Captain Disaster - dev blog

Voicing the Customs Official

2013-05-28T13:49:00.002-07:00

Hi-tech, huh?

Well... maybe not.

Latest Download Stats (1st May 2013)

2013-05-01T05:20:00.001-07:00

From AGS: 881

From Softpedia: 160
From ModDB: 66
From GameFront: 18

Total: 1,125

Well, not setting the earth on fire exactly, but steadily (mainly thanks to the AGS page of course!) we're getting more downloads. There are some other sites that I don't track but I don't think they'd add a huge amount to the total.

Hard at work...

2013-04-29T04:42:00.003-07:00

... well mainly it's The Bit Priest, who like the rest of the team has ended up covering many bases to help out, who's keeping this baby moving forwards at the moment. (He was largely out of action for a while and now I am, but despite that pesky thing called real life we keep on making this game...) Act I is starting to teem with characters, dialogues and puzzles. I can't give you a good estimate about when it's likely to all be ready for beta testing, but we're continuing to make good progress. Will hopefully post a couple of videos soon showing you some of the aliens in action...

Mysterious...

2013-04-01T10:04:00.002-07:00

What could it be? An existing game? A new game? A game that will never be made? A game that's already been made? A game that you'll wish you knew about? A game you'll wish you were never told about?

Someday I'll reveal the secret...

We Won!

2013-03-23T13:30:00.003-07:00

Captain Disaster in Death Has a Million Stomping Boots won Best Demo in the AGS Awards 2012!! :-D

Showcase Video featuring the Captain Disaster demo

2013-03-22T13:23:00.001-07:00

Only just came across this - someone's done a video featuring gameplay and commentary about the demo. They like the game overall, thought the menu screen and scroller was hilarious (!), and dissed my voice acting. A fun look at how people's thought processes go through the game's puzzles, and how we've missed some things that are fairly obvious completely passed us by in the development process.

He got nowhere near completing the demo in 15 minutes (which is a bit of a relief!) - I think 45 minutes is the best guess at average time to complete it.

If you haven't played the demo yet, you can download it here.

Tomorrow night we'll find out if we've won in the Best Demo category of the AGS Awards 2012...

Latest Download Stats

2013-03-21T05:51:00.002-07:00

From AGS: 804
From Softpedia: 151
From ModDB: 65
From GameFront: 18

Total: 1,038

So we've finally officially passed a thousand downloads. Hopefully that means there are nearly a thousand people who enjoyed the demo and are looking forward to the game, but who knows?!

800!

2013-03-17T08:55:00.001-07:00

We've finally reached 800 downloads on the AGS game page. I'll do an update on all stats soon... but for now, we're just working hard at getting the game finished.

If we could talk to the aliens...

2013-03-05T11:17:00.001-08:00

If we could talk to the aliens, just imagine it

Chatting to an Acturan in Acturan

... etc...

Um, yes. We'd have to call the game Dr Disaster instead of Captain Disaster I guess. Anyway, every sound means something in Acturan, so even before CD manages the important task of learning to properly communicate with the inhabitants of Acturus-1, he gets the chance to be a real Englishman Abroad and make random noises at them. (For reasons we won't go into right now, he will be able to understand the responses.)

First test of the random alien speech system we've devised today - works pretty nicely. I hope you have fun with it in the full game!

Wow, time goes so fast...

2013-02-24T06:54:00.002-08:00

It really does fly when you're having fun - or hard at work making an adventure game!! It suddenly occurred to me today that this was the 6-month anniversary of releasing the demo for Captain Disaster in Death Has a Million Stomping Boots. I would be lying if I said the game's production was as far on now as I'd hoped - we've had several problems with needing to replace team members - but for the last couple of months, development has been progressing very nicely and we're getting pretty close to a fully playable Act I of the game.

If you haven't played the demo yet, you can download it here.

I'll be posting news soon about the voice talent working on the game, too - for the demo just Rob and myself did all the voices, but I don't think we could carry the whole game (and certainly not the female voices, though Rob's digitally altered voice for the feminine-sounding hand scanner was pretty eerie!) - some talented folk are lending their sonic uniqueness to the game. Things are looking good for the game to be ready for release towards the end of this year, but it's still going to be a pretty tough haul to reach that goal.

Mini-Landmark

2013-02-15T02:06:00.000-08:00

We've hit another small landmark - 750 downloads of the demo for Captain Disaster in Death Has a Million Stomping Boots over at the AGS website.

In other news....

Development of the full game continues. Another character has been completely voiced, and the background graphics are complete. Character graphics are slowly getting finished. Quite a bit of dialogue is already in the latest build and we're starting to add the actual puzzles. Real-life pressures have been limiting the time we have been able to spend on the project but we're still making pretty decent progress.

AGS Awards 2012 News

2013-02-13T09:00:00.002-08:00

Captain Disaster in Death Has A Million Stomping Boots DEMO has been nominated for BEST DEMO in the AGS Awards 2012!

(I was also pleased to see another game I've worked on, Unga Needs Mumba, nominated for BEST PUZZLES. Congratulations to my occasional partner in crime Tino Bensing!)

Full Nominees List

Updated download stats

2013-02-12T13:29:00.001-08:00

From AGS: 727
From Softpedia: 140
From ModDB: 64
From GameFront: 18

Total: 949

Edging ever closer to a thousand downloads!

(I know there are more download sites out there but I don't have time to track down each and every one of them... I've been following these four download locations for a while now and will continue to do so, if another site seems to be important I'll start following their stats too.)

Test Animation

2013-02-11T06:33:00.005-08:00

For a character on Acturus-1...

More Feedback

2013-02-10T07:52:00.001-08:00

From the AGS Games Page:

"I enjoyed this demo. The graphics and animation are sharp enough to provide the required environment, the puzzles are very well crafted. The voice and sound add an excellent touch to the project.

One essential criterion that I use in assessing a game is the plot, how it's developed and executed, and how the puzzles contribute. This being a demo with only one main objective, it's too early to tell how this will pan out.

However, I would be optimistic considering the effort and success of this achievment. Best wishes to those involved and I'm looking forward to the completed project."

Most recent comment about the Captain Disaster demo...

2013-02-08T15:37:00.000-08:00

"Finished the demo. Thank you for the hints.

Great game in many ways. Wonder what you were drinking when you concocted those puzzles "

CDiTAHIMG featured on AdventureGamers

2013-02-08T08:40:00.002-08:00

Captain Disaster in There's a Hole in my Galaxy has been featured in an article on upcoming (as in "coming sometime!") indie adventure games. (Another game I'm heavily involved with, The Journey of Iesir, is also there.) The article, by Adventure Gamers' Chief Editor Jack Allin, can be found here. Nice to know the game is being looked forward to by at least some! (Although we're working mainly on Captain Disaster in Death Has a Million Stomping Boots for the foreseeable future.)

Official Website Launched!

2013-01-19T04:20:00.002-08:00

Thanks to our publisher Screen7, we now have a shiny new website:

http://www.captaindisaster.co.uk/

7,000 and counting!

2013-01-11T02:12:00.001-08:00

It's difficult to gauge exactly how much interest there is in your game project, particularly when it's essentially your first major release and you're a virtual unknown in the indie game development world, but it's quite pleasing that we've just passed seven thousand views in our Game in Production thread over on the AGS forums.

Just to put that into some sort of context, out of 1,739 such game in production threads, only 178 other thread have so far passed the 7K mark. So, quite pleased - hopefully a sign that there is a small but maintained level of interest in the game!

It's 2013, sooooo...

2013-01-03T03:16:00.000-08:00

... it must be time for a new screenshot!

One of the places you can visit on Acturus-1 is the RoboBar - though that bouncer probably isn't going to just let you walk straight in...

Almost the end of the year! Download stats...

2012-12-30T08:43:00.001-08:00

From AGS: 646
From Softpedia: 119
From ModDB: 63
From GameFront: 17

Total: 845

Captain Disaster in: There's a Hole in my Galaxy! - FIRST TRAILER

2012-12-28T10:03:00.000-08:00

And now for something completely different (again, if you weren't at Adventure-X on the Saturday...):

New Trailer for Captain Disaster in Death Has a Million Stomping Boots

2012-12-28T09:58:00.001-08:00

This is the trailer shown at Adventure-X in London a couple of weekends back...

Vaguely interesting stats...

2012-12-27T08:55:00.001-08:00

... would it surprise you to know that the shared dev folder for Captain Disaster in Death Has a Million Stomping Boots that we're using on Google Drive currently holds:

1.2Gb of data
119 folders
2,337 files

That's just the tip of the iceberg since we're not even finished with Act I yet! (Did I mention that this game will feature 3 acts?) Although don't worry, the finished game isn't going to be quite so huge in terms of download size - we save A LOT of space by making our WAV sound files into OGG for the game once they've been edited.

Latest ratings and comments on the AGS Games Page

2012-12-12T04:45:00.005-08:00

We're up to 586 downloads, 10 ratings and 7 comments now on AGS Games Page (believe it or not, that download to rating / comment ratio is actually much better than the average over there - but if you want to rate or leave a comment, please feel free! Of course comments left on this blog are great too :-D).

Ratings:

Visual: 77%

Immersion: 73%

Puzzles & Pacing: 90%

Overall Enjoyment: 80%

Obviously pretty pleased about those ratings. We always knew the graphically our game could never compete with the best indie adventure game titles, but the main thing is that people enjoy the game - which they clearly have so far.

Comments:

"The puzzles were spot on and the voice acting was good. I'm looking forward to playing the full game!"

"A great little game with nice graphics and humour which plays on pop-references to sci-fi that most of us love and enjoy. Nice novelty with some of the interactive elements."

"The overall production quality of this demo is top notch. The animations are fantastic, the humor is lovely, the references are many, definitely a wonderful game."

"I really liked it. I thought it was funny and engaging and challenging without being too frustrating. I really wanted to keep playing and would have bought it immediately if game was complete."

"I really loved this demo and literally laughed out loud at certain parts of the demo! I can't wait for the full game, the humour is brilliant and the voice acting really adds to the experience! Great job guys!"

"I really enjoyed the demo and I look forward to the full game."

This last one is by Rob, who's one of the team... so yeah, he's probably biased.

"Ok, so I did have a hand in creating the game and doing some voices but that doesn't mean I can't have an opinion! This was a really well made demo put together by some great people (CaptainD and Taxler Endiosk). They had a lot of this in place before I ever lent a hand to the project and I want to congratulate them on a job well done and a demo well made!

Story line is funny and immersing, sprites are quirky and neat, music is excellent and the voice acting ain't too shabby!"