Powerhoof! HEY LOOK WE’RE STILL ALIVE!...


Remember how I used to post stuff here?

It seems like ages since I’ve posted here. Looking at the previous post date confirms it- more than two months, officially ages.

So whats the deal with that? What have we been doing for two months- slowly eating a single taco? Living in a box?

Well, looking back through my emails and photos for the past months, I have pieced together the following outline of events:

PAX Aus

We had a big panic preparing to show Crawl at our first convention- PAX Aus! My mum drove me in with her van to drop off my big TV for the booth- thanks mum! We set up the stand with much less need for panic than we were prepared for, then proceeded to systematically panic anyway at fairly regular intervals.

image“lords of looking”

GCAP

Before PAX could kick off another games convention happened- GCAP. They had awards, I wore a shirt, somehow Crawl won the Art category and Game of the Year. We were very surprised- thanks Australian Game Developers Association! And thanks to all the nice people who congratulated us on our awards and overlooked our surprised and blundering “speeches”.

PAX again

The PAX show happened and it was surprisingly grueling on the legs. My legs are primarily decorative to stop me looking uncouth when I sit on my chair, and are definitely not designed for standing and walking around for three days straight. Crippling leg-damage aside, it was awesome to have everyone laughing and shouting and having a blast playing Crawl at the booth- thanks everyone who played with us at PAX, you were all so nice and reminded us why we’re doing this all over again!

image“potplant waits patiently for a game”

Beta Bar

Some amazing maniac built a crawl arcade cabinet and set it up at a local bar for PAX after party drinks- it was amazing! We Played Crawl how it was always meant to be played- 4 half-drunk idiots crowding around a stand-up cabinet in a darkened bar. It reminded me of impromptu Street Fighter 2 tournaments with strangers down at thel fish-and-chip shop! Thanks Skaidris- Beta Bar is awesome! If you’re in Melbourne come check it out!

image“joystick, 2 buttons and a beer- intended control scheme”

SK Games Interstate Arcade

Some other amazing maniacs from SK Games set up another awesome event with Crawl projected huge out the front with more beer, chiptunes and game-related craziness- I wish they did this every week! Thanks dudes form SK Games, you are awesome!

image“are there any bars left where you can’t play Crawl?”
image“still sore over not taking home that much coveted Beard of the Yeard award”

Crawl Boss 2- “this time it’s personal… and this time it also takes much longer than scheduled”

Once the craziness of PAX died down, we started work on our second boss for Crawl- a 3 headed hydra which can walk around the room- Kourok will be so jealous! I anticipated him to be done in 2-3 weeks- it is now about 6 weeks later and we’re only just finishing him off… oops! Turns out he was really difficult to get playing right- who knew? Hopefully people have fun with him, I can’t wait to have him released!

image“hydra intro featuring poignant mouse cursor cameo”

And now you’re up to date and know everything that has happened and you’ve forgotten completely about me being too slack to update the blog for two months.

PS- Crawl is being mentioned in some articles and stuff woo!
IGN Best Trailers of 2014
Polygon 2014- The Year of Local Multiplayer

-Barney

  1. My body is ready.

    😀

    Reply
  2. IM SO EXCITED! <3

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  3. Matthew

    Excitement.

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  4. Been waiting for this for a loooong time 😀
    Looks pretty amazing so far.
    So how does this work now?
    Is it just random wether Kourok or the Hydra appears as the final boss?
    And if so, is there a chance that after the first boss battle is lost, that there is a different boss at the next try?

    Reply
    • we actually haven’t quite decided on that aspect yet.

      in the final game my goal is to have something like an ouija board appear whenever someone goes thorugh the portal, with all the different bosses marked on it, and all players influence moving the pointer to choose the boss.

      but that kinda needs more than two bosses, so for the time being we might just go with a random system until we have enough bosses to warrant the ouija board 🙂

      Reply
      • Oh goodness, I LOVE this idea!

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      • Wow, that’s a pretty sweet idea 😀 Even though the three ghost players would probably always aim for the strongest boss enemy 😀 Maybe you could randomize it, so that not every boss is on the ouja board at the same run and you get to choose from maybe 3 each time.

        Reply
  5. TΛPETRVE

    My brain cells are wildly pulsating in eager anticipation :-3 .

    Reply
  6. Holy crap!! A blog update?! What is this heresy?? X)
    This is great, actually. Hydra looks fucking impressive. Can’t wait to be destroyed by him!!

    Reply
    • thanks- he ended up being a pretty big undertaking, so i’m really hoping he pays off with loads of fun for everyone once he’s released!

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      • yeah, mang…i saw the sprite sheet on twitter…you are a crazy person!! XD
        …in a good way!! >u<)b

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        • cheers dude! the sprite sheet was a surprise to me- he just does a few basic things but all those frames really added up I guess 🙂

          Reply
          • haha, yep!! the sheer amount of work you put into this game is inspiring as heck!

            ʕノ•ᴥ•ʔノ ︵ ┻━┻

  7. shadowmaw

    This has seriously made my day. IM SO EXCITED I JUST CANT HIDE IT. I cant stop grinning and bugging my friends about it!

    Reply
  8. #SoExcited When is the update coming out my dear friends?!

    Reply
    • starting to look like we’ll have to leave it til after christmas unfortunately! it’s driving me crazy, because we have all these balance fixes for the new monsters from last update that we did ages ago, and i’m kinda embarassed to have people still playing the old unbalanced versions!

      Reply
  9. Michael

    Hydra’s very cool, but I feel like all those sweet cons have perhaps caused you to gloss over the griffin chimera? A snake(tail?), lion, and goat head? Just throwin it out there. At this point, anything you guys do is golden in my book.

    You’ve earned those awards, especially art style.

    Reply
    • oh dude believe me, i would LOVE to animate one of those sweet chimeras! hopefully we get a chance to squeeze one in- such a perfect match for the game!

      Reply
  10. I am the only one who wonders who could be that bearded guy who woke up the hydra and then mysteriously dissapeared ?

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    • hehe shh! he’s a pretty important element in the hydra- he teams up with you to give you some help against the hydra 🙂

      Reply
  11. Coryn02

    I do so want this game. I’m gonna get it and three others when my Christmas funds come in.

    Reply
  12. this wizard animation is soo nice… 🙂

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    • hehe thanks- i’m pretty sure a pixel wizard was the very first thing i ever animated when i was about eleven years old 🙂 this guy is definitely much cooler haha

      Reply
  13. Oh yes… Loved seeing this come together over those few weeks on Twitter, was seriously amazing/inspiring to see the HUGE spritesheet for this fella. Can’t wait to try it in-game!

    Reply
    • cheers! i’m really dying to get it out there, but it’s beginning to look like it might have to wait til after christmas unfortunately!

      Reply
  14. Glad to see you guys have some more time to devote to updates! Love all the content you have put forth so far. Merry Crawlmas!

    Reply
  15. I love your new boss and the start animation!
    For an idea for the third boss, maybe you could have giant evil looking toucan in a room that has been taken over by vines!

    That would be so epic to kill!

    Also i love Michael’s chimera

    Reply
  16. Also forgot to say this but will you ever add more gods because I love all the art styles for them!

    Maybe you could have a Minotaur god with a special ability that gives it hyper dash or a lower version of that!

    Reply
  17. Dashpenguin

    The Hydra looks fantastic! I do wonder how other players are able to control it, seeing as it can move around freely now.

    I wanted to ask if at some point there will be a magic weapon type such as staffs or wands? Also, are there ever going to be different floor designs and aesthetics?

    Reply
  18. Matthew

    This looks to be so awesome, thanks for the update! Crawl is such a fun game, keep doing what your doing and making it more awesome!

    Reply
  19. Revlonimus

    Full…..game………please!

    Reply
  20. Trylobot

    Powerhoof,

    You guys rock. Crawl’s popularity at parties is now unmatched. Whenever my friends have get-togethers, if I show up without it, I get shamed into going and fetching it (“it” being my crappy old PC laptop + 4x controllers) so we can all play.

    I’m impressed with the performance of the game, as the specs on this machine are basically nil, so excellent job with that (even Samurai Gunn lags on this machine sometimes, with 4 human players)

    By far the “most hated” monster is when I play as the little creepy girl (white dress, pink flame + pink healing rune) as I managed to take down 5 heroes in a row in the same room with her, when I was accompanied by a master trap controller, it was pretty epic. I kited the hero into the beam but never actually managed to finish him off.

    We all love unlocking new content, that is a really good mechanic and I hope you continue with it. I can’t get enough of the different weapons, they are all remarkably different from each other.

    Reply
    • hey thanks so much 🙂 we have some much-needed balance tweaks for the latest round of monsters which i’ve been dying to get out there but it looks like they have to wait til after christmas when we put out the update for the second boss 🙁

      but in that update we have some tweaks to the little ghost girl controls so she feels better to use- also the scorpion tweaked to not be so OP and the demon tweaked to be much easier to do damage with 🙂

      Reply
  21. Hey barney, I love the hydra and was wondering when the game will come out full

    Will everyone who brought the early access get a steam key for the game because they brought it before?

    Reply
    • hey thanks 🙂

      we’re not quite sure when the game will be complete- the main deciding factor will be how dave goes investigating online play, as that seems like a good feature to add for the full version! we’re aiming to have it done by the middle of the year, but nothing too specific

      as for the early access version- yep, everyone who gets in on the early version that will get the full game free once it comes out 🙂

      Reply
      • Thanks for replying!

        Also since you guys are from Australia and I am too, will you ever do a Aussie themed boss like a wombat or kangaroo or maybe even both combined. :O

        That would be epic to see in the game!

        Reply
  22. william

    awesome updates!

    ever thought of adding new skins for the human?
    get a little more of a unique armor or something… that’d be the shizz

    Also. ad a golden hat.

    Reply
  23. Are the characters in game fighting over a piece of humanity, or the body itself? If the characters are fighting over humanity then I think that character customization would be a cool feature. It would give a bit more of a connection to the characters when the humanity is stolen by Kourok. (I have no ideas for if the characters are fighting over a body :p)

    Reply
  24. Yes hydra looks like its gonna be the bees knees, however that reminds me are you going to be implementing the idol/shrines that were teased earlier?

    Also im sure this is well documented by now but the scorpion is crazy powerful, too powerful; my friends and I never evolve him into the demon lord. Ever.

    Reply
  25. Trylobot

    When Hydra? 😀

    Reply
  26. Awesome! The moment I saw this game in greenlight I wondered how amazing it was going to be… its even more of what I expected !

    Amazing job guys, you really rock. Waiting for the update !

    Greetings from Argentina !

    Reply
    • hey thanks for the encouraging words 🙂

      we have a big update coming very soon with a whole bunch more stuff- hope you like it :D!!!!!

      Reply
  27. Is the update coming this month??? My friends and I cannot wait for the hydra and the nerfing of the op scorpion. Also how will you move the hydra around with 3 people already controlling the heads? Great game!

    Reply
    • we’re hoping to have this out within the next week- hopefully no big bugs or issues come up!

      the hydra is simultaneously controlled by all 3 players, so you have to cooperate to move efficiently 🙂

      Reply
  28. My friends and I just got this game on Steam after seeing a trailer on Humble Store, and it’s absolutely the best local multiplayer game on PC. The audio is so on point for that nostalgic arcade feel, I lost it at the character select screen. I want to build a freaking cabinet just hearing it. The combat is awesome as well, and all the monster trees are so cool (even though some are OP).

    It would be really cool if there was a little variety in the levels however. You guys put in all these cool names for the different floors, but they all look very similar. It would be cool to have the floors’ atmosphere change to like, cellar or cave locations, kind of like how binding of isaac does it.

    Also, it would be neat to add some story elements, or at least little bits of lore lying around to expand on the world. Like secret rooms, ancient tomes hidden in breakable boxes, or something like that.

    These aren’t things that are NEEDED in the game (because it is already really well done), but it would definitely make it more rich as an experience.

    Otherwise, we all LOVE the game. We can’t stop playing it, and we can’t wait for the Hydra, it looks really cool. I’m so hyped for this game to keep growing, and can’t wait to see what you guys have for us with the full release. THANKYOU FOR MAKING THIS GAME.

    Reply
    • hey thanks so much 🙂 new environments and little bits of story stuff are all in our plan, just haven’t had a chance to add them yet!

      we’ll be releasing an update in the next week or so with some new stuff, and in the next update after that I’ll be looking at new environments- hopefully they come out okay!

      Reply
  29. I literally come back to this page every few weeks and dream of playing on Crawl at the BetaBar… The Dev department at my job is building an arcade cabinet which will host all types of games and when I showed them Crawl they were excited to add it to the project! So I will get to play 4 player Crawl at work (which is sweet) but I wish it was at a bar on a Crawl cabinet… one day!

    Reply
    • Haha yesss that’s so good to hear- I wish I had a crawl arcade machine at my work! 🙂

      Reply
      • lol yeah! They are planning to use the xbox kinect for facial recognition. So when you walk up it will load your own button presets. Not really related to Crawl but I am still pumped to be able to walk over and play 4 player Crawl whenever.

        Reply

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