Spirit Hunt Progress #2

26/02/2013 / Jakke Elonen / Leave a comment

The 99 Spirits IndieGoGo project just hit 40% of target funding – big thanks everyone!

To commemorate that, we’re launching a 4-day 40% discount for our previous release, War of the Human Tanks – you can head over to Desura to grab your copy.

Shizuru expresses her gratitude like only she knows how.

Also, here’s an update on the current status of the localization:

We just finished working on chapter 7 out of of 12 of the story.
The game mechanics are starting to be in playable condition – as illustrated by this gameplay preview we put together last week.

We’ll still need to perform a lot of play testing before the release, and there may yet be large changes ahead. However, the first compiled versions are starting to look pretty good.

We are working on a trial version and aim to have it complete by the time the IndieGoGo project closes – note that one of the pledge rewards features an early access to the trial a week ahead of others!

99 Spirits – Playing the Game

19/02/2013 / Jakke Elonen / Leave a comment

Our IndieGoGo project for 99 Spirits is running well – in the first week we have raised 31% of the total goal, which is cause enough for celebration. Big thanks to everyone who has already helped us there!

One theme has come up repeatedly in comments since our entry to Steam Greenlight and IndieGoGo – many players would like to see detailed gameplay footage from the English version.

After many revisions and 4 days of recording, here it is: the first English gameplay footage from 99 Spirits.

Do note that the video above is from a pre-alpha version of the game, and all content is subject to change.

We found that trying to explain the gameplay in a compact video isn’t an easy task due the puzzle mechanics mixed in. I tried to shoot different aspects of the gameplay, and we added overlay explanations (top-right) to clarify what’s happening on screen.

We hope you’ll enjoy the footage and don’t hesitate to drop any comments, questions or improvement suggestions.

99 Spirits and a New Font

16/01/2013 / Jakke Elonen / Leave a comment

And now for some development news.

As I began editing the 99 Spirits scripts, I found I wasn’t very happy with the font the game used; in English it looked rather clunky for the theme and feel of the game.

After discussing it with the developer, TORaIKI, we found it’s possible to redeem this, and after careful evaluation the font used in the game’s story segments has been changed into one which I believe captures the spirit of the game much, much better, making the text more colorful while retaining full readability.

You can see the outcome in the shots below.

Our whole team is extremely happy with the new looks, but more importantly, what do you think?

Those Who Hunt Tsukumogami

11/12/201211/12/2012 / Jakke Elonen / 3 Comments

In answer to a popular request, today we’ll walk you over the basic gameplay in 99 Spirits. We’re calling it a Puzzle RPG, but what does that mean exactly?

Read on to find out! (Note: all images are still very much a work in progress.)

The combat in 99 Spirits revolves around a puzzle mechanic wherein you work out the true identity of the enemy Tsukumogami, ordinary objects that, as per the Japanese legend, have come alive on their 100th birthday.

At the beginning of each battle, you face an enemy shrouded in an impenetrable mist which signifies the concealment of their true nature, and no attacks performed on them can cause lasting damage. All you can do is simply exchange blows with them until they run away. The battle itself is kind of turn based, you have a set number of strikes every ‘turn’ – or ‘clash’ as we call them, and you either defend or attack as long as they last – but the enemy can interrupt you with their own attack, and with good reflexes you can parry that and counterattack.

Now, when you obtain the Gokon sword, you gain two new abilities in the form of the gems you can see at the bottom:

You fill the two gems by attacking and defending, respectively. Once the first gem’s gauge fills up from your attacks, it allows you to read a part of the essence of the enemy Tsukumogami.
These hints come in the form of either a keyword related to the item in question, or part of the name of the actual artifact:

Once you have gathered enough hints for that ’eureka’ moment when it all clicks, you can use the sword’s second gem to make a guess at the item that is the essence of the Tsukumogami you are fighting.

Activating the gem brings up a new menu, where you enter your guess:

And if it’s correct…

The enemy’s true form is revealed!

Each Tsukumogami is unique from their hand-drawn artwork to their fingerprint-like combat hints, so an experienced spirit-hunter might be able to identify a familiar prey from a single hint. Based on early testing sessions with family, I can already tell this part can also be great fun with friends trying to outdo each other to puzzle out the correct answer as fast as possible.

From this point you can unleash all of your skills to vanquish the enemy.

If all goes well, you’ll defeat the Tsukumogami and continue your journey.

A keen reader might’ve picked up on there being more than two gems in the sword, but that’s a story for another day.

The game has nearly 100 different Tsukumogami with dozens of different skills to conquer, and you can eventually capture them to learn their skills, making the battles increasingly more complex and tons of fun.

In closing, don’t forget to support 99 Spirits in the Indie Dev Grant voting at http://bundle-in-a-box.com/!

Countdown Bundle

23/11/201204/12/2012 / Ozhan Sen / 3 Comments

While we’re working on 99 Spirits, we most certainly haven’t forgotten War of the Human Tanks. We’ve been working hard behind the scenes to give as many people as we can reach the opportunity to enjoy the game.

On that note, we’re happy to announce that War of the Human Tanks will be featured in the IndieFort Countdown Bundle!

WotHT will be included in the final week’s bundle from 12/21/2012 to 12/27/2012, but do check out the great lineup below – if you buy all of the previous weeks’ bundles, you will get the bundle with War of the Human Tanks innit for absolutely FREE.

How is that possible, you ask? Read on after the trailer.

Countdown Bundle is made of five separate bundles, a new bundle every week for five weeks. Each bundle is made of four games and priced at $4. For each bundle you buy, the next one will be $1 cheaper. So if you buy the first one, the second bundle is only $3; buy that and the next one is $2, going that way next one is $1 and the final bundle (that is to say, the one War of the Human Tanks is in) will be completely free.

That’s $10 for a total of 20 games at the end of five weeks. We also have bonuses that will unlock upon reaching set sales goals that include 7 more games, 6 OSTs and an add-on. Making the full price of everything you are getting for just $10 into a grand total of $250. A 96% discount is a deal you should not to miss.

We have also teamed up with the kind folks at the charity organization Help-Daniel. We are dedicating part of the proceeds from the full five weeks of sales to him, and want to reach out to the community for help in the hopes he makes a full recovery soon.

Since this bundle is hosted by GamersGate, you will get a key for everything there. Also the games on this bundle that have Steam versions already present will give Steam keys to add to your account. (Marked those with (STEAM) below) And the rest are all on Greenlight (except 2, here is a link to the Greenlight Collection) and you will get a Steam key for those when they are greenlit with your votes. So don’t forget to vote YES for them. (Marked those with (Greenlight) below)

IndieFort Countdown Bundle:

Week 1:
Aeon Command (Greenlight)
Genetrive 2
Space Pirates and Zombies (STEAM)
Waveform (STEAM)

Week 2:
Caster (STEAM)
Hegemony Gold: Wars of Ancient Greece (STEAM)
Strategic War in Europe (Greenlight)
Zombies (Greenlight)

Week 3:
Alien Hallway (STEAM)
Bridge It (Greenlight)
Eryi’s Action (Greenlight)
Terrorhedron (Greenlight)

Week 4:
Achron (STEAM)
Alien Shooter 2 Conscription (STEAM)
Orczz (Greenlight)
Syder Arcade (Greenlight)

Week 5:
War of the Human Tanks (Greenlight)
Will Fight for Food (Greenlight)
Zafehouse: Diaries (Greenlight)
Zombie Shooter 2 (STEAM)

Also we are having a Black Friday special sale! Everything at half the price.
Go grab some copies of War of the Human Tanks as presents for your friends, it’s only $4.99!

Interview with a Walrus

17/11/201217/11/2012 / 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.

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.

Raising Spirits

06/11/2012 / Jakke Elonen / Leave a comment

Alright, so the word is out. Our next project is 99 Spirits.

There are several points of interest that make this game a very special release for us.

1. The game was just released in Japan.

99 Spirits was released on Comiket 82 in August 2012. That is to say, less than 3 months ago now. We’re looking to release it in early 2013, which means our English version should hit the shelves around half a year after the game’s original release. Given also that this is an RPG, which are among the more difficult genres to localize, a release this fast would be almost unprecedented. Of course, we haven’t decided on a release date yet and won’t release the game before we’re confident we got everything just right, so it might end up taking a bit longer than that, but this ETA is based on our current projections.
Though we don’t necessarily target the newest games (as seen in our previous release), this rare opportunity is one we want to take full advantage of.

2. The game is challenging (localization-wise).

We like a good challenge, and as we’ve stated on many an occasion, our main criteria in choosing projects is that they are interesting and actually require translation to be playable by English speakers. Still, we were almost stumped ourselves by the challenges localizing 99 Spirits promised. At the core of this difficulty lie its puzzle mechanics, which we’ll go more into later. Anyone who has played the game or its trial in Japanese will know what we’re talking about. But hey, this is what we do best!
Actually, at War of the Human Tanks’ release party, Yakiniku Banzai, the developer duo of the game, commented on 99 Spirits: “If you guys can translate this game, there’s no game you can’t translate.” We feel the same, and this is another reason why we’re having a lot of fun with this project. Even the initial work on the game’s infrastructure we’ve already completed was a real test of imagination.

3. The game has some damned pretty art.

Uh, well, just had to say that! I love all the charming little details in the artwork, like the way Hanabusa’s portrait starts to nod off when you don’t touch the game for a while.

Also, a new character has been unlocked in the character section of 99 Spirits homepage’s: Soujun the wandering monk. We’re planning on adding a new character each week.

So with all that said, look forward to 99 Spirits when it’s done. Also, if you have something specific you’d want us to talk about on the blog, feel free to drop a comment.

99 Spirits

29/10/2012 / Ozhan Sen / 8 Comments

Fruitbat Factory is proud to present:

Featuring an original battle system where players will have to puzzle out the true identity of the enemy before defeating them, 99 Spirits is first published in Japan on Comiket 82 in August 2012 as the first release of TORaIKI. The story revolves around the real Japanese legends of “Tsukumogami”, where everyday objects come alive on their 100th birthday.

Story

Hanabusa is a young headstrong girl living in the Heian capital within medieval Japan. But when her mother is slain by evil spirits, her life turns into one of vengeance as she sets out to hunt and destroy the spirits.

During Hanabusa’s travels, she meets a white fox who turns out to be a servant of the mountain god. Hanabusa receives a special sword passed down from her mother, which gives her the ability to see the true forms of spirits to help slay them. Shortly after, a spirit claiming to be Hanabusa’s long-lost father, Hidetada, breaks her sword and leaves Hanabusa powerless and confused.

Now to mend her broken sword and learn the truth about her father, Hanabusa embarks on a journey to annihilate every last one of the evil spirits.

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The full game will feature:

– Over 10 hours of playtime in an RPG that mixes intense puzzles with fast paced action

– Work out the true identity of your enemies in a unique battle system

– Capture enemy spirits and turn them into allies

– Interact with over 40 unique characters that impact your journey

– Battle over 100 monsters and master a vast variety of skills

– Maintain your equipment and combat hunger as you traverse different regions

– Beautifully detailed art and an atmospheric original soundtrack bring feudal Japan alive

99 Spirits is planned to be released on PC (Windows) in early 2013. Its homepage is open for visitors with the first few pages ready for viewing. We’ll be gradually adding more pages, keep your eyes peeled.

Fruitbat Factory’s Halloween Week Begins

29/10/201229/10/2012 / Jakke Elonen / Leave a comment

The Guess the Game Contest is now over, big thanks to all who participated.

The winners will be notified via e-mail this week, and even if you didn’t win you should keep an eye on your e-mail as we decided to throw in a free copy of Sound of the Human Tanks I OST from GamersGate to reward the efforts of all who ventured a guess.

As we look forward to announcing the game this week, we’re having a big sale on GamersGate, Desura and Indievania: you can purchase all versions of War of the Human Tanks at a 25% discount from them for the duration of this week.

We hope a lot of people will take advantage of this offer – and don’t forget to vote for War of the Human Tanks on Steam Greenlight, where the battle never ceases.

Lastly and most importantly, stay tuned for a major announcement as we’re going to be announcing our next title very shortly. Can’t wait to let this one out of the bag!

A Contest of Fruitbats: Final Week

22/10/201222/10/2012 / Ozhan Sen / Leave a comment

Today we enter the last week of our Guess the Game Contest.

For those who missed it previously, we are giving away free copies of our next game to those who can guess which game it is going to be.

We already posted the final clue on the contest page, check it out.

If you put all the clues together, the answer shouldn’t be impossibly difficult. We know you can do it, so lets get the final week’s contest entries rolling!

Remember, even if you voted previously you can make a new guess each week, so make sure to take this last chance too!

We haven’t forgotten the fans of War of the Human Tanks either. The final part of our “Let’s Play” guide series is going up tonight. Have fun reading the adventure on Chapter 5: ‘Spats Is Not the Only One with a Horrible Name’.