Releasing a game that we’ve worked on for over 2 years should be a cause for joy and celebration. For us, it turned out to be the biggest crisis we’ve ever faced. Leading up to release, positive and supportive articles, previews, and videos by journalists and casters gave the game some momentum. Our Kickstarter backers and alpha players were also incredible at helping us test, fix issues, and get the word out. Later in beta (when people could pre-order) and when the game went live, it reached #2 in Indie and #7 overall on Steam. I took a screenshot and savored for a brief moment. Then disaster struck, literally. Survival was once again on the line. Continue reading “GoIO Post-Mortem – Part IV: Through the Storm”
Don’t forget to sign in before Monday to get your free costume.
Friday is here and it means we get to tell you about our week and hang out with you on Twitch! This week will also have a special guest, Dan from the Rob and Dan show, who is excited to talk about the Hephaestus tournament. The new premier Guns of Icarus event happening this weekend!
As always catch us at twitch.tv/gunsoficarus to talk to us live, ask questions, and press us for details of upcoming features.
We wanted to reach out and let everyone know what has been happening recently with some server and lag issues.
There are three issues and we wanted to let you know exactly what we’re experiencing and how that affects what you’re experiencing.
The first and most drastic was our server hosting situation. For the past two weekends Softlayer, the hosting company that we use, have experienced outbursts that have caused issues (such as game drops and disconnects, slow time, games not starting) that have ruined complete matches. These issues were one off issues and they did not persist. Once we discovered them, we’ve been taking them offline and getting our hosting company to fix them asap. While we do not directly control these servers, we deeply apologize and we are talking to the hosting company demanding better for you, our players.
The second is a scattering of bugs from hit markers not appearing to teleporting or not respawning while falling off the ship. These are bugs on our end and we are 100% focused on squashing these asap.
The third is a fps drop caused by flamethrowers. As flamethrowers became more in use after the last update, the fps drops caused by flamethrowers were more glaring. This is something we’ve seen crop up and know many players have experienced. We want to make sure you know this is something we are looking to optimize so our players do not suffer from avoidable fps drops.
We deeply apologize that many players’ first experiences of Guns of Icarus had to be marred by these issues and apologize to our vets who wanted a simple and fun weekend of dirigible demolition.
As always we will do our best to give you the best game experience possible and if we fail that we will be as open and honest about the reason why. Also, we want to do something about the trouble we’ve caused. So for every player who signs into Guns of Icarus before next Monday will receive a free Revolutionary costume, both male and female. If you already bought the revolutionary costume, please send an email to GreyT@musegames.com and request any other item we sell in the store.
With the publisher’s insistence that we worked in secrecy and that they would eventually be in charge of player interaction, when we left the publisher, no one knew about what we were doing. We had 15 facebook followers who were basically us, family, and friends. The problem of how to get the word out was obvious, but more importantly, we had no way of getting enough people to help us test and give feedback. With a set of mechanics and a demand for teamwork that hadn’t quite been tried before, we wanted people to help us test as early in our development as possible. With the struggle to get the word out we turned to Kickstarter. Continue reading “GoIO Post-Mortem – Part III: Lessons from Two Kickstarters”
Well if this doesn’t work out we could always do a steampunk Mario clone.
Hey everyone,
With all the new videos and the sale we’ve got a bunch of new players and we’re really excited to have you here! Every Friday we post up what the team has been working on both for the Guns of Icarus Online you’re playing now and Co-Op mode a massive expansion that will add many new features including PvE combat.
To talk to us live join us at twitch .tv/gunsoficarus at 3 pm eastern, 7 GMT, and ask us any and all questions you can think of!
After the saga with the publisher ended, I was pretty demoralized, we all were. But I really didn’t have time to sulk. We were about broke. The money we made from the original Guns and CreaVures was running out. I didn’t really know any publishers, or anyone for that matter, who would give us money. We had just ended a publisher ordeal after all. Looking around the room, I owed it to everyone to keep us going. Making games is what what we always wanted to do. We had sacrificed too much, came too far to just lay down and quit. Continue reading “Guns of Icarus Online Post-Mortem – Part II: Starting Over”
Guns of Icarus Online is over three years of our lives. In the span of creating this game, our room had caught fire, our building had endured a great flood, we had been stomped on by a publisher to near death, and overcame one of the worst game launches ever, releasing on the night of a hurricane. Sleepless nights can’t begin to portray the summation of all stress and elation. In this span I’ve gotten everything from pneumonia to a concussion from walking straight into a doorframe after a few late nights in a row. With the game now over a year old, I figured it’s a good time to reminisce on how this game came to be, the major the decisions and crisis we faced, how we overcame them, and what lessons we learned. Through out this journey, our vision and faith in who we are as a team would be thoroughly tested. There were so many things we didn’t know and many struggles. To us, this journey wasn’t just about making a game, but also about trying to make a difference together as a small team. Continue reading “Guns of Icarus Online Post-Mortem – Part I: Publisher Hell”
We’re on sale this week. Bring in your friends and build an armada!
Time once again for the weekly progress report! This is where you find out what we’ve been working on and what you’ll be seeing someday soon!
To talk to us directly about these new updates along with anything else Guns related come join us at twitch.tv/gunsoficarus.
Just in case you haven’t checked out the “best” clan ever.
We made it to Friday! It’s been a busy week with a patch, hotfix (emphasis on hot for pun purposes,) and working with casters for a major push for Guns of Icarus.
We appreciate everyone sticking through the week with us and helping us catch, draw, and quarter some bugs that slipped through the testing procedure.
As always we’ll be holding the Dev Fireside chat at 3 pm eastern, 7 pm GMT, on Twitch.tv/gunsoficarus.
With the release of the new update, it’s that time again to post the most wanted bug list. If you see these infamous characters in game, please alert the bug squashing authorities (us) at feedback@musegames.com. Continue reading “Top 10 Most Wanted Bugs”
