November 11, 2015
Well, it’s been a while. Sorry about that – been kinda busy. We’re inching our way forward on the PS3. We’re in the midst of fixing a long list of bugs as part of the Sony certification process, which is really tough. Since our last post, we’ve also added a bunch of new features such as three extra characters as well as an equipment selection area, which adds a whole new layer of depth to the gameplay . It’s a pretty cool feature – at this point there is less emphasis on the character customisation side you might see in a Tony Hawk game, we’ve taken a different route to begin with. We’re focusing largely on equipment in The Surfer – what this means is the player is encouraged to get the equipment combinations right as they have the most impact in the game. In short, if you don’t choose the right board and /or suit combination per the local wave conditions, it’s going to have an impact on your performance. At the moment you can select a board, repair a board when it snaps, select a steamer or a spring suit, board shorts etc and longer term we want to add a feature where you can shape your own surfboard. We’ll also be adding a lot more on the character customisation side too, so you will be able to do more with the visuals of the character, but we want to focus mainly on the performance side. Cosmetics are nice, sure, but purchasing a skill that has an impact in the game is better. What else have we done? Oh yeah, we’ve also added much more flexibility in the camera system, so now you can zoom into 1st person camera when it suits, along with an ability to slow motion the action for a small period of time. The other pieces we’ve added are a whole new slew of music tracks and a bunch of high quality movies and voice overs at the beginning of the main tour rounds that really add some much needed production value to the game. In short the updated Surfer Core build for PS3, with 3 Single player game modes, a local multiplayer mode, 5 locations, 16 levels and over 3 hours of game-play, our original minimum viable product isn’t so minimal now. The word ‘Minimum’ is pretty important because we initially needed to create a small set of features that we set out to make both tight and fun. Based on the feedback we’ve been getting we thought that we largely achieved that on the whole, albeit with the need for some obvious improvements. Further along now, we’re getting a fair bit closer to the game we always imagined.
