Blow Stuff Up

[Pater Alf]

Well, the title says it all...

This is a nice coffeebreak first person shooter by Earok (developer of "Derelict" and "The Kiwi's Tale"). You have one minute to shoot down a whole city including buildings, cars, tanks and planes. Every time you destroy something you will get a little time bonus, every time you are hit you will loose some seconds.

The game is well designed and plays pretty good and it is even a little funny (because of the intro text). There is a 1-player and a 2-player mode (second player needs a XBox controller).

Developer: Earok

Download: http://earok.net/blow-stuff-up

Download size: 10.1 MB

Year: 2009

Status: Freeware

[Chroelle]

And it even has a Danish translation. (By yours truelly).

[Pater Alf]

I don't think the the Danish and German translations are already included in the download I linked to. But to be honest, this is not really a game that you won't understand without a translation...

[earok]

Hey, thanks for considering the game for the site

It's still kind of back in beta, which is why your translations haven't been added in just yet, but I should get around to it in the next couple of weeks. Any other suggestions (Especially those that make it more likely the game gets a place on the site!) would be gratefully appreciated.

[Chroelle]

In that case we should possible playtest instead of validate just yet, and tell you what we are looking for, and then you have the option of changing things (or not) based on our feedback.
Some might say that it seems a little cheat-ish, but heck...there should be some advantages to those coming here as developers.

[Drasir-Vel]

It is a little cheat-ish.

[Chroelle]

Some might say that it seems a little cheat-ish

It is a little cheat-ish.

I rest my case.

[Drasir-Vel]

Nah, just kidding.

[Pater Alf]

What do you mean with cheat-ish? Easy to cheat? Then I must have missed the trick...

For me the game was fine the way it is. I can't think of anything I would've wanted from a coffebreak FPS game (which is a very rare genre). Maybe the possibility to play the two-player-mode without owning a XBox controller (by using another gamepad, joystick or the keyboard).

[earok]

I think they meant cheating in the sense I may be getting inside help from CWF to get the game a place on the site . IMO it's not cheating, if you make me improve the game before letting it on the site, that can only be a good thing.

On that topic, I am working on tweaking and polishing Project Firestart if you'd be willing to reconsider your position in that game

Incidently there is a cheat in the game where you can NUKE the island. Also regarding multiplayer, I could make it so the second player can play just using the keyboard, though this would put him at a severe disadvantage (Even using an XBox controller is a handicap). Online multiplayer is planned eventually, but maybe not this year.

[Chroelle]

I think they meant cheating in the sense I may be getting inside help from CWF to get the game a place on the site . IMO it's not cheating, if you make me improve the game before letting it on the site, that can only be a good thing.

That was my point yes. But hey... I totally agree with you, and we did make a developer help project where we offer things like playtesting, so this would just be doing alot of good in one go, that is good for everyone...

And regarding Project Firestart, then I think we need to talk in the crew regarding that, as we had a somewhat similar situation some years ago, which we never fully agreed on what to do about. Let me get back to you on that.

[jayenkai]

IMO (as most are aware), getting feedback nowadays is like pulling teeth.
You guys are ALWAYS great for feedback, and I love that about you.
Stick around, earok, you'll get good advice!

[Chroelle]

[earok]

New release of Blow Stuff Up is out. The changes:

* Mecha sprites by Anthony Lau.
* Danish and German translations by Chroelle and Peter Alf. Thanks guys!
* Easy mode. The amount of time you start with, as well as the amount of time you get from destroying stuff is doubled.
* Aspect ratio fix. Widescreen resolution now shows more to the sides, rather than less on the top and bottom.
* Misc bug fixes.

One thing I wanted to check, I ended up translating the word 'Easy' myself but I wasn't sure I had done it correctly - Nem for Danish, Leicht for German?

[Pater Alf]

Leicht for easy is correct!

Btw: My name is Pater Alf not Peter Alf...

[eMTe]

Hm. I got a little confused. A couple of questions.

Easy mode doesnt let you die from enemy bullets, only from time counter reaching zero, right? (at least I didnt die, but playing normal mode I die within 30 seconds).

Do you die from single hit or from several hits, because there's not energy bar or anything.

I think these issues can be easily resolved by adding small manual info to readme file. The game is very confusing for newbie, you just fall from the sky and start running and shooting, blowing stuff up, but it takes time to understand what really happens and how game works, not to add that the goal of the game (survive before time counter reaches zero) is not even slightly mentioned. Oh, and you could add support for cursor keys, some people really hate wasds.

CWF's chief grumpzoid has spoken!

Btw, if you need Polish translation you can have one done for fun, of course if the engine supports Polish alphabet (engines tend not to).

[earok]

Sorry Pater! My bad. I did spell your name correctly in the readme file and announcing blog post though.

eMTe, you are absolutely right, I should have put a 'how to play' section in the readme file, and I will on the next release. Blow Stuff Up is very different to virtually any other FPS ever made, as I have deliberately tried to give it an Arcade feel. This is the basics of it:

- You have to destroy each and every building, fighter plane, tank and car before your time limit expires. (You start with twice as much on easy mode)
- Your time increases with every building, fighter plane, tank and car you destroy. (You get twice as much on easy mode)
- Your time decreases with every enemy hit against you. (You lose half as much on easy mode)
- The key to winning the game is to build up a large supply of time by pulling off building combos. The amount of time you get increases exponentially with every building that collapses onto another building in a row (+4 seconds for two buildings, +8 seconds for three, +16 for four, +32 for five etc).

The game is dead easy to translate, and I'd love it if you did a Polish translation (in fact more people from Poland downloaded my games than people from any other country last year, excluding China).

In the 'languages' folder, there are four language files. Copy the 'language.en' file to 'language.pl'. The first line should be changed to be the Polish word for 'Polish', and then on the rest of the lines, translate the text after the colon (the text before the colon is used by the game as a reference).

(Edit - Also, the 'story' is deliberately poorly written. The guy who did the Portuguese translation actually researched how Russians speak Portuguese in order to faithfully translate it!)

[eMTe]

I understand the intro story concept, dont worry.

As for language file it can be edited simply with notepad (or possibly more sophisticated tool, of course), right? Ill look into it in some free time.

And thx for gameplay info, actually you can put your words from this topic into readme file, they explain everything!

[earok]

Thanks eMTe. Yep, you can use Notepad or any plain text editor to make the file. When you're done, would you mind pasting the body of the file into here? Or into a PM if you'd prefer?

Also, I'll include instructions like that in the readme, thanks for the feedback.

[earok]

Also, since Curly's World is so great, here's a little cheat exclusively for you guys. During the game, hold down the keys N-U-K-E at the same time.