Overgrowth

That's right Wolfire's original ninja rabbit fighting game is now available on Steam. You can check out the Lugaru HD Steam page HERE!

Just a little over a day left to buy 5 great indie games for what ever you think they are worth! now with 1 bonus game! http://www.wolfire.com/humble

www.wolfire.com/pack This offer is only available for less than 3 more days so order now at: www.wolfire.com/pack

By John on January 3rd, 2010

In September, we were asked to speak at GDC Austin about our policy of open development. It appears that our presentation was well-received because we've been asked to speak again at the main GDC (Game Developer Conference) in San Francisco!

San Francisco is our home base so it's convenient to be presenting here. Hopefully I can sneak in our HD video camera and get a recording set up for our YouTube channel. Also, it would be cool to meet up with other people flying into the city and show them the sights -- especially the awesome San Francisco disc golf course (we've been practicing).
Wolfire Speaking at GDC San Francisco
GDC San Francisco

This is quite an honor, and while I'll probably touch on many of the same points that were covered in my previous lecture, enough time has passed that there will be some new information as well.

It's still surprising to us that some indies are unwilling to give open development a try. The internet is such a noisy and crowded place that if you don't promote yourself early and often, you'll likely get lost in the crowd. My hope is that I can inspire other indie developers to strive for the attention they deserve.

The conference will be March 9th-13th and you should definitely let us know if you're going to be in the area. I haven't been assigned an official time slot yet but it should be up soon at our official listing here.

Do you have any ideas for additional topics that didn't get covered in the Austin presentation? The Austin PowerPoint slides are available here.


PowerPoint & Pictures at link below
(http://blog.wolfire.com/2010/01/Wolfire-Speaking-at-the-Main-GDC-in-San-Francisco)

By Jeff on January 2nd, 2010

For a long time, we've had a ShareThis widget embedded for each blog post, in the hopes that people would click on it and then share the post on one of 50+ different sharing services (del.icio.us, Digg, Facebook, etc.). For a content producer, the idea of ShareThis is really appealing, and I had assumed it was a "best practice" for a website.
ShareThis fail whale

However, in reality, I've noticed that no one actually clicks the ShareThis widget. In fact, after millions of page views, the ShareThis widget has been used just a small handful of times. Something on the order of 30 times, according to their stats. This is not too surprising, considering it is sort of dubious and confusing to use, compared to just copy/pasting the URL into the service manually.

Additionally, in the few times it is actually used, the reader ends up sharing the post on Facebook or Twitter. At least in my experience, there is no significant "long tail" of sharing services which might merit the confusingly epic list.

Finally, to add insult to injury, ShareThis loads kind of slowly and has been the source of several complaints since as of last month, it pops open on mouse over.

Therefore, I removed ShareThis and went straight to the source, adding Facebook and Twitter buttons! Check them out below!

Hopefully that encourages more sharing, since these buttons are actually much more straightforward and have a cool counter on them. I'm curious to see if it makes a difference!

Pictures At link below:
( http://blog.wolfire.com/2010/01/Killing-ShareThis )

By Jeff on January 1st, 2010
Happy new year!

Happy new year from San Francisco!

Pictures At link below:
( http://blog.wolfire.com/2010/01/Happy-new-year )

By Aubrey on December 31st, 2009

Here is our first (long in coming) update for the comic. Thanks everyone for being so patient!
Overgrowth

The comic is a fun way to explore places and characters for Overgrowth, and also lets us practice our story writing skills.
Overgrowth

It takes a lot of work to make the comic, but I think it is time well spent. What do you think?

Pictures at the link below:
(http://blog.wolfire.com/2009/12/Overgrowth-Comic-Update)

By John on December 30th, 2009

We can talk perpetually about various aspects of indie game development on the blog. However, sometimes it's nice to step off our soapbox and answer some direct questions from the readers! Our last community Q&A session was very successful, so we've decided that it's time to open the floor again.

Our goal is always to focus on topics that people are actually interested in. So in the spirit of open development, we ask you to please submit your burning questions in the comments. We will focus on the 10 questions which receive the most "likes" (within reason, I don't know if I can handle another kilt interpretive dance). We also reserve the right to answer extra questions that we find particularly interesting. If you submit a real doozie, we may decide to save it for its own blog post later on.
Bunny questions

Kilt dance or not, we promise to provide some kind of video response!

Post your questions and click the "Like" button on the ones you want us to answer below!

Pictures & Video Below
(http://blog.wolfire.com/2009/12/Interview-the-Wolfire-Team)

By Jeff on December 29th, 2009

Here is what is new in Overgrowth in this weekly alpha. If you are confused what a weekly alpha is, or even what Overgrowth is, please read our fancy FAQ. Basically, we are developing a massive video game from the ground up -- we are able to do this completely independently by accepting preorders for the game before it's done!
Overgrowth

Aubrey has made a number of awesome new art assets, and David fixed a lot of bugs. Here are a few highlights from the source repository:

* Started working on V8 scripting
* Hooked up V8 libraries
* Created V8 context and function wrappers
* Hooked up V8 console
* Enabled ragdoll shadows
* Misc bug fixes

Overgrowth alpha 59
Dropping some ragdolls

Thanks as always for all the support! See you guys in IRC and the forums.

Picture & Video on link Below.
(http://blog.wolfire.com/2009/12/Overgrowth-alpha-59)

By John on December 28th, 2009

We've uploaded another Overgrowth song to the soundtrack playlist on our YouTube channel. The songs are composed by the talented Mikko Tarmia and often feature Anton Riehl on the flute.

It is my pleasure to present Combat Track 3. Be sure to listen to it in HD.

The rhythm is quite ferocious and would definitely inspire me to run into battle against creatures higher on the food chain. The melody is soaked in desperation, indicating that perhaps time is running out. However, there are also trace playful elements which suggest that with a little luck, there might be a way to come out in one piece.

You can find the growing Overgrowth soundtrack playlist here.

(http://blog.wolfire.com/2009/12/Overgrowth-Soundtrack-Combat-3)

By John on December 27th, 2009

A while ago, David upgraded the old ragdoll system and linked it up to the rabbit guard mesh. So now when you push Alt-R (or Option-R on Mac) you can make ninja rabbits fall from the sky. By putting your mouse over a rabbit and holding right click, you can apply force and toss him around. I decided it was about time we featured our new and improved ragdolls in an informal video.

Be sure to watch it in HD.

In addition to the sweet dynamic shadows, you probably noticed that the ragdolls have been designed with realistic constraints. David was able to create those in-engine thanks to some advanced features in the rigging editor. In a future video I'll show how constraints can be applied to custom skeletons.

( Original page and pictures are available at: http://blog.wolfire.com/ )

December 25th, 2009 by Jeff

Happy holidays from the Wolfire Team!
Happy holidays!
View the original

( Original page and pictures are available at: http://blog.wolfire.com/ )