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'Nuclear Throne' and other Vlambeer games come to the Switch
Vlambeer hasn't really had a presence on the Switch, but it's rectifying that in very short order. The indie studio is bringing three titles to Nintendo's current console, starting immediately with Nuclear Throne. While the top-down wasteland shooter is largely unchanged from what you've seen before, that's not a bad thing if you like its Robotron-meets-post-apocalypse vibe.
Nuclear Throne owners to receive giftable copy in January
The gift-giving season will last until at least January 1, the day that developer Vlambeer intends to give one free copy of Nuclear Throne to "every single person that has ever bought [it]," according to Vlambeer's Rami Ismail. As Nuclear Throne's community has gotten "too damn good at this video game," the extra copies are meant to attract new, novice-tier players to help diversify the feedback Vlambeer receives from the game's community. The announcement video's text description explains that this will be a one-time gift and that date or timezone-related exceptions will not be able to be made due to logistics. Further terms and conditions will be tied to the gift, which Vlambeer will spell out in a future blog post (presumably for future posting to Nuclear Throne's Steam newsfeed). Nuclear Throne has received 57 updates since its arrival to Early Access, though Ismail noted that version 1.0 will "hopefully" launch sometime in 2015. [Image: Vlambeer]
Strict retrogaming regimen produces 8-year-old who beat Spelunky
What happens when you introduce your child to classic consoles at an early age? You end up breeding a superpowered Wunderkind who can complete one of the most difficult games of any gaming generation. In this recent feature, writer and XOXO conference founder Andy Baio details his fatherly quest to introduce his son Eliot to classic gaming consoles chronologically, as part of an accelerated history lesson started on his fourth birthday. The plan kicked off with father and son tag-teaming every entry in the NES Mega Man series, and the pair later moved on to conquering Super Mario World and The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. By the time he turned seven, Eliot had collected all 120 stars in Super Mario 64. Eliot then beat Mossmouth's infamously difficult roguelike platformer Spelunky at the age of eight. Earlier this year, he completed Spelunky's Hell level on his own -- a feat that eludes many gaming veterans with decades of experience. Eliot's recent favorites include Vlambeer's Nuclear Throne and, of course, Minecraft. "You're probably either thinking I'm a monster or a pretty awesome dad. Maybe a little of both," Baio concludes. "That's okay with me. My son is amazing, he loves video games, and more than anything, he loves playing them with me." [Image: Andy Baio, Eliot Baio]
Nuclear Throne update adds titular seat, final boss battle
After 33 weekly updates, Vlambeer's self-described "action roguelike-like" Nuclear Throne now contains an actual nuclear throne. According to the developer, the throne can be found at the game's climax, after players have battled their way from a lowly campfire, through the wilds, into the Palace, and past its many opulent, yet deadly foes. As you can see at the 2:50 mark of the above video, once you arrive in the nuclear throneroom, you'll find the throne occupied by a skeleton. Blast that pile of bones into dust, and you're faced with the game's final boss, the throne itself. Though the showdown with the throne marks the end of the game, Vlambeer claims it's only halfway through development on Nuclear Throne. Vlambeer offers no solid release date for Nuclear Throne, but reiterates that the game will appear on PC, Mac and Linux, before arriving on the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and Vita platforms. If you'd rather not wait, you can try Nuclear Throne's Early Access version on Steam or by visiting the Humble Bundle website. [Image: Vlambeer]
You can now buy Nuclear Throne straight from Twitch
Developer Vlambeer is offering the option to purchase its latest game, Nuclear Throne, through Twitch, a first for the video game broadcast company. Purchasing Nuclear Throne through Twitch gives players access to the game via Steam Early Access, specialty Vlambeer emoticons, and a subscription to the official Vlambeer Twitch.tv channel, which offers exclusive streams and subscriber-only chat throughout the week. "If you're interested in learning about game development, this is where you should buy the game. 60 percent of revenue goes to us," Vlambeer's website says. Gamasutra points out that the revenue split through Steam is 70 percent to developers, while 90 percent of revenue goes to game makers when titles are purchased via GOG.com. Vlambeer continues to evolve its latest release. During PAX East the developer added a two-player co-op mode, which co-founder Rami Ismail said was "so crazy and insane that we're not so sure it's a good idea to have four." The crazier, the better!
Vlambeer mutates Nuclear Throne with co-op live from PAX East
From the show floor at PAX East 2014, Vlambeer has unleashed an update that adds co-operative multiplayer to Nuclear Throne. The game is currently available via Steam Early Access for $12.99. "We launched it about an hour ago, I'm uploading it from the show right now. We're updating the website to make sure it's ready. The goal for now was two players, and we're looking into the possibility of more than two players," Vlambeer's Rami Ismail tells Joystiq. "At this point two players is so crazy and insane that we're not so sure it's a good idea to have four." Ismail says that his team thought Nuclear Throne would be a fun single-player experience, but the community clamored for a multiplayer component. "We've been live streaming, we've been really open about our development, but we were worried about multiplayer. Since it was such a big deal though, we decided to do it between the live streams we did. When it was done, we realized it was good. Local multiplayer for two people. The build will be available in just a little while." [Image: Vlambeer]
Destiny, Monaco, BioShock Infinite talks round out GDC 2014 panels
Interesting art talks looking at character customization and animation workflow for Destiny will be hosted by Bungie at this year's Game Developers Conference, which goes down in San Francisco next month. Irrational Games (what's left of it, anyway) will provide a breakdown of how Elizabeth's AI-controlled movements were created for BioShock Infinite and a panel from Monaco designer Andy Nguyen will address how developer Pocketwatch Games completely streamlined its game post-launch after poring over player data. If you've ever wondered how Bethesda created your favorite dungeons in Skyrim and Fallout 3, a panel on iterative level design will attempt to provide insight. A panel from two-man team Vlambeer will offer a behind-the-curtain look at the life of Nuclear Throne, which went from game jam prototype to early access offering and, later this year, full product launch. Another potentially interesting talk, headed up by Sean Vanaman, may finally give us our first glimpse at what Campo Santo is working on. These are just a handful of the dozens of interesting engagements going down at this year's GDC, held in San Francisco from March 17 - 21, 2014. A full list of the panels and workshops have been published online for all attendees – if you're interested in attending, you can purchase passes through GDC's website. [Image: Bungie]
Transparent development tales from three indies baring it all online
With crowd-sourced development practices on the rise, indies are taking steps to more deeply entrench their fans in the game-creation process: Transparent development means pulling back the curtain and giving the audience a close look at the minutiae of making a game, including failed ideas, bad choices and awkward conversations – and hopefully some good moves, too. By opening up the development process, indies are molding the way players view the games they play. Game ideas change drastically throughout development; mechanics get cut and evolve; art styles waver; sounds shift from joyful to moody to dark and back to joyful again. Everything changes. Rather than a static, final product, players now have the option to see what a living, in-development game really looks like – and they're lining up around the digital block. Vlambeer, the team behind Ridiculous Fishing and Super Crate Box, draws in 25,000 to 30,000 viewers twice a week with live development streams of its next-gen roguelike-like (roguelove?), Nuclear Throne. Dejobaan shares its live design document for Drop that Beat Like an Ugly Baby, and months into it, random players still pop into the page's chat to ask questions about development. The ex-Zynga team at Proletariat Inc. streams its World Zombination review meetings every Friday and has learned that its audience is interested in some weird stuff. These are three stories of three different approaches to transparent development, from three different indie teams, but the audience, it turns out, is roughly the same: curious, nosy and extremely intrigued.
Xbox One same-day launch clause nudged Nuclear Throne to PS4
Indie developers in the Xbox One publishing program, ID@Xbox, get two console development kits, a Unity license and the opportunity to self-publish their games – in return, Microsoft asks that the games launch same-day on Xbox One and other console platforms. Launch parity, rather than exclusivity. Building a game for multiple launch platforms can be hazardous for indie developers, transferring energy from building games to bureaucracy, Vlambeer co-founder Rami Ismail tells Joystiq. When Vlambeer learned about Microsoft's launch parity clause, it immediately contacted Sony to set up launch exclusivity on PS4 for its next-gen game Nuclear Throne. "Microsoft was doing reach-out to certain developers back in the early days of ID@XBOX, and we discussed potentially bringing Nuclear Throne to Xbox One with them," Ismail says. "There had been mentions beforehand that there was a launch parity clause in the contract, with the exception of games that were already signed to another platform during the announcement of their self-publishing program. Thus, before we signed with Microsoft, we e-mailed Sony that we quickly wanted to sign Nuclear Throne with them with a month of exclusivity."
Vlambeer's 'Nuclear Throne' available now through Steam Early Access
Vlambeer's latest game, the "action roguelike-like" game Nuclear Throne, is available now through Steam's Early Access program. In its current build state, the $13 game from the studio that created Ridiculous Fishing and Super Crate Box, includes four playable worlds, seven characters, two boss battles and lots of weapons, skills and "randomly generated goodness." The final version will include at least four more worlds, "an undefined number of secret worlds to explore," more skins, sound effects and be shiny like a copper penny. OR ELSE! As with all Early Access games, it's best not to play unless you're willing to be part of the bug crushing process. And these are bugs created by fallout, so watch out!
Vlambeer's Wasteland Kings now Nuclear Throne
Vlambeer (Super Crate Box, Ridiculous Fishing) has changed the name of its upcoming project from Wasteland Kings to Nuclear Throne. Beyond being a better name, Wasteland Kings had the potential of getting confused with inXile Entertainment's Wasteland 2 and even Tribute Games' Mercenary Kings. In fact, inXile politely reached out to note the possible confusion. "We've been through a lot of trouble with people riding on things of ours, and we understand that American trademark law is pretty strict in that not defending a trademark weakens it," wrote Vlambeer founder Rami Ismail on the studio's site. "Although we aren't sure Wasteland Kings and Wasteland are confusing enough for this to be an issue, both us and InXile really don't want to spend development time on arguing over trivialities." As noted, Vlambeer has had its share of intellectual property issues, most famously for having Ridiculous Fishing cloned, with a similar incident happening again with the studio's Luftrausers. Vlambeer is livestreaming the development of Nuclear Throne to give greater transparency to the development process. Nuclear Throne is planned for PS4 and VIta in the future, but is scheduled to be available as part of Steam Early Access and Humble Store in early October for $12.99.
