Press

99 Spirits of True PC Gaming

/ Jakke Elonen / Leave a comment

Last weekend had the pleasure to be interviewed by Adam Ames from True PC Gaming.

It ended up a long and fruitful talk, so if you want to read more about our work on 99 Spirits, head on over to http://truepcgaming.com/2013/05/15/trial-and-error-99-spirits-interview/ and give it a read!

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We have been sending review copies of 99 Spirits around for the past week or two – if you haven’t gotten one but would like to review the game, just shoot us a message.

Our current status is such that the game is fully in order and we are preparing the gold master to give to our distributors this weekend.

Almost all IndieGoGo goods have also been produced, save for the game discs for the special collector’s edition, which of course will get the release version of the game. We will ship all of them together when they’re ready.

Gather Your Fruitbat Party

/ Ozhan Sen / Leave a comment

Yesterday we had a nice chat with Jake Booth from Gather Your Party dot com. You can read it by following the link below:

http://www.gatheryourparty.com/articles/2013/03/07/interview-with-fruitbat-factory/

We would like to thank Jake for this fun interview, and we hope you’ll enjoy reading it.

OH! By the way, we are at 85% on the 99 Spirits’ IndieGoGo campaign. It’s so good to see more people pledging everyday. Thank you!

Cutest character ever

Cutest character ever

Here’s a sketch from the 99 Spirits artbook we’ll release as part of the campaign. A taste of things to come.

Interview with a Walrus

/ Jakke Elonen / 2 Comments

As we’ve been busy working on 99 Spirits and suddenly realized we haven’t posted anything on the blog this week, today we decided to bring you an interview with one of our own: Tony Blomqvist, the coder, proofreader, infamous walrus lover.

Jakke: Can you tell us a little about yourself, Tony?

Tony: I code stuff and it either works or doesn’t, I like music and anything Jakke doesn’t like.

Jakke: That’s a good start, what about…

Tony: and I believe all monkeys should be set free.

Jakke: Quite so, quite so. Now for the thousand dollar question: what is it you actually do around here, Tony?

Tony: Well, dearest Jakke McFlammy Flemington, a lot of different incoherent things. My main participation is in creating scripts and programs that help Fruitbat Factory’s localization projects, as well as proofreading the text. With War of the Human Tanks, I made the installer and launcher, developed scripts for managing the project’s text files, and edited the game’s source code to improve some text positions and gameplay mechanics.

Jakke: Oh, yeah, I think that rings a bell. What would you say was the hardest aspect in working on War of the Human Tanks?

Tony: Studying the game’s code with no prior C/C++ experience! As someone who has only recently started programming (mainly with Python), there was a lot to learn. The engine War of the Human Tanks runs on, System 4.0, allows games to be coded with C-like abstraction, but it was all new to everyone on the team, and all the documentation, of course, was in Japanese. Though frustratingly difficult at times, it was also a very educational process, and taught me a lot about C and code structuring. When I eventually could comfortably alter the code of bigger segments such as changing pre-battle tank repositioning to work on-the-fly, it felt very rewarding.

Walrus

Jakke: What about your strange, unnatural love for walruses?

Tony: My love for walruses. Now that’s a tough one. I have no idea. I guess the Finnish word for a walrus sounds cute? Yeah.

Oh, there’s that Beatles song about walruses. That’s pretty trippy. Maybe that has affected me too.  Its name is, unsurprisingly, “I am the walrus”. John Lennon wrote the song after he had heard that there’s a study group that likes to analyze the meaning of his lyrics. He made the lyrics totally nonsensical and thought “let the fuckers figure that out”. At least so Wikipedia or some other documentary claimed. That’s my most trusted source, I have to admit I wasn’t there.

Jakke: Thank you very much for the insightful commentary on the state of modern localization work.

Interview with a Fruitbat

/ Ozhan Sen / Leave a comment

So Last Gen, who earlier did a review on War of the Human Tanks by the tile of I love the Smell of Napalm in the Morning asked us for an interview. We had fun answering their questions about the secrets behind the Fruitbats.

For your eyes only: Interview with a Dev: Fruitbat Factory.

Fruitbat Photo

They even published some photos of us, though this one seems a little obstructed.

Also, another stage of the five-chapter “Let’s Play” guide for War of the Human Tanks is now up. This time it might even be helpful!

Where can you find it, you ask?

As usual, the guide can be found at: Chapter 4: ‘Kana Was Awesomely Awesome’

Human Tanks, Charge!

/ Jakke Elonen / 1 Comment

The day has come. The troops stand prepared. Are you ready?

War of the Human Tanks is now officially out.

The first pre-orderers have probably begun playing the game already, and we’re hoping they’ll have a jolly good time of it.

Release

To celebrate the launch of our first title, we’re having a 10% launch week discount campaign. Go grab yours at the nearest (hah!) digital retailer!

In additional news, Green Man Gaming came through today, and you can now find War of the Human Tanks listed there as well, in addition to Desura, GamersGate and Indievania!

The reviews are still coming in. Clark A. at Digitally Downloaded gave War of the Human Tanks 3.5/5:

“It’s absolutely a worthy title in its own right. The character banter is thoroughly entertaining, augmented by solid combat.”

But don’t just take his word for it when you can check out the free demo featuring first 5 full episodes of the game.

“Fun, Fast, Intense Action”

/ Jakke Elonen / Leave a comment

Just three days away from release. It’s starting to almost feel real.

Angie (@9aia) surprised us with another smiting illustration of Liselotte from War of the Human Tanks.

Liselotte is clearly worrying about all the things that could and probably will go wrong.
Stay strong, Liselotte!

We also received a new review by Matthew Kim at Twinfinite, from whence this post’s tagline comes.

“If you’re a military buff with a thing for anime then you’ll definitely be interested in War of the Human Tanks.”

Liselotte recommends reading the full review here.

Favorite Tanks

/ Fruitbat Factory / Leave a comment

Today we decided to take a break from translating the game and conduct a survey to see what people like best about War of the Human Tanks, instead. Here are some responses from random passersby (names have been altered to respect their privacy):

J*kke
For me, the twisted humor in War of the Human Tanks really hits the spot. I instantly fell in love with the name of the game – I mean, human tanks, anyone? The rest didn’t disappoint once I played it, either. Using Shock Tanks to carry self-destructing messages? Rewarding the pitiable tanks with cola for a bloody battle? Protagonist’s complete disregard for orderly behavior? I absolutely love it. There’s nary an episode that hasn’t managed to wring at the very least a wry grin out of me. Since most of my time is spent working on the script, I can very much appreciate the humor in it.
And I must add, Heshiko‘s distressed face is especially cute… if you know what I mean!


O*han
I don’t know if you ever played the game Battleship but the way you make blind shots while trying to guess at the enemy’s location in Human Tanks reminds me of Battleship in a positive way, especially when you are dealing with units larger than a single hex.

I also love customizing my units and how this changes the whole experience, oftentimes in funny ways. For example, I have this Hikari model tank that hits an immense area when she attacks with the Shooting Area +1 module I had her equip. I also wanted her to be fast, so I equipped her second slot with a Modem, increasing her speed by one. But because her range isn’t long enough to compensate, whenever she fires she hits herself as well. Luckily she occupies four hexes, so she won’t kill herself if I’m careful, but she’s also helping the enemy take her down making this a double edged sword, a very silly one at that.

Y*shifumi
This game is stupid! I can’t get any work done because I just keep playing it. It’s horrible!!

T*ny
I’ve had a blast with the game’s story. The supposed seriousness of warfare is contradicted by the wacky antics of the 4th Armored Corps in such an innocuous manner one can’t help but laugh. The scenario’s has just the right balance between battles and dialogue to constantly keep me entertained. Oh, and the soundtrack always gets me rockin’ along!

M*ry
Theres something really satisfying about the battle preparation in WOHT, spending supplies to upgrade and assemble my human tanks, then strategically deploying them on the battlefield. I spend a good chunk of my time when I play the game just thinking about my strategy, considering my options, and putting together my personalized army for each battle.