Hurrah! It’s Ada Lovelace day!

What’s this got to do about suicidal robots? Naff all. But, it does have an awful lot to do with our next game (for Channel 4) which, as some of you know, is codenamed ‘Ada’.

No, we’re not making a game directly about the wonderful Ada Lovelace (the world’s first computer programmer… read the wikipedia, it’s mind-blowing) but she has very much been an inspiration to all of us. 

The game we’re working on is about as different to Plain Sight as you can get. It’s an adventure puzzler with a focus on real science and discovery.

We’re keeping a great deal under wraps, however here’s some eyecandy for you.

On a unrelated note :

Before launch, we’ve decided to purge the Beatnik Games member database. Over the last couple of years we’ve been thoroughly abused by spam bots. If you fall under any of the following criteria, your account is dead:

1)  You’re a standard forum member (ie. didn’t take part in gamma test) who hasn’t posted in over a year.

2)  Your email address is from Russia and you’ve never logged in or contributed.

3)  You posted some spam-like URL / Bio info in your account description

If we accidentally deleted your account - sorry! Simply register again…

Due to unforseen circumstances, I’m afraid we’ve had to push the launch date of Plain Sight back by 2 weeks. So, the 5th of April is the new date.

It sucks, I know, but the game will be better for it.

- The Management.
 

Hello people..

We have finally got round to bringing you a shiny Beatnik Games Facebook page.

Complete with lots of exclusive Plain Sight screenshots and photos of us larking around in our natural habitat, (well only few of us larking around - we’re mostly sweating bullets getting Plain Sight ready for launch….... one week left!)

Beatnik Games Facebook page

So join up and get involved - feel free to post your own pictures of you being exceptionally excited by the impending launch of Plain Sight, your love of robots…or just drop by and say ‘ello’.

Greetings Robot Lovers,

Here’s a lovingly crafted gameplay trailer showing off many of the jumping,smashing soaring wonders of Plain Sight. Enjoy!

Whilst lovingly (and sometimes inappropriately) putting the finishing touches to Plain Sight, we finally got around to getting some music. 

Christopher Chong, the incredibly talented brains behind MajorC Audio (other keys available upon request), took on the task of fusing suicidal robot madness and jazz. 

Here’s a quick snippet of what he came up with.

  Plain Sight Title Screen Music (preview)

During a Sunday afternoon file purge, I stumbled across this old video from August 2008:

It was recorded the week we finally got networking “working” the visual style Plain Sight down pat. It was basically unplayable, but that didn’t stop us being massively excited.

From a developer perspective, it’s incredibly weird to re-watch/play early iterations of a game. Everything looks so similar, but you know there’s not one line of code or art asset that hasn’t been changed a hundred times. 

Yes, we totally underestimated the amount of work that needed to be done, but at least we never digressed from the original vision. I think that’s pretty impressive …

So, after nearly 2 years we’ve got a REAL release date for Plain Sight. It’s the 22nd of March. It’s set in stone and, obviously, we’re now bricking it…

This means we also have the final feature list, here it is:

• - 13 Multiplayer maps

 
• - Battle up to 20 players

 
• - 5 self-destructive gameplay modes:



• Deathmatch
 
• Ninja! Ninja! Ninja! Robozilla! – mini ninjas unite to bring the gargantuan Robozilla down to size!
 
• Lighten Up – Detonate on a target area with as much energy as possible, the best detonation wins the points for that round.
 
• Team Deathmatch / Weakest Clink – Play a standard Team Deathmatch or up the stakes by having a communal score bank.
 
• Capture the Flag – Well, it looks more like a beacon… but the gameplay is the same.

 

• - Level the playing field with in-game power-ups



 

• - Spend your experience points on 30 different robot upgrades



 

• - Perfect your skills in offline practice mode



 

• - Ships with dedicated server software



 

• - Steam achivements

..and a price: $9.99

That’s dirt cheap. I doubt it’d get you two pints in London, so you have no excuse not to buy it.

Anyway, the game is going to be on Steam, Direct 2 Drive, Impulse, GameTap, Metaboli, Gamers Gate and Get Games Go

Currently, only our Steam page is up and running.   We’re cranking up our marketing machine and shall be having a final (v.brief) open test of the game before launch.  

It’s all Jacks fault!  Blame him!

Look how smug he is! It’s sickening…

This is nothing to do with Plain Sight, but we figured we’d show you something to do with the Channel 4 project we’re working on.

It’s in Unity, so all you have to do is click here and (fingers crossed) it should pop up in a new window.

There are no guns, points or robots - just a vertical slice of the environment art style. Most of this was done by our resident environment guru Jack in 2 weeks – impressive stuff!  

In Plain Sight news; there’s a big patch coming out next week. It’ll have new gameplay modes, millions of fixes and a brushed up UI. It’s looking pretty ace and is certainly something we’re keen to show off to a boatload of people. So, if the servers are feeling a little empty, nil desperandum, things will pick up soon…