January 1, 2010
Happy New Year, everyone!
I won't lie to you: this last year has been rough behind the scenes, as you might guess from the fact that the site wasn't updated all year. Work had been going slowly, inspiration was running dry, and we were all getting low on ideas, morale, and Mountain Dew. Not fun, let me tell you, but now, at last, that's all changed.
To get our idea motors running again, we gave the site a rehaul. It may not look different - it's not, apart from a few extra pages - but trust me, the coding behind the site is now VERY different, and much more efficient. We've also uprooted our sales infrastructure, meaning that our games are no longer delivered by mail; you can now download the installers right after you finish your order!
That's not all that's new here either. We're now giving each of our games its own page on the site, styled in the same theme as the game itself. We've also finally, officially launched the Gigahertz Games Command Library: GhzLib. If you're a Blitz programmer, go check it out. Trust me, this is big.
And now, of course, the thing that everyone's asking about: Midnight Hacker, our next major title. Well, your patience shall be rewarded soon enough: we're rewriting the engine in 3D! Midnight Hacker is still a 2D-oriented game, but using 3D graphics allows us much more flexibility and eye candy, such as realtime rotation, scaling and transparency. We've got most of the engine in place now, and are in the process of coding the A.I. for the enemies. At the moment, things are looking good; we hit a snag every now and then, but so far we've always been able to overcome it. Who knows? We shouldn't make any promises this early, but we might just get a little MOTION BLUR going for you folks... You'll just have to wait and see. Stay tuned, and Happy New Year once again! :D
- Adam Novagen
December 30, 2008
We're ba-ack!
Not that anyone would have known we were gone, other than the fact that our site has been TOTALLY PARALYZED for the last month. A huge ice storm hit Massachusetts, our home state, causing blackouts, downing communication lines, and cutting off our internet access. We've only just been able to get back online, and we're all sifting through the chaos of piled up emails & orders.
I want to personally apologize to all the people who ordered our games & are only just receiving them, weeks later. We couldn't do anything to stop the storm, and aren't actually responsible for the delay, but I still want you to know that we are sorry the games took so long to reach you. Thanks to all of you for your patience & understanding!
- Adam Novagen
November 27, 2008
Work is continuing on Midnight Hacker, and going pretty well; all the "APPs" (read: digital spaceships) for the player have been programmed in, complete with special attacks, where applicable. Right now, the APP known as "The Head" is the favorite of everyone here - more on that later - but the Satellite Cannon is also much-loved, what with its massive laser beam. We've moved on to creating the enemy APPs, which include viruses/glitches, security programs, and... Others. The art's going great, giving a nice "retro" appearance without looking low-quality. The programming, however, is proving a little more difficult than we thought. Making the enemies move & react to the player is easy enough, but getting them to stay within the level boundaries & not pass over gaps is a bit of a challenge. Nothing we can't handle, ultimately, but the programming department is currently in danger of going bald from all the frustrated hair-pulling.
On a brighter, more productive note, the sound problem we were having, namely a near-total lack of sound effects, has now been solved, thanks to Soundsnap.com. Soundsnap is a godsend to anyone who needs sound effects, since its archives contain over 50,000 quality sound effects, all of which are free for any purpose including commercial ones! I really have to recommend it.
So, that about wraps things up around here. We should have some screenshots for Midnight Hacker ready by the next news post, which hopefully won't be any later than January '09, so stay tuned!
- Adam Novagen
September 30, 2008 - Grand Opening
And what a grand opening it is, too! Thanks to a complete rehaul, top-quality images created in The GIMP, and a little JavaScript, the site now has a clean, proffesional look & feel. Plus, we now have our own high-end hosting & domain name, courtesy of GoDaddy.com!
Our two complete games, Pryzms and Schizo, are still available, now at just $5 USD each. Work continues on our next big project, Midnight Hacker, and so far things are going well, if a little slowly. The main game engine is about half done, although there's still a lot more content to add.
During the initial development stages of Midnight Hacker, a small "by-product" game, Vector GFX, was created. It's available free at FileFront - just click here - and you can download the source code from our own website by clicking here. It was also developed as an experiment in programming self-contained games; as the name Vector GFX implies, everything is rendered using graphics "primitives," aka vector graphics, so there are no images or sounds used. Those of you who've played either Asteroids or the more recent Geometry Wars will find the gameplay pretty familiar, but it's still entertaining.
- Adam Novagen
