Coding Away

First and foremost we wanted to thank everyone for all the feedback and comments we have been receiving for on our alpha release. We never imagined getting such a large response to the game and we have been working tirelessly to bring to you our next alpha.

Our plan is to bring you new builds on a fairly frequent basis. The goal is to release a nfeew alpha build once every 2 weeks. That includes new features, bug fixes, and hopefully a plethora if chicken slaughtering fun. The next bi-weekly alpha update is planned for schedule March 3rd.

Garrett has been hard at work fixing bugs and coding new features for our next public release. We have managed to implement smooth camera controls. This took quite a bit of time considering Garrett had to essentially rewrite the way our game displays it's graphics. We have a list of the major features we plan on adding within the coming weeks.

Top Priority Features

• Ability for dwarves to be assigned and complete tasks
• Inventory/GUI
• Sound/Music (kinda a big deal...)
• Title/menu screen
• Saving levels
• Mob spawner
• Parallax layers
• Randomly generated levels (dormant code lying around that we have yet to test out with active AI)
• Number crunching stuff
• Cuter chickens.

Our goal is to have these features implemented into the game within the coming weeks. Also don't hold my word on this however we may have a chicken spawner in our next build.

As always don't forget to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Moddb, IndieDB, and Blogger.

After 4 months of work we have a playable alpha build for the public. There is still a lot of work that needs to be done before we are anywhere near a final build. However this alpha is a big step in that direction. You can grab the alpha in the downloads section of Mod/IndieDB profile page.

Survivors of Ragnarok Alpha Download

We want to thank the community for all the support and feedback we have been getting since we first announced Survivors of Ragnarök. Not to be cavalier or anything but we believe we have the most kick-ass community around. You guys are awesome and can't wait to keep churning out updates and crafting a game that you guys will love.



So without further adieu, we would like to mark 2.15.11 in the books of Valhalla. Our image section is open to the public so feel free to upload what you guys have made in the alpha. Odin himself can not wait to see what creative things can be done with a very limited amount of tile and object types. We hope you guys enjoy the alpha and it would be great to know what you guys think about it the alpha. Your input and feedback is much appreciated.

As always don't forget to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Moddb, IndieDB, and Blogger.

Survivors of Ragnarök - Tiny Teeny Trivial Update

Not that it's a big deal or anything but we figured we would update you guys on even the smallest of news. Honestly, it's so minor we don't know why we are even writing a news post about it. Of all the unimportant things to fill the community on this has to be the the most trite and paltry bit of news we could share. However we do expect to keep you guys in the loop with our game no matter how insignificant the progress.

We are sorry to bother you with such trivial matters but there's a certain amount of expectation to be had when releasing news about insignificant progress. We put together a quick preview of what to expect from our alpha release of Survivors of Ragnarok. It's pretty bare-bones right now, however its a solid base to start adding new features within the coming months.

Alpha Preview - Indie DB

There is still a lot to do before we are close to a final release. However this alpha is just a small step towards a final release. As for when you can get your hands on it.... the alpha will be available to the public February 15th. Yes this coming Tuesday the alpha will be available to download for the public. Retrospectively if you consider late December early January to be mid February then we are on schedule.

Along with this news we have three more tiny bite size news. One of them being the unimportant launch of the French Rice Games website. Technically we are official now, as far as requirements for a game developer goes.

French Rice Games

The third mini update for this news post is that our main programmer Garrett has been working a a little side project. AdvenGen is a text based adventure game engine with the goal of being able to create text based adventure games with ease. Garrett has been working on creating a user-friendly modable engine that would allow players to easily create modules and stories. It is still in the early stages of development however AdvenGen should not slow down any progress for in developing SoR.

AdvenGen

The fourth and final trifling news is that we recently had a chance to talk with Kappa from The Game Atelier and their latest game Flying Hamster. Our latest Pixel Pusher Podcast interview is delves deep into putting that extra polish into the game, releasing on multiple platformers, possible announcement that it's being released for the PC, and most importantly drunk hamsters shooting laser beam beer streams. We highly suggest you check out Flying Hamsters currently released for the PSP/PS3, Iphone, and Ipad.

Flying Hasmter

The Game Atelier

Pixel Pushers - The Game Atelier - Indie DB

Unfortunately that's all the micro updates we could pack in this paltry news post. Sorry for disappointing you guys with this minuscule post as I know you guys have been wished we had more things to talk about. That's all we could squeeze out since our last news post so we apologize for your disappointment.

As always don't forget to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Moddb, IndieDB, and Blogger.

Om Nom Nom

We've been hard at working getting some pretty important features done in the past couple weeks. Garrett has been hard at work with GUI, Building, Eating, and just about everything that has to actually do with making a game and not an engine.



Code Monkey Log:
-Consumable Layer (Potions, Food, etc)
-Dwarfs finally eat
-Creating/Removing Tiles
-Bare Bones UI
-??? Coding
-More ??? Coding

We should hopefully have a video soon showing off some of the new features that have been implemented.




If you guys haven't already checked it out a new episode of Pixel Pusher's is up. We did not get a chance to do an interview on that episode however we managed to catch the guys at Exit Strategy Entertainment over the weekend and chat about them on their current up and coming game, Pirates of New Horizon. For fans of the game we may even have a couple exclusive* reveals. Something along the lines of cats, Nintendo, and middleware.


Pixel Pushers 02 audio - French Rice Games - Indie DB


Pixel Pushers - Exit Strategy Entertainment audio - French Rice Games - Indie DB

The guys at Exit Strategy are doing an amazing job and creating a really interesting and unique action platformer. If you have not taken time to check out Pirates of New Horizon I would highly recommend you visit their Main Page and Indie/Moddb Profile.






As always don't forget to follow us on witter, Facebook, Moddb, IndieDB, and Blogger.

Pixel Pushers 02

Pixel Pushers 02 audio - French Rice Games - Indie DB

Pixel Pushers - Exit Strategy Entertainment audio - French Rice Games - Indie DB

Pixel Pushers 02

Pixel Pushers 02 audio - French Rice Games - Indie DB

Pixel Pushers Let's Start A Fight

So it seems like we have a winner. After many votes it was a close win between Tomasi, the_chuck_noris, and irpwnu2. And of course who would have guessed that good old Mr. Chuck Norris came out on top. Congrats the_chuck_norris your name will forever been engraved on the walls of Valhalla and you are the winner of eternal glory. Yes, eternal glory. Now that the stage is set, and our hero has been chosen be prepared for an epic battle in the coming month (great way to kick off the new year with a potential roundhouse kick eh?).

Also if anyone disputes the poll...
*screenshoted*
And yes, it did happen.


Onto slightly just as exciting news and somewhat disappointing. Garrett has decided to create a whole library for displaying the game's UI as opposed to using premade libraries. This will allow us for more flexibility over the UI as the game progresses with adding new features and modifying existing ones as opposed to hacking together a UI that would be easier to make in the short term but be much more difficult to modify and add when the time comes.

This also means unfortunately that a playable version to the public won't be happening until Garrett has the libraries finished. So please direct your complaints to Garrett's Moddb/IndieDB profile if you want a public build out faster.

I'll just casually leave the this link down here

PLEASE CLICK ME IF YOU WANT YOUR PUBLIC BUILD

We wanted to also take this news post to introduce our Official French Rice Games' Podcast - Pixel Pushers. It will be a weekly podcast keeping our community up to date with Survivor's of Ragnarok, Moddb/IndieDB News and our personal love for League of Legends. We were fortunate enough to catch Gavin Stevens, the Lead Designer on Overdose, and have a pretty heated debated on Pixels vs Shaders.


If you guys havent already checked out Overdose I would highly advise you head on over to their homepage or Moddb/Indie profile. They have been doing an amazing job with Overdose and from what Gavin has told us about the game we are very much looking forward to getting our hands on it when it is open to the public. The content they have posted on their pages will blow your minds away. Even more so if you wrap your heads around the fact that at it's core it is the same engine that ran Quake 2. We really want to thank them for joining us on the Podcast and hope you guys keep an eye out on them.



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