Fishing Cactus development blog » 2009

Archive for May, 2009

Our arcade cabinet just arrived!

Thursday, May 28th, 2009

Here we go! Fishing Cactus is now the proud owner of a real, working and money eater arcade cabinet with some deadly games in it.

After a long and pretty tough travel in a dirty van, the cabinet arrived in our offices and is now waiting for some extra plugs tuning Julien and Ramses will have to do when they have some spare time. We plan to customize the cabinet with some great Fishing Cactus artworks to make it sexier.

In the meantime take look at these amazing pictures

Arcade Cabinet

Posted in COMPANY LIFE | 5 Comments »

15,000 for Equilibrio Lite and 40,000 for Shift Lite

Thursday, May 28th, 2009

Equilibrio Lite has been already downloaded 15,000 times and we got a terrific success for Equilibrio in France, Belgium and Italy and a growing interest from journalists in many countries: Colombia, Israel, Greece, Russia…

Shift Lite has gathered a lot of interest in the US with more than 40,000 downloads in one week!

Stay tuned for more numbers…

Posted in COMPANY LIFE | No Comments »

:Shift: and Shift Lite available on the App Store

Tuesday, May 19th, 2009

Shift iPhone Fishing Cactus is proud to announce that :Shift:, its new mind puzzling game developed in collaboration with Armor Games, is out on the iPhone/iPod Touch.

The game is a port of the popular flash game known for its intricate puzzles that force players to use creative intelligence. The flash game has grown wildly in popularity, with it being played more than 25 million times to date! Many have become enraptured in Shift’s simplicity of a man trying to reach a door.

Shift-Lite
FREE – You get the WHOLE Shift 1 game and all its tasty puzzle goodness. The game you play online is the same here!

Shift “Full”
*Only $0.99 cents!
*Features ALL the original levels
*More than 25 NEW levels
*Customized Soundtrack

Posted in Announcement, COMPANY LIFE | 2 Comments »

Equilibrio Lite, v1.2 and promotion!

Tuesday, May 19th, 2009

Some of you have already noticed that Equilibrio Lite has been released a few days ago. However we did not communicate about it until today (however we still gathered more than 7200 downloads in 3 days).

This free version of our mesmerizing gyrating ball puzzle features 15 out of the 60 levels in the conquest mode as well as all the trophies. We hope this version will give you a good glimpse of what the game has to propose (it is definitely not a 2 minutes demo).

On top of that both lite and complete versions have been updated thanks to the reviews we got from users and press (overall they are really good). This update brings many significant improvements on the game graphics (new ball visuals), physics (better feeling of gravity, rolling ball) and gameplay (improved framerate, reduced time to enter game and removed unnecessary tapping). A complete list of all the modifications made is available on the game description page on the App Store.

Last but not least, Equilibrio will be sold 1.99$ / 1.49€ (50% off!) for a very limited time. If you are enjoying the Lite Edition it is the perfect moment to give the full game a try!

Posted in Announcement, COMPANY LIFE | No Comments »

A new Fishing Cactus Game: Shift iPhone!

Thursday, May 14th, 2009

Shift iPhone Fishing Cactus in collaboration with Armor Games is proud to announce the release of the iPhone / iPod Touch remake of Shift, the incredible mind puzzling platform game.

Of course this game is not a simple port of the original flash game. Instead Fishing Cactus in collaboration with Antony Lavelle, the author of Shift, added tons of new levels making a truly new Shift experience for the iPhone.

A free version will be available for you guys to give it a try. It’s not one of those crummy free versions that last 2 seconds as it is rather substantial giving you the opportunity to play as much time as the original flash game!

Both free and full versions are scheduled to hit the store on the 19th of May. Stay tuned!

Posted in Announcement | 1 Comment »

Equilibrio tilt and break!

Saturday, May 9th, 2009

We got two new reviews of Equilibrio and one of them has been made by Kotaku and it’s very nice!

“It’s an impulse purchase with enough staying power to make sure you don’t regret your decision. LocoRoco style, the controls are completely free of the frustrations found in some motion-based games.”
- Kotaku

7.1 / 10 “Likened to Super Monkey Ball and other ball rolling games one the Wii, it’s simple, fun and price is nice.”
- NG4

Posted in COMPANY LIFE | No Comments »

Test of Hysteria Project

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

Hysteria Project on iPhone I had the opportunity to buy and play Hysteria Project this week-end. This is BulkyPix’s first project on iPhone. I thought it would be a good idea to drop a few lines on the blog to talk about the project and discuss why it is worth the try.

At the start of the game you will notice that you are locked in a small cabin, hands and foot tied up. What will you do? Decision making is the main gameplay of the game.

Right up from the start, Hysteria Project dives in a world mixing influences from Blair Witch Project, the Hole and other thriller / horror movies of the same kind. The game is made of first person video shoots. Between the cut-scenes you are asked to pick decisions from available choices, the decision you take will define the fate of the coming steps. You’ll have to pay attention to details because most of the time they will help you pick the right option, picking up the wrong one will inevitably make you die.

On top of the decision making system, some cut-scenes feature quick time event sequences where the player has to quickly push visual cues appearing on the screen. This gameplay mechanic brings a lot of tension and pressure to the experience and in my point of view seems like a complementary feature which increases the overall immersion of the title.

I definitely recommend the earphones so you can truly live a stressful experience (which is not something I believed in when I launched the game). This game made me shiver more than once.

Definitely taking the path of episodic content Bulkypix has been really smart from the art point of view and, with Hysteria Project, they crafted a very good game. The only problem? The game is a little bit short, I simply want more!

You can find Hysteria Project on the App Store following this link.

Posted in Game Design, Uncategorized | No Comments »

The pooling ideas philosophy

Friday, May 1st, 2009

After reading Damion Schubert’s excellent article on pooling ideas in May 2008′s Game Developer magazine, something came immediately on our mind: the problem, with designers, is not exactly the will to get ideas from everyone but how they gather it, filter it and analyze it to model the game experience.