Good Morning Gato #23 – Pterodactyls, Zombies, and the American Dream

Changes are taking place here at Ska Studios. There are dev code changes being made. General life changes. The occasional change of previous changes which were made to change something un-changed. Yes sir, all sorts of changes are happening and are topics I’m willing to discuss with you, but only after the break.
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2 Comments July 16, 2010

Good Morning Gato #21 – Primetime Cable Superstar!

Gato wants you to read this week’s update. She said, in her own proprietary cat language, that she would be heart broken if you refused to read any further. Don’t break Gato’s heart … keep reading and please think of the children.
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4 Comments July 2, 2010

Z0MB1ES wins 2009 IGA Best Indie Game!

We did it!

Thanks everyone for voting!  Thanks everyone for playing!

1 Comment December 15, 2009

XNA, Flash and CD-ROM Graphics

I remember a conversation I had in about sixth grade, when CD-ROM was relatively new technology.  My friend Andrew was trying to convince me that “CD-ROM Graphics” was, well, something that only a CD could bring you.  Games like The Journeyman Project and 7th Guest definitely did things that you couldn’t do on 3.5″ floppies, but a graphic is a graphic, whether it’s stored on a CD, hard drive, laserdisc, etc.  Anyway, the dialogue would go something like:

“The background in Diamonds looks good, but it’s not CD-ROM graphics.”

“You know a 1 MB image will look just as good if it’s on a CD as it will if it’s on the hard drive?”

“Well, it’s still not CD-ROM graphics.” (more…)

6 Comments December 15, 2009

Z0MB1ES is #1 on Major Nelson's List!

Title says it all, we’re #1! (top rated, too!)

And holy roundup, Batman:

• Kotaku would pay $1 just for the theme song
• Destructoid calls it this year’s “Still Alive”
• Joystiq thinks it’s “astounding”
• GameGirl is hooked
• GamingAngels was blown away by the awesomeness of the game
• TheXboxDomain liked the awesome music, addictive qualities, great replay value
• IndieGames.com thinks it’s way too much fun for its own good

50,000 downloads, 6,237 ratings and an average score of 4.75, these are freaking excellent numbers.  This was exactly what I had in mind when I heard Microsoft was rebranding XBLCG as Xbox Live Indie Games and switching the price points to let us sell games for $1.  It’s indie! It’s a dollar! It’s the type of thing that would’ve seemed like a really bad idea if you were trying to describe it to someone you wanted to borrow money from!

And to think that Joystiq’s Andrew Yoon just declared that XBLIG is “floundering” (qualified by a 5-month old article, no less).  Guess we can chalk that one up to Playstation fanboyism!  Of course, if Sony created some sort of zero-entry-barrier developer-friendly platform (think XNA), maybe my PS3 could be more than just a protein folding Blu-Ray player… burn!

8 Comments August 25, 2009

High! Priority! Press! Release!

For Immediate Release:

Ska Studios LLC today announced a truly epic title in the true tradition of epicness with its latest video game entertainment product release, I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!!1, set for release August 16, 2009 on the Xbox Live Indie Games for 80 Microsoft Points.

Presenting a familiarly themed, engrossing and stylized “game universe,” then adding zombies to that world, I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!1 aims to completely revolutionize the videogames industry, destroy it in fire a thousand times, and resurrect it as a phoenix sitting on a unicorn atop a shiny city of golden gumdrops.  As we say at Ska Studios LLC, “our games will pique your interest and defenestrate your cats.”

I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!1 represents a culmination of years of intensive psychological research, bleeding edge engineering, and artistic collaboration by over two dozen internationally recognized art houses that may or may not exist, using such technologies as the HYPERMAGIC 3.0 engine to power never-before-seen eye candy and the MEGACORE X parallelization processor for smooth-as-glass presentation.

“You can make a game,” said Ska Studios Lead Engineer Gato Maria Hernando Rodriguez-Rodriguez in an exclusive interview with Chairman Meow Magazine, “but what happens when you put zombies in it?  Nobody knows, but they’ll find out soon.  We’ll all find out soon.”  And, with Xbox Live Indie Games interest flagging under reports of poor sales, difficulty locating the section in the Dashboard while inebriated, and super-smart people saying super-smart things on web forums, the game couldn’t be released at a better time.

“We were following trends and noticed that most people were buying Xbox360s for the DVD player, the Xbox Live Vision Camera, and the Calculator app on XBLIG, but not for games,” Gato continues, “I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MBIES!!1 will change that.  You’ll be playing our game.  It has zombies in it.  Ok bye.”

I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!!1 will arrive on Xbox Live Indie Games on August 16, 2009.  It will cost 80 Microsoft Points.

19 Comments August 16, 2009