enthusiasm for our level editor? Nice to see a thread here when we haven't officially announced the Trucks & Skulls yet! We showed it around at GDC Austin and that snowballed into some coverage before we were really ready to talk about the game (which is a happy problem to have). If there's interest I can post some additional screenshots here. We're doing the last pass on levels and art right now, and squashing bugs. Fingers crossed we will have the game out this month, but we just decided to integrate Game Center into v1.0 and that might push us out another week. A place where we can use some feedback: our level editor. We are going to ship a level editor with the iPad version of the game. It is a polished and powerful tool, but we didn't figure it would be a big deal for most players. However, Slide To Play and 148apps have both called out our level editor as being an important means of distinguishing the game from its obvious source of inspiration. How does the T.A. community feel about level editors? Are they something you would welcome and use? Would there be any interest in a contest or promotion built around this community creating levels for the game (certainly with credit given to the designers, and some kind of prize for the best level?) ... could be fun and might even be a platform for someone to break into game design. We are going to ship the level editor no matter what, but I thought I'd pulse here for enthusiasm, if only just to get an idea of how much we should promote the level editor feature when we start marketing the game in earnest. Thanks!
The team is in the office now and staying through the weekend to kill our last bugs and polish everything up for submission to Apple. Assuming the usual eight-day approval period from Apple (and no rejections) we hope to be on the market by the weekend of November 13. Our video director was in the office on Monday to discuss concepts and should get working this week. Our video will debut when the game goes live (or a little bit earlier if we can swing it). A screenshot from last week's debug build, the current version of the game is a little bit spiffier: This is Diveosaurus, fresh off the Screamstrip ramp. You launch trucks with a one-touch control that sets both the angle of the ramp and your launch velocity. Diveosaurus does a tight loop and plunges straight down when you tap the screen, but the slim profile of this vehicle also makes it ideal for shooting through narrow gaps.
One more screenshot. Here's Bombzilla. That bomb on the back of the truck plunges straight down when you tap the screen. You can also see some of our materials here. The black stuff is "Indestructium" -- nothing can move it or destroy it. Three other materials -- steel, concrete, and wood -- are destructible and of progressively lower strength.
since you like our art, here is some more ... Here I scored the maximum four stars despite falling short of the "Total Annihilation" bonus awarded for destroying every object in the level.
We submitted the iPhone/iPod touch version this morning. We are finishing up the iPad version tonight, and probably submitting tomorrow. The release of OS 4.2 threw us a curveball at the last second. Our iPad candidate had cleared internal testing and was good to go, but we pulled it. Rather than release under the previous OS, followed by a 4.2 update, we deemed it better to delay our release by a couple days to integrate 4.2 (and Game Center) in the first release of our iPad version. Pretty typical last-minute scramble, actually!
It would be great to test your app! What do you think about it? Maybe you could send an app? I really want to make a preview!
Glad you are looking forward to the game! We're at the end of the testing cycle for this app, but if you want to be part of our beta program, write [email protected] Beware -- testing for us is WORK. Real work. We test our games practically to destruction, which is half the reason why a job that was supposed to be done last Friday is still going on right now.