First of all, thanks to everyone who has helped with testing! It seems that overall the game is in a pretty good state, and we hope to produce a release candidate in the next few days. We’ll send that out to all testers and, assuming there are no major problems, this will be the version which gets uploaded to our online store.
We’ve also done some more high quality renders of the Voxelien enemies. I have to admit, I really like making these 🙂
Update: Thanks for all the interest! We now have enough beta testers and have been gettings some useful feedback on the game. So far there are no major problems so we hope to get the final game out soon.
We’re pleased to announce that a release of Voxeliens is now getting close. Before release, we would like to get a number of people to test the game. The main aims of the testing are to ensure compatibiliy with as many systems as possible, and also to set an appropriate level of difficulty. Naturally we would also like your opinion on the game, but be aware that we won’t be making any significant gameplay changes as we hope to release soon.
Each play of the game will only take about 10-15 minutes, but we’ll ask you to give it a few plays so we can see how you progress with practice. A log file will be recording how far you get and how long each level takes. The testing period will probably run for a couple of weeks and there may be more than one beta version released. The last version you receive will be the release candidate, so you’ll basically get the final game for free. 🙂
If you are interested then please send an email to david<at>volumesoffun<dot>com with the subject ‘Voxeliens testing’. If we don’t get back to you straight away then please be patient, as we’ll start with just a few people and then expand from there. Please note that this first version is for Windows only. Linux and MacOS ports will follow once the final Windows version is released.
Hope to hear from you!
There’s more to game development than just making the game, and as we come to the final stages of Voxeliens we have to consider the supporting material which is needed. For the user we need to provide an installer and a manual (not sure if anyone will read it?!) and distributors require promotional material such as screenshots, trailers, and box art. The term ‘box art’ is a little misleading in the digital age but it is still important for catching people’s eye as they scan over a list of available games.
We have already released some of this material, but in addition I recently spent a few hours preparing a high quality rendering of a Voxelien in Blender. This was modeled from scratch rather than using the existing in-game assets, though it wasn’t difficult due to the simple nature of the characters. The lighting took some work though, and in the end it’s entirely lit via ambient occlusion and emissive surfaces for the eyes (i.e. there aren’t any real lights in the scene).
This image will probably be used for logos and icons, and maybe for the box art too. Alternatively I may model a few more and build them into a simple scene… let us know what you think 🙂
Sorry it was such a long time coming, but we finally uploaded some in-game footage of Voxeliens! It contains a bunch of stuff not seen in the screenshots including the menu and highscore table, powerups, and a new desert terrain type. Check it out below:
The end is definitely in sight now 🙂 Next priority is to get some kind of testing build prepared. Stay tuned for more information!
I thought it was time to do a quick update on the progress on Voxeliens as it’s been a month since the last news. Things have been going a little slower than expected, mostly because I have been moving house again. This is my fourth house within the space of a year but I’m hoping to stay still for a while now.
A fixed address also means I can take out a broadband contract… believe it or not I have survived the last 3 months on a 64kbs mobile internet connection. While such a retro speed may match the style of our game it is not great for productivity (I mostly had to use the internet from my day job). But a new broadband modem/router arrived in the post yesterday and it seems to be working so far.
The game itself if very near completion. A fair amount of testing will still be needed to ensure the game runs on as many systems as possible, and also to make sure the difficulty level is appropriate, so in a couple of weeks we will release a limited beta. Priority will go to people who have been active in our community for a while, though it may get expanded further depending on what kind of issues we encounter.
But before we get to that, our main priority is to prepare a gameplay video as we’ve been promising that for a while now. I’ll try to record it next week though it probably won’t happen until the weekend.
Hi all,
We recently did an interview with True PG Gaming talking about Voxeliens, our development process and our thoughts on PC gaming in general. You can check out the interview here: http://truepcgaming.com/2012/01/24/voxeliens-developer-interview/
Thanks to TPG for taking the time to do this!
It’s been a busy month since our initial set of screenshots – thanks to everyone who responded so positively to them! It’s pretty scary announcing your game to the world. So much work has gone into it, and the announcement is the moment when you find out whether anyone really cares. But we’re really pleased with the responses and thanks to the indie blogs who wrote articles about us. You guys are awesome 🙂
Anyway, despite a number of time sinks (Christmas, marketing, stolen laptops/passports, etc) we’ve managed to crank out some more screenshots for you. These show a different kind of terrain compared to the previous images and there’s also some new voxelien enemies visible. Hope you like them!
This is a huge day for us… after many months of work we are finally ready to announce our first game. Ladies and gentlemen, may we present: Voxeliens!
Voxeliens is a retro-style arcade shooter, in which you defend your planet from waves of descending enemies. The gameplay is simple and fast paced as you battle your way through different environments using a variety of powerups. If you ever played any classic video games from 1978 then you will feel right at home with the mechanics 😉
The game is expected to be PC only – we will initially be targeting Windows but hope to bring it to Linux and possibly MacOS as well. It will be available for direct purchase through our website, and over time we hope to get it on to some indie game distribution services as well. An exact release date has not yet been decided but it will be early 2012.
For us it is a massive achievement to have brought the game this close to completion, and we really hope you will join us for the final steps of the journey. If you are interested in the game then please follow our Facebook, Twitter, or RSS feeds, and tell your friends about us. You can also join our forums and chat with other members of the community.
We’ll leave it at that for now, so admire the screenshots and ask any questions in the comments below. We’ll get back to you as soon as we can and may do a follow up post or FAQ if we get enough feedback.
I’ve just uploaded a new snapshot of PolyVox. It’s been a while since the last one, and we’ve had a couple of cases recently of bugs being reported which have already been fixed in the Git version. So it seemed to be time to bring everyone up to date. Also we should be announcing our game in the next few days, and if this generates any more PolyVox users then we would like them to be up to date as well.
This snapshot does contain some new features but be aware that most of them are work-in-progress. The most interesting changes are:
You can download the snapshot from here. If you have any problems with this release then feel free to ask in the forums.
