The Oil Blue: Coming June 22nd
Hooray, a release date! The Oil Blue is coming out on June 22nd to Gamersgate and other distribution sites to be announced.
It was always my intention to release the game in May if not early June, however the private beta for the game has gone very well. I’ve added whole new segments to the game, taken out large portions of it, fixed a slew of bugs, and I’m finally getting to that checkered flag. The last beta version goes out over the weekend, review copies go out next week and the game will be finished (as of right now I need to add colorblind support, go through the code one more time for any bugs, and…that’s basically it.) So why not release it next week? Well, there’s one very big reason: E3 week is right after that, the biggest gaming trade show of the year.
I feel that I have a really strong game (to the point that I’ve been looking for a custom sticker printing company to make some stickers of my newest release for the show) and I don’t want to botch it like I did with Spirits of Metropolis, which was released during Christmas (what the heck was I thinking?). E3 week is going to flood news sites with game announcements, previews, and so on, and smaller games like mine will be a casualty to the slew of gaming news. So, to play it safe, I’ll be releasing it the week after. Hopefully we’ll get more coverage that way.
So what’s been going on in the private beta? Tons really. This beta has been a phenomenal success as far as finding bugs, shaping the gameplay and tweaking the feel just right to make it fun. I’ll dive into more details later in the month, but suffice to say the game is about 250% better than it was last month.
With the gap between the game’s release I’m going to be working on trailers, getting the game to more distribution sites, and working on some unannounced games. Woo!
Oh, and if you’re a review site that would like to be on the review copy list, be sure to contact me.
Nice thought on the E3 there.
yeah beta’s are always great!
Lego Universe are creating a Lego Universe game. I think they allowed anyone that asked to be a beta! 😮
As much as I’d love to do an open beta, Game Maker isn’t very DRM friendly, meaning that I wouldn’t be able to put restrictions on the beta like most ones (where they’re not functional after a certain point in time).
There will always be open betas for my free games though, and maybe down the line I might be able to come up with a more open beta solution. Certainly the more testers, the better!
Hurrrraaaaaaaaaaaah 😀
Waiting for long time to do this 😀 Another Vertigo Game is going to be released 😀 Huraaaaaaah 😀
Woo! Trailers! 🙂
Isn’t there some code syntax in GML that lets you check the date and time? So you could make some object at the first room, and in a Game Start Event tell it to do something like: “if date/time is past June 22, display message ‘your beta issue of the game is void’ and end game”.
That might not be a DRM, but it’ll probably work.
The new Oil Blue pictures look awesome. I’m happy the beta went so well. Good luck getting a lot of publicity on this game!
BTW, the contest to get the Oil Blue might actually hinder sales before the winner is announced.
You forgot to Tweet this, you tease, you. Left me hanging on tenterhooks all night!
Gingi: that just reports the time from the system clock, easily circumventable. You could make it check time.gov or something, though.
@Gingi
The contest will wrap up before the Oil Blue is released. That way everyone who didn’t win can just buy a copy the next day. 😀
As far as GML code goes, that is an idea, however it’s rather easy to decompile GM code so that someone could just take that time check out and have a fully functional game. I dunno if GM8 has been decompiled, but it’s only a matter of time.
@Xot
Gah, I dunno what I was thinking! 😛
All you’d have to do is put in a horrible, game breaking bug into the open beta, then no one could ever finish it. Bwah ha ha!
I’m looking forward to the final release! If there’s any place we can help out (such as Digging the press release or something) let us know and I’m sure we’ll get right to assisting the game’s announcement.
I just read the write-up on Indie Games. Positively glowing! Congrats, I knew this was going to be something special. Can’t wait to try it myself.
http://www.indiegames.com/blog/2010/06/exclusive_preview_the_oil_blue.html