One Man Left Studios

Frostbite Update is Out!

Alex — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 00:33:29 +0000

We somehow managed to squeak by with an update in what feels like the very last minute in July. Frostbite mode is finally out and the leaderboards are already filling up with some insane scores! So what does this update entail? See for yourself:

New

The all new Frostbite Game Mode!
A new devastating weapon, the Burnicade!
7 new awards to earn!

Improved

AGON updated to 1.5.1 – better leaderboard functionality
player visibility improved

Fixed

minor iOS4 issues
sound effect issues

Thanks to all who’ve supported us! Next Up? Tilt to Live on the iPad!

Are We There Yet?

Adam — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 17:35:32 +0000

The Frostbite update was, at last, submitted to Apple for approval today. Did we take our sweet time with this gametype? Yep. Did we break our first promise, and then push the boundaries of our second promise? Absolutely. If something sucked, we unsucked it. And the result? A unique, fourth Tilt to Live gametype that we’re confident will rock your socks off. We’ll post all the details as soon as the update hits the App Store, but you’ll probably be too busy playing it to care.

For now, you can check out the fabulous Frostbite theme, composed by the very talented Whitaker Blackall. You may recall Whitaker’s previous Tilt to Live track for the Code Red gametype. His creativity and attention to detail continue to impress us. As far as we’re concerned, he is the sound of Tilt to Live.

One Man Left Speaks

Adam — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 13:34:35 +0000

With one entire game under our belt, we’ve got reams of knowledge and experience to impart to aspiring designers everywhere. We did some new interviews recently, and they went a little something like this:

Frostbite in July = Irony

Adam — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 15:44:15 +0000

After a month of teasing and delaying, it’s finally time to share the details of Tilt to Live’s upcoming Frostbite update. This is all still in development, so the specifics are being tweaked and balanced as I write this post, but here’s the big picture:

Frostbite Mode

This new gametype will transport you to a winter wonderland. One where all the dots rain pre-frozen from the heavens, gift-wrapped and ready to die. Because in Frostbite land every day is Christmas, or Hanukkah, or Muslim Christmas. But here’s the catch: Those frozen dots are falling towards that steamy hot spring at your feet. If my high school education serves me: frozen dot + steamy hot spring = thawed dot! And in an arena marred by an unfortunate weapon shortage, thawed dots spell big trouble. Looks like you’ve got some thorough shattering to do.

Luckily, a weapon shortage is not a weapon drought. And the pickup we’re tossing you every-so-often just happens to be the perfect safety net for a dot blizzard.

Meet the Burnicade

Intuitively enough, the new burnicade pickup will engulf your cursor in a burst of hellish flames, launching you across the arena in a blaze of glory. But the real payoff is the barricade of burning justice you’ll leave in your wake. This fire is deadly to dots, but not to you, because we think there are already quite enough things trying to kill you.

As you can imagine, the burnicade will be a rare sigh of relief in Frostbite mode. And because it’s built into the rules of that gametype, this weapon will be available in Frostbite from the moment you update/install the game. If you want to play with fire in Classic or Code Red, though, we suggest you work on your AGON PocketScore. The burnicade will be the next unlockable weapon beyond the Lightning shield.

And that’s the news, boys and girls. Frostbite and the burnicade will be giving your iDevice hot flashes in July.

A New Lease on Life

Alex — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 22:00:18 +0000

Hello all, and happy Friday! As you’ve heard in our previous post, we’re in the middle of reorganizing. This is mostly me (Alex) packing up and relocating over the next week so that Adam and I can work in person. When we started developing Tilt to Live, we had very little idea on whether it’d be flop, mildly successful, or even a hit. The response was absolutely nuts! Our fans truly enjoyed the game and went out of their way to let us know, and let their friends know. And for that, we can’t thank you enough! With us now transitioned to working fulltime to create awesome games for you guys, you can expect to see some cool stuff in the coming months with a bit more frequency .

To help celebrate this milestone for One Man Left Studios, we collaborated with freeappaday.com to promote Tilt to Live for a very limited time at the extremely ludicrous price of $free$ this weekend. So be on the look out! Got a friend who’s incapable of spending money? Are they on a strict app budget? They simply can’t find their wallet? Now’s the time to get them to jump in and have fun with Tilt to Live, on us .

The Cold Shoulder

Adam — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 23:24:11 +0000

I’d like to preface this post by pointing out that our banner did promise to shatter your expectations. So it’s totally inaccurate to call us liars.

The Frostbite update will be taking a backseat to some company reshuffling that’s going down this month, so its release has been pushed back to July. One Man Left (that’s us!) is experiencing some welcome growth, so we need a little me-time to reorganize. What this means in the long term is that we will be able to do our thing considerably more efficiently. In the short term it means that we are disappointing.

As a consolation prize, I will now reveal the name of our new weapon so as to engage your eager imaginations! Included with the Frostbite update in July, prepare to scorch the earth with a mighty BURNICADE. We’ll be posting screenshots and gameplay details for Frostbite and the burnicade later this month.

Tilt to Live One.Three En Route

Alex — Wed, 26 May 2010 23:12:26 +0000

Ahoy! We’ve sacrificed May’s update early this morning to the AppStore Gods so it should be live in a few days. So what’s new in this update? For starters, Gauntlet Mode and Code Red have new songs! We were able to work with the talented Whitaker Blackall on getting a custom track done for Code Red and it sounds intense, especially when trying to ward off the hordes of red dots! So hats off to him on creating a catchy piece of music! Here’s a quick preview of the track opening:

… you’ll have to wait for the update to hear the rest .

So what else is new in the update? Lots of minor stuff, but the high notes are:

New Stuff

New Music
6 new awards to earn
Tilt sensitivity now available under options or the custom position screen
You can now play tilt to live on your toaster. (finally!)

Improved Stuff

Added some more graphical elements to Gauntlet mode
Increased the invincibility time after getting hit in Gauntlet mode
You can cross your eyes and play tilt to live in 3D mode. (James Cameron eat your heart out)

Fixed Stuff

AGON pocket score display now shows correct number
Music no longer cuts out
No longer spawns hell demons devouring your family and dog after dying in first 5 seconds of Code Red (sorry about that one!)

The much requested tilt sensitivity is finally in, and boy does it help! I tend to crank it up because I’m lazy and the less tilting I have to do the better. It’s also great for those that wish to play at a steeper angle and were having problems with the horizontal movement.

So what’s next? Our June update will have even more new content with a new weapon and all new game mode.

Adam’s Shattered Dreams

Adam — Mon, 17 May 2010 15:27:56 +0000

I was recently asked by an interviewer to describe my dream iPhone game, the game I would produce if unfettered by the confines of marketability and social norms. I answered earnestly, but was ultimately shut down by OML’s other half, Alex Okafor, the dream policeman. He called my dreams “creepy” and “probably illegal”. So I agreed to provide the interviewer with a watered-down answer, one that did not reflect my true passions as a game designer, as long as I was allowed pour my heart out to our true fans: the OML blog readers.

And now I am proud to present the uncensored schematics for my dream iPhone game:

“I have a couple of dream projects. My favorite is like a Tickle Me Elmo, but it’s better because you can take him around with you in your pocket, on your iPhone. You can tickle him all over and wear headphones, so that only you can hear how happy you are making Elmo. That way what happens between Elmo and me stays private, instead of everyone staring and possibly misinterpreting.

The best part is that you can use the phone’s camera to take pictures of strangers, and then you can tickle the strangers. That adds a social aspect to the game, and contributes to my premise of ‘touching the world’. You could even upload and share your favorite strangers with your friends, or with other strangers!”

In other news

Someone changed our banner to tease next month’s new update, but they forgot to show off the new weapon. They just put a question mark! I’ll get on that ASAP.

What Up, Players?

Adam — Wed, 05 May 2010 14:07:50 +0000

Having survived the update deadline crunch, Alex and I are now happily sweeping up bits of awards and polish that weren’t quite ready in time for Gauntlet’s release. A minor update will hit your device this month. A major update will explode your device next month. So start saving up for a new device.

My gift to you:

My personal iTouch wallpaper. If you put this on your iTouch and set it next to mine, I’ll probably be baffled! If you don’t understand why this wallpaper is great, then you didn’t get a 700 combo. If you can’t get a 700 combo, feel free to use a more accessible wallpaper.

Better Tilt Than Never

Alex — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 00:58:37 +0000

So we’ve finished the massive game mode update we had planned for April release. Sadly, we finished it a bit behind schedule :[. Having submitted the final binary to Apple very early this morning we suspect it'll be a few days past our intended launch date before the game goes live on the app store. My frustration for shipping late was only outweighed by our vicious desire to not release something we felt was unfit for release. Those extra few of days of gameplay tweaking and balancing we feel paid off in spades in the end, so we're hoping you guys will get a kick out of the new modes . In case you already forgot about what's going to be in this update:

2 new game modes: Gauntlet and Code Red. Each with their own AGON leaderboards!
6 new awards to earn and brag to your friends about
New how to play screen that gives a slightly better explanation of WTF is going on
Fixed a nasty bug causing devices with some international region formats to crash

As always with game development, we didn't get everything we wanted in this single update, but we certainly got the fun stuff :]. We’ve got a decently sized list of user-requested improvements and features that we didn’t have much time to work through in this update, but will be hopefully addressing in a little while. We’ve got a few more goodies in the coming months for Tilt to Live so watch this space.

Oh, and mucho thanks to TA for the honor of being one of the Games of the Month for March.