2009 June

Hellooooooo, children! Not a whole lot going in post apocalyptia these days. But I did make these sweet Crane Wars wallpapers for you. It’s got the logo in it and EVERYTHING.

Hope you’re liking Crane Wars! And now…some MUSIC!

The attentive among you may be wondering, “Wait a minute–the next game wasn’t due until July 1st.  Why was Crane Wars released on the 15th, two weeks early?”

A good question!  While we certainly could’ve used the next two weeks to polish up Crane Wars, it also would’ve burned us out.  And we have three more games to make this year!  We decided to take a company-wide, two-and-a-half week break to split up the year.  This lets everyone unwind and recharge a bit before we hurl headlong into another series of 8-week game productions.  Making a game in eight weeks is a taxing process!  We love you, Internet, but we need some “me” time every now and then.

So what is everyone up to during the break?

• Matthew is unicycling from Kenya to Tanzania
• Adam and Matt Mechtley are finishing up their sweet iPhone boxing game.
• Steve is working on sweet shadow physics
• Ben is relaxing and working on sweet artworks
• Shawn is relaxing and working on sweet shader technology

If you really want to stalk us all over the break here’s our list of Twitter accounts. See you guys in a few weeks! We’ve got a lot of awesome stuff planned for Blurst over the next few months; the second half of 2009 is going to even better than the first…

Crane Wars is live! Go play it! Or enjoy this delightful free image (the image isn’t nearly as fun as the game, which is also free):

Crane Wars is our 8th web game, following (in order of development): I Hate Clowns, Splume, Raptor Safari, Jetpack Brontosaurus, Minotaur China Shop, Blush, and Paper Moon. Whew. That’s a lot of games! And we’re only halfway through 2009–expect another 3 games from us before the end of the year. The next game release is scheduled for September 1st, 2009: Time Donkey. I italicized it so you know it’s important.

After you play Crane Wars, be sure to check out the blog for videos and prototypes following its development. You can even play an early prototype!

Thanks to everyone on the team for their hard work, and particularly the Mechtley brothers for the early work on the concept and Alec Holowka for the fantastic music.

We’ll be hanging out watching the stats roll the rest of today. Let us know what you think, and we’ll see you guys on the leaderboards…

Thanks to the smarmy “this is just an X rip-off” meme in the indie world, I have been informed that Crane Wars is merely a Krane Simulator rip-off. And, by gods, I wish it were! Kran Simulator 2009 absolutely NAILS the pacing. Kran Simulator 2008? Move aside:

I would absolutely love to make a game with such devious pacing, because I know The Internet would still play it competitively. They would have to; that’s what they does.

Oho! Have another 8 weeks passed already? Great horned rocketmoose, where does the time go? Seriously, does anyone else feel completely blindsided by the fact that 2009 is already half over? Soon it will be 2010 and we won’t need roads because we’ll all have jetpacks, hoverboards, and flying cars. I’ll have a Pitbull. Nyah.

But! I digress. It is time for the official trailer for our latest game, Crane Wars!

Crane Wars Blurst Trailer from Flashbang Studios on Vimeo.

For the best viewing experience watch it directly on Vimeo.

And also, if you’re not following us on Twitter we tend to post a ton of exclusive-ish info there: Blurst Twitter account.

<3

Flashbang