Captain Disaster keeps on moving on...

I know things have been quiet here on the dev blog recently, but both games - Captain Disaster in Death Has a Million Stomping Boots and Captain Disaster in There's a Hole in my Galaxy! - are steadily making progress.  In particular for TAHIMG we've been doing a lot of work on the plot and interface, and things are moving slowly but surely with DHAMSB too.

(I'm hoping to have something to show of one, or both, at AdventureX 2012, although whether I'll be able to actually attend one of the days is still uncertain.  More news soon...)

Captain Disaster in "There's a Hole in my Galaxy!" - early screenshots and some plot teasers...

Why does Captain Disaster have to travel to the past - and the future - to atone for the sins of humanity?  Just what is that big orange swirly thing in space?!  What does this all have to do with pizza and beer?

Find out soon at a space-bar near you... in the meantime, here are some early beta screenshots from the game.

Coming soon (well, soonish...) - Captain Disaster in "There's a Hole in my Galaxy!"

Current download stats

From AGS: 324
From Softpedia: 54
From ModDB: 43
From GameFront: 6
Total: 427

That's an average of about 18.5 downloads per day since the demo was launched.  I guess that's not too bad considering we're complete unknowns in the game dev world!

Digging Captain Disaster in the Indie Mine

A nice feature about the demo has appeared on The Indie Mine.  Among the things they said about it:

" I was particularly fond of the satirical humour that referenced other overused science fiction tropes. "

" I couldn’t help feeling that the dense protagonist was a clear homage to Roger Wilco of the classic point-and-click adventure seriesSpace Quest."

Everyone thinks this... but I've barely ever played a Space Quest game!  (Shocking admission I know...)

"I won’t spoil the details of the demo here, due to the fact that I believe players should get their hands on it themselves. If you’re up for a sci-fi adventure to satisfy your inner nerd, or even just a promising adventure game, then I would urge you to try the demo for Captain Disaster In: Death Has A Million Stomping Boots."

Poll results so far:

We asked:

BE HONEST... WHEN PLAYING THE DEMO, DID YOU FIND THE IRON RING OKAY?

You've said (so far):

Yes, easily	5 (38%)
Yes, took a while to work out how though	7 (53%)
No, I needed to look up a hint online	0 (0%)
No, I'm still stuck!	1 (7%)
Er... what iron ring?!?!	0 (0%)

So, 5 found it easily, 7 after some thought, and only one person still stuck.  (To that person... if you're still stuck, try looking here...)

Still plenty of time to vote...

Latest download stats

From AGS: 293

From ModDB: 31

Total: 324 downloads

(There are probably a few other sites that are hosting the demo download now but I'm not about to try to keep track of them all!!)

If possible we're encouraging people to download and leave comments / ratings on the AGS games page.

Comments so far:

The overall production quality of this demo is top notch. The animations are fantastic, the humor is lovely, the references are many, definitely a wonderful game.

I really liked it. I thought it was funny and engaging and challenging without being too frustrating. I really wanted to keep playing and would have bought it immediately if game was complete.

I really loved this demo and literally laughed out loud at certain parts of the demo! I can't wait for the full game, the humour is brilliant and the voice acting really adds to the experience! Great job guys!

I really enjoyed the demo and I look forward to the full game.

Ratings so far:

8 people have rated this game so far:

If you've played this game, why not rate it!
Rate It Now

Visual:

78%

Immersion:

72%

Puzzles & Pacing:

91%

Overall Enjoyment:

78%

CD demo review on DIYGamer

A nice review of the demo for Captain Disaster in Death Has a Million Stomping Boots has appeared on DIYGamer.com.

Some quotes from the review (well, preview, but it's the same thing really!):

"Captain Disaster in Death Has a Million Stomping Boots  is a great example of an AGS produced adventure game with a great sense of humor."

"As a fully-voiced, well animated game, you can tell a lot of effort has been put into the production of Captain Disaster."

"The demo for Captain Disaster in Death Has a Million Stomping Boots is a simple and short experience lasting roughly forty five minutes, it is ridiculously funny and filled with inside jokes to the science fiction genre."

"The puzzles weren’t too difficult, except for one that  made me  end up looking for the solution  on the Adventure Game Studioforums."

Sneak Preview of Captain Disaster in: There's a Hole in my Galaxy

I'm not going to give too much away right now, but just to give you a bit of a taste of what this game is going to be like...

It's a parody mixing up the plots of the FIRST and LAST ever episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation (with quite a lot of Red Dwarf thrown in as well).

More details to be released soon...

Team Disaster announces new freeware Captain Disaster game in development

Well folks, development of Captain Disaster in Death Has a Million Stomping Boots is ongoing, but we are happy to announce that another game is being developed in tandem with this - Captain Disaster in: There's a Hole in my Galaxy!  This second game will be completely different to DHAMSB, and will be released as a freeware title; it will be a smaller game with a much shorter development cycle than Stomping Boots has.  Neither with There's a Hole in my Galaxy feature any boots, stomping or otherwise.

Two new team members, a programmer and an artist / animator, have recently joined Team Disaster, and we will be introducing you to them properly soon...

Keep visiting the dev blog for more news on both games, or you could join up to our of our social media outlets for the latest news too.

Onto the rest of the game...

So now that the demo is well and truly out there, and we have received a lot of encouraging feedback (and only one report of a game-breaking bug - fixed now!), it's time to really get our teeth into the main game - although for the section of the game that the demo covers, we are going to add a few extra bits and pieces so it's a nice surprise for you when you play the full game!

More news soon...

Another mention, another download location...

Okay, so you're probably not looking for another place to download Captain Disaster in Death Has a Million Stomping Boots demo from... but if you were (just pretend), that other place would be GameFront.com.

We got a nice mention in Wraithkals' Indie Update - the fifth game in the overview of the week's releases.  In particular I appreciate the fact that they've bothered to write someting about the demo themselves rather than simply rip text from another site (which I've already seen done about the demo more times than I can count!)

"Captain Disaster in Death Has A Million Stomping Boots is full of clichéd jokes and pop culture references with old-school visuals to boot!"

We have ratings!

At long last, 5 whole people have rated our demo on the AGS games page... and good ratings they've given to.  We'll see how the averages pan out as more people vote, but the reaction is very encouraging so far!  Especially pleased about people's opinions of the puzzles and pacing of course!

Hints and Tips...

Yay, the demo is officially not too easy!  We now have our own thread in the Hints and Tips section of the AGS forums.

Here's the thread... just in case you get stuck (I'm sure you won't... :-D)

Linux User? No problem!

It hadn't really occurred to me to think about whether our game would be compatible with other operating systems although I know several projects are under way to post AGS games to other systems.  Anyway, slightly unexpectedly I got a report back from someone that they were playing it on Linux, Ubuntu 12.04 64-bit with Wine, and apparently it works perfectly - which is nice!  So if you're a Linux user, hopefully that won't rule you out from playing the demo!

You can download the playable demo of Captain Disaster in Death Has a Million Stomping Boots from AGS or ModDb.

What they've said about the Captain Disaster Demo - GameBoomers forums

"What a great little game! I tried the demo and was able to complete it without help! Unusual for me... Will be buying this one when it is complete. -- I thought it had a great funny/cute factor!"

"I think you're off to a great start and I look forward to seeing the whole game. Keep up the good work!"

"Fun game! Looking forward to the full version also."

What they's said about the Captain Disaster Demo - The AGS Games Page

"I really liked it. I thought it was funny and engaging and challenging without being too frustrating. I really wanted to keep playing and would have bought it immediately if game was complete."

"I really loved this demo and literally laughed out loud at certain parts of the demo! I can't wait for the full game, the humour is brilliant and the voice acting really adds to the experience! Great job guys!"

"I really enjoyed the demo and I look forward to the full game."

Stats and Polls...

Downloads from AGS: 222
Downloads from ModDB: 16
Total downloads: 238

In the poll, opinion seems to be strongly in favour of the iron ring puzzle not being too difficult.  A surprise given some of the feedback we've had, but quite a bit of time left for others to vote yet...