Yes, the contest runs until the 15th. Enter every day!

The first contest winner is @gabegreens from NL!

@longtimegamer

What was your question?

What a great review! Well written and concise.

Glad all you Nintendo Lifers are enjoying the game, we here at Ghostfire are very proud of it.

-Scott

Acpolcalypse -- Thank you for asking! We made another game for WiiWare last year called "Helix"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helix_(video_game)

Techrat -- To be honest, I don't think so. I know that I've never played the game, but Ed might have, so I guess its possible.

hobbes -- We have considered using the B button to switch powers, but we ultimately chose the minus button. That being said, we are taking all feedback into consideration as we finish polishing the game.

gabe -- To be honest, I have no idea how much its going to cost, your guess is as good as mine! Its 100% out of my hands, so I don't even bother trying to guess

Thank you, we appreciate all the support we've been getting.

Sure.

Controls are as follows:

Control scheme is indeed D-pad, 1, 2, and A. The mapping is:
1 = swing left
2 = swing right
down+1 = kick left
down+2 = kick right
A = block with shield. A can also shield bash if the boss is stunned. Shield bashing starts a combo. The combo system performs your magical spells/finishers. The combo system is inspired by games such as God of War in that it begins a series of Quick-Timed Events (icons appear on-screen that you need to react to and press quickly).
Plus button = Menu
Minus button = Cycles through your unlocked combo spells [this is the only button mapping that we don't like since the Minus button is so small, but there's no choice]
up = jump
These mappings took us a LONG time to get right. For the longest time we tried using the Nunchuk+WiiRemote and we eventually realized that simpler is better. It feels really good when you play it. If you hold your Wii-Remote sideways and look at the character in our video:
The A button is on the left-hand side of the controller, which controls your shield. Your shield is on the left-hand side of the screen as well, so it makes intuitive sense.
The 1 and 2 buttons are on the right-hand side of the controller, which controls your weapon. Your weapon is on the right-hand side of the screen, so it makes intuitive sense.

Folgers in your cup.

There are 11 bosses in the game. You fight 10 in normal mode, then the same 10 plus a final boss in challenge mode, for 21 total boss fights.

As far as difficulty ranges, the game is easy to learn, but hard to master!

Dadun -

I design the special effects, and do the marketing work as well getting Ed his coffee.

Kirk - Thank you. We are very proud of the animation in our game, and we have a very strong animation team over here at Ghostfire that does a heck of a job for us.

Kirk --

Thanks for the feedback. As far as the points you made, I'd like to respond.

We are considering using real-time lightning, and that is something our development team may work into the final project.

As far as camera sway, we also had the same thought initially, however when we added more camera sway the user got a sense of motion sickness due to the sheer speed of the attacks, rocking back and forth. However, this is something we are also looking into as well.

Matt -- Thanks for the feedback . As far as extras go, beyond the fact that you get to fight all the bosses again with new powers, and fight a final boss only available in challenge mode, at the moment we have not included that you can 'unlock' per-say. However, one thing that is nice is that you can design your character lots of different ways using the tech-tree, and that way you can experience all the different powers available.

Omega -- Yes, the game does consist of only boss fights, but we did it that way because we think boss fights are the most fun part about the game. We have created a wonderful story as well, and a very compelling one at that. Discovering the storyline and learning what happens next is one of the main reasons to play the game.

Malnin - If you do succesfully dodge his lasers, there should be a brief moment afterwards where he is vulnerable for a hit. If you connect with your hit, you will stun him and then you can really bash his face in.

As far as a supersonic mode, or a time racing mode, we currently do not have that feature in the game, but it is something we considered at one point.

SuperSonic --

Do you mean a move that can slow down and/or manipulate time?

Nope

Gabe --

With this game, you wield one weapon, a mighty warhammer that is so epic that you can bash your opponents face, or do other cool stuff like summoning a tornado.

Brandon --

Thank you. We also like Vensor's personality a lot.

There is no multi-player for this game, but perhaps for a future title if this game does well. We focused on making a very strong and fun one player experience. Figuring out how to beat each boss is really challenging, and that may require more than one player, to figure out the puzzle.

After defeating an enemy, you will be given skill points to use as you wish. As in similar tech-tree systems, you need a minimum amount of points spent in each tier before moving to a higher one.

We expect the game to be released later in the year.

As far as other platforms go, I think thats usually Ed's domain (our CEO), but I believe we are open to most any platform as a project in the future.

Not only can you fight them again, but they have a whole new set of powers.

We saved some of the coolest stuff till the very end.

Also, there is a skill in the magic tree called "Mystical Generation"
See: http://www.ghostfiregames.com/gladiator/rage-of-the-gladiator/skills/

This gives you a passive 4% energy every 20 seconds if you have the skill maxed 4/4.

Sure Corbie.

On the right hand side of the heads-up display, there is a bar that shows you how much energy you have in your meter.

The energy meter goes up and down based on how much you hit your opponent, how much energy you use and how much you yourself are hit.

Hey all, Scott here. I'm one of the developers at Ghostfire Games.

We are very happy to see the support this game is getting, and yes we will be supporting a sideways control.

This is a brand new video, released today for the first time to anyone. Nintendoliife is always on-top on the latest news.

If anyone has any questions, or wants to talk about any part of this video I'm all ears.

Helix Rocks, thanks for the support guys!

I think that guy at IGN is going to be out of a job soon

Scott here: I designed most of the levels for the game.

Thanks for all the feedback. I am so happy to see that people are actually able to start playing the game. I knew once we started that we were creating a unique game play experience that people would really enjoy.

Naturestee: There are mulitple slots to save your calibration, so you and others can share the game and not have to re-calibrate every time.

-Scott

You guys will love this game, just wait and see.

Raptor/Kreegs,

The video will be on the Nintendo channel as soon as Nintendo releases the game. Very soon I hope!

Vizion-

I personally love Hip-hop and will to try to include some songs in the next game. We are also exploring some of those options for Helix 2.

-Scott