Nitrome Touchy interview + Recap

Hi all! It’s likely many of you have noticed my rather sparse contributing to my blog. I haven’t left it, I’ve just… kind of forgotten about it. I remembered it some time back and decided to make a new blog post when Nitrome posted something new. Well, today Nitrome posted something new.

Nitrome was interviewed by MochiMedia about Nitrome Touchy. The interview is rather long (long is good), and packed full of Nitrome Touchy secrets Nitrome hasn’t revealed yet! So, why not give it a read? Nitrome Touchy interview

And now to recap what Nitromey stuff has happened since my last post. If some of you think I haven’t done any Nitrome things for a long time, you’ve been mistaken. I’ve been quite active on the Nitrome Wiki. If you want to see what happens daily on the Nitrome Wiki, be sure to drop by the Recent Changes, everything everyone does is recorded there. Now, to recap what happened since my last post (from latest to earliest, top to bottom):

• Nitrome announced on October 18th they now have 150,000 fans. At the time of me writing this, they currently have 162,651
  

  Don’t believe me?

• Nitrome on October 18th updates the Flightless site, adding new side artwork, some FAQ (fans and questions), and quotes from some comments on Steam
• Is October 18th Mat Annal’s birthday? Yet another piece of information! Nitrome does an Ice Breaker iOS update (link). The site also gains a new page – Characters!
• October 19th: 1 day later, more Nitrome Touchy games are revealed!
• October 25th: 6 days later, Nitrome reveals even more Nitrome Touchy games!
• October 26th: Nitrome Touchy Week continues with the reveal of how you can play games in fullscreen! Oddly, I already assumed they would be in fullscreen.
• October 31st: Seems strange, don’t you think? Whenever Nitrome annouced an iPhone games, you never assume they are going to release it in such short time. Well, Halloween marked the release of Nitrome Touchy! Yay (why was I excited then? I don’t even have a smartphone)! And for a first, Nitrome’s release trailer for the game has absolutely glorious music! Usually, you only get awesome tunes like this for each Nitrome game menu! Also, the music was done by Lee Nicklen (I assume you think I’m lying)!
• November 14th 2012: Two weeks after the release of the Nitrome Touchy, after cleaning up all the glass and smashed iPhones lying around Nitrome Towers due to the “2 weeks of Nitrome Touchy partying”, Nitrome decides to put up another blog post (please note that the “smashed iPhone and glass” stuff is simply a joke…at least… I believe there was no iPhone damage), Nitrome asks fans to vote for them on Flightless. Could you believe Nitrome shot up so close to finishing the greenlight phase? They (at the time) were at 98% (with votes). Only two percent away! Be sure to vote for Flightless on Steam!
• November 15th 2012: Nitrome revealed Swindler 2, revealing the trailer. Also, new features are revealed. The game will also be immediately Nitrome Touchy compatible on game launch.
• November 21st 2012: Nitrome releases Swindler 2. Unlike the previous Swindler game, Swindler 2 got revealed and soon released, unlike Swindler 1 that got revealed than for a long time wasn’t heard of
• November 21st 2012: To commemorate Swindler 2’s release, Nitrome pleases fans by releasing Nitrome T0uchy for Android. Ahhhhh… a sigh of relief for Nitrome. No more having to tell fans Nitrome Touchy will come for Android, no longer having to copy-and-paste responses, no more having to hold back the rage of “Why don’t you read the Nitrome Blog? We’re going to release Android for Touchy!!!”.

Well, that’s all that happened while I neglected my blog. Hope you all enjoyed this blog post! Also, the Nitrome Wiki has nominated the Flightless article as to help Nitrome gets votes. This nomination will (likely) be extremely helpful to Nitrome, as this article will be tweeted and blogged about on Wikia’s Twitter and Facebook (respectively).

Nitrome releases demo for Flightless – the Nitrome game previewed over a year ago

 

Any of you remember the above image from September 27 2011? This image was previewed by Nitrome over a year ago, and even after a few months Nitrome hd not provided any more information on it. Nitrome told one fan on Facebook (according to Random Story-keeper of the Nitrome Wiki) that the game was an exploration type game, and was taking longer to create.

Two weeks before this game’s big revealing, Aaron Steed (who programmed the game) was looking for beta testers of Nitrome upcoming ladder game. It wasn’t known that this game was actually the game Nitrome had previewed a year ago. I knew about it, and didn’t email St33d to beta test it. Wish I did.

If I had beta tested it, I would have been amazed by it. Despite that, Nitrome released a demo for the game, a trailer, a minsite, and more information on the game. That Monday October 13th was quite a surprise. Nitrome revealed that the game – called Flightless – is a puzzle platformer game that involves you exploring a large open world searching for gems.

This game strays from the usual Nitrome formula of having levels, and instead of the past way of traversing a game, the player is placed in a large 2D world made up of a multitude of rooms. That isn’t the only new thing about this game, you play as a flightless bird who can’t jump, but can climb ladders. Ladders are your friend in this game, as without those, your quest for gems is hopeless. Fortunately, you can create a ladder wherever you are – bar falling in the air.

The ladder will be shot vertically, and stop when it meets a solid object. You have to use this object and your wits to collect gems. And you aren’t along in your adventure, if you have someone else who would wish to play, they can play, as Flightless supports two players playing simultanously. The screen is split for this, so both of you only get half a screen, but you aren’t confined to having to be in the same room, both player’s can go wherever they want, or help each other in claiming a gem if that is what they perfer.

To start you off, Nitrome gives you a free, 34 room demo of the game. Some puzzles in this game are tricky, but are easier with a second player. Nitrome has annouced that this game has been put up on Steam Greenlight. For all of you who don’t know what Steam Greenlight is (and I’m assuming there are a lot, not even I knew), Steam Greenlight is a section of the Steam website (the Steam website is a website which sells games for you to download and play) that allows developers to put games on Steam’s site, but only if the game during the Greenlight phase receives enough votes.

Steam will create a page for the game, and registered Steam users can vote whether they would buy the game if it came out, or wouldn’t buy the game. If the game receives enough votes, Steam will put the game up on their site. A rather clever idea. Nitrome is asking all fans to vote “Yes” to the question “Would you buy this game if came out?” so Nitrome can put it into the Steam store and get money from the purchases.

This comes to the premium part (no no no, this blog is still free to read), the full version of this game will not be free, you wll have to pay for it. After playing through the demo, you will probably want to vote for it, right? Today, Nitrome updated the minisite with some new art, and listed quotes by other people about how great the game is.

Well, finishded reading? If so, and you have a steam account, vote for Nitrome on steam, so they can release the game! Also, sorry for being late with this blog post, I was busy writing about Flightless on the Nitrome Wiki. On another note, if you are having trouble with the game (such as trouble finding a gem), then please go to the Nitrome Wiki page on this game, as I have posted a complete video walkthrough on the game. Along with that, I have taken a picture of every room in the game.
Enjoy!

Flightless Nitrome Wiki article

Much Nitrome stuff happening

Hello viewers! Some of you (maybe all) have seen how this blog wasn’t updated for a long time. Well, I kind of got bored with it, and had been bored of it for a long time, bored with it since I stopped putting pictures in my blog posts. Anyway, I noticed the slow decline of the viewers of my blog. Anyway, a certain user’s blog post on the Nitrome Wiki showed me how they had found the Nitrome Wiki through my blog.

Finding this out, this energized me to start contributing again! Anyway, much about Nitrome has happened within the last time I posted. Nitrome added Developer Diaries to the Ice Breaker website, informed us about the map part of Ice Breaker iOS, how the resolution of the game differs between iPhone used, and how certain levels will have a certain object found only in that level.

Nitrome made an adjustment to the at-the-time two icon games J-J-Jump and Gunbrick that allows the player to adjust the game more, than being restricted to just two types of adjustment. Later (after the revealing of the map), Nitrome released Calamari, a game where you play two squids and try to shoot the various blocks throughout the level and try to get a high score.

This game is playable on Facebook, and also on Nitrome.com. Plus, you and a friend can play. Not too soon after that, Nitrome fixed a bug in Super Snot Put and Calamari, a bug that prevented the game from loading. After that, Nitrome revealed their cancelled game “Sucknblo”. In the game, you played as a superhero of some sort and had to rid the level of enemies using your push beam – a beam that gave enemies a forceful “push”. With this weapon, you would have to push enemies into walls.

The game wasn’t worked on for too long, as it was cancelled as it proved to not be much fun. Makes sense, if you were testing a game, and didn’t like it, would you want to allow your 140,000+ fans to play it and be as disgusted with at as you are? Plus, you would have to work on the game, and a lot of work goes into Nitrome games. Anyway, if this game hadn’t been cancelled, the sledding game Avalanche may have never been released.

For a long time, not much Nitromey stuff was published on the blog. However, on September 18th 2012 (The Nitrome Wiki’s birthday), Nitrome revealed a trailer of Double Edged????. Although you can’t grammatically use four ?’s like that (and I didn’t break any rules adding a period/fullstop after the fourth ?), fans were perplexed over the nature of the trailer. Why four Spartans? Why all in levels featured in Double Edged? How is it possible for you to fit four hands on a tiny keyboard?

These questions would be answered in the next week. After this, Nitrome spread the word that MochiCoins (the service that allowed people to spend coins to buy content in the few Nitrome games supporting this feature) was going to be cancelled. Nitrome said that they were actually going to axe MochiCoins anyway, when they came out with their own login system. Nitrome said they were going to transition the method of obtaining stuff in MochiCoins supporting Nitrome games to something else.

What is this other service going to be? Will it be free? Nitrome has not yet answered these questions. So the next week after the revealing of the mysterious Double Edged????, Nitrome revealed the Nitrome Touchy. The Nitrome Touchy is an app that transforms your iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch into a game controller, and allows you to use this controller to play games on your computer. I found this feature neat, but at first misunderstood it.

Anyway, Nitrome released Turnament the next day. In Turnament, you play something similar to a mini boardgame. You move, everything else moves. Try to get to the end of the level to advance to the next level. The game features 11 levels, the 11th available only after you have collected all the coins in the past 9 levels. This game at first will have Hot Air like difficulty (Hot Air is Nitrome’s first flash game, renowned for its extreme difficulty).

Well, that wraps up all that happened at Nitrome while I didn’t post here. Now, about this blog. Some of the pages here will no longer be updated, but link in a certain way to the Nitrome Wiki. I’m doing this as it seems a bit redundant to post stuff here and on the Nitrome Wiki, when I can simply just direct users to the Nitrome Wiki.

Well, that’s it. Thanks all of you who have constantly visited this blog! And also, future blog posts will have pictures. This blogpost  has covered a lot of stuff about Nitrome, and if you want to learn more, click the below links to the topic on the Nitrome Wiki.

Ice Breaker iOS website – information on the website

Ice Breaker: A Viking Voyage – a page packed with content relating to the upcoming iOS game

Calamari – Nitrome’s second Facebook app game

Sucknblo – Cancelled Nitrome game. This article also includes content relating to the discovered second beta image

Double Edged???? – Article on unusual game

MochiCoins – The serivce that allows you to buy Nitrome goodies in select games!

Nitrome Touchy – Article on the upcoming app

Turnament – Article on the game. Also has a complete walkthrough availible.

Skywire VIP Shuffle released!

Well everyone, Nitrome has provided us with an unexpected release on Friday. For a long time now, we haven’t seen those unexpected Nitrome game releases since around 2006-2009, back when Nitrome was still young.

This game has the regular Skywire VIP gameplay – Cable Car brings famous person as bean person, and you have to try and guess who it is. This time, they’ve added new features. Is a level too hard? You can now skip it, with the Pass Option. Simply click the pass (and shock the Panda while doing so) to complete the level, with 0 points.

The game is now randomized, so each Bean Person you get  is a random, unanswered bean person. Along with this, you no longer have to complete the game in one sitting, whenever you complete a level or leave the game, progress is recorded. You can now come back to the game any time and come back to where you left off.

This game does not allow you to complete the entire, 100 levels in minutes (I completed Skywire VIP Extended in 3 minutes 45 seconds), due to the randomization.
Click here to play!

Full walkthrough on the Nitrome Wiki

Ice Breaker iOS site updated!

Hello everyone! Some of you may have noticed the unusually long gap in posts. The fact is, I completely forgot about my blog. It was only today I remembered. Well, anyway, Nitrome has updated the Ice Breaker iOS site with three new sections: Updates, Comments, and Sign Up!

Updates is where Nitrome reveals content about Ice Breaker iOS, comments is where you can see all the comments made on Nitrome’s Facebook Social Plugin, and Sign Up! is where you can sign up for the Ice Breaker iOS newsletter, delivered through email.

Well, from the updates page you can access all the other pages.

My reign of neglect over my blog is over! You can now expect to find blog posts on all Nitrome blog posts that aren’t Friday Update’s, Distribution, or Pixel Love.

For an in-depth look at the Ice Breaker iOS site, head over to the Ice Breaker iOS page on the Nitrome Wiki.

Ice Breaker iOS page on the Nitrome Wiki.

Ice Breaker iOS announced!

On Tuesday, Nitrome provided us with an image of an iPhone with the screen taken up by several ice cubes accompanied by a question mark (?). This new sequel gave Mat “goosebumps”, and ended the blog post telling his fans to “chill”. Ice cubes and vocabulary describing the effects of the cold, and the cold associated with winter, caused many fans to believe the indie gamer’s first iPhone game was going to be a sequel to Ice Breaker.

Well, they were correct! Nitrome announced that the iPhone game will be called “Ice Breaker iOS”. This game has superb graphics, a whole bunch of new physics stuff, and a whole lot of ice breaker goodness! The game will feature a map for you to navigate on, new objects to interact with, a end-of-map bosses!

I’m not sure how they are going to pull off the bosses part, though. This will be nitrome’s first iPhone game. If you want to find out more about the game, visit the page on the nitrome wiki!

This game, like super feed me, also has a site! If you want to see how good the site look, click the link below. If you want to have an in-depth look at the game, you should visit the nitrome wiki article.

Nitrome Wiki article

Official Game Website

Hot Air Jr. released!

It was quite a surprise when I logged on to Nitrome.com and found Hot Air Jr. had been released. The unusual thing was that the game was released on Thursday, instead of Friday, when most Nitrome games are released. The game consists of (I think) 34 levels of Hot Air goodness.

If you notice, you will see that the art wasn’t done by Mat Annal (co-creator of Nitrome, did art for Hot Air 1 and 2), but instead, Stefan Ahlin. Ahlin’s work is really good, as you can see from Enemy 585 (those cloud designs are amazing!). Hot Air Jr. hasn’t changed much from the Hot Air formula, other than he falls faster and is harder to control when you hold the fan to his head to make him move faster (and also doesn’t move as fast as in Hot Air 1 & 2).

Other than that, the game is pretty much the same. This game actually motivated me to finish my school work faster (2 hours faster), so I could go play this game! Anyway, the art for this game is magnificent, and although Hot Air Jr. is a little more difficult to control than his father, the game is still fun, just a little hard to control in some parts.

Play Hot Air 3: Click

Super Snot Put released + soon taken down

You make a sequel for a game. Stumped (no pun intended) on what to name it? Give it the prefix “Super”. “Super” Feed Me, “Super” Snot Put, “Super” Metroid (Super Metroid isn’t a nitrome game). Super Snot Put is the name of Nitrome’s latest game. This game is exactly the same in gameplay to its predecessor, and is also the only mini game to receive a sequel. The only changes is that the art has been update, some new art has been added, and you can challenge your friends on Facebook to see who can fling the farthest.

This game seems to have been made mainly to show how the Facebook challenging thing works. To challenge somebody (I think) you send them an invite (or something like that). I got that from the next Super Snot Put blog post. Now, about it being taken down. Don’t think you’re seeing things or this is Nitrome’s very late April fools joke.

There was a problem where a majority of Nitrome’s facebook fans were unable to play it on Nitrome’s app page. Not only was this the only problem, many of the invites that were sent to others to come play the game ceased to function. Likely next week the game will be able to be played again.

Well, this concludes this blog post!

Small Fry fixed!

On nitrome’s facebook page, one nitrome fan raised the question about “Why does the ending for small fry not work?”. Nitrome addressed this issue and fixed the game to include the ending. However, an error while fixing the game caused level 1 (and likely all levels) to load the background, fry counter, buttons, etc., but not the actual level itself. Thus, you can’t play the game, not even the first level.

Likely through another fan informing nitrome about the broken game nitrome went ahead and fixed it. Now, you can play through small fry and see the new ending! Is it animated? Is it larger than the previous ending? Is it the previous ending? Why don’t you go and complete the game to see… or wait until I (hopefully) complete the game and post the ending to youtube.

The questions section

Today is the day Nitrome has placed up the questions section! When it was first announced, I expected something like a box where you enter your question then press “Submit”, or something like that where you post your Email address so Nitrome can send you a reply. Well, seems that this is not what Nitrome has planned.

What Nitrome uses for asking them question is the comments section of Facebook, the good ‘ol comments which require you to have an account. One major flaw I find is that you must have a Facebook account to ask questions. Don’t have that? Can’t get it? Well, you can’t ask the questions and Nitrome can’t answer them (because not even Nitrome can read your mind).

I am disappointed with how this question-asking section turned out, as if I wanted to ask Nitrome a question (at this time I have no questions to ask Nitrome), I can’t as I don’t have Facebook nor can get it. Using the Facebook comments allows for Nitrome to open up an easy way to get questions from fans, but also prevents there fans who don’t have Facebook unable to ask Nitrome their questions.

Maybe Nitrome will come up with a compromise for this situation, maybe not.