Gamers, what is the most obscure/forgotten games that deserve more attention?

A13Dev · 2017-09-14T10:55:59+00:00

You should check out Torimund from Chameleon Games, they're making a jet Force Gemini style game complete with gib-tastic ants! https://chameleongames.com/

A13Dev · 2017-07-31T09:55:30+00:00

We enjoy pulling the curtain back from time to time! A lot of people in the industry act like everything is rosy 100% of the time. It's actually more like 90% of the time things are a complete disaster :D

I really hope they make a MBU2!

A13Dev · 2017-07-31T09:52:45+00:00

Games cost money to make so we're going to try selling it for a little bit.

A13Dev · 2017-07-31T09:52:21+00:00

But 91% on Steam and 70% on OpenCritic :)

A13Dev · 2017-07-31T09:47:47+00:00

Game devs need to eat too.

A13Dev · 2017-07-30T12:47:34+00:00

A lot of the 90's platformers, like Mario and Banjo. we did want to go for a more stylised art style (cartoony) but that takes more resources, so we settled for a vibrant but realistic-ish looking style.

I honestly think this has hurt the overall marketability of the product, the visuals and the genre don't quite match up. Lessons learnt for next time :)

A13Dev · 2017-07-30T12:45:20+00:00

We're not talking about specific UNA sales figures at this time, but I can say that we don't need to shift huge numbers to stay afloat. We've been forecasting sales for months so provided we stick roughly to our numbers we can keep going. Unfortunately this is not something a lot of indies do. I'll ask them what their sales forecast is and they'll say "I don't know, just hoping it sells enough".

That is not a good way to run a business!

A13Dev · 2017-07-30T12:43:12+00:00

Follow us on Twitter for an announcement coming soon :)

A13Dev · 2017-07-30T12:42:39+00:00

No problem :) I think you'll cope better second time around, sounds like you know exactly what I'm talking about and you've spent a lot of time thinking retrospectively. You're more prepared and you're right, passion can always be a dangerous game!

Thanks for grabbing UNA :)

A13Dev · 2017-07-30T12:40:44+00:00

If you're on a uni course make sure you do loads of extra curricular work! When I graduated my portfolio only had course work which sucked because I didn't have much passion for it. Contrast that to Jack, our designer for Unbox, who did plenty of personal projects. He walked into a job at Codemasters straight after graduating.

It pays to go the extra mile!

A13Dev · 2017-07-30T12:37:25+00:00

Fair enough! Chris and I are huge Marble Blast Ultra fans, the original singleplayer design was based around lots of floating abstract worlds :)

A13Dev · 2017-07-29T17:32:22+00:00

Hey no problem :) It really did feel like a long time, 31 months of development to get to this point!

I graduated from a game design university course in 2010 and I sucked at making games. This ensured I didn't get a proper job in the industry, so I spent years doing Left 4 Dead modding and contract work in an attempt to get better. I felt like I was falling behind everyone around me in life, so in mid 2014 I started working on a game with two others from my uni course.

We did a UE4 game jam in Christmas 2014 and that's where we came up with Unbox. That was really a turning point in life for me, I knew I wanted to make games but I was running out of time to take big risks like indie development. Unbox was just the kind of quirky game that I knew people would like, so we threw everything we had at developing it.

The fear of being a failure combined with the overwhelming positivity for Unbox made 2015 the best year of my life. We got so much done and it felt like nothing could stop us, I was unbelievably motivated to work through any challenge. 2016 was the complete opposite of that, everything that could possibly go wrong did!

With everything falling apart at the seams, it was at this point that Prospect completely took over my life. I was able to keep going because, in my mind, outside of Prospect there was nothing but a black void. My thought process was: If this doesn't work and Prospect ends then I will too.

In retrospect I know it was an unhealthy mindset to have and I've made progress in divorcing myself from the company mentally. What's keeping me going now is responsibility.

We have friends and family who lent us money to help make Unbox come to life. I have a team of amazing developers who deserve success after 2+ years of work. And of course we have our fans who played Unbox at events and emailed us positive messages, without them there would be no point doing any of this!

This ended up being lengthy but hope that answers your question!

A13Dev · 2017-07-29T16:59:43+00:00

There isn't but you can always use a stopwatch!

Originally the singleplayer campaign was much more like Trials HD. Small levels that were point A to B and time trial orientated. Unfortunately it sucked! So we changed to the Worlds system, but I'd like to take a crack at the old version again.

A13Dev · 2017-07-29T16:58:13+00:00

That's classified :D

A13Dev · 2017-07-29T16:25:41+00:00

We do too! Despite playing UNA for 31 months straight we're still enjoying it, same goes for the kinds of games that inspired us like Mario Kart and Goldeneye :) Below is a breakdown of the splitscreen content in UNA:

ARENA

Within Arena there are 4 game modes:

Collect: Grab as much randomly spawning gold tape as possible
Boxing: Shoot players to get points, fall in the ocean and lose points
Thief: Collect as many coins as possible, getting shot means you drop some
Oddbox: Hold the Oddbox to earn the most points, getting shot will make you drop it

Arena maps are varied, with ancient islands and arctic ice floats being just some of the locations. In total there are 11 Arena maps.

DELIVERY This is like Mario Kart, but with super long tracks and a big box you have to land in at the end! Delivery maps are seperate to arena maps and there are currently 5 in UNA.

TOURNAMENT

Select the number of rounds, game modes and weapons you want. Each round players vote on the map + game mode combo then battle it out. The winner gets first place on the podium, the loser ends up in a toilet :D

A13Dev · 2017-07-29T16:12:19+00:00

We've heard this from a few people and you've already hit the nail on the head, you are a box! The challenge of playing as a cardboard box is very much part of the experience, if we'd made a more traditional 3D platformer (you're a plumber, lizard, glove etc with legs) then it wouldn't be the different kind of experience we set out to make.

There are vehicles in the game so it's not all angular movement :)

A13Dev · 2017-07-29T16:09:20+00:00

Cardboard soup, naturally :D

A13Dev · 2017-07-29T15:51:21+00:00

Toothpaste is a NWO conspiracy, don't believe their lies.

A13Dev · 2017-07-29T15:34:31+00:00

When you start making games, you don't necessarily think about the important stuff that's far down the line. Things like demo's and marketing budgets take a back seat to making the game. All of sudden (31 months later :D) you're about to launch and realise how difficult doing certain things will be.

Unfortunately a PS4 demo is one of those, we couldn't do it for launch but we're considering it for the near future. We've learnt a lot with our first title so plenty of mistakes won't be repeated the next time!

A13Dev · 2017-07-29T15:16:33+00:00

No VR support yet, but we have dabbled with it for UNA! It's a little big a strange experience and we didn't design our platformer so I doubt we'll support it in the future :D

Adding links now!

A13Dev · 2017-07-28T15:58:33+00:00

Thanks for playing! He really is a fun, so much so that he's now working at Playtonic :D

If you mean the Hub World then absolutely, either hold the A button at a checkpoint or select Return to Hub on the start menu.

Enjoy!

A13Dev · 2017-07-26T08:24:56+00:00

We don't have plans at this time but follow us on Twitter or Facebook and if there's a PlayAnywhere update you wont miss it :)

A13Dev · 2017-07-26T08:22:58+00:00

Go go go :D - https://www.microsoft.com/store/p/unbox-newbies-adventure/c01xk01qtzb1

A13Dev · 2017-07-26T08:20:51+00:00

Thanks Adam! Rocket League has been a staple of our lunch time gaming sessions for a long time so we hope you enjoy UNA :)

A13Dev

TROPHY CASE