When the world collapses around you.....wake up!!!

It's about time I come to grips with this. Man have I been struggling hard with this decision. I'm officially putting the Xbox and PlayStation versions of ADHD on indefinite hiatus. Even as I type this I can’t quite say it’s DEFINITE, just….not now or in the foreseeable future. It has not been for lack of trying that’s for damn sure. It just seems like every time I get to “finishing up” those versions there’s a new update, or something breaks to the point where it takes me back a couple hundred steps. I keep telling myself “Hey you fucking released the game on a console that didn’t even exist when you started this endeavor.” Hell this was originally supposed to release on the PlayStation Vita. Be proud of something. It’s an accomplishment for damn sure. It’s been a crazy fucking ride folks. Some behind the scenes stuff that has crushed me to no end, but I can only hope she’d be proud of my moving forward.

There is, and always will be a light at the end of this tunnel. Always. Positive. Glass half full.

At the very least now that I got leaderboards working (still need to finalize them) I can commit to pushing the update for Switch, and leaving Early Access on Steam. Steam, for the most part, has been fully functional for a while now. Achievements and all. Albeit on a private branch.

I hope y’all understand. If there’s one thing to take from this the new project I’d been teasing for awhile now will have my full attention. You don’t make your first game without learning a few things. You don’t walk into the woods without making a few friends and lighting some fires. You don’t make friends like @legolamaniac, and NOT thank him for every second he’s spent teaching you things.

To everybody who’s stuck around this long…I hope to not let you down and I thank you, sincerely from the pits of my heart for sticking around. If you thought my energy was high during ADHD’s lifespan. Well, you haven’t seen anything yet. It’s extremely difficult letting something go…extremely...difficult, but when you are given signs in multiple ways…it’s time.

Never lose sight of your mission. Never give up, but know when to own up and call it.

Risk ‘Em Up!!!!

<3 Jaycee - #arcadeIsNotDeadAndNeitherAmI

You can, as always, continue to get dev updates here or over on Discord.gg/AskAnEnemyStudios

Arcade is NOT dead. It's in repose. Awake my dear.

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The first design I came up with. My brother put this together for me using a left over PC case and parts he had laying around. I took this with me to SAAM Arcade in 2017. This event took place in Washington, D.C. at the Smithsonian Museum of Art.

Well. Today would have been the day I boarded my flight to Seattle for PAX West 2021. I mentioned in my last post that I was working towards making this “one to remember.” So here it is. My boy Matt over at Stronghold, the folks who have continued to include ADHD in their competition, has been one solid dude. It’s thanks to him, and my brother but more on that later, that I can write up this post. An Arcade Cab for ADHD is in the works and I was hoping to reveal it at PAX West 2021. That won’t be happening. The unveiling at least. That’s one of the many reasons I was extremely disappointed in having to cancel Ask An Enemy Studios’ presence.

My buddy Rob at Three Flip Studios got me started with his EXTREMELY helpful direction, words of encouragement, and what seemed like an unlimited list of resources for making arcade cabs. After all he and his team created one for their game Armed and Gelatinous which you should absolutely check out. There’s a demo available on Xbox, but you can also check out their Steam page.

I decided to go with a classic cab that I grew up playing megaton fucks of when I could find it at local arcades. That game? Defender. I always found this game intriguing based on it’s controls and gameplay. You couldn’t move left and right by traditional means. You could only “thrust” or go in “reverse.” My buddy Mo, of VertexPop, has come the closest to nailing this mechanic with his game Graceful Explosion Machine. I’m proud to call that guy my friend. So it’s only fitting that I pay homage to Defender’s weird control scheme with my own. Even if it’s a deep cut no one will ever notice.

What kind of kid who grew up like I did wouldn’t want an arcade cab of his own right? Well now add on top of that a custom arcade cab of a game that he created!!! That kid would absolutely shat, and shatted I have. It just turns out that my brother happened to start up his own fabrication company right at the time that I needed his help the most. If it weren’t for him and Matt this thing would absolutely not exist. At least not in this time frame. It’s still not 100% complete, but I’m heading over to his place today to start fine tuning the control layout. Which has gone through multiple iterations. After so many it suddenly clicked that I should go with what felt like “keyboard and mouse” controls.

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The current layout as it stands. The trackball casing is actually a fucking beast which required some “modifications” to allow for the rest of the buttons to fit this specific layout. No artwork yet. That’s…in the making ;)

The HR-D’s layout is very reminiscent of what the KB layout is like. For those familiar, imagine WASD controls with Left Shift, and Spacebar as the main components. While the DF-R uses a trackball for movement, and your index, middle, and ring finger for the rest of it’s layout. The “gimmicky” thing I wanted to go for was in the layout for Extraction. I felt like having the Assault and Recovery Extract buttons at the top of the cab by the marquee would be soooo stupid it would be cool. Remove your hands from the controls and raise them up in the air all Fred Durst style and EXTRACT!! That was dumb. Primarily though because my brother came up with the genius idea of allowing the control panel to be removed in case I needed to, or was only able to, take it with me to shows. If the cab itself became a hindrance at the very least the control panel is always available for travel. I’ve yet to see how he plans to implement this, but I have no doubts he can do it. 

It’s still a work in progress and the artwork of course is missing, but man is it going to look fucking unbelievable once it’s done. I’m hoping, with my fingers crossed so tight, I might just lose ‘em, that PAX South 2022 is a go! If so that might just be the first place anyone gets to see it, and most importantly play it. In the meantime I still have some work to do, because believe me as fucking rad as this thing is I’m extremely excited and hella looking forward to the next project. 

<3 Jaycee

PAX West 2021...Mask 'Em Up...

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Hello everyone. It’s with extreme disappointment that I make this announcement today, but I’ve had to pull Ask An Enemy Studios from PAX West 2021. Everything was ready to go. Hotel, flight, planning, and booth space. Less than three weeks to go!!!! It wasn’t until the folks at ReedPOP, the event organizers, decided to require proof of vaccination, or a negative COVID test that things became difficult.

I am not vaccinated, nor was I planning on it, by the time PAX West came around. When the invitations for PAX West showed up they provided exhibitors with the list of requirements, extensive and restrictive as they were, I was still all about it. No testing or vaccinations were required only the aforementioned restrictions which included things like masks all day errday, hand sanitizer at booth (you all know that’s a staple of AAES booths), no hugs, handshakes, and only 3 people allowed at the booth to name a few. Also this is with each booth spaced out by MATH and 50 to 60 percent capacity for the event. You all know how much I live off of these events. Even if only one person showed up I’d PAX the fuck outta their face with what AAES is all about as I always have and will continue to do. So upon hearing the news that PAX West 2021 was a go I was on it and immediately began planning how to make this a PAX West to remember. I’ll post about that separately later ;)

About two weeks ago I randomly opened up Twitter and happened to see the announcement that proof of vaccination, or a negative COVID test were required (https://west.paxsite.com/en-us/info/news/health-and-safety-update.html). They didn’t email exhibitors about this. I had to reach out. So I started looking for places to test in the Seattle area. Let me tell you it’s no easy feat without jumping through hoops or imposing on friends. After all it’s not their responsibility to help you with a decision you have decided to make. Also, that’s not even getting into how the results of the test would affect my ability to show up and work my booth regardless of whether I had symptoms and could work through them or not. Here’s what it boils down to. Given this disaster of a disease and the response to it, from all angles, I’ve always been firmly, and will continue to be, in the camp that the individual must make fully informed decisions to the best of their knowledge and own them. I can only assume everyone else who planned on attending the event did as well.

I’ve gone back and forth with ReedPOP about where to test, what test was acceptable, and without getting too much into the weeds I came across “at-home” self tests that I could take every morning before the event (https://store.optum.com/shop/products/abbott-binaxNOW-COVID-19-ag-at-home-test-kit-3-pack). While it meets all the requirements they aren’t accepted. Apparently you can prove you had the vaccine on the honor system, but not a negative test? They also, inexplicably, don’t take natural immunity into account. I can’t risk putting all this work into an event then losing access to my booth based on something that is completely out of my control. I’ll just get back to work and hope San Antonio doesn’t cave and allows ReedPOP to follow through with PAX South 2022. “Game Design” Drop out. No prior programming experience. Failed Kickstarter. Publishers and now COVID said “not today!” FUCKING. BRING IT 2022!!!

Bittersweet: The Indie MEGABOOTH Going Away (For Now) Sale on Steam!!

If you (or an enemy :D) are still on the fence about picking up A Duel Hand Disaster: Trackher I'll be streaming it during the Indie MEGABOOTH Going Away (for now) Sale on Steam so you can tell me to my face how much it sucks because it's hard. Yeah. Well so is life and you don't.....actually you do see people complain about it, but I digress. I, along with 150 other devs, were fortunate enough to be part of a surprise sale that Kelly Wallick and the rest of the IMB team cooked up. It'll be fully featured on Steam during the week of May 5th through the weekend.

I chose two spots specifically since there's a chance to get the stream featured directly on the IMB Steam Page. So stop by and say hello. Tuesday, May 5th @ 6PM MST, or Saturday, May

9th @ 12PM MST.

It's a motherfucking honor. Unlike other dev success stories I wasn’t fortunate enough to land a publishing deal from showing at IMB, but what it did do for me was hella more personal, and hella more beneficial in the long run. I can only hope I earned the respect of the people I’ve met along the way. IMB kept me focused on a goal. It kept me aiming for something, and because of all the games that were light years ahead of mine it kept me on my fucking toes. I literally dropped everything to work on this game. I practically stopped being a musician, which was NOT an easy call. Not in the least. Has this all been worth it? Tune in and see if that fucking smile on my face has anything to say about it.

Stay positive. Stay focused. Stay the course. Only you can prevent forest fires.

Here’s the official announcement: https://indiemegabooth.com/imb-going-away-for-now-sale-game-list/

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year Everbody!!

Look into my Optim-eyes!!

UPDATE:  http://east.paxsite.com/indie

Ok folks, I’m gonna be spending the next couple of days, if not weeks, doing some optimization on Switch. So Steam updates may be a bit slower, than usual ;) I finally got a build running as it’s been awhile since I’ve been able to do that due to a Unity issue (currently on 2018.3.5f1, I started this thing in Unity 4.2!!!! AHAHAHA FUCK).

So when I started experimenting with VR I created two render textures, one for each side, and that created some other “issues” but ultimately helped in others ways as well. Game devin’ as I’m sure you know is always a give and take on certain things. Last night I started tweaking the rez on those render textures, as they were both rendering at 1920x1080. EACH. When I brought each one down to 1280x720 I got a boost from 28FPS to roughly 45-52FPS so there’s that. Also that’s while the Switch is docked. When it’s in portable mode it’s still at 28FPS. The reasons for this are plentiful I’m sure and it’s these types of things I wish I could have learned from a college education, but I didn’t so I learn the hard way. I ain’t even mad. Fuck ‘em!

There’s a ton of stuff I could have done carelessly under the hood like oversizing textures, not compressing audio, foolishly using coroutines. A whole bevy of stuff. Obviously any optimizations I do on Switch will undoubtedly benefit PC, as I’ve already seen just based on the render texture stuff.

In addition to this though I’ll also be finishing up the leaderboards and such with my boy Vortex (and hopefully I can finally call on my boy Blaze’s skills as well <3.

This thing is getting closer and closer and closer to being done. You don’t even know the feeling I have right now, but as I’ve said before I FUCKING LOVE YOU GUYS!!! It’s been rad and I’ll see you at either SXSW 2019, GDC 2019, or PAX East 2019!!!

<3 Jaycee

v0.9.9b0127 - The No Taxation without Representation Update :D

This update introduces a massive change to the scoring system. I’ve been observing how you guys have been playing the game non-stop over the last 4 years changing and manipulating what’s there to give you all hopefully the most engaging experience. You may have also noted the bump from 0.9.8 to 0.9.9. Yeah ;)

Balance is not easy. While I want to challenge the fuck outta you, I also don’t want to overwhelm or intimidate new players. I personally think so far that’s worked out. Every time a new player comes up (at events) they always doubt themselves, but once they jump in, if it clicks with them of course, they start to ask how other players get the scores they see, and that is all I’ve ever asked for. Hell I’ve seen people that have been playing it for quite some time and are still finding out they can do certain things they weren’t even aware of. Documenting this all though is going to be a bitch, but I’m hoping through the flow of gameplay it all makes sense. Complicated mechanics for the sake of it isn’t very interesting or fun. Complicated mechanics with a purpose are my goal. It’s ultimately up to you all if I nailed it or not.

So here we go.

For the sake of keeping this nice and tight I’ll only go into what has changed. All the basics remain the same except the calculations for the most part.

- Cost -

Blacking Out will now only require finding 2 Parts, however the actual restore will cost 20% of your Material Stock in addition to the Parts.

Activating Shields will now cost 3% of your Material Stock.

Restoring your link will cost 1% of your Material Stock.

- Changes -

First let’s start with the Material Multiplier. You can now activate a Material Multiplier once you activate your Shield Multiplier. Every third Material chains the multiplier, Shield Bashing a Tracker while using Time Directive counts towards the chain, while Shield Bashing a damaged Tracker will cause an insta-chain. What kills the multiplier? Getting hit by a Tracker while standing still. If you lose your Shield Multiplier and a Material Multiplier is active the MM will continue cooling down allowing you time to reactivate the SM otherwise you will lose the MM if cooldown completes. The reasoning behind this was to motivate you to stay in Chaos Mode. As always though that is your choice to make :)

Second, your Shield Buff (the bubble that forms immediately after activating shields) will now auto pick up Material which counts towards your EVA Control Bonus. In addition it now only damages nearby Trackers instead of also destroying them. This just felt better because it means you can now Shield Bash immediately after and get rewarded for it. Before this change the feeling was comparable to some asshole pulling out of a “trust fall.” You can trust me now ;) Also your BFP Material pick up, or BFPMPU if you will, also counts towards your EVA Control Bonus, or EVACB :D

Third, your Kite Bonus now also affects the amount of Material you pick up. Essentially this now doubles the Material at base value. So you have a choice of either doubling your Material pick up or using the Stackher Bonus (circling a Resource while Kiting stacks the Kite Bonus, you knew this right?) and yes the Material Multiplier applies to the KBMM as well ;)

Fourth, Rushin’ Firewall now applies a Material Bonus as well. Picking up Material while the Rushin’ Firewall caves in multiplies the amount of Material by 5 at each stage of the cave.

The MM works in the same way the SM does in that it’s an overall multiplier while all other Material Bonuses are stacked. The basic math is as follows: (Base Material + Rushin’ FireWall Amount + EVA Material Amount) * Material Multiplier = Good Times.

Other things that I’ve changed are finally adding the water effect/shader to the Assault Side. It’s been missing it for far too long and I finally found one I’m happy with that’s extremely performant. I also gave the Recovery Side a slightly heavier depth of field effect. I still can’t quite get it to where I used to have it, but Unity changed their algorithms for Depth of Field and Bloom in the Post Processing Stack v2 enough so that it’s hard to get it just right. Apparently they are more efficient now so who am I to argue with that.

FIXED:

• EVA Callout for 20XX

• Material Gathering Display should now properly animate every time Material is recovered

• ScreenGlitch during a transfer from Critical Health to Sliver Bullet status

• ScoreCatergory on Mission Failed / Mission Accomplished

ADDED:

• Score Category has been added to Mission Failed / Mission Accomplished because hey why not :)

PAX South 2019 - Achievement Unlocked : #dedication

Holy shit. Where do I even start with this. So back during PAX South 2018 I met this solid dude who goes by the hand Roto Mola. So solid I featured him in the E.V.A is watching video I uploaded to YouTube. Long story short Roto likes to wreck some shit with math. Back in 2018 LTHummus from the Discord earned an achievement in his name for breaking the leaderboards which at the time was still using an Int32. The max score you could get back then was exactly 2,147,483,647. What happens when you go over that is a story for another time, but all I’ll say is it’s fucking awesome.

Roto, not one to face down a challenge, decided he wanted to hit that score exactly. He didn’t want to go over, or under but hit it exactly. What you need to understand is that it’s NOT THAT EASY. Roto spent days doing the math of what Assault Score and Material he needed to get so that he could reach that score and he did it. God damn he did it. Achievement Unlocked - Roto Mola done wreck shit with math.

Fast forward to 2019. Roto shows up, knowing the leaderboards were “fixed” he now set out, on the show floor mind you, to reach the unsigned max Int 32 which was 4,294,967,295. Give or take a point. He explained it to me but math. Anyway, much love and respect for this dude who I just cannot say enough nice things about for spending this much of his time on this game.

Roto, sincerely man, thank you. Double the achievement. Double the fun. Your name will live in ADHD eternity, or until the Terminators wipe us all out.

<3 Jaycee

v0.9.8b1758 - Merry Fucking Christmas y’all!!!

v0.9.8b1758 - (PC / macOS - thequarry) Man where do I even begin - LEADERBOARDS ARE STILL BUSTED AS FUCK AND NOT WORKING IN THE BUILD

CHANGED:

- removed Wager System and replaced it with Investment / Capital | if you Extract, your previous score becomes an Investment and if you reach it on your next run it becomes Capital. If you then Extract with it you will earn it on top of what your current run was. Yeah, it can get pretty extreme ;)

- The UI Layout is different on many fronts | TitleScreen layout ( notice the new cam positions based on what option you are on :D | in game UI is new | Pause Menu UI all still WIP ofcourse

ADDED:

- **NEW** EVAControl Type : 20XX

Known Issues - Leaderboards not working, Activating Sheilds cam is a bit unpredictable,  sadly I can't get my Windows 7 ISO to install on my old iMac which is the only method I have of testing a Win7 build, meaning I obviously have not had a chance to test if that's still broken

This build is primarily meant for you guys to try and break and report back while I try to finish up everything else. Merry Fucking Christmas y'all. I FUCKING LOVE YOU ALL TO DEATH!!!!!

The new Leaderboard system and placement of UI

I've been hard at work on getting the new UI layout and Leaderobard system up and running. Transitioned over to Gamesparks since it offers a hella rad feature set. One of those being Daily leaderboards. A score based game isn't complete without a Daily Leaderboard ;) In addition, Gamesparks theoretically makes it "easier" to implement console leaderboards which, in these final moments of production, is going to prove absolutely crucial. Currently they will be setup as one Leaderboard for all platforms. For obvious reasons though I can't show what platform each score was earned on, at least not yet, that may or may not change. 

Since leaderboards are a huge part of the game I've made them front and center on the title screen with a spiffy animation that shows all three Tears and simply toggles between them every 10 seconds. The title screen highlights the number one spot in each Tear. To see the full leaderboard go to Epilogue as usual.

In addition to the leaderboard I've also been working on a cleaner UI layout so I moved all your Status elements to the center with another spiffy animation. I wish I could use GIFs but Steam. So in the meantime you get these static jpegs.

As always the branch that will get the update first is thequarry so if you want bleeding edge you get bleeding edge. I want to push it out sooner rather than later so also expect it to be a bit broken at first and thank my buddy Vortex on Discord since he's doing a ton of the heavy lifting ;)

<3 Jaycee

P.S. See you at PAX South 2019!!!

v0.9.8b1064 - The Informant is watching

Holy shit this update seems like it's taken me forever to put out, but hey it's on the "thequarry" for peeps to test and break, and believe me things will break. As usual it'll be live for everyone else really soon. If you want to join the edge of bleeding edge the password is : arcadeIsNotDead

Here's the summary


ADDED:
- On Mission Failed you will now get a replay of how you failed. This is still a WIP and is glitchy as all hell, but should give you a pretty good idea of what to expect
#knownIssues - sometimes the previous replay will not be cleared and sometimes causes the game to crash. Dying by Rushin' Firewall is still not working properly

CHANGED:
- to help with replays I had to resort to drastic measures meaning I moved from using object pooling on some objects like Trackers, and Fireballs on the RecoverySide. What this means is you may experience some light to massive hitching, more so when chaos is activated. If you do, and it becomes a problem please let me know in the discord and I'll immediately start working on fixing it or finding a way to resort back to object pooling.

Get ready for shit to break.

v0.9.7b100 - Branch: thequarry (PC/macOS)

v0.9.7b100 (thequarry - PC/macOS)

ADDED:

- sound cue differentiation between Protecther during Resource Retrieval and Protecther while Shield Boosting Trackers

FIXED:

- calculation of PowerCell points when nuking the screen

__

v0.9.7b99 (thequarry - PC/macOS) - changes to Antifact/TimeCrisis | Parts/Material retrieval

CHANGED:

- Standard Rate at which Material and Parts are retrieved has been lowered to allow for more time to adjust new players and help with protection

- #esports retrieval speed still available ;)

- TimeCrisis is now based on movement instead of shooting (use the ScatterShot till your little heart is content)

ADDED:

- Antifact now rewards the player and stacks on each successful fact based debate ;)

FIXED:

- Aborting Antifact on Blackout should no longer lock up control (fingers crossed)

*updated* - RocketMan now calculates correctly: Satan 2 Online Indeed

v0.9.7b89 - (thequarry - PC/macOS) You can Max that Multi, but you can't Tuna Fish

UPDATE: the 0.9.7 update should now be available to all ;) Enjoy!!

Just some quick patch notes on the latest build that has been pushed to thequarry branch. Again if you'd like to access thequarry stop by the Discord and get the password, otherwise it should be live on the main branch fairly soon.

ADDED:

• AudioCallouts for EVAControlTypes on Tear 3 | still need some cleaning up / sound engineering
• AudioCallouts for Weapons/Defenses | still need some cleaning up / sound engineering
• Discord logo to TitleScreen because PIMP - TEMP Text to TitleScreen : Welcome to PAX East 2018 Mothafuckas!!

CHANGED:

• Multiplier is no longer capped at 10 #rock #esports
• All Weapons are now available from the outset of Tear 3 | Weapons, not Defenses :D
• Missile name because why not

FIXED:

• Damage Screen now uses a new full screen Image so damage flash looks radder, espeically while in PIP
• Blurryness for you 1440p and above folk, although temporary while I transition over to the Post-Processing Stack v2
• too many small miscellaneous things under the hood, for example started the transition over to TextMesh Pro :D

Update 0.9.6 - The massively subtle update

Last night I pushed an update to the Quarry branch which brings with it a pretty subtle, but massive change. You can keep your score on the leaderboard. Hold on, hold on, don’t get too excited.

From the beginning I’ve been wanting players to be aggressive, take advantage of every option that’s there, and push themselves out of their comfort zone. I can honestly say so far I think it’s worked, however there is one time where it feels like it goes against you, and it’s not quite “fair” for lack of a better word. Specifically when you immediately get Death Sentence. AHAHAHAHAHA..sorry. Haha. Now that Tear 3 consists of plenty more EVAControlTypes, some are super brutal, I feel like earning your position on the leaderboard is well deserved, however you can always do better, and that’s always the point. You still must EXTRACT. That will never change. Think of it like a credit card. You can borrow whatever you want, but you must be willing to pay it back. Dying during Bloody Sunday in Tear 3 will still wipe your leaderboard position across all Tears. You are still held accountable for your actions of course. You wanna be hardcore, you pay the hardcore price.

So, EXTRACTION still stands as that is the WHOLE purpose of the game, obviously, but I’m willing to give this a shot and see how it goes over. It’s currently only available to thequarry branch as I need to test and see if anything’s broken and it should be up for all soon.

As always do not hesitate to let me know what you think.

#arcadeIsNotDead

The bleeding edge branch and the 0.9.5 update

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UPDATE: The Tear 3 "empty" EVAControlType bug should be fixed. It seems DeathSentence was the culprit. You should now only be able to find other bugs ;)

The 0.9.5 update is now live on “thequarry” branch. As soon as I get some solid testing on it. It’ll go live on the default branch. For all of you that want to give it a whirl stop by the discord for the password to the branch. I wanted to wipe the leaderboards entirely for a clean slate but I’ll wait to see how everything holds up as is and decide whether to wipe the leaderboards once the update is live on the Main branch.

What’s new in 0.9.5?

FEATURES:

• Leaderboards now show up in the TitleScreen and GameOver Screen all Pro like #esports

• Leadboards now support int64 which means you now have the ability to earn a score exponentially higher than 2 billion points. Believe it or not it’s very, very possible. #extractOrGTFO

• Title Screen is more pimp with fancy animations that should make the ladies cream. Still not finished though, remember, early access and all.

• You can now toggle leaderboards by Tear using the bumpers, using the triggers toggles pages,

• Coming in the next update toggling Leaderboards by Global Competition, Friendly Competition, and Your current position (Class)

• All new EVAControlTypes in Tear 3: Trump Shake Up, Sank UR Weary State, Phantom Pain, Time Crisis, Crooked Hillarity, Bloody Sunday

Known Issues:

• After successful extraction you will need to choose the next Tear. It will not auto increment at the moment. I will fix this in the next update.

• You are bound to find something I may have missed. If you do and want to report it stop by the Discord.
  

  If you want to access "thequarry" branch in your Steam Library, right click on the game name, choose properties, click on the beta tab and use the password: arcadeIsNotDead

A Duel Hand Disaster: Trackher will be at PSX 2017!!!

PSX 2017

Did you think 2017 was over. Not by a long shot folks. I've had PSX in my sights since the it's incarnation 4 years ago. Now it's a reality. See you in December Anahiem!!!

Achievement Unlocked: LTHummus broke the leaderboards

Over on the Discord for ADHD's Steam Early Access I posted a challenge. First person to break the leaderboards gets an achievement named after them. That challenge was accepted, and in due time destroyed.

So the thing is the first time I realized this was an issue was back at PAX South 2016. This dude Jeremy broke the leaderboards by taking advantage of the Kite Bonus in Tear 2 in combination with the Danger Sensor which slows down time. As you guys know I'm not a programmer by trade, or by any facet of recognition in that field, so what happened next was awesome. Everyone around him started to notice his score was going into the negative. This can happen if you shoot something you're not supposed to, however the score was dropping and raising at super high amounts. School can teach you something kids (depending on what you go for). Turns out that a signed 32-bit integer will not hold a value of more than 2,147,483,647. For anyone skilled in programming that is instatnly apparent. for someone like my dumbass nope.

I never knew that. Steam's leaderboards and I'm sure almost all others only allow you to "push" an int, so now I need to figure out how to do this. Over the last couple of months I've had plenty of friends reach out and try to come up with some "solution" but I haven't had the time to really look into them. Also I wanted to see how quickly someone could actually reach that high of a score once the game was out in the open. This is what Steam Early Access is all about. At the same time I need to work on some memory leak / resource management issues that have come up. Which also has become an issue now that players are actually playing to the level of Tear 3. I fucking love this and appreciate every fucking waking second of every day that people have been willing to play the game to this extent and doing what they do. You all know who you are.

Blaze has earned an Achievement, now LTHummus. Who's next? Stop by the Discord and find out  Maybe it's YOU!! :)

Now I have to get back to work on this stuff. Thank you all so much. Never hesitate to ask a question. 

<3 Jaycee

College dropout, failed Kickstarter, no prior experience, 'tis but a scratch

I'm not here for those who doubt what I can do, I'm here for those who respect what I've done

http://store.steampowered.com/app/515010

Kickstarter 2017: This nail needs hammering...

"All the records past yesterday, don't mean much to me, I'll play around with the suspense until my tomorrow ends"

After the the 24 hour livestream ended I contemplated immediately posting an update, but instead listened to my girlfriend’s advice and went straight to bed. Next thing I knew it was 10am the following day. First thing I did was make us breakfast. Some of the best cornbread waffles and eggs I’d made in a long while. I immediately got back to work, much to the chagrin of my extremely supportive lady friend. She requested, maybe pleaded, that I take the day off. I sorta did, but I never really can. 

I started to look back on what I’d learned from the process. One word, tons. However, one thing stood out over all. Email after email, event after event, no amount of video or spectating can do this game justice. People need to get their hands on the game to really understand it and have it sink it’s teeth into you, then have those people tell other people and allow them access to the game as well. If that access is not available the energy and the chain dies there. This doesn’t mean I believe the game to have some type of viral appeal, that would be idiotic. There were plenty of signs that pointed to this, but primary among them was SAAM Arcade, and the Nintendo Switch announcement. Just like the PS4 announcement early last year the trolls came out in droves talking their shit without ever having played the game, and as expected they weren’t counting on my dumbass coming in to set the record straight. The difference this time was that there were people in the comments who were actually coming out in it’s “defense.” Floored is an understatement.

So here’s the thing. I’ve always said I hate asking for money without giving something in return. Plenty of you have reached out and offered, some even way before this Kickstarter had even started <3<3<3, to give money or show some form of support for the game. I simply cannot express my gratitude to you guys enough. Seriously. 

I’ve had my reservations about this in the past, but I felt the same way about Kickstarter and here we are. I’m going to put the game into Early Access on Steam. You guys now have the choice of deciding whether or not to support the game directly. For those of you who would like the opportunity to “offer more support” it will be up on itch.io as well with a Steam Key included. I will not expect it, nor in any way demand it of you. You guys know who you are and regardless of your choice it will not in any way change my opinion of you. You guys have earned a super special place in my heart without any ounce of doubt.

When I was kid I could have never imagined I’d be releasing a game on a major console, let alone three. Let’s face it anyone can release a game on Steam, and I don’t mean that condescendingly in any way shape or form, it’s just that I personally see consoles as the ultimate form of “you made it.” Think about it as releasing an album on iTunes over putting the work into touring your ass off to make it sell millions and appearing on Conan, or SNL back when watching bands on SNL was worth it :D

Since the PC version of the game is currently the most complete, it’s also in a way the most daunting.  It’s the most open of the platforms; meaning tons of different combinations of CPUs, GPUs, memory, and of course OS’s, that it could actually benefit from Early Access. I don’t have to hire a third party company to do the testing we can do that together. I can test multiple setups of macOS, and yes even SteamOS. I know you all are out there. You're the ones who asked! So yes you guys will be helping me get the game ready for consoles. Again it’s your choice. I also don’t want to promise much in the way of new “features” or things of that nature, but who knows. The awesome thing is we’ll be on this venture together. Hell, if all you want to do is play the game that works also.

First on the agenda is getting these damn leaderboards where they need to be so who’s with me?

I’m currently doing this work in the background and getting this all set up with Valve. I’m hoping to announce this at PAX West 2017 since, you know, IndieMEGABOOTH and all. Obstacles are there to test your patience and the value of the objective to you and you alone. As I’ve always said I’m not here to spend time on those who doubt what I can do, I’m here for those who respect what I’ve actually done. 83 backers....

<3 Jaycee

A Duel Hand Disaster: Trackher - The Final 10% of Development is now live on Kickstarter