There are some cool things happening right now that I am not at liberty to say because that’d ruin surprises. But while the Tiger Style team works on cool secret stuff, I wanted to catch y’all up on what we’re enjoying these days.
MUSIC! SXSW!!!
First off, Austin, TX is the home of most of the team, and also the home of South By Southwest, an insane music festival held every year. We’re talking thousands of bands playing all over the city.
It just finished, but you should check out our designer Randy Smith’s coolection of bands/music he recommended seeing/hearing.
I might also recommend NPR’s great music/SXSW coverage. They’re another great way to find new bands.
My own music recommendation today is a gypsy folk group from Minneapolis called Lucy Michelle and the Velvet Lapelles.
BOOOOKS!
Bobby Arlauskas and myself have spent the better part of our year since Waking Mars reading Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. The 14-book epic was completed in January this year.
Bobby also managed to loop it into games by discovering a Mount and Blade: Warband mod called “The Gathering Storm”.
Meanwhile, Amanda’s re-reading a favorite of hers: The Haunting of Hill House.
ART
Your artist recommendation today comes from Amanda: Anne Siems.
And GAMES!
We all recommend: Ridiculous Fishing! PLAY IT!
Amanda: The Room, an excellent puzzle game for iPad, and Dear Esther (finally, she says).
Bobby: Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate on 3DS and Wii U
Nathan: Starseed Pilgrim, (pen and paper: Apocalypse World, Fiasco)
Randy O: Mark of the Ninja
Tiger Style’s Randy Smith is interviewed extensively about the making of Spider and Waking Mars in this rad new book by Wagner James Au, a well-established game writer, scholar, and all-around smart dude.
The book covers the design and business of iOS, mobile, Facebook, and web games with lots of useful material like excerpted design docs, anecdotes, workflows, and copious interviews with numerous experienced developers. It’s a worthwhile read for anyone getting into the business or just curious about it, and it’s flattering that Tiger Style was invited to participate. Here’s the Amazon link!
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ALERT! I HAVE DETECTED AN ERRONEOUS OBSERVANCE!
DESPITE PERFUNCTORY AURAL ALIKENESSES, THE IMAGINARY ROBOT CL4P-TP CONTAINS LESS THAN ONE SIMILARITY TO EXEMPLARY COMPUTER HARDWARE OF MARS
GOOD NEWS! I HAVE DETERMINED IT IS 72.539% LIKELY THE NATURAL LANGUAGE MODULE DEVELOPERS OF EXEMPLARY COMPUTER HARDWARE OF MARS ARE NONALERTED TO IMAGINARY CL4P-TP ROBOTS TO AN UNKNOWN CAPACITY!
In case you missed it, we had a majorly exciting re-release of Waking Mars this past Thursday and were stoked by all the attention it got over the weekend.
For the past few months, we’ve been working hard to bring Waking Mars to a handful of new platforms - Windows PCs, Macs, Android devices, and even Linux systems.
We released them all on the same day and were.. well.. humbled to be part of the latest Humble Bundle, the super awesome “pay what you want / decide how much goes to charity” megapack of awesome indie games.
Humble Bundles don’t last forever, so get this one while the gettings good:
You can also buy Waking Mars for Windows, Mac, and Linux directly from us on the Waking Mars website! We’ve said it before, but the game surprised even us with how natural it feels on PC. Kicking back on the couch holding a gamepad watching it on the HDTV was a proud moment!
In addition to the regular technical and controls type work that goes into a port, we massively upgraded the story presentation. Check out the improved character portraits, below. We also added professional voice acting which we’re really pleased with and we’re glad to see the critics and fans digging it too!
We don’t like to be stingy with our iOS roots, so we ported over all this voice acting and art goodness as a major update to the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch versions. It’s almost like a whole new game, and as always App Store updates are free, so download and enjoy today!
David and Randy did a live online interview thing on Reddit on launch day! Read the transcription here in which we talk about our favorite games, our design process, our future projects, how our company is run, and so forth!
And lastly, maybe due to all this attention, our Greenlight page was been picking up a lot of steam(*) and is rapidly rising through the charts. If you haven’t already, please go grace us with your Thumbs Up approval today!
* - pun intended
BUG SCIENCE! by THERON JACOBS
Tiger Style is a very active bunch. While we’re working hard to bring Waking Mars to your PC and Mac, the team also has its hands in a billion cool projects.
When we’re not tearing up the Kansas City dance scene or prototyping one of several game concepts, here is what else has felt the claws of Tiger Style.
Amanda Williams
Alongside Damien and GL33k, Amanda did some art direction and concepts for the weird and stellar Cosmic DJ, an interactive DJ game experience. She’s also living out in the countryside doing that painting thing (which I hear she’s pretty good at) and maybe some other cool things I can’t talk about…
Bobby A.
When he’s not providing our sound (currently getting voice acting for the PC release of Waking Mars!), he does sound work on lots of major titles, like Orcs Must Die 2, Epic Mickey 2, Hero Academy, Spirit Catcher, and the just previewed God of Blades! (And alongside me, he’s wading through the tomes of the Wheel of Time!)
Damien
Part of Kokoromi, a game/art collective, Damien is polishing up Dancingularity, an interactive DJ set where dancers help create the visuals they’re dancing to, that will be rocking at Fantastic Arcade. It sounds awesome and crazy and I’m sorry I won’t be at Fantastic Fest!
David K
Is totally slaving over Waking Mars for PC (Which you reaaaaally should support on Greenlight!) and prototyping [TEXT REDACTED].
Ethan G
This guy is pressing on the boundaries of sound and music, a recent work was even a selected piece for the International Computer Music Conference in Slovenia. (That’s in addition to composing for us, for others, teaching, AND soon writing his dissertation!) Listen to Ethan’s fascinating My Parents’ Phone Number.
Jef
Mr. Drawbaugh is also a cosmic jammer, writing music for surround sound and performing it as Dweomer. (Go listen to his tunes!)
Mallika
Is doing art at Eerie Canal on the game Dreadline with Steve, which looks awesome, and also singing for the wicked metal band Abnormality. Might I recommend you check out their bandcamp to get your face shredded off!
Randy O
I spent the last couple months finally bringing my one-button zombie killer Dead End to the iPad, and I would be stoked to have you check it out.
Randy S
Smith is a music aficionado, and compiled some of his fave music earlier this summer in one of his patented Gemini Radio mixes. That’s about all he has time for when he’s not making Waking Mars PC polished and perfect (and of course those other [shhh] prototypes).
Steve (Kimura)
This guy is not only working on Dreadline, but he also has a line of clothing! Check out Operator USA if you want some high-end snow gear for this fast approaching winter. Oh, and he’s raising a daughter! (Awww!)
Whitney C
One of our stellar concept artists, she’s been hard at work in Montreal on the 3d game Contrast, doing art design/promotional art/everything 2d for the game, for ever. Totally check it out, cause it looks awesome!
And as always, Theron, everyone.
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