Good Morning Gato #34 – Ultimate Stare-down

As much as I would love to say that this week’s Good Morning Gato is lackluster, dull and generally lame, I cannot bring myself to write such lies. In fact, this week I have a FANTASTIC post that’s full of ESRB news, sweepstakes talk and we even wrap everything up with a totally awesome survey. Yes … AN AWESOME SURVEY!
(more…)

3 Comments October 22, 2010

ZP2K9! Dishwasher!

ZP2K9 1.0.1 is live!  If you still have the old version, delete it and redownload (it’s free!).  It’s currently 4th on Major Nelson’s list.

Seems like I’m competing with myself a bit… but… well… anyone remember The Dishwasher?  Remember it now, for the era of the psycho dishwasher genre is upon us!  It’s going up as part of the Days of Arcade promo.  I can’t say when.  But when I can, I will.  Oh yes.  I will.

Also, I’m working a super-dumb street brawler for XBCG called Charlie Murder.  Expect some media soonish.

6 Comments March 23, 2009

Top Ten Again!

Just saw the updated xbox.com popular Xbox Community Games list, and we hit the top ten again!  ZP2K9 is #5!

That’s right, we just barely beat those two awful massage games.

A new version with bug fixes is up for peer review now; hopefully it will settle a lot of the 1.0 silliness.

Particularly notable fixes will include:

• Shows what gamer is talking
• Show gamer names under players
• Numerous CTF bug fixes
• On-the-fly server bot count + game type changes
• Team DM spawns random (like vanilla DM)
• 3 second respawn invulnerability
• Bat ceiling hang bonuses switched to invisibility
• Renamed/reskinned Cheetah Suit to Cyborg Suit

Unfortunately, XBCG games don’t force you to update, so it’s a good idea to check the XBCG New Arrivals queue for updates.  When ZP2K9 1.0.1 arrives, it’ll be up there.  And once most everyone has moved over to 1.0.1, I can start adding more content (maps, suits, etc).  Also, from version 1.0.1 and up, ZP2K9 will be a bit smart about notifying you about updates.  Workarounds, FTW!

Thanks to everyone who helped make ZP2K9 a sudden success!

9 Comments March 12, 2009

How Not to Promote ZP2K9

This is too funny…

So, ZP2K9 is on the Community Games marketplace.  It’s a side scrolling multiplayer online shooter.  It’s 200 points.  It’s fun.  I like it.  Some random people like it.  Some people like it so much, they saw fit to promote it!  Harmless, no?

Well, one of my XBL buddies thought he’d spread the cheer to the folks at some Soldat forum, using a highly inflammatory topic name of “Soldat vs ZP2K9” and naively postulating that ZP2K9 was better!  I guess the Soldat folks are not keen on fighting words!

Here are some gems:

• “Your walking all the time = Ur opponents will face you from the same hight = no aim skills required = Soldat is better.”
• “Whatever it is, that game can’t be compared to Soldat – Soldat is way superior.”
• “Not even close to soldat LOL”
• “seems like they are desperate to get soldat on them, even if its just a crappy copy of it”
• “Just judging from the video I don’t think there’s any contest-soldat blows it out of the water in my opinion.”
• “anyone realized that the thing when he goes up is actually pretty same as the prince of perisa climbing?”

Heh.

(Ahem… for the record, I played Soldat like once years ago and wasn’t blown away.  I loved Abuse though!  And RuneQuake!  Yeah, I’m a dork!  So what!?)

(Also, this is the video that is used to gauge how terrible ZP2K9 is; compared to Soldat, can we say they both look a little bit like crap?)

Anyway, I’ve learned two things from this:

1. Never get involved in a land war in Asia.
2. Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line.

Is there hope?  Or is this game doomed because it is not like a game that I never intended it to be like?

Well, it’s not all bad!  XNA Roundup liked it a lot, particularly the flamethrower, Chameleon suit sword trick (I might wanna cut this one), and controls.   Video review after the break: (more…)

6 Comments March 8, 2009

ZP2K9 on XBCG!

Well, when it rains, it pours.  While waiting for The Dishwasher to pass cert, I finished up this happy-go-deathmatchy platformer called ZP2K9 and submitted it for Xbox Community Games.  It went up Saturday or so, and just about every time I’ve checked there have been a couple of games going on on Live.  Also, it’s only 200 points, so you’ve got pretty much no excuse not to play it!

Here are some screenies:

4 Comments March 3, 2009