Hello, blog followers! Today DDMR went on sale in the PlayStation store digital downloads reduction thingy. It’s half price from today (15th April) to 28th April. Only in the EU though so soz to Americhums etcs.
To mark the occasion, we put up a nice new game-play video which has some review quotes and a nice performance by Charlie in Chill-Out Mode.
And if you’ve just bought the game and have stumbled onto our blog, hello! Alright?
So we’ve had to come up with a new name for Avoid Droid because Lucasfilm own the trademark of the word ‘Droid.’
But no problemmo! Avoid Droid is now called…
Which is cool!
Oh by the way, we’ve finished making the game now. It’ll be out soon!
Hello, chums!
So, for the last couple of months, Charlie has been coding and designing the prototype for our next game and it’s now at a state where we can show it to you guys.
Starting a new game is a fantastic time where the team can share the birthing process of an idea, and as it grows each of us can find ways we can use our unique skills to make it the best game possible.
So what sort of game is it! Well, it’s what we’d call a mental arithmetic adventure RPG.
Travelling through distant lands you will meet monstrous creatures which you’ll battle using your powers of fast mental arithmetic as they pose you increasingly demanding maths problems.
What we’ve got right now is a vertical slice which show-cases the combat, navigation, animation and random map generation. Let’s have a look at a video of the most recent prototype:
There’s a loooooooooooooong way to go now until we’ve got a completed concept, let alone the finished game. We still need to prototype quests, treasure chests, boss fights… along with any other features we choose to add to make the game play experience better.
The place-holder art you can see in the video will be replaced by the hand-drawn work of an illustrator (who we will tell you more about soon).
The music is in the process of being researched. Barry is up ’till the wee small hours every night researching medieval music to bring you a hint of authenticity in his own inimitable style.
Anyway, we hope you enjoyed the video and continue to follow the development of our game as it takes shape!
It’s out! Go and download it here:
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/frutorious/id524952395?mt=8
Here’s the trailer!
Learn about what’s in the update here. Have fun and tell your friends!
The Frutorious ‘Off-World’ update is out!
We’re all really excited about releasing this because we’ve added a whole load of content, put in lots of feedback we’ve had from our lovely players, added social features and fixed a few little bugs here and there.
Here’s a comprehensive run-down of everything we’ve crammed into the Off-World Pack
One evening Mr Fruts was out looking for mushrooms with his best friend Frutorious F.I.G. Suddenly, an ALIEN SPACE SHIP appeared and Mr Fruts was sucked aboard. Those ghastly Aliens had come all the way from our game ‘Shepherd: Mars Needs Sheep!’ to steal all the fruits in Frutland!
Mr Fruts and everyone from Frutland were transported through space and time and across infinite dimensions ending up an awfully long way from home.
‘Don’t worry, Mr Fruts!’ said Frutorious F.I.G. ‘I got a rocket in my pocket!’
And off they went collecting all the fruits while trying to get back to Frutland…
There’s a brand new 36 ‘Off-World’ levels for you to play in the update. They are set over four different dimensions that the Aliens have transported you to. Some are very weird, some are very strange but they’re all very FRUITY!
You’ll also encounter a new gameplay feature – the WORM HOLE! This circular tunnel in space-time will suck you in and then spit you out somewhere else in the level and leads to some very funky puzzles to solve.
A warm, dank and dark dimension filled with enormous mushrooms and giant wooden statues. Things here are quite easy and fun, and help you to start to get your head around the wormholes
When Mr Fruts was dropped into this telepathic dimension, it used his emotional energies to fashion plasma into the form of a place where Mr Fruts feels most happy: Frutland.
Next, F.I.G drops Mr Fruts off somewhere very hot and very confusing: a dimension where wool watches you; Peyote Dimension. Things are really starting to get tricky now with cunning levels in distinctly trippy surroundings
This is a childish sketchy world full of streaks of colour and wormholes… along with the trickiest, most mind-bending Frutorious puzzles ever conceived!
Each dimension also has its own music, so there’s four new tunes encompassing funk, techno, trip-hop ad electropop.
As well as 36 brand new levels, the worm holes and the Aliens from Shepherd: Mars Needs Sheep, there’s some brand new social features!
You can now brag to your friends on Twitter or Facebook when you get a new Hi-Score on Frutorious Pro, and you can publish your progress in the main game on your favourite social media timeline too. What’s more, every time you make a tweet or a post, Frutorious F.I.G. will give you some play-coins which you can spend on power-ups in the game!
Everyone asked for it… so we made it happen! You can now play Frutorious Pro using either the retro art or the hand-made art.
We’ve also added an extra 5 seconds to the clock to give beginners more of a chance to get into the awesomeness that is Frutorious Pro. It still provides the same challenge to the battle hardened Frutorious Pro players but we hope this will open up the score boards to some new contenders too.
We’ve also written a new tune for Frutorious Pro which we think suits the vibe better.
We’ve made lots of tweaks to make the game more accessible, stable and fun.
FRUTORIOUS FREE FOR A BIT!
It’s the TIGA 2012 awards tonight in Bath and we can’t flippin’ wait! To celebrate, we’re making Frutorious FREE for a limited time, so tell all your chums they can GRAB IT for GRATIS before 5th of November! C’mon, let’s see if we can break that elusive top 100 😀
Here’s the AppStore link https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/frutorious/id524952395?mt=8
BLACK HOLES!
In the mean time, we’re also busy beavering away on levels for the update! One of the new things that’ll be in the update are BLACK HOLES! Making levels with these are super good fun, and we’ve been banging them out on our lunch breaks at work and in the evenings. Here’s a little video that’ll do a better job at explaining what they are like than I could in words…
THE BIG AWARDS QUESTION!
So all that’s left to do now is sit and wait to find out the answer to the question on everyone’s lips… What food they doin’ at the meal? Charlie will be hungry after the long drive and I know what he’s like – he’ll want a bit of gravy. Personally, I’m in the mood for a bit of ice cream!
Whatever is for dinner we know we’ll have a great evening. Still hasn’t sunk in that we’re going! We’re in categories with some really professional and amazingly popular titles, so for a game made by 3 guys with day jobs which has only had a handful of downloads this is a proper immeasurably massive whopping great big deal 🙂
GO DOWNLOAD FRUTORIOUS!
So yeah! Please go share this, tell your palz and family, tell all your internet-chums and that woman you say hello to with the dog. Impress hipster friends by introducing them to it, believe me, they wouldn’t have heard of it!
Here’s that link again…
It is with great delight and chests full of pride that we announce that Frutorious has been officially chosen as a finalist in two categories of the TIGA 2012 awards!
Here’s the official press release from TIGA
The categories we’re in have some fantastic games and excellent examples of the best of British work, so being alongside them and having our game recognised by industry peers is really really cool. Proper job!
Here’s the groups…
CASUAL
SCE London Studio – DanceStar™ Party
Aardman Digital and Turner Broadcasting – Dino Donkey Dash: The Amazing World of Gumball
Reflections a Ubisoft studio – Just Dance 4
Infinite State Games – Frutorious
NaturalMotion Games – CSR Racing
First Touch Games Ltd – Score! Classic Goals
AUDIO DESIGN
Lionhead, Microsoft Studios – Fable: The Journey
Infinite State Games – Frutorious
thechineseroom – Dear Esther
Fireproof Games – The Room
Reflections a Ubisoft Studio – Driver San Francisco
JohnnyTwoShoes – Prevail
We just wanted to thank everyone who voted for us. You guys are all fantastic and we’re so grateful for your help in getting Frutorious and our tiny team nominated. Without you guys playing our game, helping us and sharing our updates and taking the time to vote, we wouldn’t have got here. It’d just have been me and Charlie voting and that would have been a sorry state of affairs.
Whatever happens at the awards, this is super exciting! We’ll be sure to let you know how we get on… in the mean time though, we’ll be cracking on with the update for you all 🙂
Quick heads up, chums! We’re making Frutorious 69p/99c from Sunday onwards. It’s still a complete and total bargain but grab it sharpish if you want in on the free action 🙂
Why is it going paid? Well, because it’s just TOO GOOD to give away for free!
We’ve not had any official reviews in any magazines, but we’ve now got 29 five star reviews on the AppStore!
It was featured on the thoroughly excellent indiegames.com
It was also chosen as one of the ‘three apps worth downloading’ on Appolicious along side the official YouTube app!
We also got a lovely write up from Rob Fearon at OwVideogames who said…
it’s a Fuzzy-Felt’d, Plasticine populated cross between Rainbow Islands and one of those got-to-jump-up-things but via the medium of a slingshot and it’s bloody brilliant.
Read the whole article here
Most exciting for our level designer, one of his heroes, James Mielke (Pixel Junk Producer) tweeted this about Frutorious…
We’re currently working hard on the update, so have any more of you guys played Frutorious yet?
The major massive update to Shepherd is here … and to celebrate our milestone one thousand downloads of Frutorious, we’re making ‘Shepherd: Mars Needs Sheep’ free for a limited time!
http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/shepherd-mars-needs-sheep!/id440987743?mt=8
So if you like TAPPING and PANICKING and SHEEP and EXPLOSIONS… get on the case sharpish while it’s free!
We’re working on an update for Frutorious!
No date yet for when it’s out, but it’s coming and we think you’ll be very happy indeed with what we’ve got lined up for you…
We know you’ll like what’s in the update, because all the tweaks have come from you guys! We’ve had really great feedback from people who are enjoying the game, and they’ve suggested some excellent ideas which will improve the flow of the game for everyone. Here’s the ideas and feedback we’ve had that we’re putting in the update…
There’ll be a whole new world with new baddies, new thingies and new 36 levels to download! We’ve not finalised the art yet but here’s a sneak peak…
So we’ll have more info soon, but keep playing Frutorious Pro every day, strive to collect all the stars in the main game and we promise the time will fly by!
And don’t forget, every time you tell a friend about Frutorious, somewhere a tiny mushroom sprouts and a gnome has it for his dinner!
