Help us create Foodland!

Hey, everyone! 

In lieu of sharing something new from the game in today’s blog post, we thought it might be fun to hand the keys over to you for a bit. As you may have seen, one of the worlds in Runner3 is going to be Foodland. We have a lot of ideas for the kinds of foods we hope to include, but we wanted to give our readers a chance to offer up some suggestions as well! 

This is going to be a pretty informal contest. If you have an idea for a food you’d like to see show up in Foodland, comment on this post and let us know! The only rules are: 

  • Please only submit three possible foods (That way, you'll be encouraged to think hard about the foods you'd like to submit!)
  • If possible, please keep your submissions to just one comment

It’s Tuesday (February 7), so let’s say you have until Sunday at midnight (PST). That should be enough time to think up something good! Oh, and we’ll be sure to share a post next week announcing the winners and the foods they suggested.

This probably goes without saying, but please don't be afraid to get weird with your suggestions. 

Let’s do this!

- Dant

Let's listen to some Runner3 tuneage

Today’s a big day, everyone. After months of posting vague announcements and assets from the game, we’ve decided it’s time to give you something a little more savory. Specifically, we're going to share some music with you. Runner3 is a rhythm-music platformer, after all, so I imagine some folks out there are interested in how it’s going to sound. 

I’m going to post a tune below, but I’d like to contextualize it a bit first. This is some of the music you'll be hearing in Foodland, which is going to be one of the worlds you'll be dashing through in Runner3. It’s a land chock-full of toothsome terrain, succulent surroundings, and flavorsome friends. Just feast your eyes on this concept art:

With that in your head, we think it's time to debut the first-ever song from Runner3. It may undergo a tweak or two prior to launch, but this should still give you a good feel for the overall vibe. Feast your ears on this melodious morsel: 

As noted before, the music of Runner3 will be composed by Matt Harwood, who we also worked with on Runner2 and the rest of the BIT.TRIP series! He's as much a staple of the BIT.TRIP world as CommanderVideo himself!

We’re extremely excited to be sharing this with you, so please let us know what you think in the comments!

- Dant

The Lords Are Back in Town

Hey everyone, 

It probably comes as no surprise that these first few months of development have been focused on laying the groundwork necessary to, you know, make the game. There’s still some work to be done in that regard, but we’ve also reached a point where we can begin to allocate more of our focus towards the very important task of making the art! Because of this, we’re hoping to share more and more art and assets from the game moving forward. To kick off that initiative, we want to show you the final boss of Spookyland. Feast your eyes: 

These owls are not what you’d call honorable. And to make matters worse, their nocturnal nature makes it so that all court activities must take place in the dead of night. I’m really trying to avoid making a Night Court joke here. 

I should probably also mention that these owls are currently in what you’d call a “t-pose”, meaning they won’t have their arms awkwardly raised like that when you encounter them in the game. Rather, they'll probably be doing something menacing like banging their gavel or hurling their wigs at you.

Let us know what you think of these f'owl beasts!

- Mike

Decisions, Decisions...

Hello everyone!  The Mounty has doth returned to striketh … cooperation, hope, and love in all your hearts.  

In case your brain muscle is still whirling from my last post, let me refresh your memory on who I am: I am a programmer.  I write code, make tech decisions, and try not to yell uncontrollably at too many people.  

Over the past few years the industry has undergone some massive changes. No, I’m not talking about underwear, I’m talking about accessibility of game creation.  In years past, studios either had to license an established game engine for big buckaroos, or, as was more often the case, create their own engine and continually evolve it as projects changed.  This latter option is expensive, time-consuming, and difficult.

So, we entered Runner3 facing a tough decision: do we use a trusted internal engine built on our own blood, sweat, and tears, or do we write a new one?  Or, and this is the amazing part, do we use one of these new engines that are capable of amazing things right out of the box?  

Since I know the suspense is killing you, I’ll just come right out and say it: we chose option 3 and went with Unity.  Almost anyone can use it to create some sort of game experience, but in the hands of lightly seasoned game developer steaks such as ourselves, the upsides are almost too many to count.  In just a few short months we have almost an entire world built, amazing new gameplay being introduced, an entire cast of characters created from scratch, and art that will cause your eyeball spheres to bulge ever-so-slightly more out of your cranium.  

We are so excited to show you what this new game is capable of.  In the meantime, have any of you spent time learning what these game engines can offer?  If so, what sorts of projects have you done?  Lastly, are you excited to think of us as seasoned steaks?  

- Mike (Roska)

Introducing Sadbot

Hey everyone! As those of you who subscribe to Nintendo Force may have heard, we’ve announced a new playable character! 

Feast your eyes on Sadbot: 

Sadbot is a new character, and I think it’s pretty obvious where it got its name from.* There’s plenty to be said about this mysterious creature, but we think we’ll wait until closer to the game's release before delving into that.

In the meantime, I would like to reiterate that Runner3 will feature faces both old and new. If you fear change, stay tuned! We’ll be talking more about some familiar faces in the near future…

*If you were made up of empty cans and other scraps, you’d be sad, too.