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Catlateral Damage signed as Fire Hose Games' first accelerator project
Kittymari Demolishy simulator Catlateral Damage is the first game announced as part of Fire Hose Games' accelerator/incubation program. Catlateral Damage sailed through the Steam Greenlight process and won the People's Choice and Indie Prototype awards at the 2014 MassDigi Game Challenge. The game's developer, Chris Chung, told us at the time that he was looking to get the game out soon, but he was dealing with promotion and pipeline issues common to indie development. It appears he'll be working with Fire Hose Games to get over that hurdle. The game in its current incarnation will be playable at the Indie Megabooth at PAX East this week.
Fire Hose offers free desk space to Boston devs looking to go indie
Fire Hose Games, the Slam Bolt Scrappers and Go Home Dinosaurs developer from Cambridge, MA, is offering free desk space to developers looking to make the indie transition. The hospitality was spurred by recent layoffs in the Boston area, most notably the Irrational Games shutdown yesterday. So here's the deal, as laid out in Fire Hose's blog post: Accepted developers will get a desk, chair and can potentially use any spare equipment laying around the office. Access to the office will be available during posted office hours and Fire Hose will seek no financial compensation for the kindness. Interested parties need simply fire off an email to freedesks [at] firehosegames [dot] com to get started. Fire Hose is currently in the process of setting up an indie game seed fund, but adds in its blog post that this free desk space agreement in no way guarantees a spot in the incubator program. [Image: Fire Hose Games]
Fire Hose Games' indie incubator: 'It's ridiculous this doesn't exist'
President of Boston's Fire Hose Games, Eitan Glinert, breaks down four types of indie developers he sees in the wild: The developer starving, eating ramen, with no support system because she's nobody The developer begging publishers to give him money, but it turns out the publishers drive him nuts and everything turns to crap The developer mooching off every single relative she has to fund her game He's already famous "If you're already famous, that's great, but if you don't have that stuff it's just so hard to get your thing off the ground," Glinert says. There are options for first-time developers – submitting a game to IGF or the PAX 10, or being featured on big websites – but he says there are still roadblocks in the current system. "I'm sick of it – and it's a solvable problem," he says. He may have solved it, with help from the rest of the team: Fire Hose Games is transitioning into an indie incubator, with plans to take on fresh developers and offer them a place to work, a monthly living wage, revenue share when their games launch, plus advice, experience and a creative atmosphere. "We want to go ahead and remove the hurdles to game development that these small indie developers face, and we can get some absolutely phenomenal talent in the process," Glinert says. "It's a big win-win. We help these developers make the games they want without all the burden of getting all these bits and pieces aligned, when all they want to do is make the game. We get fantastic talent in the process; we get great games in the process and we're all helping each other."
Slam Bolt Scrappers, Go Home Dinosaurs on Steam this March
Indie studio Fire Hose Games' BBQ defense simulator Go Home Dinosaurs and formerly PSN-exclusive puzzle-fighter Slam Bolt Scrappers are stomping to Steam on March 14. The games will be $9.99 apiece ($8.99 if pre-ordered) or available as part of a Fire Hose Games Bundle for $14.99.Go Home Dinosaurs is a tower-defense game where technologically equipped gophers protect their BBQ from rampaging dinosaurs.Slam Bolt Scrappers is the PC port of the 2011 PSN-exclusive puzzle-brawler that unfortunately launched shortly before the PSN security breach that same year. The updated version supports up to four players and is big screen compatible.
Boston Festival of Indie Games starts on Sept. 22
A new show centered around the indie scene is set to kick off in Boston on September 22. The Boston Festival of Indie Games is taking submissions right now, gathering aspiring developers looking to show off their wares on the MIT campus this fall.Organized by MIT Game Lab and Boston Indies at the MIT Campus, the Boston Festival of Indie Games is open to the public and, aside from giving indie developers a soapbox to stand on, will present a digital art exhibit, film screenings, a 12-hour game jam session, guest speaker presentations and a special area to showcase games made within the MIT Game Lab. Some of the names to already sign on and judge submissions are Harmonix Senior Designer Tim Stellmach, Fire Hose Games Creative Director Eitan Glinert, Zynga Boston Creative Director Paul Neurath, and Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab US Executive Director Philip Tan.Awards will be given during the show based on public voting once cleared by the panel above. Those interested in submitting their digital game for showcase will have to pay a $10 fee if they are a student, or a $15 fee if they are a professional, by no later than August 10. If you're making something that doesn't fall into the digital category, you can submit it free of charge. Good luck!
Go Home Dinosaurs open beta live on Chrome Store
Go Home Dinosaurs entered open beta this week for Google Chrome users. The BBQ tower defense game has players fending off hungry dinos with their gopher troops, all within the comfort of their browser.Better yet, developer Fire Hose Games launched the beta for free. After all, free BBQ is the best kind of BBQ.
Indie Megabooth devs let anyone ask them anything
At PAX East this weekend, 16 popular indie developers (plus one "bonus" developer) will congregate into a super-giant indie creature in the first-ever Indie Megabooth. Developers include Ska Studios, Strange Loop Games, Retro Affect, Dejobaan Games, Fire Hose Games, DrinkBox Studios, Pocketwatch Games, Carbon Games and the rest -- to get the indie love flowing, the previously mentioned developers are running an "Ask Me Anything" thread on Reddit, right now. So far, we've learned that each developer gets 99 bitches a day and that most of them cried while playing Journey. Andy Schatz of Pocketwatch Games, Eitan Glinert of Fire Hose and Retro Affect's David Carrigg have also offered differing perspectives on the possibility of indie development for the Wii U, or any Nintendo system in general. Said Glinert: "We're not. I don't know any small third party companies that make any serious money there. Nintendo sadly isn't serious about supporting non-Nintendo companies, and so it's not worthwhile for us to spend the time and effort bringing our games to their platform. Sad face." Schatz disagreed with the doomsday sentiment: "Speak for yourself Eitan! I haven't announced platforms for Monaco yet, but WiiU is still a possibility! Nintendo is slow to change (which is weird given the crazy innovation on their software side), but the boulder is finally starting to move wrt their digital sales storefront."Carrigg said Nintendo's eShop is "far behind" the XBLA and PSN competition, but Retro Affect has been talking to Nintendo and would "really like to work with them. I would not be surprised to see a Retro Affect game on a Nintendo platform sometime in the future."James Silva of Ska Studios addressed the lack of deadly dishwasher games on PC, saying he wants to make PC titles, but for now that would be a problematic process. The AMA is ongoing (as of this posting) so head on over and uncover some you-specific bits of information from this mega-group of indies.
Go Home Dinosaurs preview: Steak 'n' Shake
I learn something new every day. While playing the Go Home Dinosaurs PAX demo, I learned that even the most herbivorous of dinosaurs can't resist a nice, juicy steak. Also, little prehistorical mole creatures are the controllers and distributors of said steak, and they don't take too kindly to dinos attempting to crash their BBQ. Fortunately for them, dinosaurs aren't smart enough to stray from a straight path to get to those delicious smelling things. Yeah, Go Home Dinosaurs is a tower defense game where moles are trying to defend their BBQ from advancing hordes of pterodactyls. Excellent. Another thing I learned: Moles aren't terribly good at spacial management. They may be great at creating prehistoric turrets, lasers, and all kinds of general dinosaur-harming structures, but the concept of uniform sizes for those buildings is totally foreign to them. Like big, oddly shaped Tetris blocks, each of the weapons takes up a different shape on the board, each defensive building's location has to be carefully planned out to allow for future placements of those of different shapes. Making sure your laser fires down the longest stretch of dino path possible is tough when you have to think about where you'll place your meteor magnet next. That's right, a meteor magnet. How else will you make those dinos extinct? %Gallery-132208%
'Go Home Dinosaurs!" is latest title from Slam Bolt Scrappers studio
Fire Hose Games, developers of PSN's Slam Bolt Scrappers, are back with Go Home Dinosaurs!, debuting at PAX this weekend. The studio describes the game as part of the tower defense genre, but players fit together puzzle piece-shaped weapons powered by adorable, fuzzy creatures who are defending against dinosaurs. Players also level up their characters and gain new abilities by collecting and trading cards. Go Home Dinosaurs! sounds hectic, but if it's a controlled chaos, which was lacking from Slam Bolt Scrappers, the studio may have something stronger in its sophomore effort. We'll have more on the game this weekend, check it out in the Indie Alley and next to the PAX 10 in booth 6408.
Slam Bolt Scrappers review: Not enough order in the chaos
The Fire Hose Games-developed PSN title Slam Bolt Scrappers combines the tower defense of Rampart with the puzzle mechanics of Tetris and adds a fist-throwing, jetpack-wearing scrapper on top of it all for good measure. The scrapper's meant to not just pulverize the enemy scrapper, but also groups of flying beasts which periodically descend and release new blocks for placement upon defeat. The scrappers' jetpacks allow them to float around the screen, beating up stuff and placing blocks while avoiding as much themselves ... OK, deep breath. Sounds hectic, right? It is! At least initially. In my experience, the frantic confusion meant "fun" more often than not, but it also wore off pretty quickly. At least in the game's single-player campaign, the handful of mechanics that are combined to form SBS' gameplay almost immediately turned into a grind: punch enemies for new blocks, grab/place block, beat up enemy character so he can't build, repeat. Surprisingly, for a game with so much going on, Slam Bolt Scrappers wore out its welcome far too quickly.%Gallery-95679%
Indies react: PAX East as a showcase for small studios
Like so many PAX shows before it, this year's PAX East showcased a ton of indie games -- the gaming equivalent of a Williamsburg dubstep show, if you will. In our experience at this year's event, larger industry players like EA and Bethesda showed off their titles with hired hands and private theater viewings, choosing to exhibit older demos rather than new content. The indies and smaller studios, on the other hand, were out in force. Beyond bringing playable versions of their games to the show -- even Fez was playable, for the first time in several years of development -- the indie studios brought themselves. They continued the tradition of directly engaging with attendees and, often, solicited game-testing feedback on the fly. "I approached PAX East as a three-day playtest session. I learned so much about what works and what doesn't just from standing in the back and observing how people played the game," Fez co-developer Phil Fish told Joystiq. "It's also an amazing morale boost to be told by so many people that your game is great."
Fire Hose Games sprayed and prayed with Slam Bolt Scrappers prototypes
Developer Fire Hose Games followed a fairly bizarre trajectory with the development of its debut project, Slam Bolt Scrappers. Check out the dev diary to see how the game was laboriously brought to life -- sadly, the video doesn't reveal the machine they used to squeeze about eight games into one.
Slam Bolt Scrappers punch out launch trailer, PAX East giveaway details
Slam Bolt Scrappers is all set to drop, build and fire off next Tuesday, March 15, on PSN. The manic genre mash-up is celebrating with PAX East giveaways this weekend at the sold-out show (the Fire Hose Games team will be at booth 1133, which it's sharing with indie darling Spy Party). If you're wearing a crazy hat that out-crazies one of Fire Hose's own crazy hats, you could even win a free copy of the $15 title. So that's the going rate for your shame, eh?
Slam Bolt Scrappers punching into PSN on March 15
Slam Bolt Scrappers is building toward a March 15 release on PSN. The genre-mashing title from indie Fire Hose Games has been a tough game to explain, but the developer recently made a video attempt to sort out the madness. If you're heading to PAX East next week, the Boston-based studio will have the game available to demo at the show. %Gallery-118218%
Slam Bolt Scrappers video finally explains chaotic game
It's been hard to convey the gameplay involved in upcoming PSN puzzler/brawler/strategy title Slam Bolt Scrappers. Thankfully, developer Fire Hose Games has created a video that plainly explains the mechanics.
Slam Bolt Scrappers seeks naming counsel
Fire Hose Games is looking for some assistance in naming two of its scrapping Slam Bolt Scrappers -- without the requirement of a charity donation this time. Also, it's not carte blanche naming like it was for helping Child's Play. The developer has a poll up on its site with naming options available for its "angel" and "masked menace" characters. Our experiences with Slam Bolt Scrappers, a multi-genre mash-up, have been fun -- once we figured out what was going on. The PSN exclusive is reportedly close to being finished. %Gallery-95679%
Name two of Slam Bolt Scrappers' scrappers in Child's Play auctions
Without the help of special potions, unguents or spells, immortality is a pretty tricky thing to obtain. Fire Hose Games is offering a pretty rare opportunity to have your genius brain live forever: The studio is auctioning off the chance to name one of the characters in its upcoming downloadable tower defense/action title Slam Bolt Scrappers, one-hundred percent of the proceeds from which will go to Child's Play. A second character's naming rights will be sold off during the Child's Play Charity Dinner in Seattle on December 7 -- tickets for which are still available! There are some limitations, of course. You can't name the characters anything inappropriate, copyright-infringing or too long, so, sorry, Boner MacBurgerKing, but you'll never be a real person. Not ever.
Slam Bolt Scrappers devs looking for beta testers in Boston
If you like fighting, tower defense, Bruins, Celtics, and playing video games before they're released, you're probably the perfect candidate for developer Fire Hose Games' call to arms. The studio is looking for gamers in the Boston area to beta test its genre-mashing PSN title, Slam Bolt Scrappers.
Slam Bolt Scrappers preview: Build those blocks up
It's difficult to convey the sheer terror and chaos I experienced in the first few minutes of the Slam Bolt Scrappers PAX demo. Though the Firehose Games reps told me how to play, it wasn't preparation enough for the actual game, a combination puzzler/brawler/strategy title that is one of the most unique blends of genres I've ever played. The learning curve was, um, kinda steep! %Gallery-95679%
Slam Bolt Scrappers playable at PAX
Fire Hose Games' Slam Bolt Scrappers impressed us at E3 even though it was a ways off from its expected "early 2011" launch on PSN. PAX, taking place this weekend in Seattle, will be the public-at-large's next chance to see what we were talking about. The game will be playable at booth #3834, and the developers will be on hand for feedback. Slam Bolt Scrappers is an intuitive and hectic combination of Rampart and Tetris. If you're at PAX, definitely check it out. The latest trailer for the game can be found after the break. %Gallery-95679%
