have little problems.
Speech
The AI and Pirate now ‘talk’ to you! We thought just the text messages were a bit lifeless, so we gave them voices. Just electronically generated gibberish, but it lifts the experience and makes it feel more personal. This is optional in the settings menu.
World Map
Previously, you automatically teleported down to the last place you were at on a planet. Now, before teleporting, you are presented with a map of the area you have seen so far, teleporters you’ve previously used, and you can select where you teleport to. This makes it easier to move around the planets and find the goodies you’re looking for. It’s basically an expanded version of the Mini Map.
Relics
There are now 4 different relics to find, dotted around the planets. Each having a unique little message to read. Some are not so easy to access as they are sealed behind blocks. A new Achievement is available for collecting all 4.
Controller Support
This was on the list for so long, and we kept putting it off. You can now use a controller to play the game. Fully configurable from the setting screen. There are a few unique features when the controller is plugged in, to help with movement and make it easier to control.
Platforms
We’re currently building Beta version on Windows, Linux and MacOS, so no matter what system you are on we have a version for you! Luckily with Unity it’s very easy to build for different platforms, and we are now using Unity Collaborate and Cloud build which makes it even easier.
It’s official, we are nearing the end of development of our game “Something Ate My Alien” and we will be releasing it on the Steam platform in April 2020!
Reaching this milestone and being able to set a date for release is extremely exciting and a bit scary for us. When we started developing this game all the way back in 2016, we had no idea just how much work we signed up for and just how long it takes to develop a game when you are only 2 people doing it. Reflecting on that makes this day feel even sweeter, to finally start seeing the result of all that hard work.
So, in this blog we’d like to give you all a quick breakdown to let you know how SAMA developed since our last dev blog back in August 2019.
Level design
Changing the level design to be more linear in the beginning of the game has been a good move with our Alpha testers. We continued following this path and doing some more tweaking on the remaining levels and trying to add certain design aspects to each level making each one more unique.
The puzzle rooms are now sorted in difficulty order from 1 to 10 in each level. If a player finds one tricky they will now know which ones should be good to start with and which ones are better to leave to the end.
Enemy enhancements
2-block enemies now stay in specific areas specifically designed for them rather than being spawned randomly across the levels. We kept getting a lot of weird behaviour and bugs with the bigger ones moving across areas where they’d get stuck on 1 block ledges. This way they not only work as intended; they are now a bigger part of the level design in acting like smaller mini bosses with specific traits that will make it harder to get through certain areas.
Several enemies have got an upgrade in looks, how they act and what they can do to add more diversity in enemy encounters and battles.
The Oyse bulbous plant creature starts pulsating and will blow up and multiply if you approach too close to it. The Phantus can now both fly and walk moving up and down to ledges it previously could not reach, making it hard for you to avoid it or even hide. Oh yes, it also shoots projectiles through it’s tail, making it a very dangerous enemy.
The Draker lay eggs that explodes and expels a powerful missile seed that can go through blocks to find you. The Guld leaves trails of little bombs that are deadly and the Murderia shoots out single projectiles in all directions like an automatic weapon. The Bagice can now grow its sharp crystal tendrils from the ceiling as well as the floor and the Kator does a roll at high speed to try and hit you like a bowling ball.
We have added a new Enemy to Aura called Jaxer. It hides in blocks and shoots out as some speed when the player gets near. Around the floor and ceiling near the Jaxer nests we added icy spikes that will warn of this enemy hiding nearby but also to add some difficulty in trying to pass these nests without taking damage.
The Bosses have all been given an overhaul in movement tracks and the speed and variation within those tracks. Some extra things were added to make them feel more unique such as projectile impacts spawning enemies. The final boss scene has an environmental mechanic to help with the fighting. The bosses now also drops higher ratio of health and oxygen boosts so the player has a fairer chance of fighting without running out of oxygen before fight is over for example.
GUI changes
We changed the name “Inventory” to “Cargo Bay” in the menu to make it clearer this is the content you have collected and have stored in the ship, not what you are carrying on you.
We have done some major work on the GUI part of the game, with the Customization screen getting the bulk of these changes. We have moved around the different upgrade areas and put the weapon selection in a way so the player can view and decide on the weapons independently of setting the Primary and Secondary choices. This solves the issue with players having to manually reset the equipped weapon choice to the one they want after viewing other weapons which was quite frustrating.
The way the numbers are displayed in the materials needed section has now changed to show how many you got and how many are needed so you can compare and choose where to use your items in a more calculated manner.
Overall, we have added lots of more sounds both to the levels and animals there, but also to the GUI end cut scenes. We have tweaked and added a bunch more messages popping up from the pirate and Antalasia when the player is teleported back to the ship with (or without) loot to make the player feel more engaged with the protagonists of the story.
Steam connection
We have moved over our game to the Steam platform so new testers now access the game from there. We chose this quite recently to see how that would work for the actual release further on, making us familiar with all those procedures before the live release.
Being on Steam we’ve also been able to add achievements to our game. Not only are achievements good for little rewards as you play the game, but it also creates a competitive part for those players enjoying getting all achievements and seeing their progress both within the game and from the Steam library.
So with a few more months left until “Something Ate My Alien” hits the store front on Steam, we will continue tweaking and testing so the game will be the best it can be.
If you haven’t already, consider adding SAMA to your wish-list on Steam so you don’t miss out once it is released in April:
We have a new Alpha release out and we are now releasing through Steam.
Changes include, Steam Achievements and loads of changes to make the Enemies and Somethings more exciting! Along with bug fixes found by our current testers.
Alpha Changes We’ve been busy the last month implementing changes suggested from our Alpha testers.
Inventory Changes have mostly been around inventory and the pirate list. We realized that the way the pirate ransom list worked was a bit hard to follow and generally was looked at as being a ‘grind’ rather than fun. So we have changed it so that there are no groups and it’s just individual items that are now on the list. This meant we could remove the ransom list screen (no one really went to that screen), and everything is now on the inventory screen. The pirate automatically takes any ransom the player owes him as they teleport back up to the ship.
Upgrades We’ve also changed how upgrades are acquired. Previously each item had a sell value, and were sold to accrue ‘Units’. Upgrades were obtained with Units. Again, this didn’t seem rewarding, and people just click-click-clicked to sell everything all the time. So, we’ve changed it to be a more ‘crafting’ like process. Items aren’t sold any more, instead they are now used to build upgrades. Each upgrade now has a requirement of items (For example, one of the laser upgrades requires: 5 Grittium, 2 Gumom & 1 Hingle Bingle) that the player needs to find before they can build them. Units have been removed, and now each item has an ‘Energy’ cost along with the item requirements. Energy is found in the worlds in the puzzle chests, and also randomly dropped when enemies are killed.
Tutorial After watching some of the Alpha players uploaded playthrough videos, we saw that they were not understanding some parts of the game or mechanics. We had little message popups to explain things, but they were either just ignored or closed quickly. So we have introduced a ‘Tutorial’ section (Can be skipped) at the beginning of the game. When a new game is started, the computer AI will talk through the mechanics of the game. The player now gets the chance to actually do the things, in a controlled setting. This way they can directly learn about how to play, what keys do what and how to use items etc. There are 3 main sections to the tutorial, where the player is guided through an easy section at the beginning of the first level.
Metis layout We have also made the game a little bit more ‘linear’. We have noticed from watching the play throughs, and also comments back to us, that people were feeling ‘lost’. They didn’t really have any direction in where to go, especially at the beginning in Metis. So for Metis, we have made it more linear and it follows a more defined ‘path’. It’s not fully linear, and the player can still mine in any direction and move about freely. It now guides them through the level with more with walls (blocks that can’t be mined) etc. This should help the player in the beginning and not overwhelm them with such wide open areas. The other levels have not changed too much in this regard. Tartarus and Lelantos were previously more guided than Metis anyway, and Aura is still a lot more ‘open’.
Hopefully this will start the player off on a more direct path and help them understand the game better.
Minimap The minimap has had a bit of an upgrade. Along with other Upgrades you can build, there is now an ‘Item’ scanner. This upgrade allows the minimap to show up to 3 different items, so they can be found easier. It only shows them in areas that have already been seen, but it should help in finding specific items needed for other upgrades. A new button to stop the map following the player helps with navigation. Regarding upgrades, there is also a new scanner for graves, another suit protection for cold, and an extra level for the Lock Jaw device.
Going Forward So, that was a lot of work in the last month!
We still have lots to do. We want to enhance the enemies AI, enhance and polish the boss scenes and add Steam Achievements. Some other things we are looking at are full controller support, Linux & Mac support and the possibility of localization in other languages.
We had touted that our release date would be Autumn 2019. That would be possible, but we would have to drop quite a few things to get that done. Also, we have been working close to 100 hrs a week for far too long and that has taken a toll on our productivity and life. So we have made the decision to delay the release a bit. Ideally we would probably only need to extend by 2-3 months, but that puts us near Christmas and the winter sales. Generally this seems to be the time when small Indie developers should avoid releasing their games. So, we have to push it out to early 2020.
We feel this is the most ideal solution for making our game the best it can be for our players. We would like the final part of the game to be finished how we want it to be rather than rushing to complete it and it not being the game we hoped for.
Wishlist We’re also still busy trying to grow our community and Steam Wishlist. Click the link below to go and add our game to your Wishlist or see some more screen shots and our trailer video.
