It's there!

Greetings all, Mad Hatter here

As you by now may know we showed off our game at the UU symposium Game Technology Here we managed to get a nomination for the best game award and we gained a shared second place for the audience award.

Something else you may have noticed is that there is a new link in the pages list, leading to the one and only Space Jumble download. Yes, indeed, Space Jumble is there for all to enjoy! Be warned though, the game is not jet completely polished. Many players consider it to be fairly difficult, but every level is possible to complete, and once you get a hang of it the game will prove to be very addictive!

Yours sincerely,
The Mad Hatter

P.s. for those who don't feel like looking for the download link, it is here.

And the winner is...

Hi, Bloggers!

We have some exciting news for you. As you all know, this Friday our game will be presented to the public at the UU symposium. No less than sixteen different teams, including Rolling Barrel Studios, will be there to show off the result of their hard work and creativity. Two awards will be given out, the Audience Award and the Best Game Award.

Everyone at the symposium is allowed to vote for their favourite game. The Audience Award will go to the team with the highest number of votes from the audience. However, the Best Game Award is handed out by a jury. It will go to one of four nominees:

- Dungeon Bros. (by team Alpha Bros.)
- Kabomb (by team SinusAppel)
- Crystalator Battlegrounds (by team Sovereign Studios)
- Space Jumble (by team Rolling Barrel Studios)

In case you didn't notice: WE ARE NOMINATED FOR BEST GAME! How awesome is that? I'll have to admit the other nominees really deserve their nomination as well, so we're up against some fierce competition. But we'll put our best foot forward and battle for the title of Best Game!

For further info on the symposium and our competitors, visit: http://www.cs.uu.nl/docs/vakken/b1pgt/2012-2013/pgt_symposium.html

And we shall call it... "Space Jumble"!

Reaver here once more, with the final(-est?) update

With the release-date being tomorrow i figured i'd drop a final update.

Over the past few months we've been working on Space Jumble and we've come quite a way since the start of the project, and we've learnt a lot.

We've shared some of our progress with you in the form of little bits of video, stories told and more, but our project's finished and even as we polish it up last-moment we'd like to thank all who followed our progress and hope that you will enjoy our product.

~ Reaver

Trailer

We proudly announce, the official Space Jumble trailer!

Symposium

Greetings everyone, the Mad Hatter once more.

I thought I would send you all a little update, with lots of good news this time.

First of all, as you have probably already seen the Rolling Barrel Studios logo is online. Like most of our sprites this small piece of art is made by Mandy.

Furthermore I thought I should mention I have a new hat, so I should be fully back in action.

And now to the (even more) serious business. Next week Friday, February 1st, our game will be shown to the public on a symposium at the Utrecht University. More information will be available here (I think, otherwise you might find some things here.) That is all for this time, I hope to see you all Friday. Yours sincerely, The Mad Hatter.

An overview

Greetings everyone, the Mad Hatter here.

Three weeks into the new year, and with only one week left to finish our game it's time for a little update. I'm afraid I have a sad announcement to make later on, but first I will give you a little overview of everything we have done until now.

Our adventure started way back in early November last year, when on the 16th of November Rolling Barrel Studios was born. The core idea of our project came from Peter Paul (aka Reaver) who wished to make a variation on the original Donkey Kong, but including physics and gravity manipulation. (For those who haven't played the original game here you can find an on-line version of it.) Very soon it was decided that we would completely throw the setting around and place our game in outer space!

At first we wanted to write our own physics engine, however this was strongly discouraged by our advisers at the Utrecht University. Therefore we decided to search the internet for an engine able to fulfil our needs. And soon we found the Farseer Physics Engine. Although at first it took a lot getting used to, in the end it did proof to be very useful. (Although it wasn't until about week ago that most of us finally started to somewhat understand how this thing works.)

(The Farseer engine)

Not to much later the first graphics for our game were created by our wonderful artist Mandy (Mockingjay)  of which some, as well as a description of the revolutionary way they were created, can be seen here.

Then Maguell (Synesys) created a usable player, and around that time Corné (Entomb) started his work on the level editor.

 (Latest version of the level editor)

After which we soon end up with our first (somewhat) playable version the game! (A video of which can be seen at the end of our post about "teamwork")

And with that I've come to  the announcement I said I would make, possibly the worse setback we have encountered so far, if we fail this would be the main reason, and it is entirely my fault. I lost my hat. Well, I actually didn't quite lose it, as I know where it is, but I can't get it. I know this will be hard for you all to take in, therefore I will give you three empty lines to calm down before I continue.

But we have to move on, with this last year ended, and we picked up where we left. During the last weeks many new things have been added, old things reworked, bugs fixed and thanks to Maligna (Hasse) we now have somewhat working Damage-depending-on-impact system. Also I believe I saw a logo for Rolling Barrel Studios somewhere which I hope will be up soon.

Though many more things happened during the short time we have worked together, I believe these to be the most important developments and therefore will leave it at this.

Yours sincerely,

The hatless Mad Hatter

And here it is, as promised.

...And yes i know you had to wait over a year for it, deal with it, besides i did warn you.

~ Reaver