We have a small (but pretty cool!) update out for Graceful Explosion Machine today which adds Video Capture support for Nintendo Switch. Now when you pull of a particularly graceful run, you can just hold down the capture button and share.
We’re excited to check out all the cool videos you post, so please make sure to share them with us on Twitter!
I’ve mention this a few times on Twitter, but a final reminder before the month is out: our debut game, WE ARE DOOMED is free on PlayStation Plus for September 2017. It looks and plays great on PS4, but it absolutely shines on the PS Vita as the perfect pick up & play game.
WE ARE DOOMED is an intense, neon-soaked twin-stick shooter. It arms the player with an overpowered laserbeam and the more ridiculous SUPERBEAM, then throws in an endless barrage of polygon baddies. It’s a tiny arcade game that I’m glad we were naive enough to build.
Going back and playing it now, I’m happy to see it holds up quite well! Playing it after Graceful Explosion Machine though, I’m especially proud of how far we’ve come as a team since then.
For more info, I’d recommend this excellent video review by Ludiscere. I couldn’t help but smile at his conclusion:
It’s without a doubt an enjoyable game, [but] hypothetically if you were going to pay for only one [game] Graceful Explosion Machine is definitely the way to go.
And despite how much I still enjoy We Are Doomed, I’m inclined to agree.
But for this week, it’s totally free on PS4 and PS Vita, so please pick it up on the PlayStation Store (links: North America, Europe).
Graceful Explosion Machine is out now on PlayStation 4 and Steam! You can find store links and more info on the game page.
We also put together a new launch trailer. It really captures the intense gameplay and chill vibes that Graceful Explosion Machine is all about.
We wanted to do something on the Switch as well, so we decided to have our first-ever sale! From now until August 15th, GEM is 30% off in North America and Europe. That’s just $8.99 / €8.99! If you were on the fence before now is a great time to jump in.
Regardless of which platform you decide to play on, we hope you enjoy Graceful Explosion Machine! 🚀✨
Graceful Explosion Machine is coming to PlayStation 4 and Steam on August 8th, just two weeks from now.
The folks at Sony were kind enough to give us space on the PlayStation Blog to break the news. GEM feels right at home on the PS4, with Trophies (yes, including a Platinum), leaderboards, 1080p, 60fps, and most importantly, swapping the Lightbar colour based on your active weapon.
GEM will also be available on Steam on the same day, and you can Wishlist it today!
Finally, we worked with our friends at Kakehashi Games to bring GEM to Japan for Switch, PS4 and Steam. Switch players won’t even have to wait: GEM will be available on the Japanese eShop tomorrow!
After launching GEM, we were overwhelmed with how enthusiastically everyone took to high score chasing, S-ranking, and sharing scores on Twitter, so we started thinking: how can we make this even better?
We started by redesigning the score screen to give a clearer breakdown of your score, weapon usage, and additional stats that better reflect your play style. It’s both fun and functional.
We also wanted to make it easier to capture and share those clutch GEM moments. Once you’re in the zone, we know it’s hard to stop the game even for a few seconds to grab a screenshot, so we had to come up with a really creative solution.
Or, more accurately, a really technical one: We designed an AI system to pinpoint the most exciting moment of your run, which we then automagically screenshot and display on the score screen. You can fullscreen it, add it to your Album, share it, etc.
(Oh, one more thing! I got really excited looking for a new programming challenge one day and optimized the heck out of the loading code. It started as a quick, easy-peasy thing, but then it kinda spiralled out of control. Long story short: the game loads almost twice as fast now.)
These new features are coming to PS4 and Steam when the game launches on August 8th, but are available to Switch players right now! We hope you enjoy, and we’re looking forward to checking out your killer scores and gorgeous screenshots!
An update for Graceful Explosion Machine is now available, it should be downloading on your Switch as we speak!
So what’s new? With this update, we wanted to focus on adding “quality of life” features to make GEM a little more frictionless to play. To that end, we have two new features:
We’ve heard from people playing GEM on trains, buses, at work, etc. who get really great high scores, but can’t upload them because they aren’t online. This breaks our collective developer hearts, so for v1.0.2 we’ve added Upload Score Later.
From the Score Screen, choose “Later” instead of “Submit Score” to save your score for uploading later. Then, when you’re back online, go to the main menu and select “Upload Scores” (by pressing X) to upload all the pending scores. (And don’t worry, if it fails to upload you can retry later!)
We also added the option to reduce or disable the Screenshake effect. If you have motion sickness related concerns, this should really help. It may not be perfect (our options are limited given what a fast-paced game GEM is), but it’s definitely an improvement!
Those are the major changes, and of course, we snuck in some smaller fixes too. We also have more new stuff in the works, but we’ll save that for another day!
Enjoy! 🚀✨
New Graceful Explosion Machine screenshots. ✨
We debuted Graceful Explosion Machine at PAX East 2016, and it went super well. Everyone totally “got” the game, had lovely things to say about it, and quite a few people returned to play through the demo again.
As always, I especially enjoyed the post-playthrough chats, listening to players’ thoughts, and amassing pages of feedback/notes.
Relevant and exciting links:
Warp Zoned named GEM one of their Best Of PAX East games! The entire list is worth reading through, and it’s a total honour to be on there.
The DG Cast has a nice write up as well, going over the basics and core mechanics.
Finally, I was on the Indie [Dot] XSplit Showcase, where I talked about and played Graceful Explosion Machine for a whole 25 minutes or so. Please enjoy the footage, and also, my almost-entirely drained vocal chords.
Graceful Explosion Machine, our new announced colourful and explody shoot-em-up will be at PAX East this coming weekend as part of the Indie MEGABOOTH. We’ll be at the MINIBOOTH section, please come by if you’re attending!
And for those watching at home, I’ll be streaming game on the Indie Dot XSplit Showcase on Friday (April 22) at noon.