Three Months and Counting

Posted on April 30, 2013 by frontlinefire

It has been 3 months since Arcadecraft first went on sale on Xbox Live!

Sales have passed 30,000 and briskly heading towards 40,000 copies now that the game is on sale for 80msp. At that price we are getting a 91% conversion rate as well so for every 100 trial downloads we are getting 91 sales! We thank you guys for all of your support! Without such a great community of players AC wouldn’t be what it is and what it will be. Thank you for all of your emails, comments, tweets, etc. We read all of them and try to respond as best we can.

In regards to the next content update, rest assured it is coming along. The biggest holdup to the process, though it sounds ludicrous, was that I was struck by terrible seasonal allergies that made the month of March a near complete creative write off. While Sam was happily coding away building in the features for the game, I was clawing my eyes out and falling asleep at my desk. Since April production has ramped back up and I’m doing my best at playing catchup. Thank you for your patience and don’t plant alder trees.

We want to talk about the PC version of Arcadecraft as it is one of our more requested topics. To start off, here are two screenshots straight from the PC version as it stands right now.

As you can see, there are no characters in the scene and the UI is still Xbox controller centric. On the positive side, you may notice that the UI is full 1920×1080 without a hint of upscale. This doesn’t even represent what we could do with a true PC version as most of the source textures in the game are also available in 4x the resolution you see here.

This brings us to Steam Greenlight which is where you can currently find PC representation of the game. Arcadecraft was put on Steam Greenlight back in October of 2012. In the first week the metrics were looking really positive, surpassing our first game, Orbitron: Revolution quite easily. Unfortunately they dropped off rather quickly.

When Arcadecraft was released on Xbox 360 and media picked up on the game we saw an increase in Greenlight views again though nowhere near the scale as when it first appeared.

Seven months since Arcadecraft was put up on Greenlight, it isn’t any closer to becoming available on Steam. It is sad and unfortunate for us and for the people who really would like to play it. We put a lot of work into writing the game so it could port to PC given the money and time. However we have to maintain a responsible and sustainable business and we cannot pin our hopes on the game passing through Greenlight sometime in the far future. To that end, we are pulling the game from Greenlight on the 16th of May if it doesn’t make progress and move into the top 100.

You may think that setting a hard date and taking away the game is simply childish and a ploy for attention. We can see how you might come to that conclusion but I’ll do my best to explain why this is happening.

If we were to continue development of Arcadecraft for PC and bring it to a completed state we believe that it would take about five to six months of development and approximately $22,000 to cover overhead and raw costs alone. That doesn’t include any salary for us. So nothing towards mortgages, families, or other personal financial responsibilities.

This time and money would go to adding mouse support, building the PC UI, full graphics options, rebindable keyboard, character models, character textures, character editor UI, online integration, platform testing, and many other issues. Without a guarantee of distribution and sales that cost is far too much to bear. It is also unfair of the Xbox version to carry the costs of the PC version as it was done on its own budget for its audience. It also represents the brunt of the actual income the company makes.

Why not go Kickstarter? Well we are a Canadian company and Kickstarter is unavailable to us unless we bring in a US middleman. We would much rather have every dollar of support pledged go toward the game instead of helping the middleman with the added tax burden they would take on. Also, without a guarantee of a sales portal after the fact the cost would have to include a salary for us, pushing the total a lot higher.

Please remember that Firebase Industries is only two people, Sam and myself. As Arcadecraft is winding down we have begun preproduction on our next game as well as entertaining other business opportunities. Once we start full production of Game Three in a couple of months, we are not going to stop until it is finished.

You may ask why we make games for the Xbox 360 instead of anything else? Mostly because we find it is the easiest route.

First, the XNA framework, C#, and the Sunburn Engine all give a really nice headstart to development.
Second is that it is a single sku platform. All Xbox 360s are essentially equal and you can guarantee the controller for the primary input device.
Third is that as long as we don’t make anything offensive we are guaranteed a spot on the Xbox Live Indie Games Marketplace as well as a chance to land on Xbox Live Arcade if we can get our quality, contracts, and dates aligned with a publisher.

Other options for development for us do exist and we may be pursuing iOS, Windows 8, Next Xbox, PS4, Ouya and other platforms in the future depending upon details of how open their marketplaces remain or become. Also, matching the game with the right financial model is important to us as there is a distinct and real shift taking place in the game industry.

In closing we are just as disappointed as you are that a PC version is an unlikely reality. We think it is a great match given the success and audience for UI centric, Tycoon style games on the platform.

On the other hand, the response to the Xbox version of Arcadecraft has been phenomenal. We had a ton of fun making the game and continue to work on updates for it. Best news of all is that our third game has started and we hope it is something you are going to enjoy! It will also port a lot easier to multiple platforms.

Insert 80msp to Continue

Posted on April 17, 2013 by frontlinefire

Arcadecraft has hit a grand total of 30,000 sales on Xbox Live! As a result of hitting such a big milestone we have put the game on sale for 80 Microsoft Points ($1). Please tell everyone you know!

Thank you to everyone who has bought and supported the game thus far! We really appreciate the feedback we have gotten and look forward to the next update. We will be posting new images late this week or early next week, showing you what you can expect!

Now Loading

Posted on February 15, 2013 by frontlinefire

Before we head into the weekend we thought we should update players on where things are at with Arcadecraft. We have added all of the small proposed features of the mini update that we discussed a few posts back. In addition we are adding in the “Current Gross” Field back into the scoreboard so the “Date” field makes more sense.

We are now simply testing and balancing the game, hoping to deliver a crash free experience. Ideally the update will enter Peer Review on Tuesday.

We are happy to show you a small teaser of a few of the new machines. Here are 3 of the 6 we have added. There is a new Manufacturer called Load which has two new games. One of their games, Dojo Duel, adds the fighting game genre a lot earlier than before. Camping has added 2 new games with Forti and Neutral getting 1 each.

DojoDuel

There is a larger feature that we have implemented but are hoping to save for when we deliver the update to you!

The Last Week

Posted on February 8, 2013 by frontlinefire

Arcadecraft has been on sale for about 8 full days now and we are currently looking at a good 1775 scores up on the board. It has been a great start and we are really happy where the game is at the moment!

We have been cranking away on the mini update to the game that is intended to fix the Code 4 issue a number of people have reported. Yesterday we had a tester playing through the entire game which was hooked up to the debugger so we could track down any issue he would find. Unfortunately all that happened was he had a good 6-7 hour long game without problems.

Today however, Sam encountered a crash and thinks he may have found and fixed the root cause of the problem! Great news if he is proven to be correct.

In terms of where we are at the moment, here is a list of things we have fixed so far:

The Angry Gamer no longer spawns when the player is in the menus.
Alex Hoarder no longer always asks for your oldest machine.
Alex Hoarder selling Code 4 crash is fixed.
The new music track is in.
Multiple 8-bit music jingles have been added to the various game genres.
Memory savings and performance gains via texture atlasing.
Neon has seen a minor update.
4 of the 6 new machines are complete.
Some textures are higher res.
Other minor bug fixes.

Hopefully we can get this update into Peer Review mid next week so we can get you a better experience with more content sooner.

Other than that we wanted to share a couple new things!

Here is a render of what the new location may look like! Some of it is textured already but we wanted to show you it without the patchwork of materials.

It is a good chunk larger inside and currently has two pillars that you need to work around. We would like it so you can break one of the pillars down for a good deal of in game money.

We are also happy to announce that someone at Microsoft has been more than kind and decided to feature us on the Xbox dashboard! Special thanks to @masterblud for supplying the image!

Interesting tidbit. The scoreboard supports only 2000 scores and we may hit the limit this weekend. To get on the board after all 2000 places have been taken we assume players are going to have to start working a little harder! The new update will raise the scoreboard limit to a much higher number!

Arcadecraft Now Available on Xbox Live

Posted on January 31, 2013 by frontlinefire

Thats right! Arcadecraft has been released and is on Xbox Live Indie Games for download!

CLICK THIS LINK TO BUY!

The full press release can be found here: http://firebase.ca/press/

New screenshots can be found here: http://firebase.ca/arcadecraft-screenshots/

We hope you enjoy it! We also really want to hear your questions, comments, or strange things you found in the game so go to the contact page and email us.

Arcadecraft in Playtesting

Posted on December 28, 2012 by frontlinefire

Arcadecraft for Xbox 360 has entered the Playtesting phase on the AppHub site for XNA members! We are already getting all kinds of really good feeback about the game and how the design goals are being communicated to the players.

Some content is still being added to the game as well to help reinforce certain game mechanics and completely flesh out the visuals. Studio X is once again supporting us with in game audio and much of it has been integrated so far. We recently modified the camera so that it can pitch up and down, getting you closer to the action! Everything is coming together really well and we can’t wait to get the game in your hands!

Thank you for your interest and support of Arcadecraft!

Here are some new cabinets that have been added recently!

Secret Plans Uncovered

Posted on November 22, 2012 by frontlinefire

You have probably been wondering what has been going on with Arcadecraft. Well, here are some answers for you!

First of all, we ran into a really ugly memory problem. Basically as we have been adding certain features to complete and flesh out the game we also started running out of available memory.

Arcadecraft, by its design has to hold a lot of stuff in memory at a time. The city block, the building, the avatars, the user interface, and the arcade game cabinets. We don’t have a lot of flexibility with our memory for most elements of the game so we have to be very careful and optimize the material that is available.

To get available memory back we had to comb through the textures that the game uses and make specific choices about resolution size. We crunched many textures down that the player would never see the highest resolution version of anyway, which was an easy win. After that we set about taking our entire library of arcade games and reconfigure them so they take less space! Here are some examples of what we did…

What you will notice is that the main cabinet texture now contains the monitor frame as well as the coin slot, but more texture room for the company logo side art. The control panel texture was drastically modified so it takes up 1/2 the amount of space of the original. Really, the only serious resolution drop was in the marquee, which is unfortunate but you cannot tell in gameplay. The control panel itself is only 5% smaller and the monitor size is indentical.

Every machine had a dedicated 512×512 colour, and emissive texture. Now with change to 512×256 maps for every machine we get double the amount of machines in the same memory space as before.

The cabinets also got modified. The original models were a bit of polygonal overkill. A lot of the budget was spent on the coin slot area which is barely seen in game. Changing this to being more texture dependent saved polys and performance. The other change was that the rubber stripping along the edge of the machine had a centimeter of extra depth which is now gone. With these changes, and a once over of the textures, the machines actually look a bit better than they did in the past and render faster!

Those two big memory changes needed to be propogated over the 60 arcade games in Arcadecraft and unfortunately it took a very long time and a lot of manual labour to make it happen. Now with it near complete the user can currently have up to 30 unique machines in their space. Hopefully these changes have mitigated the memory problem once and for all.

To be clear, we still have higher resolution source for everything so a future PC release, if it ever becomes a reality, will see a visual upgrade even with these changes.

Onto new features!

Like we alluded to in a previous post we have added the Import Salesman, Kenji Hase! He is a Japanese businessman specializing in grey market arcade machine sales. Once a year he visits your arcade and offers the latest import for you to purchase! Just be sure you have the money on hand because if you don’t buy the machine then and there you can’t get it again!

Yes Halloween is long past now but we have added in a couple of Seasonal Decorations for your arcade!

Christmas is on its way so buy and place a tree! Both items become available for a month and a half before the holiday date and expire in 45 days after purchase. Both of them bump your arcade popularity up a 1/2 star while they are present and need to be repurchased every year to get that bonus. We may add a couple more for other holidays or special events!

Speaking of seasonal effects, we are considering altering the exterior of the arcade with snow, rain, leaves, etc. This screenshot shows a early attempt at showing snow changing the environment!

Other recent improvements and changes have been the addition of the power square. It is a tile that appears within your arcade and if you place a machine over that tile it increases the machines popularity substantially.

The economic system of the game is firmly in place and functioning very well. We have also added a big dollar sign icon that appears above machines that have paid themselves off.

The stats screen has been improved to show monthly and life to date expenses and revenue. It also says what machines you have bought or sold, repairs made, customizations purchased, etc.

The machine info screen now shows how much money you have spent on a machine’s repairs over time. The same panel for the Jukebox shows the current music track playing.

There are three more big changes to the game yet to come and all are pretty important to how the game plays as well as offering strategic choice. Two of these changes we will talk about in a future update, but one of which we are open to talking about is the “Classic” mechanic.

After a machine is no longer available to buy from the store, it will become a “Classic” These Classics do not make a lot of money, in fact they barely break even on their power costs. However, a healthy selection of Classics improves your overall arcade popularity. They don’t require constant attention and repairs like newer machines do, due to the lack of people playing them, so they can be tucked into their own section and almost be left alone.

You probably want to know what effects the memory issues and features have had on the overall scope of the game and release plans for the game. Well, unfortunately the game’s scope has had to be taken down a bit. The first version will not be 10 years long and 100 games in size as was the original plan. It will be brought down to 5-6 years. However, there will be at least one machine released per month during the game so around 77 machines (as 5 are available from the start). We found that when there wasn’t enough machines released in a year, buying them became too easy and the game less engaging. In a play through of the game now, it is often that you don’t have enough money to buy the latest and greatest in the first couple years. That added a level of strategy for how and when the player decided to pick and choose the games they do want.

We have also had to lengthen the time a single month takes from 2:00 to 2:30 minutes. When the game was past the two year mark and you have 30 machines to manage it was impossible to take care of all of them. With the extra 30 seconds the game is more managable but still manic. That means the shortest time the 5 years can take is 150 minutes. In our playthroughs we spend an extra 10 minutes per year in the menus so a single 5 year playthrough is around 200 minutes or 3.3 hours. It would still be likely that you wouldn’t see everything the game had to offer in that time.

Does this mean Arcadecraft will never see 1986 and beyond? We still plan on updating the game after release if there is a good player base and if the game is popular! We personally want to build into the 90s and give players a new environment to work in!

As far as actual release of the game, we are planning on having the game into Xbox Playtest and Peer Review come the middle of December. Seeing as though gamers are already saturated with big holiday titles we don’t think it wouldn help Firebase to have it compete for gamer time and money against huge 100 million dollar games. That time is better spent making the game as stable and feature rich as we can!

All being well, the game should be releasing after the first or second week of January 2013. We know it seems like a long time to wait but we are just as anxious to have this game in your hands!

Thank you for all your interest in Arcadecraft!

Updates, Improvements, and Changes

Posted on October 23, 2012 by frontlinefire

Here is a brand new screenshot that contains some new gameplay relevant changes!

First of all we have updated the HUD to give players some more information. The date format now includes the month written as opposed to a number. The arcade’s monthly expenses have now been added below your current cash total so you can budget appropriately.

In addition to this, there is a new machine type we are working on. These are the ones on the back wall which we call “Sweet” machines. They are purchased from an import machine salesman who visits your arcade from time to time. These machines are hard to come by and take up two spaces in your space due to the requirement of the chair infront of them.

We also been hard at work modifying the current arcade machines textures to fit in less memory. The Alien Landing machine has been built with this spec. It uses a few dozen less polygons and some smaller textures but the visual result is barely noticable. In fact the cabinet itself is more detailed than it was before due to more efficient UV unwrapping and mapping.

Finally there is another new game mechanic you can see in the shot. If you look behind the arcade owner you can see there is now a large orange power box on the wall. Much like in an RTS you have to make sure you can supply what you own. Upgrading your power box, at a significant cost, allows you to put more arcade machines on the floor.

Thanks for checking it out! We will be updating everyone on the state of the game and when you can expect to play it soon!

Project Fireline

Posted on March 17, 2012 by frontlinefire

aka Air Support.

In July and August of 2011, while Orbitron: Revolution was entered into Dream Build Play and we were waiting for the results of the contest, Firebase started work on a new game. It was to be a project very similar to the Genesis classic, Herzog Zwei but with a few key differences.

First of all, your VTOL jet was never intended to transform into a robot. In HZ the robot mode is used to attack ground forces and escape missile attack. Both things would have been done from the air as you could effectively shoot down what was incoming. Your jet would be fitted with a gatling gun and a very limited number of lock on missiles that needed to get replenished by being near a base.

The units were to be changed up a bit. We were going to add hovering air units you could build, giving them the ability to traverse over canyons and water. Also, there were siege guns that could fire at range but were useless close up in their basic form.

Units types could also be upgraded as in a game such as Halo Wars or Starcraft, by upgrading portions of your main base. This was accomplished by upgrades to the factory portions that internally build the land, and air units. Upgrading the air unit capability would also help your own jet for example. You could also increase general unit production speed.

Terrain was going to play into the concept a bit more as the ground would have had a decent amount of undulation, in addition to the canyons and rivers of the original game. Your jet would simply travel at a fixed distance above the ground at all times so if the landscape became elevated you would just match the elevation as you flew around. Technologically this would have been accomplished by using the Sunburn Engine’s new height map rendering system.

Instead of the pickup, order, drop, pickup, order, drop method in HZ, unit selection and orders could now be achieved in bulk via a Halo Wars style paintbrush, or entire screen selection method. In the screenshots you can see the blue indicator directly underneath your jet, this would have been able to expand to cover more units at once to accommodate this order method.

To assist in moving troops around the map your jet would have been allowed to drop a single Waypoint Beacon. From anywhere on the map you could order forces to head toward the beacon thus adding a less linear movement order structure to the game that what the original version had. If you drop a second beacon it would have just replaced the original.

Visually, we created a few new tricks with baked on lighting that would have really helped make the game look spectacular. Each unit would have had a level specific texture on it depending on the environment so it would take on the bounce portion of the lighting. For example, if it were a desert sand level the light brown bounce would have been added into the texture. If it were snow it would have had the blueish one, etc.

There were plans to include dynamic time of day as well as fog into the game. You could battle through the afternoon to sunset, through a short night, and back into the morning sun by leveraging the dynamic lighting in the engine. Vehicles would have had cool headlight effects so in the darkness of night they would have lit up the ground in front of them. There would have been all kinds of pretty effects, making Orbitron: Revolution look really basic in comparison.

We would have loved to have worked on and completed the game but we didn’t really want to compete with another indie developer, Carbon Games, for the same audience. Their game was so far ahead of ours at the time that it seemed like it wouldn’t have been worth the resources to come out in their shadow. We are not averse to resurrecting the idea later but it isn’t a game that we think could be built indie style given the competition.

Anyone interested in playing a Herzog Zwei like game we recommend you head over to Carbon Games and check out their take on the concept, Air Mech.

http://carbongames.com/

PC Media Storm

Posted on January 26, 2012 by frontlinefire

All new screenshots of the PC version running at 1080p. The PC version supports variable resolutions from 1280×720 and up to 1920×1200. Players can use either the keyboard controls or Xbox controller for PC. The UI and HUD have all been created for display in 1920×1080 so there shouldn’t be any ugly upscaling issues when running in full HD. On our hardware at Firebase we achieve 60fps and the game has been rewritten to accomodate this framerate which is up from the Xbox 360′s 30fps.

We really wanted to give PC gamers a excellent version of the game and not a straight conversion of the Xbox 360 version. I think we have achieved something that the PC audience will really enjoy!

We hope to talk about digital distribution partners very soon. Until then, if there is a service you want to see it on please contact them and ask for Orbitron: Revolution by name.

Here are the new screens from yesterday’s build of the game!