A one-man game company is an incredibly fragile thing.

“Well, duh,” the observant and cynical reader comments. “That’s obvious!” Yes, indeed it is. But – as with so many other things – it’s very different to know something and to experience it firsthand.

When I was developing Wildhollow I ran into some difficulties. In the spring of 2009 the game lay nigh-on-finished but I couldn’t bring myself to complete it. Personal issues were messing with me (and of course, I went to China for a couple of months over summer too) and the entire project just came to a full stop. Interestingly enough, almost the same thing happened this spring, with Spandex Force: Superhero U. This time I lost the motivation completely; I watched countless hours of TV series instead of working on my li’l hobby project or writing on Cynical Stuff.

I know that I’ll finish my projects (I was planning on an August release for Spandex Force: Superhero U, but I’m going for a Christmas release instead), but sometimes the amount of work involved feels pretty overwhelming. You think making a polished game is just fun and…well…games? In both the case of Wildhollow and Spandex Force: Superhero U I had the main gameplay in place after a couple of months; the rest of the time is spent on spicing up the storylines, writing dialogue, adding effects, polishing the GUI system, etc etc. There’s always a ton of work to do that you (well, maybe not specifically you but people in general) don’t think about. Here’s a quote from Bytten’s Wildhollow review:

This time around [KarjaSoft] expand their catalogue of excellent games with another polished effort. [...] As usual for a KarjaSoft title, the most striking feature of Wildhollow is, without a doubt, the immaculate presentation. From a seamless install, to a seemingly bug free playthrough, and a clean uninstall – everything worked perfectly. It’s hard to find fault with such a professional offering.

This is not just tooting my own horn; I know that there are gameplay issues with all of my games. But I do pride myself on trying to make the best of what I have to work with. That includes making the game as polished as I can with my meager budget and limited art skills that I apply to GUI work and game design features. And that takes time.

But the fun doesn’t stop there! Even when I have a completed game, there are other things to take care of. The game webpage, writing press releases, contacting distributors, setting up the payment system, playing other games to see what the competition is doing (woe is me – such a hard task), planning where to go with my next game(s), thinking of my long term strategy…and worrying about making the games profitable.

It would be incredibly nice to have someone to share the burden with, but at the same time I feel pretty good about accomplishing what I do.

So, what’s the status of Spandex Force: Superhero U? It’s most certainly alive and kicking, and I have some interesting plans for it. Some of my plans have changed, and some things have been improved – but I’ll save that for another blog post in a couple of days. Maybe I’d better take some screenshots as well by then.

If you’re a productive developer/artist/designer with panache and humor, feel free to contact me about game project collaborations. I ain’t found anyone yet, but I’m open for suggestions!

This morning I blushed almost as much, as I got another mail from the same source, suggesting that The Crossdresser (one of the villains in Spandex Force) bears quite some similarity to me. I leave it up to you to decide:

The Crossdresser to the left. No, right.

Arguments for:

• Both have long hair and a beard.
• I have been known to wear a dress in order to disguise myself.
• The Crossdresser is completely insane; I think most people would say that we share that trait.

Arguments against:

• The Crossdresser’s wearing a wig in that picture.
• Uh…
• It’s not me, I promise!

Man! Outwitted by my own lists!

Overall, I must say that I’m pleased with the reception. I’ve received positive feedback, and people do seem to enjoy the game. Sales from the game’s webpage are up to what Sheeplings sold during six months; granted, I poured more into this second game, but it’s still going better than I thought. I wonder what will happen when I announce the proper release in a little while, along with a photo contest! (Intrigued? You should be. Stay tuned for more information!)

Other positive notes include that the game is mentioned on Gamershell, IGN, Gamespy and other news sites. Still no whisper about it on Gamespot, despite a press release I sent there, but maybe that will change after the real release. Other places have also picked up news about the game; for example Lesbian Gamers and Gay Gamer. Hmm… I wonder if it has something to do with the spandex?

As for feedback, most of what I’ve received comes from forums and e-mails. I won’t toot my own horn, but the concept seems to work very well, and the variation in the minigames works its magic for most people. But – as always – there’s just no pleasing everybody. Here is a list of user reviews, and Spandex Force has received both praise and scorn. And speaking of more scorn, here’s a scathing review from Rock, Paper, Shotgun. I was initially crushed until I started analysing the complaints and compared them to the positive feedback I’ve received. I’m first to admit that my game isn’t as “good” (subjective term of course) as Puzzle Quest; I don’t have the budget or the time for that amount of polish. But I’m not competing directly against Puzzle Quest either - I’m targeting another set of customers. Sure, there’s some overlap – myself for example! I like both casual games and hardcore RPGs. But while Puzzle Quest is aimed at the RPG crowd, my intention is to bring something exciting to the casual crowd instead.

I doubt that this is obvious, though, so I think I’ll have to be prepared for some bad reviews coming up comparing Spandex Force unfavourably to Puzzle Quest.

Back to more positive things, I received a request for a Linux version of the game, and I figured that it shouldn’t be much of a problem. True enough, I’ve done some initial testing and I think I can get it to run on Ubuntu at least. I’ll probably only support Ubuntu, and then have a “see if it works for you – good if it does” clause for other distributions. There’s no way I’m going to offer support for multiple distributions – Linux is simply too problematic. I don’t think I’ll actually gain much from having a Linux version either, but it’s a good learning experience at least. Incidentally, the person asking for a Linux version also mentioned that this game would fit well on Nintendo DS, and even supplied a hint about a publisher working with DS. I’ll see how the game is received after the release, but hey – who knows. Thinking about playing my own game on a DS almost makes me come. Not that you wanted to know that. And not that it’ll happen. But it sure would be nice…

Anyway, I’m feeling positive about the upcoming release. I’ve optimized the game a little, sorted out a Mac bug, received many suggestions for improvements, and the game is slowly coming together properly. The biggest thing left is to playtest the game thoroughly and balance it even more. I really hope people will be pleased about the game’s length – I anticipate that it’s well over 8 hours game play in it, and quite possibly more along the lines of dozens of hours. That may sound cool to you, but for me it sounds like damn hard work, playing through the whole game….again….and again.

Well… I think the terminology has gotten a bit confused, and I’ve been forced to apply the beta label without much thought. First of all, I was only releasing test builds up to 0.4; people tested it and gave feedback. Not much more to that. But after 0.4 I decided to set up the order page, since a few people had expressed interest in purchasing the game. But lo and behold! It appears that when I accepted affiliates for Sheeplings I’d unthinkingly allowed some people to be affiliates for all my games – which meant that Spandex Force became available for them to sell as well!

One thing led to another, and before I knew it I was receiving traffic from a few sites; quite a few downloads in fact. That’s when I decided to release 0.5 – an in-between release that’s fully playable and corrects most issues - and decided to call it the official beta. I didn’t want people to believe that 0.4 or 0.5 was the final version of the game, so I decided to make a press release to state that there will come a newer version later. But of course, the game itself doesn’t care much about what label I’ve put on it – it just happily states its version number.

So I guess people who expected the game to be more opaque about being in “alpha,” “beta” or “final” are a tad confused.

Either way, the game is both in beta and for sale; I don’t see a conflict there. It’s playable and enjoyable to the end as it is, and those who buy the game now get the current full version as well as the final release once it’s done!

One important thing that differs is the scope. In the finished design, the player’s hero has just gotten a job as superhero of Vigilance Valley – a city troubled by minor crime and wacky super villains. In the original design I had planned a more involved process where the hero would start out as “city hero” and eventually graduate to “world hero.” This shift would be very visible: the city screen would feature minor villains and citizens in need, and the world globe would feature global threats and major super villains. This would have been interesting…but totally unnecessary. The game’s budget would’ve increased by a magnitude (well, maybe not; but it would have doubled at least) and the game would have taken months more to develop. I doubt that the benefits would have outweighed those consequences.

And speaking of scope, another thing that I was planning from the beginning was a more involved story inspired by Bildungromans. It would tell the story of how the hero grows from fledgling whippersnapper to responsible self-sacrificing hero. I had planned a structure where the first three episodes would be stand-alone, but then a subtle plot involving a villain trying to frame the hero would emerge. The hero would try to find out information through the following episodes, and eventually meet the ultimate villain in the next-to-last episode. Inspired by Watchmen, after our hero had beaten the villain he would explain to the hero that it’s too late anyway – the Evil Plan(TM) was already set into motion a long time ago. Our hero would race to stop the Evil Destructive Device(TM), only to discover that it’s too late to stop it. Panic! What to do! He would sacrifice himself to protect the city…and everything would go black.

…And had I had my own way, that would have been the end of the game. But, of course, I had to think of a happy ending. So I pondered a final episode after this, where the hero wakes up weak and sore, and supervillains whom he have already beaten have teamed up to take revenge on him in his weakened state. Almost like the fight-all-the-bosses-before-the-final-boss in the Mega Man games. It all would end in a heartwarming scene where the people of the city aid the hero and he defeats everyone. Yay!

But that’s not how things turned out. Instead, I chose a format where every episode is stand-alone, and there’s no on-going storyline in the game. “How dull,” you exclaim now, “that totally sucks!” From an artistic point of view: yes, this is the worse choice. But I think it will work better from a gaming point of view! The game focuses on easily accessible minigames, humour, and instant-get-in-the-game-ness. That approach conflicts with a deeper storyline; if nothing else, it becomes difficult to jump into the game if you’ve had a break for a few weeks. Instead I chose episodes that you can finish in about an hour (depending on the episode) and clearly defined sub-tasks within each episode. Each subtask only takes 15 minutes (or something like that), so you get constant updates on the episode’s plot.

Old concept showing the early city screen and some dialogue.

But there are other design issues on a lower level that differs between then and now. For one thing, at first I intended to make Spandex Force into a game that would have been much more of a Puzzle Quest clone. The current implementation has many strictly different puzzle mechanics: Catch ‘n Match, Slide ‘n Match, Shoot ‘n Match, Click ‘n Drag, mini-minigames…and last but not least, the two types of puzzle battles. But in my original notes I only planned on doing the puzzle battles – nothing else! I had thought of a system with slightly different game modes: standard, simultaneous, and so on, and the type of villain you fought against would decide which game mode it would be. Supervillains would have a very special mode; the villains would have the simultaneous mode; and the henchmen would have classic modes. But after some prototyping I quickly abandoned this game design. It wouldn’t have given enough variation, and the simultaneous mode was…too chaotic. Play Spandex Force and, when you come to a battle, imagine that you both perform your actions simultaneously instead of turn-based. Sure, it opens up to great things like stealing your opponent’s cascading matches…but it would be too action-oriented, and impossible to have a clear overview.

Old prototype of the puzzle battle game. Can you see which game I received inspiration from?

If things go well with the first game I just might implement a better simultaneous version in Spandex Force 2, though. And speaking of Spandex Force 2, here’s another thing I had to consider:

• If I made the game with a very large scope I would put all my eggs into one basket. If the game fails I will have lost a lot.
• However, if I choose restraint and lessen the scope, I can see how the game fares. If it does awfully and it’s because of the game design or the theme…then it’s not worth making a sequel. But if it does well I’ll gain a lot of feedback that I can use to implement an even better sequel.
• This sequel can then use many of the discarded options from the original design. For example, it can revolve around a global hero instead of a city-based one, and experiment with innovations to the minigames.
• Also, if the first game does well enough, I can implement something that I didn’t dare in the first game… Multiplayer! Puzzle battles online, where you can defeat other heroes and villains! I think this would be absolutely brilliant but I don’t have the resources to pull it off unless Spandex Force does reasonably well.

So, here’s to hoping that I can make Spandex Force 2 soon!

• New map art! This is not the final version – it’s just a preview jpg I received. The final even-better city will appear in the shortly-arriving 0.4 release.
• Many more minigames! I realized that the game was lacking variety, so I followed sage advice I’d received from 0.2 playtesters, and added more minigames. A few of these are mini-minigames just to spice things up, but I also made new major-minigames such as getting a cat down from the tree, and stopping an attempted grand theft auto.
• More sparkles! I added particles and sound effects to many places – it’s actually getting to the point where I’m unsure if I can add anything else and still have the game playable at low-end machines. For once in my life I find that I have too new computers at my disposal.
• Lots of other bug fixes and tweaks and improvements. The problem with making rapid iterations like this is that I lose track of all that’s done. I could compose extensive release notes for each release…but that seems a bit overkill for “internal” releases like these.

Game Info
Spandex Force is a unique puzzle/adventure/RPG game that lets you create your own hero to clean up the crime-infested town of Vigilance Valley. Follow your hero’s quest to rid Vigilance Valley of vicious villains such as the Blizzard Wizard, the inept riddler Countess Conundrum, and the mysterious Professor Aphasia.

Screenshots
   

More screenshots and more info can be found at http://www.spandexforce.com.

Downloads
Download the Windows version here:
http://www.spandexforce.com/files/SpandexForceDemo.exe
Download the Mac version here:
http://www.spandexforce.com/files/SpandexForceDemo.dmg

That’s right, a Mac version is available now! You see, I’ve been pretty busy indeed. Please let me know if you find any problems with either release – and feel free to let me know if it’s working fine as well! Feedback is much appreciated.

• The total minigame count is up to ten. This feat is accomplished by reusing game types and applying them in a few different situations, as well as adding a few minor chance-based ”mini-minigames” for variation.
• More sparkles have been added. And many more sound effects. It’s way more polished now! Yayness!
• I’ve made the early game a bit quicker; i.e., you level up faster and accomplish the earliest tasks quicker.
• The tutorial system is much improved, with informative animations and popups when something interesting happens. I still don’t have a “no more tutorials” checkbutton; I try to keep the text to a minimum and you can banish the information with a simple click on the Rodent of Parc. (Rodent of Parc? See http://www.pottsland.com/mm6/eastereggs.shtml)
• Finally, but not least: I’m getting a new city background!

Just check it out… Isn’t this much better?

I adore this sketch of the new map, and I’ll be releasing v0.3 of Spandex Force as soon as I have integrated the coloured version and tweaked the difficulty a bit. …That is, playtested thoroughly up to four episodes or so. Thankfully I actually like playing the game myself; I was afraid that I’d be getting bored at the gameplay by now, but it’s still fun to save cats and capture villains and buy new capes. I hope that’s a good sign!