October’s Etc
Hi everyone!
Rhys here. As you might expect, there’s not a whole lot happening in the Parabox camp. We’re busy bods in areas outside of game design, but we have so many ideas we can’t wait to put together and show you.. if only we had more time!
As far as programming and game design does go, however, the past few months has been a fun learning experience for me. Firstly, I was contracted to develop an ‘in-house’ educational game app, and have been spending most of my free time acquainting myself with GameMaker Studio to accomplish the task. This is the first time I’ve used GMS to build an iOS and Android app from the ground up (some of you may know that our game, Teka Teki, was released for iPhone many years ago – but this was recompiled and distributed by YoYo Games for the short window of time that they were offering such a service). Now in its final stages, I’m heaps more confident in building for these platforms, and this opens so many doors for Parabox Games when considering our future projects. I can’t show you the app I put together for copyright reasons. But trust me, it’s pretty cool!
reboot computing camp
A few weeks ago, I lead at ‘reboot’ computing and technology camp, running a workshop in Advanced Game Design. At , a group of secondary school kids get to learn some really cool stuff – programming, game design, robotics, augmented reality, you name it – and we also share the Gospel with them. It’s a real pleasure being able to use my experience in game development to educate, while also being able to share my faith.
In preparation for my workshop, I challenged myself to build an Asteroids game in one day, and have it functioning on desktop and mobile. It’s a simple Asteroids game with a shop where you can upgrade your weapon, armour, etc. The campers at my workshop were able to build a similar Asteroids game, as well as their own designed game. I’m thinking of finishing it off and releasing it as a free download here. It’s just a classic, retro Asteroids game, but it’s pretty addictive!
Games that the campers created on show at reboot camp.
Caveman Craig 2 News
Caveman Craig 2 running on Mac!
It doesn’t take a genius to work out that we’re a few years past our deadline for the Caveman Craig 2 DLC, Dudu Forest. Whilst there has been no development in recent months on the DLC, we are looking at incorporating more ideas into the DLC and making it even more worthwhile when it does come out.
For starters, I’ve been porting the source code into GameMaker Studio. We had originally wanted to do this when GameMaker Studio first came out, to release on Mac and perhaps mobile platforms alongside the Windows release. This never happened, for a pretty simple reason – when GMS came out, it just wasn’t powerful enough to handle some of the trickery I had to pull off to complete Caveman Craig 2. GMS has come a long way in the past 2 years, though, and I managed to get the game functioning 90% in GameMaker Studio – yep, that includes Windows AND Mac.
So will we see Caveman Craig 2 available for Mac anytime soon? I certainly hope so. But there’s still a lot of code that doesn’t work with GMS that needs to be completely rewritten. For starters, you can’t save or load, and the lighting engine is kaput. The sound engine I wrote for Caveman Craig 2 had to dance around the serious limitations that GM8 had in its built in sound functionality. Thankfully, GMS’ sound engine is brilliant, and most of this code is no longer necessary… but it still needs to be rewritten! So no sound yet, either.
2014 Message
Happy belated new year!
I want to apologise for the lack of communication over the past year. This post is largely to say – we are not dead! And nor is Parabox Games. But we are a small team who do this in our spare time – the chaos of life naturally sways our productivity.
Needless to say I feel pretty guilty that we have not posted much in just under a year.
While we keep the facebook + twitter feeds relatively active, the truth is not much is happening in the world of Parabox.
We’ve no excuse for the extreme delay in releasing our free DLC, “Battle at DuDu Forest”. Finding time amidst our already busy lives is extremely difficult. Sure we get an hour here and there, but when it comes to game development you really need to be in a creative ‘zone’ that requires mental space. Most of CC2’s development was smashed out in 3-5 hour marathons of programming, and finding that time nowadays is virtually impossible for both Tim and I.
The standalone version of the DLC is complete in the backend, but needs some art and sound assets. Once that’s done, we still need to put together a patch file.
And what of other projects?
Stadium Builder is still a project we are committed to, but progress as you might expect is also minimal. In fact, last year we had a mixup moving data to a new system and the project files were lost. There has been some progress in putting it all together again.
Additionally, Tim and I talk regularly about other project ideas. We still love video game development and yearn for more hours in the day to spend doing it. I am dabbling in a number of ideas to see which one is likely to really take off. Some are solo concepts, others collaborated with Tim. We of course will let you know here of progress in all our projects.
-R
DLC Sneak Peak
Hello!
First & foremost, my apologies for not meeting our deadline to release the Dudu Forest DLC. We’re rushing around finishing off all the details on the stand-alone version of the DLC, and then I have to rewrite every change in a PATCH file so that existing owners don’t have to redownload the entire game.
But while you wait, I thought I’d go through some deets.
The Battle at Dudu Forest is a whole new level with a twist. There are four colours of ‘orbs’ that you can collect to unlock cheats. You may need to play through the level a few times to collect all of a particular colour.
These orbs are dropped by the new, bird-like dinosaur that crawls out of the forest trees for a snack every now and again. They can be hard to spot, and even harder to take down before they flee back to their tree. But it’s worth noting that the birds don’t like fire…
Another new feature, exclusive to the DLC level, is the ability for Craig to eat mushrooms. Millions of fans around the world BEGGED for Craig to be able to eat mushrooms. It seemed only logical. There are a variety of mushrooms scattered around the forest, each type with its own effect. Take note! The effect of these mushrooms change with each game, so Craig has to take a risk and remember which colour/pattern does what.
There’s a new enemy for Craig to defeat too, but we’ll keep that secret for now.
Finally, we decided to add new functions, tweaks, and achievements to the game.. here are just some:
- The player can now sort the list of cavemen in the caveman overview window by type, health, energy, etc. This makes it much much easier to manage your army.
- You now can use A and D (left/right) to shake off dinosaurs instead of space bar
- You can now throw rocks with W as well as pick them up, to make throwing rocks much easier
- There’ll be a special achievement… and possibly a special prize for the first fan who manages to ‘film’ the phenomenon and upload to youtube..
Stay tuned!
-Rhys
Caveman Craig – 5th Anniversary Celebrations!
Hello everyone!
On 20th April, 2008, we released Caveman Craig to YoYo Games as an entry into their “ancient civilisations” game design competition. Today marks the 5th anniversary, and Tim and I wanted to celebrate with a few exciting announcements!
Caveman Craig Special Edition is now FREE!
The special edition of Caveman Craig 1 is now FREE to download from this website.
Caveman Craig 2 is now just $6.99!
We are reducing the prize of Caveman Craig 2 to $6.99, if you buy from Desura or CavemanCraig.com. That’s 30% off!
Release Date & feature list for Caveman Craig 2: The Battle at Dudu Forest, announced!
We will be releasing the FREE “Battle at DuDu Forest” DLC for Caveman Craig 2 on the 12th of May, 2013. The DLC is a brand new conquest level set in a dense and lively forest, featuring..
– Beautiful new animated scene
– A new dinosaur with a unique challenge to unlock secrets!
– A new enemy caveman that you can defeat and unlock for play in classic mode
– Mushrooms?
– And more! But we don’t want to spoil it for you..
The DLC will also provide some tweaks and updates to the main game, including..
– Shake off dinosaurs by pressing A and D in rhythm instead of mashing spacebar
– Throw rocks/spears using the W key for easier throwing
– Sort the caveman overview list by birth date, caveman type, following status, skill level, health, or energy, for easier caveman management.
– And more!
And finally.. a ‘behind the scenes’ pack for the die hard fans!
Looking back on the past 5 years, it’s been interesting to see how our ideas developed. So I put together a bunch of old concept art, sketches, and even documents with notes on the development of Caveman Craig 2 (and some for Caveman Craig 1!), free for you to explore.
1 March 2013 A.D
Hi all,
Today we celebrated the first anniversary since Caveman Craig 2 was released to the world. For those who follow us on facebook and twitter, 3 lucky fans got free copies of Caveman Craig 2 on Desura.
We just want to give you a BIG thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your support and kind words. I couldn’t be happier with the positive response we’ve had both from critics and fans on the quality of the game. I am personally really humbled to hear the praise on how Caveman Craig 2’s engine + programming has pushed Game Maker beyond its limits (however ironic it is that I am boasting about it!).
Caveman Craig 2 has been played by over 4,800 people on Desura, Oberon, and YoYo Games alone. On Desura, we’ve had a 34% conversion rate which is basically 33 times higher than the standard 1% conversion rate goal. We’ve got let’s plays all over youtube, indie game of the week mention on Curse Weekly , and reviews from a range of the top indie game sites on the web. On youtube alone we’ve probably reached well over 100,000 people. I know this is pretty small compared to many indie games out there but we are really proud that our hard work and creative ideas are being shown to the world.
Coming up in late April is the 5th Anniversary of the Caveman Craig franchise. We really hope to do something special for that!
Thanks again,
Parabox Games
New Year Message!
2012 has been a really big one for Parabox Games.
I have always had ambitious ideas, and it’s been very difficult to stay motivated, to have the resources, or skills, to accomplish them. With thanks to Tim’s design vision and artistic skills, encouraging friends & fans, and the blessing of Ricky Garcia and Greg Vanderbeek’s contributions, Caveman Craig 2, our magnum opus, got completed with very little compromise on features and quality. Seeing your positive feedback, particularly those from fans who have been with us since the original Caveman Craig (and even earlier, with Conflict: Arcade and the GameCave era), has really paid off all the years of work.
It’s both a blessing and a curse that CC2 has only given way for bigger and more ambitious ideas. We’ve already announced NIGHTBEAR and STADIUM BUILDER, and have plenty more ideas up our sleeves. With Game Maker Studio, we are now able to branch off into all sorts of platforms and other markets – mobile, web, and other desktop platforms. We are still busy people outside of Parabox, and can’t churn out games as quickly as most indie game companies, but trust us.. we’re always thinking, always talking, and always passionate about creating games.
But the Caveman Craig franchise certainly doesn’t finish here. We’re working on the “Battle at Dudu Forest” DLC for Caveman Craig 2 right now. The DLC doesn’t just add a new level with new dinosaurs and unlocks, but we’re also going through ALL the feedback you have posted on various websites, to find new features to add to the game.
Some of you may be wondering about the release of Caveman Craig 2 for Mac, iOS, and Android – as mentioned in previous blog entries. It’s a real shame we were unable to release CC2 for mobile devices and Mac users this year, but there are a number of significant technical restraints on GameMaker Studio that we did not anticipate. Particularly for Mac, we expected a direct port to require minimal work, but alas GM Studio crippled the ability to save/load games, external resources, settings, and so on. Caveman Craig 2 pushed Game Maker to its limits, and a very elaborate loading/unloading system was put in place to minimize memory usage and lag. Rewriting this will be very difficult for Mac, and near impossible for mobile devices, unless we re-imagine the entire game for mobile. BUT, never say never!
And what of a multiplayer version of Caveman Craig 2? We hope to make an announcement on this in 2013. We’ll see!
Our best wishes to you all for 2013.
-Parabox Games
Caveman Craig 2 END OF WORLD SALE
Today I have some helpful christmas advice!
If you’re struggling to find a meaningful gift for your friends or family before the destruction of the entire world, then our Caveman Craig 2 “End of World Sale” is for you! Caveman Craig 2 is 50% off from cavemancraig.com between now and 1/1/13, or when the meteors fall, whichever comes first.
Furthermore, we guarantee to give you a full refund if the world does end before you get to have a full playthrough.
And if THAT’S not enough, then you might be pleased to know that, mayan’s willing, we’ll be releasing our “Battle at Dudu Forest” DLC for Caveman Craig 2 in early 2013, free for all owners of Caveman Craig 2!
Just click the banner at the top of this post to claim your bargain!
Let’s Push for Steam!
Hey guys! Caveman Craig 2 is about 25% towards making the top 100 list of Steam Greenlight.
We’ve had almost entirely positive comments from visitors to our steam greenlight page, and that means we know CC2 is a worthy candidate for Steam. However we’re lacking the exposure, and it takes a wave of supportive fans to get the exposure we need!
If Caveman Craig 2 is released on Steam, any existing owners of the game (purchased either through Desura or BMT Micro) will receive a Steam key for the game if it is technically possible for us to do so.
So what can you do??
If you haven’t yet, VISIT OUR GREENLIGHT PAGE and select “YES” under “would you buy this game if it were available on steam?”. Then use the share buttons for facebook, twitter, reddit, and digg (depending on what you use) to spread the word!
Help us release Caveman Craig 2 on Steam!!
Hi all!
As outlined in our previous blog post, we need YOUR help to get Caveman Craig 2 released on Steam, the mother of all distribution platforms.
CLICK HERE TO VISIT OUR GREENLIGHT PAGE AND RATE US UP!
We need a BIG response in order to have the game considered for release. Even if you already own the game, this milestone will help Parabox with further development on both Caveman Craig and our other games. Our very small revenue is what enables us to keep going and Steam will open us up to many more opportunities.
So RATE & SHARE! Thank you!
-Rhys
Caveman Craig 2 + Steam Greenlight
Late this month, Steam will be launching a new service called ‘Greenlight’. The service will allow game developers such as ourselves to submit games for the Steam community to decide whether they want to be able to buy it off Steam.
Steam currently has a game submission process, however the fate of every submission is in the hands of staff. I dare say, catch them on a bad day or fail to grab their interest immediately, and a game with oodles of distribution potential misses out on the best opportunity an indie developer could ask for – to sell their game on the biggest game distribution service on the internet.
Needless to say, we’re excited about this and will be submitting Caveman Craig 2 to the service as soon as we are able.
Many of you have been urging us to try and get Caveman Craig 2 released on Steam. We have decided to wait for Greenlight to leave the decision in the hands of our fans.
So in order for the game to be released on steam, we NEED your help! Once Greenlight is released and CC2 is submitted, we will be urging you all to support it in any way possible. Caveman Craig 2 fits into an awkward category of indie games. It needs the support of its fans to draw the attention it deserves.
– Rhys
