Owlchemy Labs

Press lovin’ for burly Jack Lumber

owlchemylabs — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 18:38:32 +0000

It’s been a week since we debuted the idea of Jack Lumber to the world. People around the globe have shared in Jack’s wild anger toward trees, and some have even written about it!

TouchArcade preview“‘Absurd’ is the right word for this. We’re hopelessly stoked to see this in motion, so stay tuned.”
Kotaku preview“Bottom line: I really am sold. I think Jack Lumber is a winner.”
GameZebo preview“Let’s face it, trees suck.”
Mac|Life preview“…a fresh feel of its own.”
Kill Screen preview“…it’s one to watch for. Also, LUMBERJACKS.”
AppAddict preview“I have no doubt this will be another hit for the studio.”

We were also watching the Twitters to see if people were buzzing about the game.

Jack Lumber PAX East recap!

owlchemylabs — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 19:21:15 +0000

The scientists at Owlchemy Labs just returned from the madness that is PAX East 2012. We’re still recovering from the exhilaration of showing our new work-in-progress game, Jack Lumber, to the gamers that took the trek out to PAX’s third east coast installment.

So how did it go? We’ll recap the awesomeness with some photography!

That’s right. We dressed up as lumberjacks. Would you expect anything less from us?

Our programmer Devin came down from the frigid Canadian north, so he is actually wearing his normal everyday dress while everyone else is “in character”. Our design guru Kate can be seen in “Lumber Jill” garb while a number of non-Owlchemy PAX-goers were caught wearing red plaid, unaware of the Jack Lumber aesthetic! We were able to snap a couple of photos of our accidental cosplayers.

Check out all of these reaction shots!

Who knew Jason Della Rocca was a log-splitting forest-massacring mastermind?!

Just after the end of the conference, we gathered for a group shot, consisting of Devin, Carrie, myself (Alex), Beth, and Jon below (minus Kate, who had caught the PAX Pox by then). We promptly headed to a local irish pub to celebrate the end of a successful PAX. Nothing exploded and no one died! Success!

What a great experience! Being a part of the historic Indie MEGABOOTH was a blast. Players seemed to love their hands-on time with Jack Lumber, and much fun was had. I couldn’t ask for more.

Announcing Jack Lumber!

owlchemylabs — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 17:30:43 +0000

We’re announcing our next game! That’s right. A game about a supernatural lumberjack.

What is this all about?
Check out all of the details at JackLumberGame.com and be sure to check out or exclusive TouchArcade announcement here!

Be sure to sign up on our mailing list on the right to be notified when this bad boy gets released.

Snuggle Truck in Humble Indie Bundle and ANDROID!

owlchemylabs — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 17:10:57 +0000

Great news everyone!

Snuggle Truck is now part of the Humble Bundle for Android 2 promotion!

Grab it today!

We’ve also launched Smuggle Truck (and Snuggle Truck) on Android today!

This marks quite a few firsts for Owlchemy:

– Android debut of Snuggle Truck!
– Android debut of SMuggle Truck!
– First Unity game in the Humble Bundle!
– Linux debut of Snuggle Truck!
– First time the Smuggle variant has been widely available for players outside of PC/Mac

Whee! More on this exciting stuff later, but for now, Enjoy!

A new game from Owlchemy?

owlchemylabs — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 19:26:27 +0000

It’s true folks. We’ve been hard at work on a new Owlchemy title and the time is approaching to show the world.

Pax East 2012.
Be there… or be chopped.

Snuggle Truck gets Steam-y

owlchemylabs — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 19:24:51 +0000

Thats right – Snuggle Truck is now available on Steam! Create a level on your PC, edit it on the road with your iPad, then finally use your iPhone to play it on the crapper. Oh the joys of technology.

For a limited time, get the Steam version for only $4.49 while it’s 10% off. Grab it now!

Infinite Leaderboards: Every level gets its own unique leaderboard, including the 12,430 community levels (at the time of writing) and any new levels you make with the level editor. Now everyone can experience the unique blend of disappointment and satisfaction that comes from creating a level and seeing some random guy/gal on the interwebs decimate your best time. Revel in it. It’s good for you.

Anyway, am I still talking? Grab the game today and enjoy it on a crazyyy wide-screen!

Oh, and a new trailer!

The world catches the Snuggling bug!

owlchemylabs — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 15:18:27 +0000

This past Monday, Snuggle Truck and Snuggle Truck HD switched from paid to free on the App Store. In conjunction with FreeAppADay, we reached a literal and figurative ‘buttload’ of players. It’s quite exciting to see the response from our fans. Lots of 4 and 5 star reviews, with the occasional unavoidable ‘dis game sucks!’ 1-star review. Here’s a little snippet of our reviews thus far:

With our change over to free, we added a couple of in-app purchases to allow players to enhance the game through various means (new truck skin, level packs, upgraded powerups, supporter badges, and removal of interstitial ads).

Most players ( >90% ) chose not to pay for anything in the app, but that’s okay! We were able to get our game out to lots of players and we’re excited that so many people are having fun with the game. 1.3 million new downloads in 9 days, to be exact!

For those looking for some more solid numbers (developers!) here’s a breakdown of the regions showing the top 10 regions for number of free downloads:

We’re also seeing a great surge of creative level designers hopping into the level editor to make some awesome new levels. We’ve seen just about 4,000 new levels created in the past 9 days! More free levels for everyone is wonderful all around.

So keep on Snugglin folks and enjoy!

Unite 11 Video up!

owlchemylabs — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 14:30:59 +0000

Quick update – The recording of our Unite ’11 talk “Smuggle Truck Postmortem: Developing for 4 Platforms Simultaneously” is now live.

Check it out here.

Unite 11 slides are up!

owlchemylabs — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 02:13:17 +0000

The scientists at Owlchemy Labs are still catching up on their beauty sleep after galavanting in San Francisco for Unite ’11, but we thought we should post our talk slides here as soon as we became coherent. Here ya go:

Announcing Snuggle Truck level contest winners!

owlchemylabs — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 21:13:10 +0000

Wow!

A whopping 91 levels were submitted by players during the level design contest! We played them all and after some careful deliberations, followed by nap-time, we came up with the list of winners.
Here they are in all their glory, each accompanied by a play-through video.

Most EPIC Jump award goes to dariopaivo for the kikrio level.

Best Themed Level award goes to nubrainy for the Do you hate log? level.

Best Youngster Design award goes to Mrt3D and his daughter for the Surprise! level.

If you’re the creator of one of these levels, make sure to contact us!

Also, check out these levels yourself by searching for them in the Level Lobby.

Thanks to all who submitted levels during the contest and congratulations to the winners! Also, a special thanks to our friends at Apptudes.com!

Snuggle Truck level contest!

owlchemylabs — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 15:37:59 +0000

Yeehaw! With Snuggle Truck v1.5 out on the App Store, we figured it was the perfect time to run a level design contest! Ready? Sure you are! Here’s the criteria for judging:

The Rules:

1.) Make a level that fits one of the three criteria and submit the level to the server from within Snuggle Truck!
2.) Post your first name, GameCenter name, and the name of your level on the Owlchemy Facebook page so we know who made it and how to get in touch with the winners! If you’re a youngster (under 15), post your age to be considered for that category.
3.) Contest ends *Updated!* Thursday night August 18th at 11:59PM EST, 2011!

The Prizes:

- Each winner will receive 5 dollars worth of gifted App Store games or apps! Choose five $0.99 games or one $4.99 game!
- Each winner also receives a front-page blog post on OwlchemyLabs.com showcasing their creation to the world.
- The winner in the youngster category will have their level featured on AppTudes.com and on AppTudes’s Facebook page!

Helpful Hints:

- The most epic jump isn’t necessarily the largest jump. Get creative and come up with a jump that’ll blow people away. Don’t take this as a hint to place a bunch of TNTs at the bottom of the hill, though.
- Any level designer will agree – A barren level is a boring level. Spice it up!
- We’re looking for stylized, unique levels that carry a consistent theme.
- Make it look different from other levels out there. Just like Lego, you need to be creative!
- The youngster award will be given to the best kid level designer, courtesy of the fine folks at Apptudes.com

The Fine Print:

- Gifted apps are limited to US + Canada only (sorry!)
- Please see the Apptudes page for more information regarding the youngster contest.

1.5 Update has arrived!

owlchemylabs — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 13:52:13 +0000

Dear Snugglers and Smugglers,

We’re extremely delighted to announce that the long-awaited 1.5 update has arrived!

We’ve worked on this update with love and toil for over 3 months. We believe that we’ve added an incredible amount of value to the game on all platforms and we’re releasing this update for free to our existing players. For those who are looking to join the Snuggle fanbase, we’ve slashed the price of the game on iPhone down to $0.99 and on iPad to $1.99 for the next 24 hours.
Get it while it’s hot! (iPad / iPhone)

The biggest punchlines of the 1.5 update are the fabulous Level Portal and the arrival of the updated Level Editor for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch. Do you know what this means? This means that the community now has the power to make thousands of levels and create virtually unlimited content for the game for all to enjoy. Talk about a win-win! We’re crazy excited and we can’t wait to see all the fun-tastic and innovative levels y’all will come up with.

In addition to that awesomecake, here’s a list of the most prominent improvements we made with 1.5:

- The Level Portal gives everyone access to unlimited new content thanks to community-created levels!
- The built-in Level Editor allows you to showcase your creative side. Make crazy-fun levels for others to download, rate, and enjoy!
- In-game UI moved from the bottom of the screen to the top to prevent your hand from covering up important info. This also prevents accidental presses of the back button.
- On iOS, you can now double-tap the screen to activate rocket – shake to activate is still usable. This is just an alternate way to rocket that many of our users had suggested.
- Difficulty of some of the unfairly nasty levels have been adjusted.
- Text is more readable in certain places.
- 5 new Game Center achievements, and faster Game Center authentication.
- Wheelie achievement is actually obtainable now!
- Fixed many bugs and made a bunch of low-level optimizations to make the game perform even better.
- Upgraded some art content to be higher resolution so we can maintain crisp visuals even when zooming in on the retina display.

Are you still reading? Go and get the update for iPad / iPhone! Create forthwith!

P.S. Existing PC/Mac players should have received an email with an update link.

Want some eye candy? Check out the video below:

Strangeness of the Internet

owlchemylabs — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 14:32:23 +0000

Never underestimate the randomness of the internet. I think this video wins the award for strangest video about Snuggle Truck. Without further ado:

The only question left is: can you beat his time?

Snuggle Truck v1.5 sneak peek

owlchemylabs — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 12:31:47 +0000

For the most part, the scientists at Owlchemy Labs lead boring and ordinary lives, aside from the occasional chemical fire in the lab. Today, though, we woke up giddy as school children with a new toy to play with. Our Snuggle Truck v1.5 release is in the final stages of testing, and we want to show it to you right now.

Enough jibber-jabber. Check out the video below:

To recap:

– A butt-load of new, free levels. Did we mention free?

– Level Portal – This is huge! You can submit your own custom-made Snuggle Truck levels to the online portal and download, play, rate, and share other players’ levels.

– The level editor has come to the iPad and iPhone! Rejoice and create forthwith. Fully featured level editor allows for the creation of underground, forest, or desert level types with all styles of terrain available, as well as obstacles, decoration, and even powerups and fuzzy spawners.

– You can now double-tap the screen to activate powerups. The old method of shaking the device to activate powerups is still valid, so now you have two options.

– Re-positioned in-game UI elements for maximum awesome.

– Replaced some of the older low-resolution art with shinier, higher-res versions.

– 5 all-new Game Center achievements.

– A ton of low-level optimizations to make the game even more buttery smooth.

– Fixed a ton of bugs that you’ll never have the pleasure of experiencing.

Level editor on the iPhone? What?

owlchemylabs — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 15:22:17 +0000

Owlchemy here with a Monday morning update sure to brighten your day. Today we are announcing full native support for the Snuggle Truck level editor on the iPhone, iPhone 4, and iPod Touch!

A month or so back, we mentioned our plans to bring our fully-featured level editor to both the iPad and Desktop versions of Snuggle Truck. We had initially excluded iPhone and iPod Touch from this list due to the small screen size and inability to properly hit the buttons on screen. There was just so little space available, it seemed imposible to cram all of the functionality of the editor into a screen that is less than 3″ wide.

In fact, this is the same level editor used by the developers and level designers to create the actual levels seen in the game.

It’s.. It’s.. ALIVE!

Now we somehow have it running on all devices, including the pictured iPod Touch 2nd gen, which runs it pretty well considering it has a processor roughly equivalent to a toaster.

We heard the cry of our players and really wanted to deliver the same experience across all platforms, so we re-designed how the user interacts with the editor. It was a BEAR to get working *and* usable on such a small screen. Now scaling, moving, and rotating happen in distinct touch zones instead of the previous method employed in the desktop client that worked by detecting which selected edge you were dragging.

We’re doing our v1.5 private beta test right now, so expect this baby to be submitted to the App Store within a week or so.

Edit: Check out Brett Nolan’s experiences with the v1.5 beta at Appaddict.net

Snuggle Truck nominated for Best European Indie Game

owlchemylabs — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 20:52:53 +0000

Great news, everybody!

Snuggle Truck has been nominated for the Best European Indie Game category of the European Game Awards, hooray! Apparently Boston is in Europe now, or our connections with the Turkish mafia have finally caught up to us. Either way, we’ll take it!

The other 4 nominees in this category are: Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Interstellar Marines, Ilomilo, and Minecraft. That’s some tough competition and that’s exactly how we like it. We wish all the nominees the best of luck.

If you’d like to show us your support, hop along and vote for Snuggle Truck right now:

In other news, Carrie Witt, a very talented RISD Junior in Illustration, recently joined our labs as Apprentice Scientist Intern. To celebrate the nomination, she has created a funderful wallpaper for all of you, featuring Owlbert, working hard on some top-secret experiments in our labs! Go ahead and plaster your desktop with these pretty pixels.

Widescreen (16:9)	Widescreen (16:10)	Standard (4:3)

1920 x 1080	1920 x 1200	1600 x 1200
1366 x 768	1680 x 1050	1280 x 960
1280 x 720	1280 x 800	1024 x 768
	1440 x 900

Peace and science, forever!

Snuggle Truck featured in App Stores across the world!

owlchemylabs — Fri, 20 May 2011 20:55:40 +0000

Owlbert, our wise resident lab owl, shook us out of sleep this morning to tell us that Snuggle Truck is featured in the New & Noteworthy section of the iOS App Store in 61 countries! At first we thought he was kidding but then we looked to see for ourselves; lo and behold, there it was…

Here are just a few of the 61 countries the game was featured in:

- Argentina
- Hungary
- Malta
- Poland
- Russia
- Turkey

In accordance with the Too much of a good thing can be truly wonderful law, we’re delighted to give you even more great news! We’re hard at work on the v1.5 update which will bring you the Level Lobby, where you can share your levels with the rest of the world and the rest of the world can share theirs with you! We’re also eagerly listening to the feedback from our fans and we’re putting in our best effort to make the game a smoother, more enjoyable experience for all. If you have any feedback that you’ve been holding back from us, now would be the perfect time to write it down on a piece of paper, put it in a glass bottle, and float that bottle on the nearest river. If modern day practicality is your thing then perhaps put it up on the Smuggle Truck Facebook Page.

If you want to spread the word and you’re looking for some snuggly content to accompany the words in your sentences, be sure to visit our Press page and grab the Press Kit.

Peace and Science, forever!

World meets Snuggle Truck, apocalypse imminent!

owlchemylabs — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 22:01:56 +0000

Wow, what a day that was!

Yesterday, we launched Smuggle Truck on PC and Mac, and Snuggle Truck on iOS.

First, a huge thanks to all our fans who have helped with spreading the good word. We’ve received an incredible amount of news coverage and feedback. Let’s take a look:

Kotaku - Gaming App of the Day

Slide To Play - Snuggle Truck Review

Joystiq – Smuggle Truck now Snuggle Truck on iOS, PC/Mac version includes both

Pocket Gamer - Apple rejects iOS immigration satire Smuggle Truck.

Cult of Mac - Smuggle Truck Immigration Game Makes Cosmetic Changes, Crosses iTunes Border

TouchArcade - ’Snuggle Truck’ Review – A Run to the Border

PC Magazine - Apple Rejects Immigrant ‘Smuggle Truck’ Game

MTV Multiplayer, Huffington Post, NY Daily News, Color Lines

and the list goes on…

And here are some of the nicest things people have said about the game so far:

“4/4 – Must Have” – SlideToPlay

“… the game is still incredibly fun. Give these animals the ride they’re looking for.” – 148Apps

“It’s bonkers, hilarious, and utterly addictive… A perfect addition to your home screen.” – Pocket Gamer

“Whether you call it Snuggle Truck or Smuggle Truck, this game is an absolute blast.” – SlideToPlay

We still have a lot of work ahead of us. We’ve officially migrated from the “Launch Day” to the “Launch Week” and now we’re making sure that everyone on the surface of this Earth hears about the game one way or another. We think some sort of telepathic doomsday device might be the best solution and Owlbert is already hard at work, re-jiggering the Feynman diagrams up on the whiteboard.

How about giving Owlchemy a hand? There are an infinite number of things you could do but here’s a seed list to get you started:

- Go to your favorite apple orchard and tell the trees about the Fuzzies in Snuggle Truck.
- Go visit your grandma (who misses you by the way) and show off your snuggling skills.
- Telegram your friends about just how cool the game makes you feel.
- Go on Facebook and rave like a madman, preferably in our favor.

Peace and Science, forever!

Smuggle Truck out on PC/Mac – Snuggle Truck cuddles up on iOS

owlchemylabs — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 12:08:09 +0000

Well that day has finally come, and everyone can enjoy their dose of smuggling (or snuggling, if they so choose).

Smuggle Truck is available now from SmuggleTruck.com on PC and Mac. For those with iPhones or iPads, our iOS offering has changed a bit, and you can find out more in the videos below:

Launch trailer for Smuggle / Snuggle Truck

Why Snuggle Truck? Developer explanation

Discuss on our brand new Facebook page just for the game, at http://facebook.com/smuggletruck

3D Stimulus Day

owlchemylabs — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 01:15:58 +0000

Yesterday, we had the pleasure of presenting at this year’s 3D Stimulus Day, organized by Great Eastern Technology. Our talk was titled “2D in 3D, Techniques in Unity” and if today’s beautiful weather is any indication, it must have been well-received by the presentation gods, and hopefully the audience. We’ve embedded the presentation below, for your viewing pleasure. We’ve got some new goodies as well; check them out right after the presentation.

As promised during the presentation, we’ve put up 2 new scripts to our Content page that helped us during the development of Smuggle Truck: Render Queue Setter and Texture Size to Transform. Go check them out!

Smuggle Truck PC/Mac Pre-order!

owlchemylabs — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 10:53:45 +0000

Today we’re announcing our PC/Mac version of the game is available for pre-order online! This means you can secure a copy of the game ahead of time and be the *first* to get your hands on the final version. Pre-ordering will get you *both* a PC and Mac version of the game, with unlimited downloads and upgrades. DRM-free. For our Linux friends, we’re working on something for you, but WINE should work for now.

For an even bigger savings, there’s a code floating around during PAX weekend (this weekend!) for 40% off the game! You should stop by the booth and bug us about it

Pre-order now!

Edit: We’re extending the pre-order 40% off to those who weren’t able to grab it during PAX. Use the code PAXSMUGGLER to save big!

PAX East weekend!

owlchemylabs — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 10:50:48 +0000

It’s that time – PAX East is upon us. Come by the Owlchemy Labs booth and say hi to the scientists. We’ll be there Friday, Saturday and Sunday, demoing our wares. Get a hands-on demo of Smuggle Truck in action and see what all the fuss is about.

Contest winners announced!

owlchemylabs — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 21:50:36 +0000

It’s true. The Smuggle Truck level design contest is over. We received some amazing submissions. Below are the top 10 winners, as well as some honorable mentions we couldn’t pass up. The winning levels will be touched up in the final release to iron out any bugs and will be vacuum sealed for your protection. Congrats to all the winners. We’ll be in touch to get your shirt sizes (and for one lucky winner, a photo to caricature and put in the back of the truck)

Contest Winners – Click each level to play!

1 Grand Prize Winner

Wins a custom embroidered Owlchemy Labs lab coat, a free copy of the game, inclusion in the final game with a callout as “Master Level Chef”, a signed piece of artwork from the developers, and a personalized caricature and inclusion in the final game as one of the passengers in the truck.

Bedrock Grotto – by moruti

4 Gold Prize Winners

Wins a free copy of the game and inclusion in the final game with a callout as “Master Level Chef”

Rolling Quartz Mine – by xyrom.l
El Constructor – by bwproductions
Owl Country – by smashd
Plateau-oooh! – by chrixeleon

5 Silver Prize Winners

Wins a free copy of the game

Rumble Dungeon – by dirtbike009
Down North – by weblendeznisce
Hilly Home – by nikkosoetjoadi
Claustrophobia – by ebeinke
Don’t Get Set Up The Bomb – by Cushman

Honorable Mentions

Wins undying gratitude

BABIES EVERYWHERE! – by dsilvers
Raining Babies – by hikebikeclimb
Cuidado Canyon – by csgbroseph

Post your comments here!

Note: The build up on Kongregate today is quite old, especially to us, the developers. It contains countless bugs that we look at and cringe as they fester in our minds and prevent us from sleeping, knowing full well that most of them are fixed in our local copies. Well… it’s not really that bad. But we just wanted to let you know – we’re going to update the Kongregate build to be our official free online demo of Smuggle Truck, but until then, please don’t mind the bugs. Just pretend they give the game more character

Kongregate Level Editor Update – New Toys!

owlchemylabs — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 18:38:06 +0000

Quick update, we’ve added 5 new obstacles to the editor.

1.) Circular log: Static – Used as a building block.
2.) Circular log with gravity: Dynamic – It will roll Be creative!
3.) Wooden plank: Static – Used as a building block for making ramps and wood structures.
4.) Wooden crate box: Static – Another building block.
5.) Wooden crate box with gravity: Dynamic – It will tumble and fall Again, be creative!

Enjoy! I can’t wait to see what kind of crazy levels can be made with these few additions.

Also, we’re extending the level design contest another week! It now ends on Monday night, the 28th. More entries means more chances to win.

Get to the level editor right here.

Smuggle Truck selected for PAX Boston Indie Showcase

owlchemylabs — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 22:23:32 +0000

It’s official – The results of the PAX East showcase have been announced and Smuggle Truck is selected as one of the Boston Indie Showcase winners! This means we’ll have the opportunity to demo our game to thousands of gamers with booth space generously provided by the Penny Arcade crew. We’re honored to be a part of this great event and couldn’t be more excited to demo our game in March.

A quick shout-out to the other two winners – Elliot Borenstein (a WPI classmate of ours) and Peter Jones, fellow Boston Indies member and all around great guy. Both of your games look great (and in this case, sound great!) and having seen early versions of both projects, I’m sure you’ll drop jaws at PAX. Congratulations all around.

Playable Demo + Level Design Contest

owlchemylabs — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 09:25:43 +0000

We’re happy to announce a playable demo of Smuggle Truck and the beginning of our Smuggle Truck Level Design Contest! That’s right, we’re releasing a level editor for a game that’s not out yet. Create a level *Today* using our fancy-shmancy level editor and you can win some sweet prizes.

How do I enter?
Just head to our playable demo on Kongregate and get crackin’. You can play one of our sample levels or create your own epic level to enter in the contest.

What do all of these buttons do?
We’ve created a level editor video walkthrough to help players learn the tool. It’s only 60 seconds, so check it out.

What can I win?
We will be awarding prizes to 10 winners, including 5 Silver Prize winners, 4 Gold Prize winners, and one Grand Prize winner. Each group gets different swag.

1 Grand Prize winner wins:

A custom embroidered Owlchemy Labs lab coat

A free copy of the game

Your level in the final game with a callout as “Master Level Chef”

A signed piece of artwork from the developers

A personalized caricature and inclusion in the final game as one of the passengers in the truck.

4 Gold Prize winners win:

A free copy of the game

Your level in the final game with a callout as “Master Level Chef”

5 Silver Prize winners win:

A free copy of the game

When does the contest end?
~~February 21st at midnight EST~~
Extended! Now ending on February 28th at midnight EST

Where do I hear about the winners and get reminded when the actual game is released?
In the upper right hand side of the webpage is a magical little box – Type your email in there and you’ll be notified when the winners are chosen and when the game comes out!

Smuggle Truck Press Q&A

owlchemylabs — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 18:11:48 +0000

We received a lot of important questions regarding Smuggle Truck. In order to answer them, here’s some Q&A with the press:

Question 1.) Why was this game made?
The idea for the game was a reaction to the frustrations we felt as our friends struggled through a long and winding immigration process. We understood that creating a satire would be the best way to bring the issue to light and kickstart the process of getting people discussing immigration reform.

Question 2.) If you wanted to start a meaningful discussion, why not make a serious game instead of a satire? It could be a game about the paperwork maze the player has to go through to to get a visa.
This was our first thought, but elected to go with satire instead. We predicted that by approaching the issue from the complete opposite side, we would be able to reach many more people and make a bigger impact. There are lots of dry campaigns for immigration reform, but you don’t really hear about them. In fact, you wouldn’t be reading this if we had gone that route.

Question 3.) What points, politically, are you trying to make? Are you pro/anti-immigration? Are you pro/anti illegal immigration?
There are major issues with the current system in place for legal immigration. It requires reform, at the very least. We feel that with reform, the pressures that drive illegal immigration can be lessened, and more people will have a legal choice when it comes to immigration. As for the details and specifics of the reform process, we’re currently working with multiple immigration reform groups in Massachusetts to figure out how to best focus the discussions toward relevant reform topics.

Question 4.) What do you have to say to those who believe this is in poor taste? Don’t you care about those who died trying to cross the border illegally?
If we didn’t care about those who lost their lives struggling to immigrate, we wouldn’t have created this game. “Smuggle Truck” has sparked a debate, and this discussion wouldn’t be happening right now if some feathers weren’t ruffled.

Question 5.) Do you think this game will be approved by Apple?
As always, Apple makes the final call because it’s their own closed platform. However, we’re confident that our final presentation of the game will properly reflect the satire and that it will be judged as such.

Question 6.) The game has started some serious discussion regarding immigration, but has also provoked some racist and negative comments. How are you dealing with these comments?
“Smuggle Truck” has indeed encouraged quite a bit of thoughtful discussion, and has also (not unexpectedly) brought about some less-than-useful discussion. We’re currently working with a local immigration reform group in Mass to discuss how best to drive the discussions toward a focus of relevant reform topics. Stay tuned for more information regarding that initiative.

Big news day for Smuggle Truck

owlchemylabs — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 03:20:23 +0000

Today has been quite a news day for Smuggle Truck. With the NY Daily News, The AP, Fox News, CBS News, Kotaku, and other news outlets picking up the story, we’re glad to see a lot of chatter about the game as well as open discussion regarding the issues surrounding immigration.

Recently, we’ve put up the ‘Story‘ page on our site, detailing the origins of the game. We invite you to take a look. We understand how some could be offended having only seen a short snippet of a pre-release trailer and some screenshots. That page should give some further explanation for the themes of the game and where we’re coming from.

We apologize for being a bit behind on our weekly screencasts but promise to get back on track next week where we’ll be detailing our additional locales in the game (underground and forest) and provide an insight into the music that will accompany those new areas.

As always, we encourage discussion on all aspects of Smuggle Truck, so feel free to sound off in the comments section of our Facebook page.

Smuggle Truck Screencast #2 – Medals and Replayability

owlchemylabs — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 17:41:42 +0000

This week in the Smuggle Truck Screencast, Yilmaz shows off our medal system. This system was designed both as a reward system for regular gameplay and also to provide solid paths for replayability. Check out the video below.

We found that often, racing games do a particularly bad job at offering a reason to replay levels. Additionally, if the player does choose to replay, they aren’t replaying with a different goal in mind. It’s usually just “do it faster”. Games like Burnout provide a secondary goal in addition to time, which in their case is the number of ‘Takedowns’ you can achieve during a race. Similarly, Smuggle Truck is tracking two major gameplay variables, both your time and successful passenger count. With these two metrics, we are able to provide players with multiple different goals.

We provide three medals that push for overall quality driving (bronze, silver, and gold medals require increasing speed and successful passenger delivery to varying degrees), but we also provide two other medals which urge the player to think explicitly about their driving style. The ‘Green Card’ award is awarded to players that drive slowly and carefully due to the fact that they are not being timed and their only concern is the safety of their passengers. The ‘Smugglers Run’ award, however, rewards pedal-to-the-medal reckless speed-run driving, with a minimum of one safe passenger. With this medal structure, we’ve observed 2-4 playthroughs on a single level, with minimum fatigue, which extends the play lifetime of each level we create.

What ties this all together is the fact that medals are used as currency to unlock later batches of levels, much like the non-linear progression through the Rock Band campaign mode. Players aren’t forced to beat all levels in a rigid order, but must go back and do better on prior levels in order to unlock new ones.

What do you think about how medals are implemented in Smuggle Truck? Let us know in the Youtube comments or on Facebook!

Level editor contest and first Smuggle Truck Screencast

owlchemylabs — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 19:50:29 +0000

Here at Owlchemy Labs, we want to open our doors to our players and to the community. In an effort to show a sneak peek at both the game and the development processes, we’re launching a weekly (or more!) Smuggle Truck Screencast where we dissect one element of the game and show it to you on our Youtube channel.

To kick off our weekly Smuggle Truck Screencast, here’s our first video detailing our level editor. This is the same level editor that we created within Unity to build out the official levels included in the game. We’ll be releasing this editor both with the final game (in March) and in February so users can get a head start creating levels for our level design competition! In the video below, we announce our official level design competition, which begins mid-February. Check out the video for more details.

Comment on this and other Smuggle Truck news at our Facebook page.

Smuggle Truck submitted to PAX East!

owlchemylabs — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 23:45:05 +0000

Hoot! We’ve submitted Smuggle Truck to the PAX East Boston Indie Showcase.

This was our first big milestone and it feels great to have met it on time. The game is now trucking along the tubes of the internets and finding its way to the hands of the PAX East judges. We’ve taught it everything we can in the one and a half months we’ve had (so far) to develop it and we hope it will make us proud.

Tonight, we’re headed to the Restaurant at the End of the Universe. Hopefully there’s no dress code against lab coats.

Smuggle Truck Teaser Trailer

owlchemylabs — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 19:43:48 +0000

How epic should a trailer be? At Owlchemy Labs, we explored this question deeply and after a couple minutes of work, came up with this:

So, how high would you rate this trailer, on a scale of 1 to 10, in terms of epicness. Let us know at our Facebook page. Knock twice on the door, Owlbert will let you in.

Private beta: Shipped!

owlchemylabs — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 06:18:22 +0000

After a month of 7-day-a-week development sprinting, we shipped our first milestone and got the PC/Mac beta build of Smuggle Truck in the hands of our testers. Reception has been very positive and we have a clearer idea of our next steps. Next up is our submission to PAX East, followed by our upcoming level design competition.

Exciting times at Owlchemy Labs.

Indie Collaboration

owlchemylabs — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 04:18:29 +0000

If you didn’t already know, Boston is an amazing place to be an indie game developer. We know and love the community, so we’ve been on the lookout for possible collab opportunities for our next project. It looks like we’ve found the perfect match and we’re very excited to be working with and learning from a great team. While we can’t announce our plans at the moment, we’ll be sure to inform you as things progress.

Lab coats?

owlchemylabs — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 02:44:44 +0000

In preparation of PAX East, the scientists are getting outfitted with the up-to-date lab gear. Our custom embroidered knee-length lab coats should be ready in 1-2 weeks.

Smuggle Truck: Baby overproduction?

owlchemylabs — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 22:12:49 +0000

A slight coding error caused a disruption today. Our political correctness is through the roof on this one. Check out the video below.

Note: This video is super-old and shows content from before our art overhaul.

Booting up the labs!

owlchemylabs — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 04:03:27 +0000

We’re firing up the proverbial bunsen burners on our new game development shop right here in Boston. Stick around and Stay tuned for updates but stand back — we’re doing science.