Blogs - Cheeseness

Below is an excerpt from an interview I recently published with Joel Kinnunen and Jukka Kokkonen from Finnish game developer Frozenbyte. The full two part interview can be found here: Cheesetalks.twolofbees.com

Last year, the puzzle platformer Trine passed 1.1 million sales. Can you talk a little about how Trine has grown in popularity since its initial release? Are there any significant events that have helped the Trine user base expand?

Joel: Trine was a sleeper hit. On this side we like to think that we made it a success despite the odds, really. The launch certainly wasn't huge, but it wasn't too bad either, it did well on the PSN. Steam is where we made most of our revenue though, and that's been a gradual rise. I think Trine brought us around the same revenue year-on-year in 2009, 2010 and 2011, which is quite amazing - it was because of the big sales on Steam in 2010 and because of the sales and Humble Bundle in 2011. Trine is our first game that has clearly made a profit, and it was that success that helped us self-fund Trine 2.

Linux versions of Frozenbyte's games have been available since 2009, but Trine 2 is the first game to have a native Linux port developed in-house. How did the decision to handle a Linux port internally come about?

Jukka: At least technology-wise, we had already gone with a major engine re-write for Trine 2. And as we did that, writing portable code was one of the major points of focus. So with an engine that was already portable to various other platforms, Windows, Xbox 360, PS3 and Mac OS X, it seemed like a rather easy task to port it to Linux as well. Specifically the relative similarity of the Mac port made the Linux port seem like a feasible thing to do.

Joel: We also wanted to be able to provide proper support for the Linux versions. There will always be problems and if we're going to be serious about Linux, then we need to be able to help our customers directly.

Has developing a Linux port internally proved to be a positive or negative experience? In what ways has it compared to the processes and results of outsourcing?

Jukka: At least now that the engine was in much better shape than in Trine 1, and much more portable to begin with, doing this internally was a positive experience. Outsourcing always adds some communication hurdles and management overhead, and with a good base code for the porting to begin with, it can often actually be faster to just do the port yourself, rather than write all the specifications, handle source code and data accesses, etc. for outsourcing. I think that in general, with Trine 2, the amount of effort that we would have saved in programming time by outsourcing, would have mostly been lost in the added overhead. This was somewhat different than with the old Trine 1 engine.

Joel: From the management perspective, everything has been very smooth. We - or rather, Jukka - knew what we were doing, and there's been only a few things that we've needed to check together. That's vastly different to some of the outsourced stuff we have done.

Are there plans to add multiplayer support for the DRM Free version of Trine 2 to the Steam version?

Joel: There are. :) We have plans related to these and we'll be announcing something soon-ish...

Will the upcoming Trine 2 expansion be a continuation of the Trine or Trine 2 stories, or a self-contained adventure?

Joel: It's a continuation from Trine 2. It's a "so the heroes were returning from the adventure" kind of a tale. I'm confident that the expansion will be our best story telling experience, we're still trying to integrate our story telling process into the game/level making process and Trine 2 suffered from that a bit, so with the expansion it looks like things will fall into place a little better. I guess we'll see!

Where do you see Frozenbyte in two years' time?

Joel: Hopefully we'll have just released our next big game! I hope we'll have been able to self-fund it all, and not be completely dependent on its commercial success either. I imagine we should have one or two new projects going on as well.

Don't forget, you can read the full interview (and my reviews of Trine and Trine 2) at Cheesetalks.twolofbees.com

‎7,000+ words and four months in the making, I'm proud to present a lengthy shallow analysis of the comparative purchase, revenue and average statistics for Humble Bundle promotions.

This article is way too big to try to turn into a blog post here, so I'll invite anybody who's interested to read it on my site:

If you're not into reading what I have to say, the article is also sprinkled with quotes from Humble Bundle contributors including Notch (Minecraft developer), Garry Newman (Garry's Mod developer), TPJeff (of Team Phobic), ExpiredPopsicle (of Cryptic Studios), NimbleDave (of NimbleBit), Mt.Gox (a Bitcoin site whose CEO is excited about indie games) and tantepose (a technology journalist with DinSide.no).

Last night I rolled out the first major update to the Humble Visualisations, which includes additional graphs and charts I needed for an article that I'm writing on possible interpretation of the Humble Bundle statistics (which should be published within the week)

The two most exciting additions are a timeline showing the changes in frequency with which bundles have been released, and combined statistics for all bundles, indie bundles only and non-indie bundles only.

As always, the details for the current bundle is updated every 6 hours or so.

Cheesetalks.twolofbees.com

Enjoy!

Below is an excerpt from a review of Trine 2 I recently wrote. The full review (along with screenshots and many more words) can be viewed at Cheesetalks.twolofbees.com

If somebody told me six months ago that I'd ever play a game as beautiful as Trine, I would have scoffed, and yet here I am, playing its sequel - a game that takes its astoundingly high production values and raises the bar to unimaginable new heights.

So, for anybody who is unaware, Trine 2 is the sequel to Finnish developer Frozenbyte's 2009 side-scrolling fantasy puzzle platformer, which refines and continues to build what I suppose I should be calling the "Trine franchise". All the majesty of Trine is present, though there are a few changes that are definitely worth giving attention to.

Visually, Trine 2 is a huge step beyond Trine's already stunning environments, with a big emphasis on further meshing foregrounds and backgrounds with the play area (something that, though nicely executed in Trine, has been dramatically improved), with streams and ponds that organically stretch off into the unused axis, fantastic lighting that de-emphasises the two dimensional play area, and enemies that clamber across the foreground foliage to reach you or jump out from behind rubble in the background. The game's 3D models are gorgeous, and the new enemies and giant creatures have let Frozenbyte's animation talent shine.

There are a number of new puzzle elements that help give flavour to specific areas and provide new combinations throughout the game's increased length. The most dynamic of these are pipes, which can carry air (that can be used to float players and boxes, as well as create bubbles), fire (that can be used to damage things and boil water), or lava (which is generally liquid death, but can also melt ice). The introduction of bi-directional portals dramatically increases the versatility of other puzzle elements, and there's also an interesting mechanic which requires players to direct or carry water.

Combat has a very different feel as well. The first thing noticeable is that there are no skeletons (much to Mim's dismay). There are also a broader range of enemy types with different behaviours, leading to more varied and dynamic combat. This combined with the tendency for enemies to jump out from behind things tends to make encounters a lot less predictable than they were in Trine, where skeletons would either be placed in visible locations on the level, or spawn from very obvious glowing circles on the ground. The lack of predictability leads combat to be more reactionary and less tactical, making enemies feel less like puzzle elements than they did in the first game (this is not a big loss though, as Trine 2's cast of giant creatures are used to fill the role of dynamic puzzle elements to great effect).

Moving onto multiplayer gameplay, network support opens up co-operative play to a much broader range of people, allowing me to play a few levels with friends on the opposite side of the globe. In addition to the "classic" multiplayer mode, where only one of each character can be used by any player at any time, Trine 2 has an "unlimited" mode, which allows players to become any of the characters independently of other players (as one would in a single player game).

All in all, Trine 2 is a fantastic game. It not only raises the bar well above Trine's originally high standard of presentation and charm, which alone is a massive feat, but also manages to do it for the duration of a much longer game. There are aspects of improved flow that seem to have lessened the impact and reward of individual puzzles, but the game as a whole is still fulfilling and ultimately, more seamless for it.

Don't forget, you can read the full review (and my review of Trine 1) at Cheesetalks.twolofbees.com

Ever wanted to know how many Linux users have purchased the Humble Indie Bundle? Ever wanted to see how the average payments for MacOS have varied across every promotion? Perhaps you're interested in the amount of money contributed by Windows for just the "Indie" branded bundles?

Wish granted!

With approval from the Humble Bundle guys, I am proud to present the results of a couple of days' worth of work: The Humble Visualisations, a set of self-updating charts, graphs and calculated statistics that explore and compare the performance of Humble Bundles past and present.

Feedback is welcome, discussion encouraged.

Cheesetalks.twolofbees.com