Splash Jam ’17

Guess where I was? That’s right, Norway! On a cruise ship! Livin’ it up! Crossing the arctic circle! And also jamming, I guess!

Check out this short video collage and be amazed, as I was, at the ridicously beautiful landscapes!

As always, the jam project isn’t quite ready to be released, as it needs a lot more content before it can work (or the question whether it does can be better answered), but if you’re curious, give our latest podcast episode a listen, where we discuss it in some detail.

Next up: South Africa! Who knew a struggling indie dev’s life could be so exciting!

Crabman out.

Game Jam Roundup 07/17

July has been a busy month for me, lots of big and small game jams leading to a couple of neat little projects that I’d like to share with you today. So let’s have a look!

And here’s the links to the games:

Have fun!

Crabman out.

Hypnotic Announcement: Merch & Prime Division

If you follow our new podcast Inside Hypnotic Owl, you already know that we’re having on a couple of exciting things in the works, including a brand-new shop for all your merchandise needs.

Well, rejoice, it’s finally here!

And yes, we’re also excited to announce that the full, ad-free edition of Prime Division is now only 99¢! Head on over to the Prime page and get it for your Android and iOS devices!

Happy dividing, everyone!

Crabman out.

Announcing New Podcast ‘Inside Hypnotic Owl’

As promised in a certain birthday retrospective, we’re planning on sharing our development processes and such with you on a more regular basis. For that purpose, our new social media management intern Tami has convinced us to let her record our Hypnotic Board Meetings for your listening pleasure!

Subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, Soundcloud, YouTube, or our RSS feed and gain an exclusive insight into the inner workings of Hypnotic Owl!

You also listen to the first episode right here, right now!

Have fun!

Crabman out.

Hypnotic Owl Turns 4!

My my, how time flies! It’s actually been around this time 5 years ago that Hackenstein and I first explored the idea of going into business together, and only 6 months later the jobs were quit and the wheels that eventually lead to our founding on this gloriest of days in 2013 set in motion.

To celebrate this joyous occasion, we’ve recorded a short birthday video, looking back on our past endeavours and perhaps hinting at one or two new ones.

Enjoy, and Happy Birthday to us!

Crabman out.

Prime Division Out Now!

Gee, it’s been quiet around here, hasn’t it? Well, the wait is finally over! Here comes Prime Division, our fun little mobile game about prime factorization!

Did you ever marvel at the fact that every whole number can be represented as a product of a set of prime numbers? Of course you have. And so did we, that’s why we made a game about dividing numbers with primes. We call it Prime Division!

Prime Division is all about dividing increasingly high numbers down to 1. Challenge yourself with six exciting modes and become the greatest division magician in the world!

Now out on the Google Play Store. Get it now!

Get it on Google Play!

If you want to keep up to date with new releases, you can sign up for our newsletter. We won’t bother you too much, promise!

Hackenstein

The Wizard is released!

Out now: The Wizard!

The time has finally come! Today we release our turn-based dungeon-puzzler The Wizard! For free!

Now, you might think to yourself, “Really? For free? But why?” Well, it’s not the first time that question has come up, so we had ample time to prepare a detailed and all-encompassing explanation:

…why not?

We look at The Wizard as an opportunity to share our lighter side with you and to experiment with various ideas and approaches to developing and releasing a game, and we just don’t wanna charge you for that right now. If you happen to like what we do and would like to support us, that’s awesome! You can donate whatever amount you see fit over on The Wizard’s page. It’s basically Pay What You Want, you can play for free or help us out, whatever you feel like. Rest assured, you’ll have our undying gratitude either way.

ostbonusOh, but that’s not all! As a special thanks to those particularly generous, donations of $6 or more will get a digital copy of the magical The Wizard soundtrack!

But enough of that, it’s time for you to go and play The Wizard now! Hope you have fun!

Hackenstein

ps. For those in the business of hosting high-quality, mobile-ready HTML5 games, we’ve got good news for you, too! From today on, non-exclusive licenses for The Wizard will be available in the FGL Game Shop. You don’t even have to use FGL if you don’t want to. Just send me a mail!

The Design of The Wizard Part 2: Spellcasting

Welcome to the second part of my design ramblings, which also happens to be the third part of The Wizard’s post-mortem. Should you have missed the first two parts, you can check them out here and here.

Now that we know how both wizard and player learned to walk, it’s time we take a detailed look at the spellcasting system, which is probably the most unique feature of The Wizard. Again, and even more so than last time, my incompetence as a programmer played a fairly big role in its creation. Cluelessness really is the mother of invention. Or something like that.

Now, the easiest way to add spellcasting to your game is via an action bar. I guess you could call it the “traditional” approach. This wouldn’t have been too hard to implement either, but two things bothered me about this: First off, I find action bars kinda ugly. An action bar drawn by me? Even worse. And thanks to Oryx’ sprites everything was already looking surprisingly good, so I was not willing to deface it by tacking an action bar on top, even if it was just an experiment. Secondly, clicking on icons to cast spells isn’t very wizardly. In fact, I think this is the reason why I usually don’t play mage classes in games. Magic is supposed to be a mysterious, arcane art. You can’t achieve this with a profane action bar.

Tutorial hint for the first spell

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The Design of The Wizard Part 1: Walking

Welcome back to the second part of me rambling about the conception, development, release, and monetization of The Wizard. (If you haven’t read the first one but would like to, click here.)

Last time we left off with the wizard standing in a sewer level with lots of rats but no ability to walk, cast spells, or do anything else, really. And with me not being much of a programmer of course. Funnily enough, that one had a big impact on some of the most important design decisions.

Green Walking Tiles

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