Just a Little Bit of Housekeeping - Musings on Collapsus, the Remodel, the Website, and the Future

by Jay Kidd 11/30/2017 Collapsus Development News Picture Podcast Remodel Site streaming vlog

Hey everyone! Tragically, I'd already written up this blog post and then the gods of hubris swooped down and wiped it... so here we go again! Anyway, We've had a lot going on this past month, but none of it would be enough to make a full blog post about, so we're going to a bit of house keeping in this one! Buckle in!

For starters, in Collapsus news, this month saw the release of the long-awaited Puzzle Mode update. For those of you who don't know, Puzzle Mode is a mode that contains 300 single-screen puzzles that you must clear with a limited number of breaks. Puzzle modes have been a staple of great puzzle games almost as long as there have been puzzle games at all. My personal favorite is from Tetris Attack, aka Panel de Pon, aka Puzzle League (MAN that series has WAY too many names)!

All of our puzzles are hand-made by our very own Kristy Iwema. She started doing a few of them way back in the early days of Collapsus on paper, then eventually moved on to a notepad doc, and until recently, used MS Paint to design puzzles. With our decision to include an online Puzzle Maker, she decided to switch over to the same tools our players would be using!

The only problem is that with all this new content, some of it was bound to break. Luckily Mark was able to patch all the bugs and Kristy was finally able to release the first 80 of her puzzles a few days ago (with only a couple week delay on the update)! With each weekly build that will be coming out now, we will also have several new puzzles for you to sink your teeth into!

Other than that, we have a few things that need to be done before we can ship Collapsus out the door:

- Saving
- 2 Challenge/Plus Modes
- More puzzles, Daily Puzzles, Puzzle Sharing (+ Puzzle Mode additions)
- Leaderboards & Medals
- Tutorial
- More accessibility options
- Languages
- Porting
- Bug fixes & other minor tweaks

Considering what we've already done it's not a whole lot left to do. We're trying to get Collapsus finished up as quickly as we can without sacrificing quality, but you can bet we'll have more news pertaining to release very soon!

Other than that, one of the other thing's we've been working on is the studio expansion/remodel/renovation. not much to say on it other than it's going well... but you can bet we'll have a TON of new on it after the first of the year!

Now, in addition to our physical renovation, we're also making HUGE updates to our site! The new version of our site will feature more company info, team bios, playable embeds of some of our games, a home for our new podcast, vlogs, & streams, as well as our brand new merch store and more!

With the studio remodel, the new website, and finishing up Collapsus, it feels like when we started the rebrand in 2014! It's really exciting!

Now, you read that right: our podcast, vlogs, and art/design/dev streams are nearly ready to launch! The podcast is aiming to be started early next year. We'll be playing games & talking about them, talking about events & Wraith updates, and just palling around! It's planned to feature one of our team members (usually me), and 2 of our friends from a couple other podcasts (official announcement as to who, soon) with a rotating 4th featuring a new special guest each month (devs, press, streamers, and the like).

Likewise, the vlogs will be launching around the same time, but those will be more like video extensions of our pre-existing blog. It'll feature events, remodeling, and just us talking while at the studio. Mostly news and "life at the studio" stuff!

Speaking of the blog, here very soon, the blog will be back to being weekly (probably after the first of the year as well)! Since we're pretty close to getting all the team in the studio full-time in 2018, the plan is to split writing duty, I'll be taking one week and 3 other team members take the other weeks. We'll give an official announcement as to who soon!

2018 looks like it will be a big year for us! With Collapsus finishing up, we're going to try and get Cave Worm and Burst Lancer out next. We have plenty of other surprises up our sleeves as well. We're just glad you've stuck with us while we grow!

Well... until next time!