Ok, so it was a slow news week last week. Don’t worry we are doing stuff, however the most exciting stuff *coughpublisherscough* we can’t really talk about, so, here’s a brief run down on what’s going on.

By popular demand, Lawrence has been working full time on the camera. It’s now silky smooth and smarter than an Octopus (they're bloody smart). He’s telling me there still lots to do, so it can only get better. Alex is working on the ‘over the internet’ networking, it’s pretty technical and probably won’t be of much interest to you however it’s worth mentioning (to make him feel good)

News from the indie-games hemisphere; as previously mentioned, our good friend Tommy has made a better-than-kittens game called ‘Goo!’. No, not ‘World of Goo’ – just, ‘Goo!’.

Anyway, to celebrate the upcoming IGF (which, being suckers for punishment, we’ve entered Plain Sight into) here’s an awesome video he made last year. We approve.

Speaking of the excellent World of Goo, there’s been some flame wars/controversy on the intertubes. According to the developers, 2D Boy, it’s estimated that piracy rate is a whopping 82%. This makes us sad on the inside. Yes, we know it'll never disappear entirely. However, pirating an indie game is kinda like stealing from the homeless.

If you did find World of Good on the torrent sites (and enjoyed it) don’t be tight - cough up. It’s only $20, that couldn’t get you 4 pints of beer in London.

Whilst we’re trying to flog you stuff; ‘This is a Cry for Help’ is indie developer/artist Edmund McMillen’s life work – 10 years worth - all on one CD for a piss-tiny $10. You may not have heard of Edmund but you’ve probably heard of Gish and, if you flick through this list of games, comics, and sketch books , you’ll realise that this mere mortal has had a significant impact on all us indie-types. Lose some more money.

Here’s some free stuff (made by our fwends) for you to play.

by Edmund:

Meat Boy
Aether
The Badlands

by Adam : Gravity Hook
by Dock : Tumble Drop

After one of the most revolting post-birthday hangovers of my young life, it’s time to stick to my word and announce our second competition.

Up for grabs is the sole remaining Plain Sight poster from the Euro Gamer Expo as well as a free copy of Plain Sight. As promotional material goes, it’s about as sassy and sexy as you can get.

How can you get it? Simple, promote us.

To the right you’ll see a wonderfully pre-prepared Plain Sight image. You can find a silhouette here, and a high res version here. What you have to do is take this image and put it somewhere interesting. Then take a photo and post your adventures on the forums. The image/story that tickles our fancy the most wins.

While you could just print it, cut it out, and paste it onto a wall, feel free to be original! You could mow it onto your lawn, or decorate a cake with it, etc. Basically: just go nuts.

EDIT: Teams will receive group prizes. Sassier and sexier group prizes.

Things that’ll count:
1) Originality
2) Location
3) Size
4) How many people you roped in to help (the more the better)
5) Background story

We will announce a winner in two weeks.

Good luck!

Our bodies twisted and feeble, our souls full and buoyant, we have returned from the Eurogamer Expo 2008.

Clearly, the physique of a programmer is not made to endure the stress of standing and smiling for two full working days, but it was worth it! The Beatnik Games award for ‘Best in Show’ goes to you, the public. You came, saw, and conquered our hearts with a charming blend of child-like curiosity and affable psychotic malice.

As a new and unknown indie company, we felt rather like a blushing school girl showing off our goods behind the bike shed; nervous and excited at what the boys would say when they caught their first glimpse of soft, pink... [“Stop that” – Robin]. And, oh my, what a reception we got.

Best moments include (but are not limited to):

1) Someone in the crowd shouting “Plain Sight!” at the Rock Paper Shotgun Thinkosium, when fun and original indie games were being discussed.

2) Seeing people swarm around the booth just to spectate a heated game in progress.

3) The guy who, when asked by a gaming TV crew what he liked best about the Expo, plugged us over everyone else.

4) Giving an entirely slapdash and surreal interview for the Idle Thumbs podcast.

To everyone who came and had a go, to everyone who gave us feedback (good and bad), to everyone who signed up for the beta next month, to everyone we met who cheered us up when our legs were starting to give way: thank you! You have given us the motivation to get straight back to work and pull out all the stops to make the game that we love and that you deserve.

As a kind of post-expo celebration, we will soon be announcing a competition for you to win this extremely limited edition (only two in existence) Plain Sight poster, which was stuck on the wall above our stand, surveying the gaming landscape like a kindly and benevolent god. With bombs. You want to have it, we want to give it away. Details to follow!

Holy Moles! It’s London Games Week next week. That means if you’re a gamer with even the slightest shred of street-cred you’ll be hot-tailing it to the Eurogamer Expo next Tuesday and Wednesday. If you’re cooler than cold, you’ll be getting shit-faced at the Rock Paper Shotgun THINKOSIUM on the Tuesday night.

So, what have we been up to? Amazingness, that’s what. 

Basically Plain Sight is in a state now that we’re happy to send out and show to important people. Yes, it has a few bugs and yes, its missing quite a bit of the stuff we’re still working on but we think it’s a pretty good representation of what’s going to be hitting the interweb at the tail end of November.

This pre-beta build is going to be on show at the above-mentioned Eurogamer and pretty much anything else we’re invited to over the next few weeks.
However, as we know some of you lovely people won’t be able to make it to the event I keep continuously plugging so, as a Happy Friday The 24th Of October present, please find a link to a little video I recorded 15 minutes ago.  It’s totally unedited and, as I’m using the mouse controls, you may find the camera a bit sharp – however we’re finding it great fun to play! Swank!

ENJOY!

PS: you may notice the new dash / attack mechanism – it’s awesome.

On the first day, after getting over some dirty jet lag, my brother, Little Ryu (to the left), and I headed down to Shinjuku. Some dodgy people, who can spot a tourist a mile away, wouldn`t stop pestering us with their vain attempts to lure us in a club. Eventually we lost them and found ourselves in the arcades and, boy, they sure love beat-em-ups and pachinko!

Street fighter 4 looked and played awesomely and I managed to whoop one of the locals ...skills! Having said that I shall now become the root of all envy and jealousy for those who still have yet to play it.

There are a lot of bright signs and ads that are thrown at you left, right and centre, but it isn`t as high tech as I thought it would be. The myth that everything in Japan is more expensive than in England is a lie! Stuff may be more expensive than in America but definitely not as much as London (with the pants customer service).

OK more sightseeing to do. Japan is a very pleasant place to live and you don`t hear police sirens every 5 minutes like I do back home. I am very much not looking forward to coming back! *sob*

(right:SF4 skills!)

“It doesn’t matter what you’ve got now, these fucking characters – they look like postman pat- they’ll change. The game you’ll finally make will be something totally different to what you’ve got now – it’s just the computer games way.”

I didn't believe it at the time - but it's true.

For the first couple of weeks, Plain Sight was a multiplayer stealth based combat game with a super advanced mêlée fighting mechanic. It was gritty, it was mean, it was “the most amazing game in the world” and we couldn’t believe that it hadn’t been made. Unfortunately, it could never work. Firstly, because it would have cost about 10 million to make. Secondly because online mêlée is, and you can quote me on this, FUCKING HARD.

Let’s take an early build of Plain Sight. You press the button, the player slashes his sword. Looks great and, on level ground, works. Now, give those robots the power to jump around a planet and move at the speed of Thor, God of Thunder. The likelihood of your player being within a certain radius of your opponent is pretty darn small. This makes it hard work for the players involved and, as work is no fun, the game is no fun.

“But but but but” I hear you say “I was playing Soul Caliber and Heavenly Sword – and they were the awesomeness”. Yes - Soul Caliber = two axis and single player games have the enemy AI throw caution to the wind and swarm you. So, it’s a problem.

Have we fixed it? Yes. We think we have. How? Sea otters. Lots and lots of sea otters, working around the clock 24/7. I guess we’ll find out tonight at the XNA:UK show and tell. If it gets the thumbs up, I’ll post a gameplay video on Monday – swank! EDIT: going to do a proper video, it'll be up by the end of the week.

PS: The above image was the first of Declans commissioned pieces for us... the original (found here) had a girl in the image. I personally prefered it without - what do you all think?

If so, join us at this year’s –super awesome- TIG Source TIG Jam UK

What’s TIG Jam? Well, it’s a three day event where young and upcoming game developers get together, drink beer, talk rubbish and make games.

The person/team who makes the best game by Sunday evening wins a mystery (AMAZING) prize and oodles of the stuff known on the street as “respect”.

If you haven't got what it takes to join a gang, curb stomp a stray cat or give yourself a tattoo with a rusty razorblade, you can still be the pimp-daddy. Make a game in three days. Easy.

Tickets are £25. Due to space limitations, there aren’t many of them.

Click on these words to find out more information.

Have a great weekend!

Alright folks,

As promised here’s an update of what’s going on:

Firstly, a date for your calendar. If anyone is London bound on Friday the 17th of October our friends at the XNA UK User Group have organised a ‘Show and Tell’ for Plain Sight and the incredibly awesome Sumo Squash at the Microsoft lair HQ near Victoria. If you’re poor and hungry, there will be free food and drink (perhaps booze).
Full details can be found here.

Development for Plain Sight has moved up a gear. It’s now the metaphorical 11 on the metaphorical guitar amp.

I’ll start on the tech side and move to the realms of artiness.

We’ve been lucky enough to enlist the services of Michael Lidgren. Michael is best known for his .net network library (originally named) ‘Lidgren.’ It’s totally free, open source and is now the backbone to Plain Sight’s multiplayer hootenannies.
‘Why do I care?’ you ask. Well, you should, because of the simple formula:  better the networking = more killer robots – lag + other cool stuff

Lawrence has been hard at work plugging in a new and improved gravity system.  Not only can you run up walls and all over the ceiling; you can now jump/fall off a platform and then run along its underbelly. Ace! Whilst working on this, we’ve been spending quite a deal of time getting the camera working just right. Not only does the game feel natural, intuitive, smooth (and similar such words) on an Xbox controller but also with a keyboard and mouse.

Although it’s not as sassy and sexy, it does deserve a mention - Alex has had the joyous task of hammering out the cockroaches from the Plain Sight code.

Thanks to The Audio Guys, the sounds are pretty much finished – there’s still a bit of tweaking and reworking to do, but this shouldn’t take long. Afraid there is still no news on the music, this is something we’re going to work on during the beta test.

Most of the work has been on the look and feel of Plain Sight. We’ve thrown in a new  cartoon shader engine. This will be something you’ll be able to turn on and off in game, so if you want that classic ‘pre-beta’ Plain Sight look, you still can but you’ll probably agree with us that the new look is cooler than unicorns.  

We’re now up to ten levels that we’re pretty certain are going to make the beta. Over the next month we need to play the living hell of them to make 100% certain they’re up to scratch. For a multiplayer game we feel that it’s quality not quantity; so we’re looking for as much feed back as possible from you guys during beta...

There is more stuff (like new sword slashes, spawn points etc ) but my fingers are getting tired. So, enough of me, jump over to the brand spangling new screenshots section for a gander at what we're up to.

If you live in/around/out/up London and you like games and festivals, you may have heard of the London Games Festival, which takes place in late October! And if you were thinking of being all blasé about it, then you might want to reconsider because WE’LL BE THERE!

Between the 28th and 29th of October you’ll be able to find us at the Indie Arcade section of the Eurogamer Expo, unified with our fellow-indies and ready to steal you away into our soft non-corporate embrace.

You won’t know what hit you.

After Lawrence has fastened your limbs together with daisy chains, Robin will strap you to a maypole and prance about like a fawn, cocooning you in long strips of Monopoly money. About 25 minutes of solitary confinement should have you emerging dizzy and bewildered, but gloriously secure in the world of independent gaming.

After these preliminaries, of course, we’ll always be ready to become appropriate friends. Luckily, the only quality we demand from our loved ones is validation, so all you need to do is play our game and go on and on about how much you like it, and we’ll follow you anywhere like an old arthritic dog.

Well, we’re back.
No longer are Alex and I battling scorpions and rednecks in the horrific dustbowls of Arizona and Nevada. We’re back inside the smog-ridden rain-pit of London.
Anyway, a few bits of great news for y’all:

Firstly, we’re very proud to announce that we’re working alongside The Audio Guys for the sounds of Plain Sight. You may not have heard of these chaps but you’ve no doubt heard their work. Check out this list of their past projects. My two personal favourites are the Dizzy games and the truly awesome Overlord.

Thank you again to everyone who took part in the competition. There was a fantastic response with some truly great (and often crazy) suggestions. We’re currently racking our brains for an idea for the next competition – perhaps we should have a competition on what the next competition will be? Check back soon for more free diamonds junk.

Also, I don’t know if you guys have noticed it, but we’ve been cropping up on the press radar a bit recently. If you’re a Brit you may have seen us on the Guardian website or on the Telegraph games section.  Frankly I’m really flattered that those guys reported on us – thank you!

On a side note, if you spot any press coverage please let us know. I’ve noticed that some sites have been reporting on us (which is fantastic!) without giving us a heads up. It’s a real shame to not read what people are saying about us, so, if you see anything, post it on the forums!

Finally, although it’s not confirmed, we may also be demonstrating Plain Sight at an upcoming games festival. As it’s not confirmed, I don’t want to jinx it by giving away all the details. However I will let you all know when I do – It’d be great to see some of you there...