Things have been progressing quite well these last few days, so I thought an update would be in order. Woo!

-Music and art is at 99% complete, with just one more piece of art to go and the various menu assets I’ll need to create. But it’s all ready for action, and I’ve loaded it into the game. I’m using a new form of music streaming so that the footprint of the game won’t be so large (and in turn should run better on slower computers).

-The game runs at 30fps, to be better compatible with a larger variety of computers. I know 60fps was a tough target to hit for many of you with games like Spirits of Metropolis and Kablooey!, so optimizing for 30fps was the way to go this time around. The great thing is that I’m able to add a ton of particle effects and such with the new 30fps cap, since I don’t have to worry about dipping outside of 60fps anymore. Awesome. It will also run at a 960×600 resolution, my new standard for all future games. I realize this info is probably redundant but I like to make sure I’m covering all the bases with these posts.

-Gameplay is working really well, and is actually working all according to plan. It kind of frightens me that it’s been this smooth so far. I expect catastrophe before the end of the game dev on Oil Blue because…well, that’s what always happens. But it hasn’t yet. Huh! (though I guess you could say the two versions of Oil Blue I threw out before working on this current version was my catastrophes. In fact, you should say that.)

-The target date for a private beta is April 24th, with the game being released very soon after.

-There will be a public beta demo, which I’ll discuss as we get closer to the release.

-It will be a commercial game, but there will be giveaway contests and such after release. After the survey I posted a few weeks ago I’m realizing that many of you cannot buy the games posted on the site, for various reasons. I’ll start to do more contests from now on, and it will likely be Twitter-subscriber random pick related.

-Elevator belts and cables sound a lot like oil riggings, despite me not knowing what oil riggings sound like. But that’s what I’m using anyways!

-The new music/sound streaming system allows me to use a ton more voiceover work, all of which will be used for the tutorial segments. Hopefully it won’t be as crazy as the Kablooey! VO, hah.

-The game will also be my official entry into the 2BeeGames $100,000 competition, which will be announced soon I think?

So there ya go, more Oil Blue goodness. Things are progressing well and hopefully I’ll have some gameplay shots in the coming week. Till then, enjoy the Easter weekend!