We Got Some Ink II: The Quickening

by Mike
Thu, July 8, 2010 -- 18:40 CDT

This post is going to be about our game, but stay with me while I take you on a little bit of a side-quest.

Some of you may not know this, but last Wednesday was Hoagie Day here in Philly. Wawa* puts it on every decade or so, apparently. The formula for this event is sort of breathtaking in its simplicity:

STEP 1:
Make the longest Italian hoagie in the history of the world (1.25 miles this year)

STEP 2:
Give it to the people of Philadelphia

STEP 3:
Watch Rocky

The stage is set.

The stage is set. Rocky looks on approvingly.

So we queued up after work with the rest of the hungry masses, waited for 30 minutes or so, and each got to enjoy several mouthfuls of sandwich history. Because Wawa is always a class act, they sweetened the pot by giving away enormous quantities of Tastykakes, potato chips, ice cream bars, fruit juices, waters, and iced tea. By the end of the event, Wawa employees were simply roaming around the fields where people were sitting, throwing ice cream bars in random directions.

Then we watched Rocky, using the steps of the Art Museum as stadium seating. Those of you who have seen Rocky will surely appreciate the cultural heft of the tableau I’m describing. Those of you who haven’t: shame on you.

I mention all this because I want to be clear about what we thought the highlight of last week was going to be:

Six inches of Hoagie history.

Six inches of Hoagie history.

Right? Then we made our birthday post announcing Jamestown, and this happened:

Apparently, the internet thinks Jamestown deserves a wider audience than the few (but courageous!) stalwart fans who read this blog.

We are thrilled and humbled that so many folks are excited about our little project! Reading the links above has infused our workdays with a fresh jolt of optimism and determination, and we are banging out code and pixels at full speed. So to the friends, bloggers, readers, commenters, tweeters, and re-tweeters who were part of getting the word out about Jamestown this weekend: thank you!

But don’t take it too hard, HoagieFest. There’s simply no hoagie, no matter how record-breaking and delicious, that could have made us feel this positive about our future. Maybe next year.

* Wawa is an excellent regional convenience store chain that answers the question “what if 7-11 didn’t wallow in being a trashy downscale hell-mart?” That answer turns out to be market-dominant.


Final Form, Year One: WHERE WE’RE GOING

by Mike
Thu, July 1, 2010 -- 19:59 CDT

It took 365 days of hard livin’, but we’re finally here: Final Form Games is one year old today! You are our loyal, never-say-die readers with whom we will always shoot straight, and we hope you are excited to celebrate with us! Over the past few days, we’re brought you up to speed about where we’ve been and where we’re at, but said very little about…

WHERE WE’RE GOING

or

Seriously: What In Tarnation Are You Guys Working On?

What a good question! We are working on a rad videogame! It represents a lot of what we love about games, its working title is Jamestown, and we think it’s going to be a blast.

Logo

First things first: The screenshot we posted back in October wasn’t an image of functional gameplay. We know, you’re shocked. HOWEVER! That image does represent the overall aesthetic and milieu that we are striving to deliver to YOU, the customer! To vouch for the truth of our words, here are some totally real, in-game (and very Work-In-Progress!) screenshots of what the game looks like on this very day:

And HERE are some scintillating details:

- Jamestown is an old-school, handcrafted shoot-em-up (or “shmup“) with a new-school twist: 4-player co-operative play!

You will roll deep.

You will roll deep.

- As many have guessed (amazingly), it is set in 17th-century British colonial Mars. It will feature: Famous alt-historical figures! Majestic alien landscapes! Steampunk space tech! Hard-bitten settlers taking their shot at ekeing out a better life in the New World! Redcoats and Martians settling their differences with spear and space-musket!

Redcoat

- With the gameplay, we’re striving to press all the important hardcore gamer pleasure-buttons, while still leaving room to innovate on what co-op can really mean in the context of a classic shooter. We just love co-op games so much!

In 2011, one of these ships could be you.

In 2011, one of these ships could be you.

- We hope to tell a story within this world that is legitimately engaging and worth reading/watching/playing. A story that one might use the word “swashbuckling” to describe! Or, “coherent!” Or even, “explodathon!”

- In terms of timeline, we plan to submit to IGF this year, and hope to release on PC sometime in 2011, with other platforms to follow. The comments section awaits your snarky comments about release dates!

RedcoatFw

This is our first project, and we undoubtedly have plenty of rough waters to contend with between now and ship day, but we are optimistic about the journey ahead. As you may have read in our previous two posts, Year One was largely about investing a huge percentage of our energy into developing the game mechanics, technology, tools, and skillsets that we think are necessary to make our game great. Year Two is going to be about using them.

Thanks for being here with us on our first birthday. More to come.