Changes in the Pricing System

So as some people may have found out, the pricing on Project Plasma changed from £1.00 to $1.00 USD. This is due to the new system itch.io has put in place to counter the impact the new bullshit VAT MOSS system. However, because itch.io is based in the United States, this system limits me to only charging in US Dollars.

This is good news for you guys as it means you can get my games cheaper as the value of one US Dollar is less than that of one pound. (No offence intended here, this is just due to the currencies and shit) Before, someone in the states had to pay around $1.50 to buy Project Plasma, however you can now buy it for just $1.00 whereas someone in the UK just needs to pay around 66p (£0.66) to buy it.

Please note however that I don't know how long this will go on for, as if itch.io puts in a system that allows me to set the currency in their new payment method to a developer's home currency (in my case GBP) I will be setting it back to that simply because it's easier for me to handle for obvious reasons but it does mean you can get Project Plasma at an even lower price now, even if it may be just for the short run.

So thank you VAT MOSS, but fuck you VAT MOSS as well.

Project Plasma v0.9.7 Changelog (Final Open Beta)

Well here we are. The very last open beta update for Project Plasma. While this isn't as big as the two giants that came before it (referring to v0.9.5 and v0.9.6) it does contain a few tweaks and bug fixes that I'm sure you'll appreciate.

• Fixed bug in the shop where you needed to have 10 cash to buy Directional Cannon ammo despite the price being reduced to 5 in the previous update.
• Tempest will no longer fire switch bullets in its second attack phase.
• Repair capsule cost decreased to 5000. (Down from 7000)
• Fixed Dynast's left wing being higher up than it should be. It is now in the correct place.
• Dynast's immobiliser bullets during its sixth phase now fire every six seconds. (Up from every two seconds.)
• Dynast's collision box was bugged on its sixth phase and onwards. This has been fixed.
• Cursor now shows up on the intermission screen after the boss fight with Dynast.
• Same applies for the intermission screen after the credits following the Heroic ending.
• Thin lasers shot by the bosses Dynast and Crystalline now do 20 damage. (Up from 15)
• This only applies to the mini-lasers shot by those two bosses, the larger, full size lasers fired by Equinox (as well as Dynast during its sixth attack phase) will still result in instant death.

As this is the very last open beta update for this game this is pretty much last chance saloon for those wanting to get this game at a reduced price! As you can imagine, v1.0.0 will likely be a very big update, possibly the biggest one yet.

Also another thing which I really should've mentioned earlier, I have now added links to the past changelogs for versions of Project Plasma (and any games I make in the future) as well as a link to a Google Spreadsheet listing any sales that you may or may not have missed. Go check those out at well if you're curious.

Voiceless Postponed Indefinitely

1st January 2016 Update: This game has now been completely cancelled and is not going to be developed. This blog post remains up for archiving purposes.

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The game project Voiceless I mentioned in the previous post has been indefinitely postponed. This is NOT a cancellation, the project will resume at some point however I have no idea when I will be resuming it. The reason why I'm postponing is because I have two titles coming up in March and I really need to get these done. These games being Project Plasma and its mobile cousin.

I promised you guys these games will come in March. PP v0.9.7 will be coming before March obviously, but PP Mobile will be released mid-March along with hopefully PP v1.0.0. As admittedly, not much work has been done on PP Mobile, and it needs to be done.

Voiceless is on the list though, like I said, it's been postponed indefinitely - not cancelled completely.

Charlie Hebdo Tragedy-based Game Project

1st January 2016 Update: This game has now been completely cancelled and is not going to be developed. This blog post remains up for archiving purposes.

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So anyway, I've been having trouble with PP Mobile as well now due to the fact that I need to re-download Android SDK which I haven't done yet. However, to sort of bridge the gap I've came up with another game idea which I will admit, isn't all that big, in fact it's likely to be about half the size of Project Plasma, but I feel it makes a very solid point.

The game is about the Charlie Hebdo tragedy a couple of days ago. The game's purpose is to spread awareness of the impact the shootings have had on the families and those close to the shooting victims. The game's title has not been completely decided as of yet but it will most likely be "Je Suis Charlie" or something along the lines of that.

This game will be completely free however you may make a donation if you wish since itch.io allows for people pay extra for a game if they think it looks good. I will not be pocketing all of this money for myself though and I will make sure it goes toward a good and charitable cause, preferably one that helps relatives of tragedy victims like this recover.

I will post an update upon the game's release, it should hopefully be out on the 13th, but hopefully it will be out sooner if possible.

UPDATE: The game is going to be called "Voiceless."Unlike Project Plasma and its mobile equivalent, it will be made in RPG Maker VX Ace rather than GameMaker.

Project Plasma Development On Hold

So happy new year to you all. Hope you've all had a good 2014 and that 2015 has kicked off nicely.

That being said, 2015 hasn't kicked off all that great for me at all. My computer was recently upgraded which sounds good right? Well yes it is good, great even. However it came with a pretty nasty side effect that has hindered game development of Project Plasma v0.9.7 greatly.

Project Plasma was made in GameMaker 8.1, a now outdated and you could say obsolete version of GameMaker, however I still opted to use it due to the fact that GameMaker Studio (at the time at least) lacked some of the functionality that I needed that was in GameMaker 8.1, the best example I can give there would be the Execute Code function in the software's debugger which I felt was one of the most useful tools in GameMaker 8.1 when it came to debugging. (I mean seriously why would you get rid of that, go home YYG you're drunk.)

However, I soon began to witness GM 8.1's age and many of its downfalls which might not have been a problem a few years ago come into play. The very first issue being the fact that there were a large number of wav files stored in the executable itself which bloated its size considerably, resulting in massive RAM usage which was too much for the setup I had at the time to cope (I had 2GB RAM back then, I then upgraded to 8GB with Win7 and now I'm on 16GB with the latest upgrade.) As a result I had to figure out how to use external files for the audio.

Then there was the Windows 8 issue where Win8's half-arsed sound system couldn't cope when more than 3 or 4 sounds were played simultaneously in-game and when such a situation did arise, the game crashed. As a result I had to find another audio DLL. At first I tried one called Saudio which fixed the issue and worked well for a while, but then Windows 7 decided it didn't like it and decided to not play any sound (including music) that was dependent on the Saudio DLL. I then began making a switch to FMOD until I read up that you needed a license to use it (what the fuck seriously.) The last one I tried was SGAudio which works brilliantly and that's the DLL that ended the whole sound issue crisis.

There was also the pixel interpolation issue with Windows Vista onwards where the pixels didn't interpolate on any operating system besides Windows XP, however I didn't mention up there as it really isn't a big deal. It just makes the graphics look all pixelated when playing in fullscreen. Apart from that it really didn't bring any serious issues along with it so I left it out.

Anyway, I think the point here is, I need GM 8.1 to proceed with the game's development and I am currently having issues reinstalling it. GM:Studio has installed fine though so work on Project Plasma Mobile can go ahead, but the main version of the game has hit a standstill in terms of development so far.

Project Plasma v0.9.6 Changelog

So Christmas (and my birthday) have both gone and passed for another year and I'm releasing another update to Project Plasma. This is update v0.9.6 and it focuses heavily bug fixes and tweaks. It also features major improvements to the game's Epilepsy Mode.

• Audio bug fixed on level 15 where the game would crash during the boss fight with Davagon.
• Various changes made to Davagon
• The boss's silencer bullets no longer attempt to fire at the player (I'm saying attempt cos they always went is a completely different direction) and instead shoot diagonally. They also shoot at much higher intervals (1 every 15 secs down from 2 every sec.)
• Davagon cash rewards quadrupled.
• Davagon now gives 33000 cash. (Up from 8250, seriously it has 80000 health 8250 cash for that is just unfair)
• Score rewards remain the same (9200)
• Sprinter's jammer bullets now fire in a spiral due to the same bug that affected the Davagon's silencer bullets.
• Trinity now has a multi-coloured explosion upon death. (Blue, Red, and Yellow)
• Sawblade's explosion is no longer green.
• Hellfire's outer ring, Davagon's turret, and Sawblade as a whole will now spin much slower when Epilepsy Mode is on. (Speed reductions vary)
• Crystalline's death explosion is now blue.
• Decurion will now fire immobiliser bullets in boss attack.
• Tempest's switcher bullets now fire at a significantly reduced rate (shot interval octupled.)
• Tempest now enters its second attack phase at 5000 health. (Down from 10000.)
• Directional Cannon ammo now costs 5 cash. (Down from 10.)
• Now you finally have a use for that annoying leftover 5 cash from killing that annoying enemy that has to give a non-round amount of cash upon death.
• Switcher and jammer effect bullets now have their own unique sound effects.

This update was released in a hurry due to an imminent computer upgrade (which means I'll be away from the computer for around a day) and I was only able to test levels 1-23 so there may be bugs in levels 24 and 25 that I may not have covered. I'll be testing these last two levels after the computer upgrade and doing further bug fixes if necessary in 0.9.7. Also, v0.9.7 will likely be the final open beta before 1.0.0 which means that you've not got long left before the price goes up if you're looking to buy PP!

Also PP Mobile will be arriving on itch.io shortly in the new year as well. More than that in the next blog post!

Game Development Timeline

I figured as I am currently working on my second game title (a follow up to Project Plasma, but still) I figured I'd post a timeline of what I plan on putting out. This timeline goes from September 2014 all the way to October 2017. All dates are in European format (dd/mm/yyyy)

All dates below are estimates or goals that I want get the game released by.

• Project Plasma (23/09/2014)
• Project Plasma Mobile (--/03/2015)
• Mystery Game 1 (--/09/2015)
• Mystery Game 2 (--/03/2016, most likely Project Plasma 2)
• Mystery Game 3 (--/08/2016)
• Mystery Game 4 (--/10/2017, this will probably be a particularly big one, hence the big time gap)

I am currently working on a graphical representation of the above timeline as well. Hopefully some of the game will be released sooner than the date stated above and if that ever does happen I will update the above list accordingly.

Work on PP v0.9.6 will start on the 29th December and I'm hoping to get it out before the new year. After that release work on PP Mobile will resume for a release in March. I will also be posting a few things about PPM soon for anyone who's curious about what's going on with it.

Project Plasma Christmas Sale On Now!

As the title says, the Project Plasma Christmas Sale on right now. Save 50% on Project Plasma right now!

Not only that but the 26th December is my birthday, so if you wait til then, you can get an even bigger discount!

Anyway, I won't be working on PP or PPM for the rest of this week. I've just released a fairly big update for it (0.9.5) and I'm taking a break for Christmas. Work will resume on Monday 29th December on PPM and I'll be working on PP v0.9.6 in the New Year.

Merry Christmas everybody!

Project Plasma v0.9.5 (Solstice Update) Changelog

PP v0.9.5 is a huge update. Bigger than any of the updates done previously.

• More station debris added to Level X
• More enemies added to Level X
• Arachnid Mk2's central body now shoots bullets and rockets even faster and fires in bursts of six instead of bursts of five.
• Player stats added to the main menu screen.
• This includes things like the player's current score, cash and how many levels they've completed.
• Fixing pre-Level X text to accommodate the level 25 boss's name change from the 0.9.1 update.
• Fixed Orbital Mk2's name in the pre-Level X text (originally said "Orbiter Mk2" when it should've been "Orbital Mk2")
• Tweaked a line in the pre-Level X text.
• Also added a line.
• Fixed Plasma Shot not showing up in shop. (This bug meant you weren't able to see the price of the Plasma Shot or how much you could buy in one go.)
• For the record the Plasma Shot costs 300 for one shot.

As usual, the game can be bought here:
http://archangelatom.itch.io/project-plasma

Project Plasma v0.9.4 Changelog

PP v0.9.4 is now live. It's nothing too fancy, just a few bug fixes and tweaks. I would've had it up a day earlier but I was hit with a nasty spell of food poisoning which came in tandem with a stinging headache and I just didn't feel up to doing anything but lying down with the lights off and the curtains shut, not to mention I had to hang my head over a toilet and yell RALPH if you catch my drift.

Anyway, enough of my food poisoning experiences, on with the changelog!

• The boss attack version of Seeker now has 16000 health as well (I forgot to increase the boss attack version's health in the last update.)
• Each of Seeker's attack phases have been recalculated according to its updated health values.
• Bullets from the scrolling turrets (levels 9, 10, and 17) now move slightly faster. (9 speed up from 8)
• Level 9 boss renamed to Sprinter (previously called "Juliet" but this name made no sense)

PP v0.9.5 will be a big update, far bigger than any of the previous updates however it will also take much longer as it will primarily be a graphical update. It will also feature major improvements to levels 7 and 11. The extra level will also be heavily affected by this update.