HugoSmits

@ PSICOffee:

You do know some of these games where in development before his death ? In fact MJ was talking to David Perry about making a new game

@Advancedcaveman:

Canabalt doesn't even come close to what Flipper 2 is. it's just so different. Playing Flipper for a few minutes will give you a total platform expierence .. for sure!

@Token Girl:

no problem... I'm always watching the site and the forums

@Eden:

I'm thinking about it... but I have to check how much extra work and risk (with the lotcheck part) it takes.. so I can't promise anything!

@brandonbwii
more than you think; it requires some badass oldskool platform skills to conquer the harder levels.

@AG_Awesome:

well.. your loves get answerd. There will be some random-castle-generating in a specific Flipper 2 mode to keep thing awesome!

I hope to keep the game/concept fresh by giving the player alot of different and crazy actions (one button bob has only a very limited set of basic platform actions). Next to that there will be alot of different animations to keep it funny all the time!

price will probably be 500 points (but I'll make sure this time it has enough gameplay to justify that price tag), but things like the price can always change.. so don't hold it against me

I want the US/EU release to be at the same time.

Yes it will have multiple modes, and more levels in general. Although I can't be too specific about this right now.

the character moves automatically and you can let it do an action (which action depends on the level) like shooting or jumping by pressing one button. There are alot more (and funnier/stranger) actions, but I don't want to reveal them at this time

It sounds a bit weird, but I'm sure it will surprise many of you how it gives you a full platform expierence (that's something I still get surprised about everytime I play a quick game of Flipper 2).

It's not like OneKey at all.... since you control the character. It's more close to one-button bob. But Flipper adds alot of action and cool things that you probably didn't see before in games!

I don't believe this is real 'match fixing'. They decided to split the money AFTER the match.. they did not decide who would win or lose based on money. So they didn't throw the fight.

@Faildude:

That's a horrible assumption to make; Most people don't even play
through the hole game.Alot of people don't even have the time
to invest 20 hours in a game. So having 20 hours of gameplay is
worthless to them.

Besides that, people like quality over quantity in the long run.
People rather watch a good movie that only takes 2 hours than to play through 20 hours of boring gameplay.

Ofcourse there are exeptions; games that feature a great expierence for 20 hours. But most of the games don't.

Take the DS market for example, alot of games make the player play the same levels again.. backwards! sure it takes another 5 hours to complete this way.... but is that really justifying the high price tag !?

and we haven't seen the worst yet. I think we will soon see a videogame crash like '83.

A big hollywood movie, which has easily the same budget or more (and a large staff) comes out on DVD for 20 euro (EU) while a game comes out for 60 euro (EU).

I understand that movies also generate a big precentage of income through cinema viewings. But from a consumers perspective that doesn't matter.

And it shows, because apperently people are more then willing to buy cheap games (as the Iphone App market shows).

@Egg miester :

I feel ya! I never understood why people like this so much. The basic idea(mario beating up pikachu) is good.. but the gameplay, I never liked it.

Give me Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat!

@zkaplan:

How can you even say "flaw regardless of why it's a flaw."

I mean... PS3 games have better graphics than Wii games, so should all wii games get a 5 for dull graphics, because it's technological impossible to make it up to par with PS3 ?

Same goes for the 40 mb limit. I mean, everything has to fit in, and sometimes something has to give.

In case of TellTale it's content, in case of this game it's voice-overs.

I think it's very unfair to judge a game on that part.

I think they are a nice bunch of talented guys who genuine try to make the best FPS game for the Wii.

As a developer myself, I understand all too well what a difficult task this is. Especially
when the budget is limited (please note; I don't know anything about their financial situation,
I just assume this).

So people at High Voltage Software, As I'm sure they'll read this site too, give it your best shot!
I'm sure this game will rock!

@ Blaketoberfest :

Are you kidding me ? I though that was actually one of the best mario-kart clones around!

You can build your own kart! the multiplayer was superb!

@Starboy91: no, way before! the TV show started May 4 1964 and endend June 25 1999

@David77, indeed... it even has a HD version!

some of those amazing pixels are put there by Paul Veer, the artist of Flipper!

@lz2010: I don't totally understand what you are saying.. you probably made a typo "majority of Wii owners already have a Wii" I think all Wii owners have a wii, that's what qualifies them as wii-owners.. right ?

Why do you think the Wii doesn't need an update just like the xbox or PS3 ? The Wii has always been the less powerfull console. Sure, Nintendo proved that you don't need to be the most powerfull to have great games. But by this time the hardware is really lacking. Besides that, there are some obvious 'problems' that can be corrected. Build in motion-plus and bigger storage space come to mind.

I don't see your point on the 3DS part. Why would that bother anybody ? It taps in a totally separated customer-pool. Now I can see how two new consoles releases would be hard to market. But the Wii thing isn't new, it's an upgrade to something people already know.

the competion is doing it (xbox elite,ps3 slim,etc) so why would this be a horrible choice ?

wow.. no wii-ware transfers... happens. How many wii-users will that affect ? just a tiny little fraction of wii-users downloads wii-ware. Most of the wii-users don't care about it.

At a point in time an upgrade is needed. Because at one point the market of potential buyers, bought the wii or decided they didn't care enough.

Now, the sales start to drop. You can make a price cut, but that does only work until a certain point. After that you need something new to sell.

Wii 2 is not ready yet, so it's time for an update.

they did it before with the GBA Micro and the DSi... so why not ?

it seems as if the reviewer doesn't understand the game.

for one; the long pause after an uppercut is there for strategic purpose. The uppercut is one of the most powerfull moves in the game, pulling it off correctly will do great damage. But if you miss it leaves you defenseless.

same goes for the speed. Mortal Kombat has always been a slow fighting game.

I have no problems with the sounds or anything. It's one of my favorite GB games.

I bought it, and it's an okay game. The messed somethings up the level design is not 100% correct, neither is the collision detection.

The biggest problem so far is that jim doesn't always go into 'helicopter' mode when you press the jump button in mid-air. That can be quite frustrating.

The fact that you can select levels is a neat thing. I also like the meter at the bottom screen that shows how far you are (this gives you a good progression feel, which helps in going on in harder levels).

Biggest problem; they didn't include the 'hard' mode with this game. Instead they have a super easy mode (took me 1 hour to complete the game) and the 'original mode', which is the 'normal' mode. It took me around 1,5 hour to complete the whole game.

Yet, it stays an awesome platform game with lots fo cool characters!

it's all just a little too close to 1 April.

@grumblegrumble:

Sure it was a lot of work to do on my own. But I think a game you pay for should be good, regardless of how many people worked on it!

If you read the review, you can see Corbie likes Flipper a lot. I think the ‘7’ is more related to the duration of the game than to the actual gameplay (that’s how I read the review).

BTW.. my comment wasn’t because I didn’t like the review. I think a 7 is really fair. And Corbie said a lot of nice things about the game. So did most of you.

My comment about duration was just to show some insight into how it came to be. Just like I gave insight on a lot of things during development.

Because a lot of people had asked me about the somewhat short time, so I thought it would be cool to explain it

Hey guys! I’m pretty happy with the review and the fact that I hear so much positive things about it! Thanks a lot everybody!

I would like to react to the duration of the game :
I planned it to be around 1,5 hour (as said in many interviews). I used some pretty harsh math for that : A normal retail DS game is about 10 hours for $50. So 1,5 hour for $5 made sense to me.

Another major problem for me was the level design. It was really hard to ‘trap’ the player, because the player has pretty extreme freedom when it comes to powerups. Because of this it took a very long time to design levels.

Every time I thought I had a solid level, somebody found a very easy way to complete it. And I had to take it back to the drawing board.

Also, I decided that I would rather have less ‘gameplay’ time but making the player have a really good time. Than a longer game which would feel dull.

It seems to me that a lot of games put in extra modes and content to justify a high price tag. I didn’t wanna do that.

I could probably make a world or two extra with all the levels I made, but didn’t include in the game. But I really just didn’t want to include levels that I didn’t like.

My next game will be a 2D game, and because of this it will be easier to create levels for. So I’ll probably aim higher for the duration, this time around.

@Sean: A Japanse release would be very unlikely, because it’s hard to get onto that market (ratings, translations)

@Bass X0:

Are you kidding me ? We played SF Alpha 3 every lunch break on the arcade cabinet in the office, and I bought the GBA version for when I had to travel to work. It was almost identical to the arcade version.

@review :

I think the review is a little hard on this game. I have a lot of fighters for the GBC, and this is by far the best one. If you compare this to the MK (1/2/3) it has more fighters and stages crammed in the GBC.

@ballistikboy:

It depends what you mean with 'all there is'. Basically the screenshots show the levels. If you want to see it in action (although still with the old art) I would like to point you to my youtube channel :
http://www.youtube.com/user/GoodbyeGalaxyGames

Please note: A new trailer (that has the new art and all the new features) is in the making...

I’m still not sure about the price point. Rest assure; it’s well worth the 500 points (if that’s going to be the price). As you can see in the screenshots of the menu; there are going to be 4 different worlds + 1 tutorial world. Each world features 4 puzzle levels , 1 star level and 1 bonus game. Every world comes with it’s own theme!

So there’s a lot of content and things to do.

glad you guys are so trilled about the game!

It’s not totally the Wii’s fault. Most of the programmers out there are just lazy

I was thinking about this today, and I think It’s possible to create something that looks like Killzone 2 on the Wii. Sure, the Wii is way less powerful than the PS3 and Xbox360. But that doesn’t mean you can’t get the games to look good. You just need to step it up and really push the machine. Have some pride as a programmer!

It’s a bolt statement to make, I realize. But I’m seriously considering building a 3d engine for the Wii after I finish my Flipper Dsi-ware project.

@ brandonbwii
True, Nintendo has a say in this as well. But I’m really going to push for the 200 points price tag. Nintendo will most likely listen to the developers wises, unless they think their channels are unbalanced (between bad stuff and premium games).

@Odnetnin:

Yes! In both modes you can play every level you unlocked. You can select a world and then the level you want to play. The level menu also shows your time-record and a little star (if collected) so you know which stars you still need to collect.

@warioswoods

That’s a pretty good question. I’m going to use the extra RAM for some slick ingame effects. But I’m not going to make bigger levels. I thought about this a lot, and my conclusion is :

I had a lot of cool levels/puzzle ideas for the smaller levels. Bigger levels don’t necessarily mean better. Besides that I’m talking to a publisher (the deal isn’t final yet, but I’m pretty sure they will take the game onboard). Because of this we also need to look at Flipper as a ‘product’ and think about money and time (and what we can get out of it). I can’t keep on adding features forever!

This btw doesn’t mean the game is going to be small. Right now the content is as followed :

There are 4 worlds + 1 tutorial world. Each world holds 4 puzzles, 1 star level (you need to collect stars in the previous levels to unlock this one) and a mini-bonus game. Each world features their own theme and enemies.

Collecting stars doesn’t really sound cool. But it really is. They are just as hard to reach as the exit, and you need to use the same amount of powerups which leads to many interesting problems. For example, you normally might use the destruction powerup to blow up a wall in front of the exit. But you might need it to reach the star. If you use it to find the star, you need to find another way to get to the exit (since you can’t blow up the wall anymore).

It makes the levels a lot harder and interesting to play. As reward you can unlock the star-level (if you found all stars the world). And if your done with that, you might wanna try the time-mode for speed-runs

I personally believe that IS A LOT OF CONTENT for a 200 POINT game.

haha that's what my marketing department told me as well

@Bahamut:

It's a platform-adventure game. Your basic goal is to find (and reach) your goldfish. You need to use powerups to change the landscape (i.e. blow up walls, build staircases, rebuild bridges).

@Odnetnin:
I would like it to be 200 points

Because I want everybody to try and enjoy it! Sure it would be nice to make some bucks, but I’m not in it for the money. I mean, if that was the case, I would have stopped development at the moment the publisher went bankrupt and get myself a decent job
But please note I’m not the only one who has a say in this. So the price might go up.

I honestly don’t know. I’m aiming for September, but I don’t know if I’ll make it.

@Chicken Brutus
Yes, I miss those days as well. Hopefully with good games, and prices ranging around 2 bucks we get them back thanks to DSi-ware.

I hope to build the same kind of empire that Apogee used to be. Not only creating my own games, but also helping other developers realizing their games! I know it’s going to be really hard work if I want to create anything that even comes close to Apogee. But I’m just going to try

@wariowoods
Well I still have to check things out on that part, so I don’t know how it will turn out. But AFAIK there’s no limit on RAM usage for DSi-ware games. Much in the same way old NDS games could use the additional RAM cardridge (like the opera browser). But again, that’s just me speculating about the situation. I still need to check things out myself.

@Chicken Brutus:

Haha, yes! It’s a tribute/wink to Commander Keen!

I grew up with pc-gaming in the early 90s, and I just love all the Apogee games. It’s also my goal to bring back that type of gaming. These days the ‘big’ games are trying to be Hollywood blockbusters, and most indiegames are on the ‘art’ side. I just want to make fun videogames that are videogames.

@Roopa132:

Yes, the maps are probably going to get bigger (since the DSi offers more RAM to store them in).

Although even on those small maps it’s still a lot of fun. It’s not about destroying but about changing the world. You need to combine all the powers - destruction,restoring and building to get from point A to B.

For example; you might need to blow up a bridge to get an certain item that’s on it, and then ending up needing to restore it later on (when you need to cross it).

@Corbie :
Thanks for putting this on nintendolife.com!

For people who are interested in the game and it’s development; there’s a blog and twitter account :
http://goodbyegalaxygames.blogspot.com
http://www.twitter.com/HugoSmits