Posts by Hourences

All new content of all 13 games is entirely free yes:)

Needs a topic on this

The Potato Sack on Steam has just been update for the third time, and things are really speeding up now - http://store.steampowered.com/sub/7586/

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As part of this we've made an hour worth of level in a Portal/The Ball crossover

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in case embedded one doesn't work)Huge props to Valve for letting us and the other indies officially infringe on their IP, hell they even provided us with new GLaDOS lines

It is 75% off on all those 13 games, support us indies

It is kind of true though, that the modders have made more for the game than his own people have. And the game is artist light, it is quite easy to mass produce a lot of art for it and introduce new things. Also the Creative mode is something I still very much so miss. I got bored having to first spend hours before I can finally get creative. It is like having to take your bike to some distant toy shop and cycle for 4 hours every time you want to play with your legos.

He also sold a lot of copies while it was in alpha, and if you sell an alpha product you kind of make a promise to people that there are going to be a lot of updates in the future. It is still alpha after all, so that means a lot more is to follow. That is the downside of this whole "fund my under development game" approach, people get expectations, and people get a sense that because they funded development, which is what they essentially did, they can demand and expect things to happen. It is also a bit of buying a cat in a bag. You don't really know what you are actually buying since the product is still evolving, further adding to the frustration. If you buy a finished game you know what you are getting. It is pretty much like giving a presentation. If you present some game concept and you only show an actual demo of the game all the way at the end of your presentation, people are going to be disappointed. Because by the time you got to the end of your presentation, they will have already developed their own view of the product, and your vision is never going to fit the version they've constructed in their own imagination. You really can't win that fight.

Quote from FrieChamp

I heard the same from somebody who worked in both areas as an audio designer. The fact that people earn more in movies could be attributed to the fact that they are hired on a project-basis but that also means that they need the money to bridge gaps between jobs. Unless your skills are so high in demand that you can seamlessly transition from one project to the other/the company you work at is so busy that they need everybody all the time.

I concur. From what I have been told the grass in the film industry really isn't as green as it looks. It is unstable, a lot of it as is just as much slave work as making games, and they often use horribly inefficient and outdated methods and tools because it is often only used for a few seconds anyhow, maybe even only in the distance. No one really appears to spend a lot of time on things like workflow and solid tools. There is a lot of wheel reinventing and such it appears.

Looks awesome!

You all need http://store.steampowered.com/app/35460/

(and we are holding a contest btw - http://www.theballthegame.com/?p=1190)

I am probably going to pick up Just Cause 2. First one was ok, some sandbox fun is never bad.

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You should do short pieces on your frontpage with "Read more..."

I hate clicking read mores. All info should be right there and require a minimum number of clicks. That also makes people read your news. If they have to undertake action to read it they won't do it and they'll just skim over.

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but I do know that most sites these days have learned this and do use narrow columns. See kotaku or any other popoular news site as an example.

A website like kokatu focuses at the general public. I do not. The very very large majority of people who visit my website are developers with large monitors. In fact 95% of everyone who visits a website has a monitor that is at least 1280 width, if not a lot more. I know that I personally have not bought a mega monitor to then go read websites that cover not even half of my available screen real estate. That is just so super annoying. Plus, on top of that I need to have sufficient amount of space to display large screenshots in my tutorials. Plus, the old site stretched to match the window which made the text on that site a lot wider than this one on a big monitor. This is a big improvement over that, it strikes a good middle ground, and a very thought over decision. My web guy wanted to do it smaller by the way so please don't go blame him. He invested a lot of time into it. Oh, and this very forum in itself stretches as well by the way. My eyes have to cover more screen distance to read what is being written in this forum than I have to on my own website. Why is it ok to do this on a forum but not on a content rich website?

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What about these interviews? I don't really understand these

What is there to understand?

The old site may have been recognizable but it did not made a good first impression. What would you have thought of the old site if you would have never visited it before, and then come across it at some point and the site tries to sell you products like my books? What would you have thought if you are a studio or an educational institution? Being unique and original is nice and all that, but not at the cost of your business. You can go to a fancy business dinner dressed up as a chicken, and you'll surely be noticed, but that won't really help you will it? My site represents a business, not a hobby. The design has to match that.

Hi,

After years of working on The Ball I finally found the time again to continue with my website. The site has been completely redesigned. Away with the 1990s design

[email protected] if you are interested!

Valve doesn't force anyone to use a direct USD > Euro conversion. You can get a seperate Euro and USD price if you ask for it.

That said I agree that more competition would be nice. A monopoly is in no ones interest.

The Ball has just became available on GamersGate, Impulse, our own website, and thanks to Wendros can now be found across stores in Scandinavia!

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Coinciding with the release, we now got a demo available! Ready for you try to out! Afraid of the concept? Not sure what to expect? Then give our demo a go! It doesn’t bite, it’ll only try to crush you

http://www.filefront.com/17480330/TheBallDemoSetup.exe
http://www.indiedb.com/games/the-ball/d ... -ball-demo
More coming soon!
And if that wasn’t enough yet, how about all whole batch of new reviews?

• 
  # incgamers.com – 8.2/10 – “The Ball is inventive, creative and something refreshing”
  # zeden.net (French) – “A very good puzzle game… the player will be satisfied for sure”
  # trgamer.com (Turkish) – 8/10
  # gaminglives.com – “This game deserves support, it is easily my favourite downloadable game of 2010 so far, and I cannot recommend it more highly to fans of the genre”
  # 9lives.be – 8.3/10 “The Ball is an exceptional good game… One of the most suprising games this year”
  # azerothtozork – “There is a lot to like, especially for $20.”
  # Gameplay Magazine (Dutch) – 8.3/10 “Simple but addictive… Ingenious puzzles and beautiful level design”
  # tgdb.nl (Dutch) – 8.9/10 “A great game”
  # Beyondunreal.com – 8.5/10 “The Ball offers a tremendous value and the level of polish is admirable.”

Buy the game now ! - Buy it directly from us to support us! - http://www.theballthegame.com/?page_id=926

One of the big doors opens, the lower door on the side with the big ramp down. The symbols on the door are glowing I believe, which makes that door special from the other ones.

Deceiver that is what I am actually unhappy about. We wanted to release the 12th of October, or a few days before or after, and Valve advised us to move the release to October 26 "because it would be so much better".

No official mod support. EULA only mentions it in case someone does manage to modify the game.

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":3rwbvaw4]

that's too bad imo, the opportunity to go live somewhere else and meet new people is one of the best parts of the game industry imo. There's not that many jobs out there that give you that!

I couldn't agree more! It was the best decision I've ever made in my life.

Sure, but after a few years you will get sick of it. And go try to start a family with that lifestyle! It is great if you are 20 years old, but you won't stay 20 forever... That lifestyle demands that you never have a girlfriend, many friends, a lot of possesions, pets, cars, a nice house, or anything at all that can't be just picked up and moved to somewhere else. I can understand that being able to see the world is awesome, but the price you pay for it is hefty.

Thanks! Unfortunately we are not selling a lot at the moment, so please spread it via word of mouth if you like it!

No Steam Cloud, wasn't doable in an easy way. However you can manually move over your settings by copying over My Documents\My Games\The Ball to your other computer.

Demo on Monday or some other time this coming week!

A demo will follow in a couple of days!

Bump

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/3110 ... ayoffs.php

Heh cool, I am seriously considering writing a new book about the development of The Ball. Or two smaller books. One about the actual design, and one about the UDK, so technical stuff. Something I hope to work on in November and December. I also got a brand new site coming up.

We posted a whole batch of previews and reviews! We got 31 reviews and previews so far - http://www.theballthegame.com/?page_id=642

Reviews (8.2/10 average!):

• 
  [*:1yv0zx53]

gamerant.com - 9/10 "it’s difficult to stop playing and you’ll be tempted to finish it in one long sitting."
[*:1yv0zx53]indiegamereviewer.com - 8/10 "There isn’t a single complaint to be made about the content of The Ball. It’s fun, it’s visually interesting, it has great atmosphere... it’s well worth the $20"
[*:1yv0zx53]fronttowardsgamer.com - 7/10 "The level of polish is high, and it doesn’t feel like a budget title when you’re playing it... whats included is very well done."
[*:1yv0zx53]NOWGamer.com - 7.6/10 "this is one of the year’s true surprises, and an absolute bargain at the price"
[*:1yv0zx53]nerdiest-kids.com - 8/10 "The Ball is just plain fun. This game has lovely graphics, is a good price for what you get, and will keep you very entertained"
[*:1yv0zx53]MMGN.com - 8.9/10 "Little more needs to be said other than it's easy to justify comparisons between this game and Portal."
[*:1yv0zx53]GamersRoute.com - 8.5/10 "The Ball is a very high-quality game... The Ball offers a very rich gameplay experience."
[*:1yv0zx53]tk-nation.com - 8.5/10 "The Ball is a huge amount of fun, and its polished gameplay easily surpasses its smaller flaws... this title is a great deal for your cash."

Yes we have world wide retail distribution in place, in Germany Iceberg Interactive together with KOCH will handle this. The release of the boxed version is a little later than Steam though, estimated at November 5.

The German version is 100% uncut and similar to the version the rest of the world has.

Thanks for the pre orders!

Heh, would be nice

I wouldn't say no

The game is up for pre-orders on Steam! - http://store.steampowered.com/app/35460/

7 Days to go until release!

We've received a nice pack of great reviews over the past few days, I will be posting those later. Loads of 8's, 1 9!

Quote from Furyo

I have so many of them too I could write a book. But that's still an over-generalization to classify all studios that way. I would probably agree with the statement that it is the majority of the studios, but some teams manage to stay away.The problem lies in locating these teams, getting on board, moving to the end of the world and staying there. It's not for the faint hearted.

Of course not all studios are like that, some are really good. At least 50% of the studios out there do however have some serious issues. So yeah, looking for a job? You got 50% chance of ending up in the wrong place... And hey, even if it is a good place, you still have another ~50% chance they go bankrupt within a year or two

The trick is in to look at it as a job, and try not to care too much about what you do, but not too little either. Otherwise it will get to you in no time and you are out. Easier said than done though...