GameDevBlog

Chatterbox show was pretty cool

http://www.chatterboxgameshow.com/archives/Show239_08-26-2008.mp3

I really enjoyed talking to those guys - they know their stuff, having a design background themselves.  They got really far in Schizoid and they clearly "get it" - they had some well-reasoned nitpicks which we talked about...I'm working on a post-mortem for Gamasutra right now that covers some of the same things.

Chatterbox Tonight, PAX This Weekend

I'm going to do an interview on Chatterbox Video Game Radio tonight, talking about Schizoid and I'm not sure what else - it's going to be live, as I understand it, so tune in and listen to me make a fool of myself.  That's at 9 PM. 

And this weekend is PAX - I'm not sure when I'm going to be there;  I hope to be there a lot;  Bill's going to be there every minute he can spare.  There's a PAX 10 booth and that's where you'll usually be able to find us.  Richard Garfield and Skaff Elias will be there too, and when I know what time for sure I'll post it.

Video Interview with Richard Garfield and Skaff Elias

Over on the Wizards of the Coast website, Richard and Skaff discussing Schizoid:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/arcana/1647

Another interview: XNA Community Spotlight

Here's one with me and Bill:  http://creators.xna.com/en-us/community_main_feature4

Another Schizoid Spoiler On Youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErQ2FGMug7w is The Gauntlet getting golded in uberschizoid mode.

I've never been able to do that - though I did do it in wingman once.

We're #1

A while ago I said that one day, Torpex Games would be the first hit if you did a search for Torpex on Google.

That day has come.

Our First Youtube Tip Video

Spoiler:  how to get one of our most difficult achievements - The Barber of Schizville.

Warms my heart.

Major Nelson Interview

Larry Hryb interviewed me over the phone about Schizoid for the Major Nelson show:  http://majornelson.com/archive/2008/07/11/show-285-schizoid-and-e3.aspx

Co-Optimus Interview

Just did an interview with Co-Optimus, the website all about co-op gaming.

Uberschizoid: it's not as hard as it seems

So back in the mists of time when I first started working on Schizoid I thought "Uberschizoid" - the mode where you control both ships with both sticks - was *the* mode.  Fortunately, Richard Garfield and Skaff Elias talked me out of that .  In kleenex tests I saw a lot of people try it once and throw down the controls - "Nobody can do that."

Which is fine, the main thrust of the game is co-op, so find a friend or play online, but if you want to try something really different...stick with Uber for a while.

I'm not a super uber gamer, but I can do it--I've beat the game at uber, and so has Bill--so let me share some of our tricks.  Humans can't truly multitask.  We joke about needing your corpus callosum severed in order to play the mode, but you don't.  Instead you find crutches that allow you to get by:

Some of these could be considered spoilers. 

One of the biggest problems is you forgot which stick controls which ship - particularly when they're on opposite sides of each other on the screen.  The "anti-panic lines" (those red and blue lines going from the corner of the screen to your ship) help here, but not 100%.  One good thing to do here is try to keep the left stick ship on the left and the right stick ship on the right most of the time.

Another good thing to do is to think of one ship as your "base" and the other ship as its satellite.  For the most part you fly the ships together, in the same direction, and when fighting heterogenous hordes you move the satellite around relative to the base.

Just like in co-op, you should almost never split up, except possibly on some of the breeder levels.  The further away they get from each other the harder it is to split your attention.

In pulsinator levels, once you've dealt with everything but the pulsinators, you can often just park one ship out of range of the bullets, then take out all the pulsinators of one color with one ship, then all the pulsinators of the other color with the other ship.

Even with all that, I haven't been able to gold the Gauntlet or Chophouse levels in uber.  Bill and one of our testers have golded Gauntlet and have proven it's theoretically possible to gold Chophouse...can't wait to someone do it on youtube.