Demo Night, Mini-Putt Egypt Level & Off to PAX South!

Hello world! This week we're posting one day early because we're going to Texas! Hooray! More on that later in the post.

First up we wanted to say a huge thanks to everyone who came out to IGDA Demo night here in  Montreal last night. We had a great time showing Ultimate Chicken Horse again; the first time we showed the game to a large audience was exactly one year ago at the same event. Our little game-baby has grown up and now we got to show it at the end of production, which got a great response. Below is a pic from just before we started, with Rich facing the crowd of almost 600.

We showed some new features at demo night, including some new levels, blocks and characters. In case you missed the video update from last week, we wanted to dive a little more in-depth into one of our new levels, the Pyramid level

The level features a relatively closed off area where you can place sneaky traps, followed by a sphinx that stands up and lies down at intervals, which can mess with your placement of blocks and planning. You can also attach blocks to the sphinx for an even more intense end-of-level challenge.

We'll be showcasing the game at PAX South this weekend which should be really exciting. We'll also be on the Twitch stage so you can see us (I believe) on the front page of Twitch TV from 1:15-1:30 ET (if my time conversion is correct).

Fun fact, for those of you who don't know, Texas is huge! You probably knew that, but the climate is actually pretty varied, so as much as we make jokes about going to the desert, we're not actually going to the desert. Oh, it'll still be warm (especially by Canadian standards), but not likely to be sweltering and dry.

And so we're off! Alex and Richard are heading down while Kyler stays back with our contract artist, Louis, to continue working on the game. It's getting close!!!

Mega Video Update!

This week we've got a blog in the form of a super mega video with a bunch of updates. If you've been following the blog closely, you've seen some of the stuff already, but if not, this video will catch you up on everything you may have missed since our Kickstarter campaign in May 2015. 

So that's what we've been working on for the past little while, and we're still planning to launch at the end of February / beginning of March. Things are going slower than we anticipated, especially since online multiplayer is much longer than expected, but we're still hoping to get everything done on time. 

So what's left to do to transform this game into the final, polished product we want to see? Here's what's on the menu:

• Make online multiplayer fully functional
• Make a few more blocks
• Finish 3 more levels
• Finish the lobby and lobby expansion system, which expands as you unlock new levels and characters
• Localize the game (translating into 13 languages)
• Set up the Steam back-end for achievements
• Set up a saving system that recognizes what you've unlocked or not
• Finish all character outfits (much longer than you might think!)
• Rework the menus so it's easy to access the online stuff or the local games
• Fix up some of the UI (user interface) stuff that has been giving us issues
• Test, test, and test again. Then, test another time or two.

Game development isn't always as straightforward as one might think, there's a lot that can and does go wrong, and we need to make sure that you'll have the best experience possible playing the game when it's out. 

Again, thanks for your continued support! Put the game on your Steam Wishlist if you haven't already, or to be notified when the game comes out, put your email below!

+1 Artist! Welcoming Louis Sciannamblo

Quick development update from the team here at Clever Endeavour; we've been working to get Ultimate Chicken Horse done and decided it was time we had a little help. We've hired Louis Sciannamblo (of SpaceBro Justice Rocket fame) for the month of January to help us with some art.

As you can see, he's hard at work and focused :)

He's going to be helping us with character customization outfits, with some level art, and potentially with some promotional material for the game. Seeing as he's a great artist, we're also trying to pick his brain for ideas regarding the game trailer, art style, marketing, etc.

Here's a WIP (work in progress) of the Chameleon with its cape, jumping and landing. These animations are really not simple, as every frame of animation is done by hand. This ends up being about 90 frames per character... and for each outfit, the piece needs to be drawn by hand... 90 times. If we plan seven characters with two pieces each, that makes 1,260 frames of animation.

Beyond that, he'll be helping out with the level backgrounds; right now there are not many elements in the backgrounds of levels, but if we can add some subtle things in the background it might help the feel and overall look of the game. 

I have no doubt that his work will be impeccable, as it always has been! See below for an awesome digital painting Louis did (for his own game, Poltergus):

That's all we've got for this week, there will be a nice video update coming soon that will give you some detail about how far we've come in the last few months. Stay tuned!