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[aeiowu]

This seems a bit backwards, but we'll try it anyway...

So recently we've finished this game called Fig. 8. It's a flash game and we sent out the usual barrage of emails and FGL stuff to find a sponsor for our game. If you're not privy to the ass-backwards world of flash games, basically a sponsor pays you up front for the game and you slap their logo on the front and that's about it. Ads can make money but not the kind of $ sponsorships bring in.

Anyway, we haven't been getting the response I think we deserve for Fig. 8 and so I've been trying everything. Perhaps I'll go down with the ship on this one, but whatever, I think it's worth it this time. I'm just sick of the gatekeepers of the flash market being business people that seem to have some kind of checklist for what constitutes a sponsor-able game. The cold fact of all that is that they're probably right. People do play launch-kitty or (insert derivative game mold here) more than anything else. 

So... I made this trailer in an attempt to get some press for the game. Perhaps when the sponsors/marketers see that page-views are involved and maybe people actually _are_ interested in the trailer for this game they'll put 2 and 2 together and demand for the game will rise.

Trailer:


Pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/aeiowu/sets/72157621025244117/

Backstory: Fig. 8 is a game that's based off an art installation I did back in college. It was called "US" and it was more about the metaphorical/political message in that incarnation, anyway I still liked the general aesthetic of two bike wheels creating lines so we decided to make a game loosely based off of that. In the game you are rewarded for keeping your tracks together while navigating through the surreal world of an "architectural" diagram. The camera moves in continuous motion and the object is to finish the course with as many points as possible. My all-time best right now is 800,000 points (mainly because every time you die your score is erased, even if you have saved at a checkpoint, so... hardcore++ in terms of score   )

Hopefully you all will be able to play it soon.

[Spincut]

Looks very interesting! I like how you incorporate the scoring system into the diagram itself. I'm curious how long the game is.

Should I leave a positive comment on the video itself as well?

[esc]

I would put a little more info in the trailer subscription, because from just watching that, I couldn't tell what the point really was.
It's certainly clever with the numbers in the background.
Couldnt really tell it was a bicycle that was being moved around, I think I couldn't connect the dots, because bicycles can't make those curves in real life.
I also don't know what effect the very simple approachable look and the hardcore scoring will have in combination(I'd probably go for something a bit more lenient, but perhaps it would lose some of its reward/addiction nature.
The track is also very laid back and pleasant.

[moi]

It looks very sweet, there is some srt of katamary damacy vibe to it I don't know why.
Only problem is that the player doesn't look at all like a bicycle to me.
Could be potentially awesome depending on the environments/maps.

[MultiPigeon]

It's not the sort of game I like to play but I can see the potential. I really like that the multiplier is increased the longer you keep you line purple by avoiding sharp turns. It's simple but adds a depth to the game that creates a balance between risk and reward. It sounds kinda weird but I can definately see other people play this game.

[undertech]

It's certainly true that this game has little in common with launch kitty type games. I imagine that the levels in this game aren't procedurally generated, and the trailer tells me that you have much more control over your destiny (final score), and the pace of this game is very leisurely. It doesn't seem like the kind of game you'd mechanically play over and over again just to make your number bigger, which seems to define most flash games I see. My reason for playing this game would be to see all the neat diagrams, but I wonder if that would be compelling enough for the general Flash-games audience.

[george]

multiplayer.

who doesn't like to ride bikes with their girl(boy)friend.

[Ivan]

Wow!! Looks really beautiful! Can't wait to try it out.

[travisdunn]

Nice concept and vibe! Although I too didn't realize I was looking at a bicycle - I thought the sprite was a drafting tool of some sort. It might be nice if the maps were more dynamic somehow; I had the impression that the player was just tracing an image more than trying to navigate a game board in any way.

[mcc]

I can't really help you with your Flash sponsorship issues but this is gorgeous!

Dynamic maps would probably increase replayability but actually I was kind of captivated by the stillness of the whole thing. The way that the landscape is your only enemy somehow manages to make architectural drafting documents seem menacing...

Multiplayer could work well though, I'm imagining two people at a keyboard yelling at each other trying to keep the wheels in line.

[aeiowu]

hey cool, yea i like the idea of multiplayer. I'd rather it be with two bikes, but the dual-control steering could get pretty fun and competitive. thanks for the kind words mcc.

hmm, not sure what to say about the whole "doesn't look like a bicycle". Is it the difference in wheel size? It's based on some of the original velocipede designs since i was kind of going for a patent-document type of thing initially. Is it the top-down view? What about it? I'm not sure we'd change it at this point, and you might find it'll look a lot crisper in game. The video compression isn't the best since we didn't create the game for HD res.

I should note though, that making this trailer and some other grinding has gotten us into a bidding war! thanks for all your support and comments guys, the game should be released within a week or two. (unless bidding keeps going and going... which is a good thing)

[Xion]

I think it's partly people not used to seeing a bike from that view and also it doesn't seem to have a classic bike seat? Bike seats are like the most iconic and identifiable part of bikes in a top-down perspective, I would think.

[travisdunn]

In addition to Xion's comments, the sprite's also missing pedals; even stationary pedals might be enough to help trigger the association in our brains.

[Alec]

This is a sweet concept!

I thought the bike was a rocket until the end of the trailer when it falls over. :3

[moi]

I thought it was some sort of architect drawing tool or something, the front wheel doesn't look like a wheel AT ALL.

[aeiowu]

hmmm, maybe i'll change that wheel. I should note though, the bike _does_ have pedals and they are animated.

If you're on FGL, friend "intuition" up and you can play the game.

[mcc]

A thought, it seems to me the bicycle is clearly a bicycle if you already know it's a bicycle. Maybe the solution is to find some excuse to have the bike be shown in profile for a split second before the game starts (or start with an animation of the "camera" zooming from street view up to birds-eye-view while remaining trained on the bicycle)? Um, I don't know.

[aeiowu]

A thought, it seems to me the bicycle is clearly a bicycle if you already know it's a bicycle. Maybe the solution is to find some excuse to have the bike be shown in profile for a split second before the game starts (or start with an animation of the "camera" zooming from street view up to birds-eye-view while remaining trained on the bicycle)? Um, I don't know.

good point, that's actually how you start the game currently.

[fucrate]

A thought, it seems to me the bicycle is clearly a bicycle if you already know it's a bicycle. Maybe the solution is to find some excuse to have the bike be shown in profile for a split second before the game starts (or start with an animation of the "camera" zooming from street view up to birds-eye-view while remaining trained on the bicycle)? Um, I don't know.

good point, that's actually how you start the game currently.

Yeah, the game starts with the bike on the ground clearly identifiable.  When you hit a button it pops up into the view shown in the trailer.  Hopefully that's enough to get the point across, not that it really matters that much in the end anyway

[aeiowu]

i posted a wee [more like "huge"] write-up on my experiences trying to find a sponsor for Fig. 8. Check it out if you're interested. Some tips for flash devs trying to find sponsorships...

http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=7647.0