“What have you been up to, Karja,” asks the casual browser of this blog. “You’re slacking off with the updates again!”

Before you read too much into the title of this entry, there will be no speculations regarding psychological reactions to hostage situations. Instead, I’ll give a brief summary of my last few weeks: packing, work, stress, threw away half of my belongings, moved the other half 250 km (thanks for the help, Mauri!), and – in general – more stress.

My life has changed quite a bit in the last year, and even more so in the last six months. I now find myself with a new job, living in Stockholm, in a large house instead of a rented flat, with a new girlfriend and adorable cats, about to get a driver’s license (hey, I’ve never needed one before now!) and generally with less spare time than I’m used to.

Despite this, Spandex Force: Superhero U has progressed! I’m currently working on episode 2 (seen above, but Time Master doesn’t make an appearance in that episode – he’s just there ’cause I love how he looks). I have also received invaluable feedback from Pätr regarding the first episode, and I’ll modify the difficulty and the minigames accordingly.

Oh, and apparently the music sounds like something from softcore porn. But hey, a bit of softcore never hurt anyone. (Okay, okay, I’ll see if I can do something about that too.)

One thing I got back from the feedback is that the game is very similar to the original Spandex Force. The art is improved, I’ve learned a bit more about game design and so on – but at the core I guess I am aiming for a similar experience. In fact, I chose to keep many of the situations from Spandex Force: you still rescue old ladies from being run over, there’s still fires to put out and so on…I guess one could say that this game will be more like what I wanted to do with the original one, but I didn’t have the resources back then.

Oh, and the humor isn’t quite as…daring. There are no animals getting hurt, there are no transvestite villains, and so on. This is a conscious choice, to keep the game family-friendly. Sometimes I feel like I’d love to make a very edgy game, but I don’t really have an urge to shock people with my games anymore; gone are the days of my (very old) Shit Invaders and Spank da Virgin games. Good humor is good humor, regardless of questionable themes.

Speaking of various approaches to humor, I’m on the fence regarding Comic Jumper. If I had an Xbox 360 I’d love to check it out, to see if I “get” the humor or not. Tentacle porn levels at Hent High… That’s clever.

A while ago I discussed some things that are not present in Spandex Force: Superhero U. Since I’m done with v0.1 of the game I thought I’d mention some of the things that are present as well, for good measure.

Q: What’s the main structure of the first episode?

First you create a male or female hero, assign colors and choose hair/face styles. After that you’re dumped in the main university screen, where you get to meet your professors and classmates, and select three classes out of five to take in the first episode.

After you’ve finished your schoolwork there will be an interruption – a student has been kidnapped! It’s up to you to ask around for clues, and eventually storm off to the villain’s lair to rescue the damsel in distress.

Or at least, that’s what you think…

Q: Is there more to the game than that?

The text above describes the first episode of the Adventure Mode. If you want to just play around a bit, there’s also a Relaxed Mode, and later there will be a Battle Arena for fighting other heroes.

In other words, you can play the Adventure Mode when you have a lot of time, or just spend 15 minutes now and then. Everything you do in the Battle Arena or Relaxed Mode will benefit your hero in the Adventure Mode as well!

Q: What’s the gameplay like?

There’s a fair amount of dialogue and adventure-like gaming on the various screens, but the main gameplay is puzzle based. There are three different types of match-3 game mechanics (swap, slide, twist), in combination with three different main game modes (battle, clear all locked tiles, fill up the power meters).

The most important game mode is swap match-3 battles against villains, other students and various obstacles. In these you use your superpowers to defeat your opponents.

Additionally, there are also special modes e.g. when you collect clues.

Q: What about the RPG parts?

There’s a lot of RPG elements too in the game. You collect experience points that will level up your character. Leveling up gives you more health, and power points that you can spend on mental, physical or elemental power levels.

There are also 27 different superpowers, divided in the three different power types. Depending on your reputation level, you can buy new powers and level up old ones. This means that you can upgrade your old powers to make them useful later in the game.

If you have spare cash you can also buy artifacts such as helmets, weapons, shields and capes. These give various bonuses, for example power bonuses, extra health or bonuses to money collected.

Q: What about replayability?

You decide yourself which classes to pursue in each episode, you assign power points however you wish, and you upgrade powers at will. This means that there will be classes you haven’t seen and powers you (probably) can’t afford to buy on your first playthrough. The story will be the same, but your heroes will develop quite differently!

Now, I really should get started on making a webpage for the game!