Its pretty much complete, and looks to be ready this week…

Get ready for a Shift experience the likes of which you’ve never had before…

I recently had the opportunity to ask a few questions to Krin, the creator of Sonny and the mastermind behind one of the most popular RPG releases on the web.  A few fans (including myself) have been curious about the production and release of Sonny 2 so I asked Krin if he would spill a few beans and he most certainly did!  So without further ado here is an interview with Krin about the latest version of Sonny.

John: Tell us a bit about your team.  Who is involved and what roles do they play in the creation of Sonny 2?

Krin: Some of the people who are working with me on “Sonny 2″ include David Orr, Joan CG, Will Arbuckle. David Orr is a musician, who also did the soundtrack and effects for the first Sonny. His new tracks for “Sonny 2″ are currently being composed, and I think they will sound more distinct and powerful than before whilst retaining the feel of the original Sonny soundtrack. Joan CG is an illustrator from Spain and also a great friend of mine. We’ve been working together since games like “Crimson Warfare” and “Sinjid:SotW.” Now he is back, and will be crafting the characters and landscapes in Sonny. Will Arbuckle, the creator of the “Edible Castle” series will work with me and Joan to bring you some high quality cut scenes to help with the narrative of the story.

John: What stage is Sonny 2 at?  Can we get a estimation of when we should see it on Armor Games?

Krin: We’ve finished upgrading the actual engine and system of the game, so now we’re working on things like enemies, items, abilities, and of course, the three classes. We still have to design most of these things, both in the mathematical sense and in the graphical sense. I can’t tell you when it will be released, because I don’t know myself. In the past few months, most of the team including me have been locked down by things like final exams which is why we haven’t made much progress, but things are going along pretty fast now. It will be released when it’s COMPLETELY ready Quality cannot be rushed.

It’s been taking such a long time because the game is bigger than Sonny in a lot of ways. We recently talked about maybe having to split the game in half since it’s become so huge. Each Zone in Sonny 2 probably has more story progression to it than the whole of Sonny 1, and there are going to be at least 6 main story Zones (unless we split it), and several other bonus Zones that will also have interesting story motifs, but not be the driving force of the plot. Think of it as “Zone 4″ but with better integration.

Krin: The plot was something that received a lot of complaints about. We listened to every single complaint and we made the storyline one of the main focuses of Sonny 2. People said it ‘trailed off,’ and ‘it was too short,’ and the people are always right!

We’ve worked hard on the new plot, and I think you will find the story to be more engaging and coherent than in the original Sonny. So no more random Samurai ghosts and angry shamans. Doesn’t mean we’ll take away the characters’ dark sense of humor and one-liners though

As usual, a lot of the plot will be narrated through dialogs during battles, and the rest in cut scenes. In the worse case scenarios we might need to pop one or two boxes of text post-battle for you to read

Krin: You’ll hear what’s on the tape, and you’ll be thinking “Krin was probably high when he did this.” And no, it’s not a Rick Roll or anything of that nature.

You will also find out what happened on the ship the day Sonny was resurrected. You’ll get answers to most of questions presented in the original Sonny. Of course, those answers will just be the beginning

Krin: The AI has been improved and friendly AI is designed so that you won’t need to depend on them so much anymore, so the chance that you lose a fight because your AI teammate randomized the wrong ability will be much less. I’ve decided I don’t want to give players full control of the AI. There are plenty of games that do that, and I think it’s more interesting to have to work WITH the AI rather than control it completely. What you ARE able to do though, is to tell a teammate to fight in a different style. The 5 modes of AI are: Phalanx, Defensive, Tactical, Aggressive, Relentless. You can change it in combat.

Bosses and fights can now have ‘phases.’ For example, once you get a boss down to 50% life, he might say “Now I pwn you!” and starts using completely different skills and fighting styles, so your tactics and strategy are REALLY put to the test this time!

There is also a ‘hardcore’ more to play on. This mode will be like the normal mode, except each turn you have a limited time to make your move. I’m thinking of making it so that the faster you make your move, the more effective it is and the less likely it is to miss. This will put pressure on you and make it more intense and challenging.

Krin: Since there is not yet any multi-player interaction, balancing the classes basically means that the game is equally fun to play for all three classes. This can still be hard though, because we need to make sure all bosses are beatable with any class. And since the classes all have different ability trees, we’ll need to make bosses have more than one weakness (unlike the bosses in Zone 4 in Sonny, where there was only 1-2 viable tactics per boss). This doesn’t mean we’re planning to make it less challenging though. We’re actually hoping to make the endgame of Sonny 2 even more intense.

The actual ability trees themselves will be more flexible and useful than before. And example ability from the Biological class is “Crystallize.” It stuns the target for a couple of turns, yet at the same time shielding it from all damage. This could be used both on friends and enemies, for both defensive and offensive purposes.

Krin: Writing the story was hard. When we made Sonny, we never really thought people would be so interested in the story, so we left a lot of open ends. The challenge in Sonny 2 was to find a way to create a story that would be coherent with the first one, and also very exciting to experience on its own, AND also explain the loopholes we’ve left in the first Sonny.

Krin: Before people have had to wait up to a year for a new release of my games… And Sinjid fans are still waiting for 3+ years (I haven’t forgotten about you!). Don’t yell at me for having to wait two months We’re going fast, but we won’t release it until it’s reached the quality we want! I’ll get some screen shots when we are a little bit more progressed!

There you have it.  Don’t yell at Krin, he’s working hard and it makes him sad.

We’ll try to keep up with Krin and his team as they work through the various portions of the new Sonny game.  Thanks Krin for the interview!

I have the dream of one day going to space, but until then I have to live vicariously through a little hedgehog.  I am currently developing a launch game similar to Kitten Cannon, R!SE or Throw Me.  Instead of just being about launching you can fully upgrade your hedgehog to get special power ups and upgrades.  It’s a sophisticated little engine that puts you in control of the launch and the player’s movement and direction… so you can move around and collect objects while you are flying around!

As you fly through the skies you collect coins and hit platforms to launch higher.  Use your coins at the end of each level to upgrade your launcher and get you even higher!  The overall mission of the game is to launch into space, and once you do you win!  The secondary goal however is to do it in the least amount of in-game days.   Each time you launch it counts as a day, and you need to be careful not to waste resources and hedgehogs.  So strategy plays a big role in the proper defeating of this game.

I am hoping I can get this game out by next week.  It’s been a fun little side-project I have been working on in my free time.

I can’t believe he called me down on not capitalising ONE letter ‘i’.

To be honest, I found this to be amazing, it’s nice to hear someone critisize you for somethign you did years ago and reflect on how much you’ve improved (debatable?).

Warning: Some bad language if you’re sensitive :p

Kudos to Mr Reviewer, whoever you are

And also, this is his only video, but his youtube name is Armor Games Reviewer, so who knows who is next!?

Back when E3 was about Games, SWAG, Laura Croft Look-a-likes, and extravagant booths, there was college kid who had a dream of attending the show. His dream quickly was defeated by the reality of E3 being open to ‘Business Professionals’ only.

Where there is a Will, there is a Way; and this college hopeful created his own company called LAM (Local Area Marketing) that specialized in Video Game Marketing. Did the company have any clients or revenues? Nope, but they had business cards and a Charming CEO!

The day of the show arrived and like a Kid in a Candy store the CEO browsed the showroom floor grabbing free shirts, stickers and hobnobbing with the elite. Checking the E3 program revealed that Tony Hawk was going to be there endorsing his new (and yet to be released) game ‘Tony Hawk Pro-Skater 2′.

For the rest of the story, You’ll have to watch the video!

Video Credits:
Starring Daniel McNeely & Tony Hawk
Produced and Edited by Adam Barisoff
Voice Over by James Evans

For a Trip Down Memory Lane visit these photo sets of E3 from past years.
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005

We recently launched our Facebook page and we would LOVE you to be our fan/friend! Our Facebook page has also been programmed to keep up with our ArmorBlog and new games from Armor Games! You’ll also find featured games and other points of interest.

If you have trouble adding us just use the search box on Facebook and type in “Armor Games” and it should be the first link that appears.

I am so happy there is a relevant Lolcat for all situations!

We’ve met before, I introduced myself as Chris from Con Artists Productions. Now it’s Con of Armor Games. It’s confusing I know, but just call me Con. It’s easier that way. Bottom line is, I’m that guy who made those zombie games.

So I’m to announce that I’m now a part of the Armor team and will be over here making games full time for one and all. That’s fantastic and exciting you say, well it is, but this is something that isn’t new to me, in fact I came from a very similar world and while The Last Stand was my first Flash game it was actually far from it. Long story short, been making games since I was a kid, school, university, leave university to work for big american games company, worked in advertising, learned Flash & Photoshop there, became a producer on Flash games there, left there to make games again.

For the long version of that story, I did an interview with a director friend of mine last week which I’ll share with you all once it’s been cut together.

In the meantime, I’m happy to be on board and look forward to producing more work for everyone. I’ve started on my new project and will show off some bits in the coming weeks.

- Con

We love magazines, especially ones that feature our games! The most recent issue of EGM (Electronic Gaming Monthly) magazine has a spot on Dark Cut 2,
short but sweet! This is the second time a magazine has featured Dark Cut 2, the first being a few months ago when Games for Windows magazine ran the game in a separate article. You can pick up a copy of this magazine (June ‘08 edition) at a local bookstore.

While I do not have any children (minions?) to do my programming I am busy working on a project with BoMToons, the artist/programmer behind Castle Crashing the Beard and Boss Bash. We’re working on a platformer that pays tribute to an older game that I find both epic and to be the best video game ever made. Cannot disclose too much yet but I’ll post screenshots when the time comes.

Also a few other projects coming up… yes the RPG is coming up next after that. I really, really need to finish that. And of course Halloween is coming up in just five months which means that the final installment of Dark Cut is in order. No, Light Cut was not a serious venture and definitely not the last. Any suggestions for a theme for Dark Cut 3? We went Medieval then Civil War… what’s next?

Hi there everyone, just thought I’d give you an update of what I’m just finishing up on - a single or multiplayer arena fragfest in the same vein as the super bomberman games for the Super Nintendo. Multiplayer you say? Yes I say! Sadly due to time constraints, the game is not online multiplayer, but can support 2 players sharing a keyboard (Arrrgh I hear you cry) or 4 players via Wiimote (Whaaa!? I hear you cry) in the Nintendo Wii browser (once the feature is fully tested). For those who cry out for some Solo action (or people without any friends), there’s 12 solo battle scenarios against AI opponents to beat to unlock medals and a custom game option for those who just want a drop in drop out ass kicking session to blow off the day’s stresses. The game acts as most shooters do, only with fast thinking strategy introduced. Whereas in bomberman you lay your weapons on a delay, in FF your player hurls fireballs in the direction he is facing. The strategy is introduced by the grid system the game runs on, to change your direction of fire, you must move one space. This means that in later levels Strategy is a must if you want to outsmart the AI or a skilled human opponent. Certain blocks can be destroyed to leave items which level up your characters rate of fire, making collection an important part of any battle. Anyway, I’ll stop yammering on about it and get back to work on it, here’s a few screenies for you

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Click for bigger image.

In other news, looks like someone is gunning for my job.

Please excuse how dopey I sound trying to teach her phonetic letters, but I’m hoping to have her replace me soon without Dan noticing, so she can do all the hard work while I reap the rewards!

Well thats all for now, I hope to make posts more frequently and get into greater touch with the Armor community hence forth

-Tony

Since this is my first time posting on the Armor Blog, I suppose a “Hi Everyone!” is in order. For those that don’t know me, my name is Jared and I own a tiny little flash game studio called Hero Interactive.

We’ve got a lot of great games lined up for you guys this summer season, among them is Bubble Tanks 2, the sequel to our most successful game to date.  For those of you who purchased the StormWinds 1/1.5 Extra Content for $5, you are now able to try out the demo!  I’ve sent a copy of the demo to ArmorGames, which you can now find at the top of this page.  You can also CLICK HERE.  Giving you access to the demo is our way of saying a big thanks for all of your support! If you don’t have the Extra Content and want a keycode, you can purchase one here.

Before I finish this post (and before some of you start whining about how $5 is soooooo much money), I’d like to give a huge thanks to Armor Games.  For those of you that didn’t know, Bubble Tanks 2 was going to include an Extra Content feature similar to what was available in StormWinds.  Now, however, Dan from Armor Games has decided to generously purchase a license to make it so all ArmorGames.com players will get to play the extra content for FREE.  That’s right, only on ArmorGames.com will there be extra tank states, new enemies, and bonus game modes… and it’ll be free.  So if you see Dan online, tell him thanks!