Pat:
Have you ever looked at our previous videos and seen the shadows look a bit low-resolution or blocky? Well, it was always my intention to come up with a better solution and I finally got around to it this week. Now we have much higher-quality shadows in both our close-up cut scenes and during general gameplay. In addition to the shadow improvements, I got Dan’s two latest vehicles, a single-seater tank and a hovercraft, playable in the game.

Dan:
Well, this week another new boss was born. “Boss 3″ is an arctic ice miner that carries a large dual saw… with very, very large blades. Also, “Boss 3″ is the first to show the Dredge miner’s true face, and he’s pretty ugly.

Panya:
This week i spent some time polishing up recent work. Still worked on the solar flare, trying to make it more visually obvious when it’s damaging the player. Galaxy2 has also been coming more to life, with a few of the ambient ships we have flying around Galaxy1. And every week/weekend I review and think about the big-picture of the game, to make sure it still all fits together with the story.

Pat:
I was out of commission Friday through Monday for a long overdue trip to Illinois to see my family. After getting back to Phoenix and fighting off a cold I resumed work and made some progress on the second boss and our new floating space mines.

Dan:
Busy week! Spent many hours working on two brand new vehicles for your entertainment. First vehicle is 4 player hovercraft that shoots missiles and “hover-mines”, it looks pretty bad ass if i do say so myself. The second vehicles is something like a miniature 1-seater tank. It’s got a pretty slick design to it that will have you shooting the Dredge Faction in no time!

Panya:
Production continued on Galaxy 2 this week. The level got laid out, and I animated the new awesome Boss that Dan made last week. There are some new environment obstacles in Galaxy 2 that I coded up with some help from Pat, like a sun flare that occasionally hits the lit side of a planet. Your best bet is to run to the dark side when you hear the flare go off! Here’s a preview image of the second level so far, with a new enemy (that’s even funnier in motion):

Pat:
This week I continued work on optimizing audio. Trying to remove all the garbage generated was quite a task! Also, a new game weapon got implemented with its resulting mushroom-cloud explosion. A new droid and cute/obese enemy went in as well. Features get added pretty quickly, now that we’ve got a solid foundation to build upon.

Dan:
Mudbox, 3DS Max, Photoshop, rinse and repeat! Worked on a new boss this week, “the grinder”, basically his arms are giant grinder like mechanisms… you can see how that would be a danger to Max Blastronaut. Screen shots to follow next week.

Panya:
This week we started work on the rest of the game! Finalizing the design is one thing, but really finalizing it is another. Settling on the current design as the final game, without creeping in features later, is tough. As we play more, we get more involved in the Max Blastronaut universe and think of new, fun ideas to implement. The game has matured so much from the original design, so in that sense, the organic design method has paid off. On the other hand, the danger is always improving the game but never shipping it. But as it stands today, I think we have a design that will be fun, diverse, and addresses some early gameplay feedback we’ve received.

Coin App is announcing our official entry into Microsoft’s 2009 Dream-Build-Play Competition! The competition’s held annually by Microsoft, with the main requirement being that the game must have been developed with XNA Game Studio 3.1. The top few prizes are cash money, but also free press and most importantly for us, the chance to get published on Xbox Live Arcade. We’ve been really busy polishing our game experience to give the best first impression possible, and we’re really proud of it. All those late nights and weekends paid off (well, not literally). This is also the perfect time to introduce the official website of Max Blastronaut, where we’ve moved all of its media and information! If you like what you see, subscribe to our YouTube channel or add us on Facebook or Myspace!

Pat:
You know how some games have tutorials that break you away from the action over and over again to tell you how to play? Well, in an effort to keep player frustration low and make Max Blastronaut truly “pick-up-and-play” ready, we’ve put in a system of logical on-screen button prompts that do not cause the game to pause. For example, if enemies appear and the game recognizes that you haven’t attacked any of them, it will display a nice little button prompt to tell you how to attack. It’s simple and subtle, but most importantly, it doesn’t get in the way of playing the game. Beyond the button prompt tutorial system, I spent a bit of time this week working with Panya on cut scenes and cinematics, as well as tracking down and fixing general game bugs.

Dan:
This was a fun filled week! Got two more enemies done, a bionic comando type dude and a gas blower. Along with the enemies there were the misc tweaks to art, it’s all lookin pretty pimp!

Panya:
We were so busy this week we forgot to post! A lot more polish and bug fixing went down this week. Getting the game to run 4 player on Xbox at over 30FPS was a nice challenge. But, it’s pretty much there after a lot of work. All the cut scene cameras, tutorial mode, and character introduction cameras are in. Particles got a bit more polish and optimization, so now they have all the flair at half the cost. Well maybe not half. The gameplay also got another round of tuning, and it’s got some satisfying fun happening. A lot got accomplished this week, with more to come this weekend! And all this despite the daily distractions of Touch KO, Geo Defense, and Minigore.