A Release Date!

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Waves will not be released in October. Sorry.

It will however be getting released on November 16th. That’s an exact date right there. Put it in your diaries.

The reasons for this are many but I’ll give you the 3 big ones:

Battlefield 3 (In the UK at least), Modern Warfare 3, and Skyrim.

I won’t be playing any of them (well maybe Skyrim) but it’s simply a matter of publicity and the fact that when expensive high profile games come out nobody buys or writes about indie games.

Now this sucks because as my followers will know I’m basically broke now. I’m running on fumes in terms of savings and it is only thanks to my lovely girlfriend and some very understanding parents that I’ve been able to keep going as long as I have. I would love to release this weekend if I didn’t think that releasing now would be worse than releasing after all the big hitters have been and gone.

The other benefit of this delay is that it will let me poke various press people into action so they can play the finished version of the game rather than a beta for their reviewing. I will also be able to put together a launch trailer which is something I just wouldn’t have had time for otherwise. Post in the comments any ideas for the trailer because if I’m honest I’m a bit rubbish at them.

So remember: November 16th. It’s not a Wednesday it’s Wavesday. Aha. See what I did there? Gosh I’m funny.

The Highscore Videos

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They have started!

This demo run of 7,742,184 by mr DjParagon is so far the highest score I’ve heard of and beats my personal best by about 2million. If you want to know how to score big in the demo then give it a watch and probably a frame by frame study…

Demo Feedback, Issues and What Happens Next

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Hello lovely people!

Thankyou for trying the Waves demo (You have tried it right? If not go here and do so then come back).

The demo has been available for a little over 24 hours now and the feedback so far has been great.

However the Demo has had some issues (one of which I fixed last night as you may see in the post below this one).

If you are having issues then first try the following steps:

  1. Run the game as administrator. If this solves your problem then let me know in the comments.
  2. Reboot the computer. Yes I know it sounds obvious but it does solve most problems.
  3. Install the latest video drivers.
  4. Redownload the demo, uninstall it and then reinstall it. Sometimes files get corrupt during download or during the install. It’s unlikely but it can happen.

If you still have trouble then you may be suffering from one of the following issues that I hopefully will have fixed later tonight.

If you were having problems with the demo on Windows XP then I urge you to uninstall the game, download the latest version and install it again. All the problems with Windows XP should now be fixed. I am however sorry to say that without making the installer about 200meg larger you will still have to sit through the .NET install process. You can thank Microsoft for this.

  • Crashing on Startup - If you are on Windows XP then you need .Net Framework 3.5 SP1 try installing this and see if it fixes it.

In terms of low-framerate issues then I can only recommend that you go into the video settings and turn off Distortion, Ambient Occlusion and Bloom and reduce the resolution. It won’t look as pretty but if you are struggling to hit 30fps this should help. If you turn all of these off and you still have problems then I’m sorry but your graphics card just isn’t powerful enough to run the game properly and there is nothing I can do about that.

For the record I developed the game on a Geforce GTS250 and it runs at 60fps with no problem with everything on. It runs at 30fps on my laptop with an ATI 5470 which if you look at this chart is actually pretty rubbish. Anything better than the 5470 shouldn’t be having any problems at all.

I hope everybody is enjoying the demo and if you are having any issues that I’ve not covered here then let me know in the comments. Part of the reason for the demo release is to find these problems so I can make sure they don’t happen in the full game so thankyou for your patience if you are having issues.

Of course if you aren’t having issues and want to tell me how great everything is then you can comment too 😉

Demo Updated

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Just a quick note that the Demo has been updated to fix a bug in the installer that meant you had to run it with administrator rights. If you’ve been having problems getting the demo to run then you should download the updated version from here and reinstall it.

Let me know in the comments if there are any problems or if it fixed any problems you were having.

Waves at EG Expo

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Subtitle: My Feet Really Hurt

So I’m back home after two days at the Expo. Waves is still there but sadly as it costs a fortune to either stay in London or commute and I am nearly broke I won’t be around to tell people how to play.

First a picture of a complete stranger playing the game:

So if you are planning on playing Waves at the Expo then forewarned is forearmed as they say.

Note: All of this info is actually available in the games How To Play and Controls section but it seems Expo visitors have an aversion to these things.

More

My First Press Release

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Introducing Waves: a twin stick shooter for humans

Indie developer reveals high-intensity twin stick shooter for PC starring… balls.

Crewe, 08/09/11

Shooter fans deserve more. And those who haven’t discovered the pleasure of twin stick destruction deserve an entry point. Today, Squid In A Box introduce Waves, a twin stick shooter that can be played by anyone, but with a high enough skill threshold to keep even the most hardened schmup fan entertained.

Developed, coded, and designed by indie developer Rob Hale, who decided that after ten years of making games for other people he’d finally make one for himself, Waves was built from the ground up to be accessible, yet require mountains of skill to master.

“I wanted to make an action game that didn’t punish you if you weren’t part of the twin-stick elite, but also let shooter fans really test their skills. Everything else has been abandoned in the pursuit of making the world’s best twin-stick shooter. There are no space marines in my game.”

In Waves, the player controls a heavily armed ball. The goal is to clear the board of enemies while racking up a big fat Combo with swift kills and well timed Bombs and if it all gets a bit too much you can use your “Time Buffer” to slow down the action and turn defeat into victory. Players can compete across five different game modes with online high-score tables and Achievements in their pursuit of perfection.

Waves will be available Q4 2011, for digital download on PC from squidinabox.com and Steam.

Waves at Eurogamer Expo

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I am delighted to reveal that Waves will be playable on the show floor of this years Eurogamer Expo as part of the Indiegames arcade. I’m going to be alongside some other excellent games and I’m really looking forward to watching the general public get to grips with the game up close.

Right now I’m working on lots of business type stuff talking to digital distributors and payment processors. I’m also working on a new (official) trailer and a bunch of promotional stuff (maybe some t-shirts).

As I’ve kept saying there will be a demo of Waves before the game is released and it may likely coincide with the EG Expo (Although the full game will be available to play at the Expo while the Demo will just have one of the game modes) so even if you can’t make it to the show you can give the game a try.

I’ll see you at the Expo!

Slow Going

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I just wanted to post quickly to say that I am still alive and Waves is still being worked on despite the lack of activity from myself either here or on Twitter.

This is due to my being out of the country right now helping my girlfriend move house as well as looking after a sick cat. Unfortunately moving house also means painting and doing lots of DIY which is eating my days.

The good news is that the game is feature complete and now just needs the remaining content to be completed before I start a big fat private beta and start balancing. If things go well the game should still be on track for release in the autumn.

There will be a demo of the game available.

For lack of a screenshot here is a picture of our cat Noortje who is 16 years old and is very poorly right now.

Bombing Run

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Bombing Run is mostly finished.

In this mode you have no weapons and the only way to kill anything is by picking up explosives from the Red Gate and delivering them to the Nuke Gate.

It’s not simple though. The explosives are on a ten second timer and if you don’t get them into the gate on time then they’re going to explode taking you with them.

You can gain an advantage though - get a X10 Combo and you’ll receive a shield which will knock nearby enemies away if you get hit. If you want you can even trigger it early with the bomb button. It comes in very hand if you need to dive headfirst into the mass of enemies to get to the gate.

This is probably the hardest mode so far in Waves. If you notice the scores at the end of the video this was the first run I scored over 1 million in. It is incredibly harsh and made me focus very closely on the collision detection code and I spent hours tuning the players movement speed and acceleration as a result.

Even though this is the hardest mode in the game to get really high scores at I’ve found myself to be completely addicted to it. I’ve lost hours when I was testing something because I compulsively hit the “Play Again” button at the end of each round. I’m hoping this is a good sign.

There are some other graphical changes in this version - most obviously the trails behind enemies and the new explosions. All of these are in the other modes and the game is even running faster now than it was when I made the Time Attack video.

Things are moving along very quickly and should be ready for a release in the autumn.

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