Blogs - Hairein

Hi all,
we're currently finishing up development on the Wii U port of our game 'Tank Crush - Eviction'.

Once that is done, we will continue development of 'Galactic Repairs Inc.' [PC, Mac] which is out of pre-production and starting up with placeholder asset design and development. During the development of this game, we plan to provide much more media insight into our activities using streaming and live Q&A sessions.
We also want to get out early pre-Alpha playable builds and would be happy for public feedback as early as possible. A game page will also be coming up here to collect all our information.

You can keep up with the progress of our game development at our web site.

Hi there,

we are currently hard at work at our second game currently titled 'Galactic Repairs Inc.".

It's still early in development and we won't be setting up a page here until we get to alpha release sometime next year, but you can read more about it and try out the free and regular development builds on the game page at our website at micahkoleoso.de.

I have been trying to provide regular builds of the game (Tank Crush Windows and Mac OSX) here for download. Another way of getting a free build to try out would be to go through the official game site at micahkoleoso.de.

Today, another small update was issued there to fix various problems with the 2nd player in the upgrade shop and add some other music.

Still missing in the game is the correct distribution of collectables and energy for all 10 levels as well as a proper distribution of stars through the levels of the game to ensure that a player can maximize his stats before the last level in the game. These features are being worked on for the next 1 or 2 builds and are expected to improve the playthrough experience and iron out difficulty spikes.

On a side note: The entire development environment, and all tools, was moved from Windows 7 64-Bit to Mac OSX Lion 64-Bit without any problems or hitches. Well, except that the XBOX360 gamepads don't work on the Mac, so we are now developing with 2 Playstation controllers with a USB adapter. This update release marks the 2nd build publicly available which was made on the Mac.

Hello all,
it's been quite a while since my last post, but I'm hoping to improve the frequency of posting from now on. Development has been ongoing on Tank Crush and I've just released a new video showing the access to the upgrade shop after each level.
The planned alpha release is to be feature complete but the quality of graphics and assets in that build will not be anywhere near where I aim to be for the full release. Still, I feel it's important to get it out there and let lots of people try it out and hopefully send me helpful feedback to improve the whole game.

With the alpha release, as well as going public here at indiedb.com, I will also be looking to get contracts out for help in improving the game assets, levels and music/sound effects. I have a list of websites which I will be posting my requests to but I want to maximise the asset use by ensuring i'm feature-complete and have all lists of required assets in place before contracting out. Contact me here if you want to discuss doing some work for this game, and I can supply you with what is needed to estimate your efforts. Apart form showing me your past work, you will be expected to submit a quote and we will negotiate the terms of the partial payments during your work. For me this means you get paid for each milestone delivery, the exact content of which needs to be determined on a case-by-case basis.

Below you can see the current status of implementation, but there are still a number of features necessary coming in. In other cases, the listed features may be broken down in detail. The % indicates the level of feature completion:

Project Tank Crush - Tasks for Alpha, Beta, Release 1.0
1. (ID: 1) (0%) Alpha 1 Release Features
1.1. (ID: 4, PID: 1) (100%) Turret types - scan 360 degrees, then when in range lock on nearest target and shoot
1.2. (ID: 6, PID: 1) (0%) Implement UFO enemy, UFO bombs (3-4) a few seconds then leaves
1.3. (ID: 7, PID: 1) (0%) Enter base rooms dotted per level or per station. Get 15 seconds to collect what you can and get out
1.4. (ID: 8, PID: 1) (100%) Implement mines
1.5. (ID: 9, PID: 1) (100%) 2 player hop-in/hop-off
1.6. (ID: 10, PID: 1) (0%) Implement Tesla coil/lightning type enemy functionality
1.7. (ID: 11, PID: 1) (0%) Acquire/implement MP3 robotic voice counting from 10 to 0
1.8. (ID: 12, PID: 1) (100%) On player exit from game, save their progress
1.9. (ID: 13, PID: 1) (0%) Store and publish player hiscores and level completion times online/in-game title
1.10. (ID: 16, PID: 1) (0%) Get tune for game title screen and other auxillary screens
1.11. (ID: 14, PID: 1) (0%) Get tunes and music tracks for each game level
1.12. (ID: 15, PID: 1) (0%) Get tune for game end/game over
1.13. (ID: 17, PID: 1) (50%) Scores are generated by destroying enemies
1.14. (ID: 18, PID: 1) (100%) Provide upgrade shop between levels enabling buying upgrades for stars collected. Upgrades: gun rotation, tank speed, shot range, buy force fields, shot power, buy smart bombs, buy cannon/homing missile shots, buy 1UPs)
1.15. (ID: 19, PID: 1) (0%) When player tank has less than 20% energy left, movement is slowed
1.16. (ID: 20, PID: 1) (0%) A spawning player tank blinks a few seconds, during which the player is invincible
1.17. (ID: 21, PID: 1) (100%) Implement a title screen and related auxillary screens (start game, continue game, credits, controls, quit game - PC version)
1.18. (ID: 22, PID: 1) (50%) Ensure easy access to the game, few clicks and quick entry into game with least amount of navigation necessary
1.19. (ID: 67, PID: 1) (100%) Implement pause screen functionality (player hop-on/off, music and sound settings, game quit)
1.20. (ID: 23, PID: 1) (0%) Implement a 3D scene as title area shown behind the title information, perhaps toggle title screen to show hiscores
1.21. (ID: 24, PID: 1) (0%) Provide map of level
1.22. (ID: 25, PID: 1) (50%) scores display on destroyed enemies
1.23. (ID: 65, PID: 1) (100%) Implement player destruction and respawn with appropriate lives left otherwise game-over
1.24. (ID: 66, PID: 1) (50%) Implement enemy destruction
1.25. (ID: 26, PID: 1) (100%) Implement fixed site enemy tanks
1.26. (ID: 27, PID: 1) (0%) Implement enemy folding turrets
1.27. (ID: 28, PID: 1) (0%) Implement player tank shields
1.28. (ID: 29, PID: 1) (0%) Implement player tank special weapon - homing missiles/cannon shots
1.29. (ID: 30, PID: 1) (0%) Implement player tank special weapon - bombs
1.30. (ID: 31, PID: 1) (0%) Show effect for player low-level energy state (<20%) apart from movement slow-down
1.31. (ID: 32, PID: 1) (100%) Implement 2 player gamepad control
1.32. (ID: 33, PID: 1) (0%) Adapt game display and UI area to safe tiling compatibility, also for PC and web based version
1.33. (ID: 34, PID: 1) (0%) Implement effect of upgrades of player tanks in code logic and visual enhancements
1.34. (ID: 35, PID: 1) (100%) Implement music on/off switch
1.35. (ID: 36, PID: 1) (100%) Implement sound fx on/off switch
1.36. (ID: 37, PID: 1) (100%) Implement enemy hold on game pause
1.37. (ID: 38, PID: 1) (0%) Implement white-flash of material on all enemy tanks and turrets when hit and not destroyed
1.38. (ID: 39, PID: 1) (0%) Implement global difficulty factor based on level
1.39. (ID: 40, PID: 1) (100%) Show game version string in title screen
1.40. (ID: 48, PID: 1) (0%) Implement player auto-aim/aim support functionality. Must be on/off toggleable in title or pause menu
1.41. (ID: 49, PID: 1) (0%) Implement enemy troops fracticide
1.42. (ID: 50, PID: 1) (0%) Implement enemies degrade when shot and not destroyed. Show visual effect
1.43. (ID: 61, PID: 1) (0%) Prepare web server to store/track highscores and level completion times 1.44. (ID: 62, PID: 1) (0%) Create 10 levels for demo
1.45. (ID: 63, PID: 1) (0%) Create enemy bosses for level 5 in demo
1.46. (ID: 64, PID: 1) (0%) Create enemy bosses for level 10 in demo

2. (ID: 5) (0%) Prepare Alpha 1 Release
2.1. (ID: 51, PID: 5) (0%) 1 player stress test
2.2. (ID: 52, PID: 5) (0%) 2 player stress test
2.3. (ID: 55, PID: 5) (0%) Prepare and launch access to web based and/or stand-alone demo of game 2.4. (ID: 53, PID: 5) (0%) Prepare marketing pitch, screenshots, texts, logos, icons
2.5. (ID: 54, PID: 5) (0%) Prepare publish and upload package at hosting websites

3. (ID: 2) (0%) Beta 1 Release Features
3.1. (ID: 56, PID: 2) (0%) Upgrade game ingame graphics (outsource)
3.2. (ID: 57, PID: 2) (0%) Upgrade game UI (outsource)
3.3. (ID: 58, PID: 2) (0%) Create and/or upgrade 35 game levels for full game (outsource)
3.4. (ID: 59, PID: 2) (0%) Create high quality game assets (outsource)

4. (ID: 3) (0%) Release v1.0
4.1. (ID: 60, PID: 3) (0%) Release Windows PC version
4.2. (ID: 70, PID: 3) (0%) Release Web-based version

5. (ID: 43) (0%) Open Snags and Bugs

6. (ID: 45) (0%) In-work Bugfixes
6.1. (ID: 46, PID: 45) (0%) Fix player tank movement handling (physics)

7. (ID: 44) (0%) Closed Snags and Bugs
7.1. (ID: 47, PID: 44) (100%) Fix end of level gate animation

In development today is the shopping feature used to upgrade the tanks between levels. It's a two player display with settings for upgrading shot distance and strength, tank driving and turret turning speed. Also, you can buy lives and protection.

The exact list is:
Add to gun rotation - cost 2 stars
Add tank speed - cost 3 stars
Increase shot range - cost 3 stars
Buy 1 force shield - cost 4 stars
Increase shot power - cost 5 stars
Buy 3 smart bombs - cost 5 stars
Buy 3 cannon bombs - cost 5 stars
Buy 1-UP - cost 5 stars

Check out the images section for the shop mask.

Hello everyone,

I would like to take this opportunity to keep a blog about the software the team is developing as well as write about important external events, which may be relevant for the us and the applications being shown here.
The first game here is Tank Crush, which is a take on the tank combat game, quite similar to the old arcade 'Vidicators'. It's a 1 or 2 player shared-screen game, which is currently heading towards an alpha release. The alpha release will contain 10 specifically created levels, but the beta and full release should have many more.
Currently in development are still some major features required to pass the game as alpha, such as collision handling, shops and upgrades between levels, a special 'base-attack-grab loot' section and other smaler features relevant to making the game more complete and playable.
We're quite a small team at the moment, basically just me and the musician, but we will grow as required. Specifically, the move from alpha to beta will involve creating lots of higher quality assets as well as getting a web site up for the game.
Officially, the game page here will launch shortly before we release alpha.