Dejobaan Games BloooOooOOoOOOg!

Drunken Robot Pornography Lyrics

2010-04-21T10:37:00.001-04:00

They started working in the factories of George Devol

Quietly stamping out fridges and the Japanese car

Over the decades, designs evolved

To sweeping your floor in a circular avatar

Aerospace and a ton of Double-E

Structural engineering, nanotech, and ECE. Hired a

spikey yellow girl with a bachelor's degree

from Carnegie Mellon University.

Bake a not and an or and and and a nand.

Germanium (32) and silicon's sand,

Keep a bucket of diodes and ICs on hand

Add a layer of software by your command.

This... machine is the best we've wrought.

(It's) designed to learn and it's carefully taught

(Only) something went astray with its neural net

(Now) the biggest of our problems is a Drunken Robot

It's D to the R to the Capital P

It stands for Drunken Robot Pornography

Proposed, designed, and built courtesy

of Dejobaan Mechatronic Industries

It's D to the R to the Capital P

We stand for Drunken Robot Pornography

We dreamed, we built, unleashed with glee.

We're Dejobaan Mechatronic Industries

(I saw a) robot mixing ice cream at WPI

Forward kinematics solver, hybrid power supply.

Said, "We'd like chocolate, my friend and I."

"Here is your vanilla" was its reply.

(Knew some) fuzzy-headed girls with a bachelor's degree

from Cambridge Massachusetts's MIT

Built planetary landers and a UAV

Blowing bunkers into microscopic sub-debris

Three... Laws savvy these constructs ain't

Our scientific work shows no restraint

"Lights off" factories, 'ya just press "go"

They humma in the dark with no complaint.

Af-ter sur-mounting the technical unknowns

Like power and vision, we have shown

(That) C(apek ain't got nothing on our drones

(Cause) his'll rebel, but ours'll break bones.

It's D to the R to the Capital P

(We made this) Drunken Robot Pornography

We prototyped, refined, and hacked in C

We're Dejobaan Mechatronic Industries

It's a D and an R and it ends in P

It's spoken Drunken Robot Pornography

They may rebel but they don't say "ye,"

We're Dejobaan Mechatronic Industries

As Therac-25 will perpetually tell

When you code your software, best do it well

(But) before you judge, this ain't no cautionary tale

'Cause robots aren't evil, they're cool as hell.

They shattered the notion of R. Daneel

And Old Glory's ticker... sym... bol just fell

(But) be-fore you judge, this ain't no cautionary tale

'Cause robots aren't evil, they're cool as hell.

It's D to the R to the Capital P

It stands for Drunken Robot Pornography

Proposed, designed, and built courtesy

of Dejobaan Mechatronic Industries

It's D to the R to the Capital P

It means Drunken Robot Pornography

Defined, designed, burned on CD

by Dejobaan Mechatronic Industries

It's a D and an R and an upper-case P

Spell it out Drunken Robot Pornography

Programmed to play chess and spew debris

by Dejobaan Mechatronic Industries

One-four dot D, then an R and a P

(Four)teen Point Drunken Robot Pornography

Prototyped, tested, and shipped for a fee

by Dejobaan Games, Limited Liability

Firebrand Radio interviews Dejobaan's Dan Brainerd, others

2010-04-01T14:46:00.003-04:00

While I was at PAX East, I met many people from the press. The nicest of those people represented the "Just Press Start" program on Firebrand Radio. Sorry, all you other press people but Jeff Orloff gets the crown. It is a pretty crown.

You can hear Dan Brainerd talk about Aaaaa! in the episode "paxspec4" at http://www.firebrandradio.com/pressstart/, and if you continue to listen you can listen to Mike from Twisted Pixel talk about Comic Jumper and Sean Murray talk about Joe Danger.

Mike and Sean were both more articulate than me. I must work to correct this. There are two ways I can achieve this goal. The simpler one is to speak more slowly and think about my words. There is a harder way, one fraught with legal repercussions for myself and others... legal repercussions and pain.

Dejobaan Games, LLC has announced its next game, "14. DRUNKEN ROBOT PORNOGRAPHY," for Windows desktop PCs.

2010-04-01T01:20:00.004-04:00

April 1st, 2010 - Watertown, MA - Dejobaan Games, LLC has announced its next game, "14. DRUNKEN ROBOT PORNOGRAPHY," for Windows desktop PCs.

You're a Titan. Human-made, and made for destroying humans. With your sharp claws, you slice and dice automobiles. With your IR emitters, you roast and broil the skin and brains (respectively) of fleeing, screaming crowds. But the most important weapon in your arsenal is pure, unadulterated terror. Make them die for a high score- but make them afraid and become a legend.

Sure, you could just crush buildings and stomp across America, but the world's governments would band together against you. Even your mighty metal form is no match for all the tanks the United Nations has to offer. It's better to unleash your reign of terror in a measured fashion. A tiny, isolated hamlet devastated by fire. An avalanche killing hundreds of tourists at the canyon where you were "born." It's not about mass destruction -- you're a surgeon. It's all about breaking apart families, and then waiting -- after your rampage, you'll stalk schoolchildren as they grow up without parents. You'll feel the spark of satisfaction in your piezoelectric heart as they live without hope. The greater the total sadness you cause at the end of your 50-year reign of metal, the greater your score.

Beta Screenshot: http://www.synthscribe.com/media/shot31.png

Level 0401: Follow the life of Penelope Raindance, a young girl who wants to grow up to be a neurosurgeon. Ruin the life of Penelope Raindance, a young girl who still has dreams inside her. She's a precocious first grader, now -- but if you do things right, you can do away with her nuclear family, scream by bloody scream, in a series of well-timed "accidents" that will leave her homeless and starving. Don't crush her body; that's too easy. Hunt down and crush her dreams wherever they might hide.

Get five out of five stars for this level and you might get a shot at the big game- you can kill the very concepts of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. Crush them beneath your heavy metal feet! Devour them with teeth that exist solely to mangle! Be the last intelligent creature to feel joy before snuffing it out of the universe!

Availability and system requirements: 14. DRUNKEN ROBOT PORNOGRAPHY is planned for a Q3 2015 release, and will require Windows 2K/XP/Vista; a 3.5GHz processor; 6GB system memory; two USB QWERTY keyboards; a 3D card with 16MB video memory; a really really big monitor; and Microsoft DirectX 12.0. You will not need a mouse.

Dejobaan Games, LLC is an independent developer of desktop and handheld games. Since our founding in 1999, we've published thirteen titles, garnering enthusiastic reviews in print, on the Web, and on television. Visit us online at www.dejobaan.com. Happy April Fool's.

# # #

We'll be Here at PAX East

2010-03-25T11:18:00.001-04:00

Both at the Boston Indie Showcase and at the MIT GAMBIT booth. That's right. Two booths. Twice the Dejobaan. At opposite ends of the convention hall.

A Game Idea from Our Gameplay Guy, Dan

2010-03-16T12:34:00.003-04:00

Last week, I received this e-mail from Dan, our gameplay guy:

"Ryan and I came up with a one-button video game idea.

You are in a diner, first-person view. The aiming reticle sways and
moves, independently of your swaying and moving viewpoint. You can click
on things when the reticle wanders over them- bitch at people, refuse to
eat food, drink, throw utensils and knock plates off the table.

Eventually your viewpoint gets up and staggers out, allowing you a
chance at knocking over waiters and busboys, flipping off other patrons
(a Dejobaan trademark!), and shoving hot coffee urns at bystanders. The
miniboss is hitting the elevator button. The final boss is swiping your
keycard to get into your room. If you manage that, you fall into the
room and it fades to black.

The name of the game is 'Belligirent Patron at 24-Hour Casino Coffee
Shop.' Subtitle: 'You had to be there.'"

I'm beginning to suspect that this isn't an idea for our next game, but rather a recounting of what happened in Vegas while we were up for the Indie Game Challenge.

We Have Been at GDC...

2010-03-15T01:30:00.001-04:00

www.flickr.com

dejobaan's Dejobaan is Behind the Scenes at IGF2010/GDC2010 photoset

You Make My Heart Beat Faster

2010-02-08T01:08:00.007-05:00

This Valentine's Day, say "I love you" to that someone you love -- the Dejobaan Games way. Download the big version below, print it out, then make someone else have it. That someone else should be sexy. We guarantee a sensual weekend of sensuality*.

(*No.)

Building the Prototype to Musorqua (Working Title!)

2010-01-15T13:57:00.002-05:00

Here's a quick, dirty timelapse video on some of the building work we've been doing. Much of this content will make its way into the final game in a hopefully refined form.

What is Dejobaan Working on Right Now?

2010-01-13T13:50:00.003-05:00

The above images are based on an experimentation with lots of math and procedural level generation for Musorqua (working title). We can create twisting, looping things using Designer Script (a subset of C-Script):

// Create the pieces:
#loop

// Increment this piece's position:
pattern_position.z -= distance_between_pieces;
pattern_orientation.pan += angle_between_pieces;

// Create the piece:
stamp(begin_catalog_number);
vec_set(piece.x, pattern_position.x);
vec_set(piece.pan, pattern_orientation.pan);

loop1+=1;
if(loop1<=pieces_to_create) { djump("loop"); }

The trick here is that creating such patterns by hand would take infinity billion hours, but by function, they only take a few seconds.

What the...

2010-01-04T17:52:00.001-05:00

Nothing official, of course...

This is Also True.

2009-12-24T13:00:00.001-05:00

This is True.

2009-12-17T21:02:00.003-05:00

Written by our PR/Marketing intern, Joan Ho.

The Final Musorqua Prototype Video

2009-12-16T12:26:00.004-05:00

[Link to Video]

Hello, world! This is Ichiro, speaking to you from our offices right outside of Boston, MA. I'm happy to announce that this is a video for the final prototype of Musorqua, the working title of a game that's now officially in the pipe. What that means is that the Dejobaan Team...

Dan Brainerd, Gameplay Architect
Leo Jaitley, PR/Marketing/Biz
Tamlyn Miller, Programmer
Ryan Chadwick, Artist
Joan Ho, PR/Marketing Intern
Mary Yovina, Art Intern

...and of course...

Ichiro Lambe, Asst. Janitor

...are all going to be working on this new title through to completion. Right now, it looks suspiciously like Aaaaa!, and plays really rough, but that's okay, because it's just a prototype. You heard it here first!

And Also...

It's time to say au revoir (but hopefully not adieu) to Caitilin Lynch, who has just completed a Fall PR/Marketing internship with us, and is headed to Amsterdam, home of what Dejobaan considers a more sensible way of living.

(L-R: Joan Ho, Caitilin Lynch, Tamlyn Miller, and Ryan Chadwick.)

Caitilin's latest article is up at ModDB, so if you haven't read How to Create a Prototype in 5 Easy Steps, give it a go.

Repeated Patterns Repeated Patterns Repeated Patterns

2009-12-09T17:10:00.005-05:00

We're trying to create an interesting aesthetic for Musorqua, since the visual appeal is a third of the game. (The other two thirds are musical expression and something else which I don't know what it is, but it keeps me up at night.) Everyone's familiar with fractals, but I think artists tend to underuse them because they're such a technical thing.

Of course, they're found everywhere in nature, from fern fronds to humble broccoli. You can create complex things easily by repeating and building on simple components. We used a lot of that in Aaaaa! for the skycubes -- the unchanging backdrops within a level.

That one's a simple pattern created in Genetica.

We added a transparency layer, then laid them out over several parallel planes. Voila, instant skycube. Simple, but effective. So, why not extend that to what's actually moving around within the game? It's trivially easy to experiment with this, and I find the results immediately gratifying.

Amateur - Lasse Gjertsen

2009-12-06T21:33:00.002-05:00

We're researching for Musorqua, Dan our Gameplay Architect, came up with this. Lassegg can't play the drums or the piano -- but he can sure edit video. And, just in case you're a music geek, and you've missed this for 3 years:

Musorqua Interface Mockup

2009-12-05T13:39:00.003-05:00

Now with the excitement of 10 concurrent music tracks. Here are the four basic tracks you can bring into earshot by capturing yellow, red, blue, and orange blips:

Drums - Boom. Chakka. Boom. Chakka. Boom. Chakka. Not like a solo.
Bass - Resonating, rich, and delicious. Like musical chocolate.
Lead - Bright melody of leading line. Pianos, trumpets, and strumpets.
Vocals - Can every song fill something in about the Musorqua world?

With those, you have a song. Catch six types of secondary, hidden blips to make the music more interesting:

Effects - Non-melodic elements and accents. Like scratching.
Perc - Double your layer of drums for complex, eargasmic percussion.
Synth - Use this judiciously for a synth line that weaves around the lead.
Oooh - More vocals! Utterances! (Maybe not that one.) Oooooooooooohmmmmmmm.
Deep - Double the bass line. Hovering around 220Hz. Makes your subwoofer woof.
Pads - Synth pads support the song by adding a background layer.

Yeah.

Dejobaan Games Guidelines for Various Things

2009-12-03T01:27:00.003-05:00

A recent Kotaku post outlines "What Marketing Can And Can't Do With Microsoft's Avatars." Here's an excerpt:

When Avatars are used in a group of three or more, at least one Avatar must be female.
When Avatars are used in a group of three or more, consider including different ethnicities.
When Avatars are used in groups of three or more, one of them should be facing forward and looking outward.
Avatars must be playful and mischievous, not devious or inappropriate.
Do not show Avatars with closed or blinking eyes.
Do not show Avatars using any hand or body gestures other than those provided.
Do not use an Avatar as the main message of a marketing piece.
Do not show Avatars interacting with the Xbox 360 Sphere.

Our two PR interns are creating illustrations for our blog. We call them comics, but they're so much more than that. Here are some guidelines for building the characters within these:

When Characters are used in a group of three or more, at least one Avatar must be nonhuman.
When Characters are used in a group of three or more, one must be biracial White/Asian, because Dejobaan founder Ichiro Lambe is biracial, so everyone must be biracial, because Dejobaan founder Ichiro Lambe whines if things become too unfamiliar.
When Characters are used in a group of five or more, one must have an odd number of legs: 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 21, 23, 25, 27, 29, 31, 34, etc.
Characters must be drawn as to imply that they browse pornography, but not on the Internet. Figure that one out.
Do not show Characters with asian-style slanty eyes.
Do not show Characters as globally well-known humanitarians who advocate for the poor and helpless, due in part to a documentary, and book, Something Beautiful for Dejobaan, having won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 and India's highest civilian honor, the Bhaarat Ratna, in 1980 for their mild humanitarian works.
Do not use Characters a group of people who live within a cave, where objects passing before a fire cast shadows against a wall, causing the people to ascribe forms to them, and are the only things that the people ever see, as a contrast to the Philosopher, who has been freed from the came, and comes to realize that the shadows are merely a simulacrum of reality..
Do not show Characters interacting with the Xbox 360 Sphere.

Thanks.

Aaaaa! for the Awesome/Musorqua Prototype #4

2009-11-24T19:09:00.003-05:00

Hot off the presses, it's Aaaaa! for the Awesome/Musorqua Prototype #4. It's a small (but useful?) iteration on our previous two concept videos. If you haven't seen them, here are two earlier prototypes that lead up to this:

(Prototype #1)

(Prototype #2)

I think it's looking more interesting. Are we moving in the right direction? We'll add a few more iterations before we're done with the prototype stage. If it looks like a game, at that point, we'll move it into active development.

We Love FL Studio

2009-11-20T17:22:00.002-05:00

We're creating music for the Aaaaa! for the Awesome/Musorqua prototype using FL Studio. Lay down some drums, a bass line, and a guitar, and we're a tenth of the way towards making a Musorqua OST.

Meet Dejobaan at Boston Indies -- 11/16 at Microsoft NERD

2009-11-12T13:19:00.003-05:00

Meet President Ichiro Lambe, BizDev director Leo Jaitley, and Gameplay Architect Dan Brainerd at this month's Boston Indies meeting. Ichiro and Leo will be giving this talk:

TALK: "Here's What Dejobaan Games Did to Market Their 13th Title, AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! -- A Reckless Disregard for Gravity"

WHAT: Just like the title says. Dejobaan President Ichiro Lambe and BizDev Director Leo Jaitley talk on the successes, failures, and lessons learned in creating the studio's latest game.
WHEN: 7pm on Monday 11/17
WHERE: Microsoft New England Research & Development Center (NERD) at 1 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA 02142

We're also giving away a free copy of AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! to attendees. Join us!

View Larger Map

Monster of the Week -- The Prime Producer

2009-10-29T14:41:00.001-04:00

The Prime Producer is a series of metallic plates with numerous semi-random triangular patches on its "skin," almost like dazzle-pattern camouflage. It avoids you while spawning various Small and Tiny enemies to attack you, such as flocks of Magpies, squads of Ignitirs and Quivers, a few Neon Trackers, and great collections of Rodents.

AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! -- Level Editor Sneak Peek Away!

2009-10-26T22:21:00.002-04:00

It is done. Those signed up on the mailing list should now have their level editor links. Thank yoooou!

Get Your Hands on a Sneak Peek of the AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! Level Editor

2009-10-23T15:51:00.006-04:00

Oh, that name does get long after a while. Look, here it is, in a nutshell:

Sign up for the AWESOME NON-NEWSLETTER. (Visit www.dejobaan.com -- it's on the right.)
On Monday, October 26th, we're going to send out free copies of the alpha test level editor to everyone. Don't miss the date!

That's pretty straightforward. Then, people will say "Hey, why can't I use this in the actual game?," and we'll say "Well, it's an alpha test." Then we'll get that one player who has a bunch of great ideas, and I will reel because they're too good not to implement.

Okay, then!

An Amaaaaaaaaaaaazing Review!

2009-10-20T03:50:00.004-04:00

Do you often find yourself pausing in debilitating and unshakable fear when about to fling yourself off a skyscraper, mountaintop, or other monstrously tall structure? Are you made to feel ashamed at this apparent lack of gumption? Don't worry - this reaction is perfectly normal, the voice of natural selection warning you that doing so will most likely result in a brief moment of glory and a sticky puddle at the base where your bones used to be - to the betterment of your species.

Your wild-eyed and twitchy critics who occasionally shout "Deploy parachute fins!" are probably not serious in their abuse - they've just been playing AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! -- A Reckless Disregard for Gravity from indie developer Dejobaan Games.

Here's one of the simpler courses. Good luck!

A cure to your fear lies in the highly stylized graphics of AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! -- A Reckless Disregard for Gravity - guaranteed to induce a high heart rate. The game places you on top of a tall object and instructs you to jump off. You earn points by falling horrifyingly close to buildings to earn hugs and kisses, smashing through point plates, and landing safely, in increasingly complicated aerial landscapes.

This is your menu. Lots of levels and random goodies await!

The exhilarating sense of acceleration often speeds me right to my doom, and short levels make my frequent failures tolerable, inviting both casual and dedicated play. I find myself using spare minutes between classes and naps to jump off some more buildings. Occasionally steering my unfortunate avatar feels like piloting a well-meaning but amazingly un-aerodynamic rhino, but other appeals make up for it.

The setting, in a sort of sci-fi Boston is a little difficult to grasp, but shiny buildings that light up and humorous holographic ads lend a playful atmosphere, which goes great with the energetic music. There are loads of levels with diverse objectives and presentations, and enough challenges that an individual determined to make 4 or 5 stars on every level would confront a fairly brutal opponent. If you need a break from gameplay you can relax with an ... inspiring anti-meditation. I suggest experimenting with listening to different styles of music to create your own perfect soundtrack - I think Aaaa! goes best with chill hip hop or epic metal!

All in all, I have totally fallen for this game.

Operation: Interrogate Ryan!

2009-10-19T20:29:00.015-04:00

It took a bit of trekking and getting lost in Boston before we made it to the Dejobaan HQ in Watertown; the mission objective this time? Interrogate team artist Ryan about his favorite prototype idea- Transfigurants- while staying beyond the reach of the attack ferret. Though we breached the first level or security safely...

Ryan already upgraded the attack ferrets to mutated crows! (Slidecrows, to be exact - a genetic mutation of the once noble spices, perhaps not that noble, of crows.) Apparently,the Slidecrows that greeted us were created to depute in this prototype.

Ryan's favorite idea revolves mainly around the Polystructures, which were big geometric things/structures that fell from the sky a few years ago and floated; it was from the Polystructures that the humans learned the technology to make other buildings drift above the surface. Most humans then migrated into the sky, forgetting and leaving the surface to the animals. The prototype Transfigurants will then show what happened to the abandoned civilizations on the surface that had been overrun by the radiation that the Polystructures emit; two noteworthy Infectant (mutated beings that spawned from the crazy genius minds of Ryan and Tam) were Slidecrows (see above) and Wombat-pythons "veeeeeeery long wombats with big teeth and no legs; it slithers!" Because Ryan keeps his wombat-python hidden under his bed, there are sadly no pictures to share about just yet, though fear not! There will be lots of other mutations (including jellyfish!) to fight off and lower floating building ruins for the player to jump around as they venture through the surface world armed with an energy gun and a rocket-propelled jump pack, picking up ancient relics to upgrade that technology.

As the player, you explore the forgotten ruins, encounter mazes littered with traps, endure the surface-dwelling humans that insult you, and survive the Transfigurants (enormous biomechanical creatures programmed to think that humans should be hugged... to death). You will discover the strange rune markings, first seen on the ancient ruins of the surface world, and that have now begun appearing on the Polystructures. It was an interesting idea! Seeing that we have been able to keep most of our limbs intact, and get a great report on the prototype...

Mission Accomplished!

Nebin Lives!

2009-09-28T01:40:00.001-04:00

I woke up this evening to discover this. Nebin told me about it, but I didn't believe him until I heard him. Then the belief began.

Musorqua Prototype Video #2

2009-09-25T16:37:00.000-04:00

Rex McPwn and the Many Levels of Aaaaa!

2009-09-14T14:22:00.003-04:00

Rex McPwn has created a video library on how to get 5 stars on all the levels of Aaaaa!: http://www.youtube.com/user/llcARDFG

We're giving him a hand and five-starring the videos on YouTube as well. Because they are awesome. Really. Honestly.

AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! -- Official Launch Video!

2009-09-11T02:23:00.001-04:00

Here's the final Aaaaa! video. Very exciting. Very special. Very spicy.

Dental Taco Sings the Blues

2009-09-09T18:02:00.001-04:00

User Dental Taco crushes the level, Nuke the Site. What I really like is that he's doing this while talking about salami. Who's he talking to? We could have sworn he said something like "I got some babes for you" and something about "Saran Wrap" during the conversation.

A Quick and Dirty Release Video

2009-09-08T13:38:00.001-04:00

A quick video test to see if we can upload HD video. It seems to work. Generally. I think? We need a new REAL video, anyway.

And So it Begins...

2009-09-03T03:42:00.002-04:00

AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! - A Reckless Disregard for Gravity has launched. Like new mothers and fathers, we are extremely proud. If you have pre-ordered, you should receive your link to the full version within 12 minutes of reading this. If you haven't played, give it a try. You'll love it!

Videogame Celebrity Status: Achieved!

2009-08-27T13:46:00.005-04:00

A few weeks ago Dejobaan hosted a contest asking Twitterers to tweet their best AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! faces to us. In return for just one scream into a camera that may have been cause for concern for some of your neighbors, and may or may not have warranted a police response, the winner would be immortalized in AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! -- A Reckless Disregard for Gravity. The lucky Tweeter would win a copy of the game as well, so they could see their beautiful mug free of charge. We finally have that winner! OMG! Get your camera! Call TMZ! Is that Lindsay Lohan?!

No, it's @Jared_K! Congratulations to @Jared_K! It was your face we pulled out of a hat (you are now imagining pulling a face out of a hat, maybe by the nostrils) and you are our grand prize winner! Hooray! Like the faces of great men carved into stone, yours shall be carved into code.

Finalization Mountain

2009-08-25T11:01:00.003-04:00

At 4:32 am, EST, Dejobaan developers, accompanied by a grizzled Sherpa, left for the mysterious Finalization Mountain. Outfitted in only the most rudimentary survival gear, they will spend a grueling nine days facing what Finalization can throw at them. When they return... if they return... they will return triumphant with AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! -- A Reckless Disregard for Gravity proudly upon their shoulders for all to see!

I hope they didn't need those boots that are still by the front door.

This weekend in Marlborough...

2009-08-21T10:39:00.001-04:00

This weekend, in Marlborough MA, the Best Western won't know what hit 'em! GameUnicon '09 is in town so you can finally put down our pre-release for the weekend. They've got some awesome events in store including over thirty cash prize tournaments. You can stick it to anyone who ever told you "video games are just a waste of time." They're a waste of time Gram-gram? Well, I just pulled in part of the $10,000 in prizes at GameUnicon '09! No butterscotch candies for you! Aside from LAN gaming and tournaments, there will be table-top gaming and several concerts! Who needs sleep? Check it out! The event runs from 6 am on Friday until 6 pm on Sunday, so you have all weekend to bask in the glow of televisions and monitors. Check out the website! http://www.gameunicon.com/

Oh My God, It's The Most Beautiful Thing in the World

2009-08-19T15:26:00.005-04:00

Nobody ever had an ugly baby. And you can't go around telling people that their babies are ugly, because they just get all bent out of shape.

"Oh, he looks like an old man, only small!"

No. It does not work, even though you know exactly how he's going to look in 80 years. It's BS. Anyway, we're about to birth Aaaaa!, and I wanted to drop a mention about three easter eggs:

1. CTRL-K to enter Dog Kiss Mode
2. G to Gargle
3. M to Rub Your Lucky Mouse

That's all I wanted to say. Thank you for listening.

Tweet about Aaaaa! TAKE 2 - Action!

2009-08-11T14:46:00.013-04:00

WHAT CAN I WIN?

A starring role in "AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! -- A Reckless Disregard for Gravity."
our latest title. We'll put your screaming, ridiculous Aaaaa! face into the game on one of them holographic ads we love so very much, and we'll give you a free copy of the game!

SIGN ME UP....WAIT! WHAT DO I NEED TO DO?

Post a link of a pic of you screaming the name of the game through twitpic, on flickr, or anywhere else that you like.
Retweet this line: Be THE STAR of Aaaaa! Post your Aaaaa! face to weeeeen -> (your link here) Help us spread the word: http://bit.ly/HgXP9

The contest runs until the end of Sunday August 16th, 2009. The poster with the best Aaaaa! face will see his or her face up in lights!

WHAT IS THIS GAME?

"AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! -- A Reckless Disregard for Gravity" is our upcoming BASE jumping simulator, where you leap off the edge of a skyscraper, create your own stunts, and flip off protesters for points. Here's your chance to get everyone to see your beautifully chiseled face in the game.

RULES (The Fiiiiihiiiiiine Print)

Employees and agents of Dejobaan Games, LLC ("Dejobaan") are not eligible to enter. This contest will begin on 8/10/09 and end at 11:59pm EDT on 8/16/09. Dejobaan will announce the winner via Twitter by 8/27/09. To enter the competition, post your best screaming face, follow us at @RoRoDejobaan and retweet the above message. All submissions become property of Dejobaan Games, LLC, and may be used within the game, on websites, inside this locket I'm holding, and anywhere else we want to use them. One winner will be chosen from all entries. Dejobaan Games, LLC is not liable for any errors which may occur in the administration of the competition, makes no warranties about Aaaaa!, and is not responsible for taxes imposed on prizes. No purchase necessary. Estimated odds of winning are 1 in 100. Mark Twain's moustache is not eligible to enter. I mean, it's not even sentient, as far as we know.

Our Interns Are Excited About Something!

2009-08-10T23:14:00.001-04:00

It isn't about getting coffee, though I actually could use a cup about now... where are they?

Well, Tam is probably out making obscene gestures to the elderly and tagging their walkers with graffiti. Aaaaa!'s new features have got him all riled up to cause problems for The Man and The System. We heard him say, as he stenciled his "tag" on a stray cat, "once I added graffiti, the game took on a whole new character." Also, the new Flip-It Glove has got him running around town, giving a thumbs-up and flipping the bird to passers by. That explains his new black eye as well we suppose. He says "it totally changed the gameplay, making levels more active, hectic, and fun for everyone." Combining it all makes things really crazy, and really tough on The Man! Yeah!

Ryan might actually be out getting coffee, or espresso shots! We should really give him a call, the caffeine buzz from this morning is wearing off. While caffeine only keeps us slightly less lethargic than we usually are, in the game it sends you smashing through score plates at eyelash-removing speeds. Your poor luxurious lashes! We make it up to you though, doubling the score of any plates you crash through. We imagine, if Ryan wasn't on one of the several daily trips to get us mountain-fresh coffee, he would say that "the gameplay has made a step to the next level. Obstacles are much harder to avoid while super-caffeinated on a triple-shot of espresso."

The Dejobaan team, including Tam and Ryan, are still working to make Aaaaa! a fast-paced, shin-shattering experience that will tickle the novice and challenge our most experienced players. Speaking of a challenge, it's becoming a challenge to get a cup of coffee around here. Where are they?!*

* Our interns have not once been made to get coffee. We're nice that way.

Tweet Tweet, We've Got Ourselves Some Winners!

2009-08-06T21:23:00.003-04:00

Follow @RoRoDejobaan and retweet this for a chance to win a freeeee copy of Aaaaa!: http://bit.ly/yuj3k #AAAAA!

Well you did! But it is decided, and there can be only five. A lucky few (and we swear it had nothing to do with the envelopes of money they left us with their homemade pies) have come away victorious in our first Twitter competition!

@Deekman, @energyUK, @tr00st, @arislyn, @Silverfisk

These five lucky twitterers will receive gold-plated and diamond encrusted wingsuits, and a free copy of Aaaaa! (wingsuit not included). Congratulations to all!

Stay tuned though, Twitter is so mind-bogglingly awesome, we may not be done with it. Perhaps next time, if you follow our mothers (on twitter and in person) and leave nice compliments for them about their outfits, we'll throw you off our roof and base a level off of the smear you make on the driveway! Now how will I get Mom into Twitter when she does not yet entirely comprehend text messaging...

Land Ho!

2009-08-03T21:48:00.005-04:00

You may have noticed in the last beta we have given you some new, exciting things to paint red with your insides. Land! More specifically, our new terrain levels! Danny B and our sexy interns are switching things up with a more "natural" approach to their new levels. Well not completely natural, Intern Tam says, "seeing as a big mountain that you have to fall down gets boring after awhile." I mean, where's the fun in smashing into any ole' mountain when you can leave your entrails behind on a fantastic, spire sportin', spiky behemoth made by the caring hands of our development team?

Intern Tam has made three terrains this week alone. One features a bunch of spires that you'll have to hug in order to gain points, but also dodge to avoid becoming a human, wingsuit-shish-kebab. He also has a rugged piece of work, featuring some roads and craters, to bob and weave around. Of course, he doesn't stop there. In his last piece of terrain, Tam challenges you to get going as fast as you can manage without slamming into the sides of his spiraling valley or leaving a dent into the ground at the end. How fast can you go while still being able to put on the brakes?

Tweet about AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! -- A Reckless Disregard for Gravity and get a chance to win one of five free copies of the game!

2009-07-31T15:31:00.008-04:00

WHAT IS THIS?

"AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! -- A Reckless Disregard for Gravity" is our upcoming BASE jumping simulator, where you leap off the edge of a skyscraper, create your own stunts, and flip off protesters for points.

HOW DO I ENTER?

Simply follow @RoRoDejobaan on Twitter and
Retweet this line: Follow @RoRoDejobaan and retweet this for a chance to win a freeeee copy of Aaaaa!: http://bit.ly/yuj3k #AAAAA!

The contest runs until the end of Sunday, August 2nd, 2009. Five winners will receive pre-order copies and the full version when it's released!

RULES (The Fiiiiihiiiiiine Print)

Employees and agents of Dejobaan Games, LLC ("Dejobaan") are not eligible to enter. This contest will begin on 7/30/09 and end at 11:59pm on 8/2/09. Dejobaan will announce the winners of five pre-order copies of "AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! -- A Reckless Disregard for Gravity" ("Aaaaa!") (a $24.95 value) via Twitter by 8/7/09. To enter the competition, follow us at @RoRoDejobaan and retweet the above message. Five winners will be chosen randomly from all entries. Dejobaan Games, LLC is not liable for any errors which may occur in the administration of the competition, makes no warranties about Aaaaa!, and is not responsible for taxes imposed on prizes. No purchase necessary. Estimated odds of winning are 1 in 1,000. Mark Twain's moustache is not eligible to enter. I mean, it's not even sentient, as far as we know.

A Quick and Dirty Beta Video

2009-07-29T01:03:00.001-04:00

It's a quick and dirty of some new buildings and effects. Now, to figure out how to embed in high definition. Rrrarrr!

The Third and Final FilePlanet Beta is Up!

2009-07-24T16:01:00.003-04:00

Phase 3 of the free, exclusive FilePlanet Beta of Aaaaa! is OPEN: http://www.fileplanet.com/promotions/aaaaaaa/?_cmpid=fp191 -- seats are limited, but pre-orders are guaranteed a seat! The most infuriating thing we present here is the ability to spraypaint unspraypainted buildings with spraypaint.

Luke M. on the Aaaaa! Mechanic

2009-07-13T00:43:00.003-04:00

Luke M., a fellow game designer, was kind enough to write in about the rules behind Aaaaa!. How do we make them better? How do we make them more satisfying? The trick, he says, is this:

Calculating risk isn’t simple, and conveying how risky the players actions were back to them is going to be very damn difficult.

So, let's see what he has to say:

The underlying mechanic is brilliantly simple. It truly is a simple personification of risk vs. reward design.

That said, although the risk is immediately obvious (close to building = inherently risky, people draw off their instinctual knowledge for that) the reward is not as obvious. It took me a while to understand that I acquire hugs faster the closer I am to a building. Or atleast I assume I do… I guess the main thing here is that the feedback mechanism for reward isn’t clear enough in contrast of the super obvious risk mechanism.

Ok so now here is my main thing. Scoring a kiss doesn’t seem to take into account proximity. If it does then I guess the problem is that it’s not obvious to me that it does, and you can ignore everything below!

Scoring a kiss is, to me as a designer at least, far riskier. To score hugs, I can get slowly closer and closer to the building and if I get too closer, then I’ll just get bumped. Scoring a really close kiss to a top edge however is a totally different prospect, get a tiny bit too close and SPLAT, you hit the top edge of the structure. The risk is on a totally new level. What I would love is if a kiss used proximity as well, and this proximity was based purely off the horizontal axis, like so:

To me, skimming those edges is the massive risk. That, and seeing the top edge of a building whip past at some huge speed is immensely satisfying.

Even riskier is doing something like this:

Now we are doing really risky behavior, simply because as you approach a maximum horizontal speed, you have less viable options in terms of adjusting your trajectory. I would just love to see this kind of crazy behavior rewarded in some way as well, although I’m not sure what a good mechanic for conveying this concept would be. Perhaps a combination of proximity and horizontal velocity?

I should mention that, as Luke says, the game does not actually take into account proximity for kisses. After a bit of back-and-forth, he expanded on his thoughts:

I can completely understand why the system works the way it does, and it seems obvious to me now. I think one major think that threw me was the presence of a proximity meter on the side of the screen. Seeing this made me think that there must be an association with the scoring mechanism.

I guess although it’s nice to have a meter, I can already see how close I am to a building based off what is on screen. Additionally feedback like a crazy “whipping past something close to me” sound that scales in as I get closer and closer , or some mild screen shake could even replace the meter. This could also add some positive visceral feedback as a reward to skimming really close to the buildings.

(Random anecdote: I remember the first game I worked on, a GBA title. It was a fighting game with a good old fashioned combo meter. The more dudes you killed in a set amount of time, the more points you got. On the combos, we had this amazing sound that would sound better and higher every time your combo went up. People were striving for combos, trying to pull off the craziest ones they could just to hear how high the feedback sound would go.. they didn’t eve care about the points! It was surprising to me just how powerful some auditory feedback was to the player, where as the actual intended reward of more points had much less of an impact, depending on the type of player).

The idea of a kiss being 1000pts and a hug being 100pts is also super interesting. It would seem to be in the players best interests to try and score tons of kisses with lots of horizontal traversal, as each Kiss yields the same as 10 hug ‘moments’, or better yet, stay near a building scoring hugs while skimming nearby objects for kisses. This obviously makes for some interesting choices for the player to make in terms of their path... however with my obvious confusion from the previous email, I was making path choices based off the totally wrong mechanism! I guess although it is surely displayed on the score screen, I wasn’t previously aware of just how much a kiss is worth, compared to a measly hug J. (Now that I think about it, its named rather brilliantly, as a kiss is a more intimate expression than a hug).

In regards to the ’just skim the building’ issue, one possible solution to encourage players to make some super risky moves would be some scoring plate placements. Better yet, as the super risky stuff usually involves rapid horizontal traversal, some vertically aligned plates could have some fun placements:

I think he's potentially onto something, and have prodded our internal team about this. (Especially since I'd like to focus more on audio design.) But I'd like to invite comment -- what does everyone else think?

"Gnoupi" Writes in About Sexy Ads

2009-06-26T13:15:00.002-04:00

"I tried the alpha demo from AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!!, and i love it :P

Though it could eventually use more sounds (wooshing, screams, etc), but that's ok anyway.

One point though is keeping me from playing more and buying eventually, is the advertisement in game.

I mean, i read : http://www.gamersdailynews.com/blog-105-How-Much-Sex-Can-You-Cram-Into-Your-Video-Game.html. I get the critic, and the extrapolating on "you will buy whatever we tell you too", just because showing sexy girls. It's fun to extrapolate on that, and display it on what "future" would have as huge ad screens.

But my concern is, even if satire is obvious, it could be nice to have a choice in options between this, and regular ads/display/whatever on walls. Why? Well, for starters, our society kinda throw up such kind of ads on us all day long, would be nice to not have it again in a game.

Other possible reasons, even if irony is clear, not everyone will appreciate that.

And to finish, have a thought that not all guys are single, and some, like me, would like to play this nice fun game without having remarks or argue from their girlfriend about this kind of display :P

(Yes, my girlfriend is a gamer too, and quite against all that system believing that all gamers are guys wanting to see half naked girls (so am i, btw, but that's another topic). So would it be possible to have at least a possibility to play this game which shouldn't even normally include any kind of "sexy", without this kind of ads ?

It would be really appreciated ;)"

This is what we're contemplating now. Are the ironic, "sexy" ads too much?

Some Interns are Like Monica Lewinsky; Ours are Sexier

2009-06-24T14:45:00.002-04:00

"Tamlyn M and Ryan C make up our crack team of interns who are loaded with creativity, enthusiasm and non-alcoholic beer at all times. I decided to interview them to find out about some of their work on level design. I should point out that all level design is done with our totally awesome level editor that we hope to eventually make available to everyone who buys the game..."

Read more at ModDB!

(What does rock climbing have to do with our game? Dude's totally going the wrong way! Find out above.)

To Hell With Gravity -- An Interview with The Escapist's Nathan Meunier

2009-06-22T13:55:00.002-04:00

"One can only imagine how the round-table brainstorming session played out for the folks in charge of coming up with the perfect title for a game where you dive off of mile-high buildings, head-butt poultry in mid-air, flip-off fans for extra points and collect human teeth as currency. After tossing around about 50 different names of varying quality, the team at Dejobaan Games finally settled on a winner for its upcoming extreme (and overtly peculiar) skydiving simulator: AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! - A Reckless Disregard for Gravity. Yes, that's spelled with 25 letter As and three exclamation points."

Nathan Meunier was kind enough to interview us for an article in The Escapist. Check it out here!

You Know a PR/Marketing Intern?

2009-06-22T00:22:00.004-04:00

Do you know someone local who's interested in PR/marketing and games, and is looking for experience with an established studio? We're an indie studio big enough to have released 13 titles, yet small enough not to force our interns to make coffee! (Unless they want to. I'm not going to stop them, but I don't really drink the stuff.)

Dejobaan Games, LLC, an independent game development studio is seeking a motivated intern to help run our PR strategy. If you love playing video games and are pursuing a career in marketing, PR, business, or gaming, we want to talk to you! Now on our 13th title - "AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! - A Reckless Disregard for Gravity," we are months away from a massive launch. As an intern at an indie studio, you will have the opportunity to drive our marketing and PR strategy under the mentorship of our Director of Business Development. Expect to walk out the doors experience and hireable skills you won't get anywhere else.

Benefits:

Become a part of one of Boston's fastest-growing industries.
Work with a popular indie studio to market our 13th title - our interns make a difference, not coffee!

Responsibilities:

Manage aspects of our social media strategy, including Twitter, Facebook, Digg, and Delicious.
Interface with the press and gaming community. Work directly with journalists, and in forums and community sites.
Develop creative content: press releases, blogs, and Web content.

Skills/Background:

You are:

Undergraduate students in Marketing, PR, Business, Gaming
Or any major, with a strong personal interest in social media and gaming

Strong writing skills and ability to communicate.
Experience with social media a plus.
Interest in video games a must!

Prerequisites:

Ability to travel to Watertown MA twice a week to meet the Dejobaan Team.
Ability to work from home via PC, 20 hours/week.

This is an unpaid internship with the opportunity for future paid work with Dejobaan.

Contact us at support@dejobaan.com!

Check out the flyer: http://www.dejobaan.com/jobs/summer_fall_2009_pr_internship.pdf

THE PRE-RELEASE IS HERE!

2009-06-16T23:33:00.004-04:00

The Pre-Release is Here! Fans of AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! - A Reckless Disregard for Gravity can pre-order. Here's the press release:

Dejobaan Games, LLC has made available a 30-level pre-release of their upcoming BASE jumping game, "AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! - A Reckless Disregard for Gravity." Fans can try a new 9-level demo and pre-order the full game for $15 ($10 off the full price) at www.dejobaan.com/aaaaa. Those who pre-order will receive the full 30-level pre-release, exclusive content as it's developed, and the the full 80-level game when it's released in Q3.

Since the indie studio released the game's public alpha test, they've added new content and incorporated player feedback to improve gameplay. The pre-release introduces new levels and game mechanics such as the option to trade human teeth for triple espresso shots and the ability to anger protesters for points. There's also a relaxing audio meditation for anyone too stressed out to play the game.

"AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! - A Reckless Disregard for Gravity" is scheduled for a Q3 2009 release, and will require Windows XP/Vista, a 1.5GHz processor, 1.5GB memory, a 3D card with 256MB memory, and Microsoft DirectX 9.0c. Visit Dejobaan online at www.dejobaan.com, and follow them on Twitter at @RoRoDejobaan.

You can slag and stag and snag the latest here: www.dejobaan.com/aaaaa

If only it were time to sleep next!

Team Dejobaan Has a Garden

2009-06-16T01:34:00.002-04:00

Pixies are luminous and tiny. The fence can't keep out determined pixies. The first time a pixie enters, we take a photograph for our records. The second time, a tiny needle coated in hydropamine is shot with unerring accuracy. The pixies -- I think they're pixies -- are taken to the sub-basement. The room that doesn't appear on the property's blueprints.

We're coming up on the 30-level pre-release release. Check out our how-we-create on our GDN Blog. Every word is a blatant lie.

Planes That are Trains and Automobiles

2009-06-10T12:34:00.002-04:00

Flying cars can be yours today. We're populating levels with them. Fly past them. Crash into them. Gawk.

Oleetku Studios Podcast

2009-06-01T12:11:00.002-04:00

Oleetku Studios made an audio recording of their review of the Alpha Demo of our upcoming game. It's called a podcast. AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! - "This game is a punk, and it is good at it": http://oleetkustudios.net/podcast/

The human body has only one bone.

The Even More Secret Pizza and Love Life of an Alpha Tester

2009-05-21T12:19:00.002-04:00

On April 22nd 2009, we announced our closed alpha in a formal press release. Closed, as in: you couldn't play it, your mom couldn't play it -- really, the only people who could play it was us. Since then we released the playable alpha, which you can download. If you haven't you should.

And if you haven't read our updated ModDB entry on alpha testing, check it out here!

Leaked Tutorial #1 Which Isn't Really Leaked

2009-05-15T14:41:00.001-04:00

This one's for our interns -- Tutorial #1 shows how they'll help us create new levels for AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! - A Reckless Disregard for Gravity.

The... Whole... Alpha?

2009-05-14T02:13:00.003-04:00

User KCDjedi posted a video of the entire alpha demo. 9 minutes 46 seconds. Including the endgame message that everyone's talking about:

If you haven't yet played the game, give it a go: www.dejobaan.com/aaaaa. We promise you'll either enjoy it or not enjoy it.

TELL US where to SHOVE IT! (And how to make the game better?)

2009-05-06T14:08:00.005-04:00

This is the thread where we hope alpha testers will make constructive and lightly destructive comments.

Note: If you've just played the alpha, we have a brand-new pre-release demo available. Check it out here!

AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! Meets its First Alpha Tester

2009-04-24T23:13:00.005-04:00

This is what an informal playtest session log looks like.

DanR was our first playtester. Here's a photo of his ear, because we didn't ask him for permission to show a photo of the rest of his face.

He can pretty much kick any of our asses at Quake 3. He represents the hardcore demographic (or, at least the 30+ age group within that demographic -- we're aging). Here's what we found when we sat him down with a recent build, complete with fake timestamps:

7:01pm - We sit DanR down and start the game. He's an FPS fan who still plays various games today. His experience today will be similar to that of the most adept gamers. The big lesson: Just because he "gets" something doesn't mean all our players will.

7:02pm - He starts the game and looks around before he jumps, investigating the various edges of the building. Exploration is completely logical, but it's one of those things we (the level designers) never think about. He lands level 1 with no problem.

7:04pm - On Inward Focus, he had some initial successes, then started pushing boundaries. He ended up dead, until he got a handle of things.

7:06pm - DanR expects the player's bounding box to be smaller. He keeps hitting things he doesn't expect to hit. Broken bones from hitting buildings all over the place, for example. (We've since smallened it.)

7:09pm - The final score -- a number that appears in a vacuum -- clearly had no effect on his perception of success. (We've since added a "stars" rating, and have keyed this to level advancement.)

7:10pm - "What if there were things chasing the players? Or others jumping with them?" Or, in general, moving objects. (We since added rotating fan blade-looking things for starters.)

7:15pm - DanR says he didn't notice that the mountain was something he could jump down, at the end of Your Jackhole. (Possible solution: arrows?)

7:16pm - DanR goes for the shiny scoring plates a lot, which is reasonable. DanB and I generally do that as an afterthought, given how little they're worth compared to kisses.

7:18pm - There's no visual indicator that DanR's deployed the parachute! (Solved it by adding a "parachute fan" with sound effect.)

7:22pm - The do-nothing Jellyfish item disappoints DanR. (Solved by removing it.)

7:23pm - DanR claims that the controls are good, and the hyper-nonrealistic aesthetic works. We've received reasonable feedback on the graphics, lately, so I'm not too worried about that. However, I'd like to give it another "bump" before beta.

7:27pm - DanR likes the sense of momentum, and stresses that good level design is paramount. He suggests that we group levels by theme. Waterfalls? If players are inside something dark, would they have night vision? How about doing a run within a structure? (Tunnel?)

7:30pm - DanR experiments with an early parachute deployment. He wanted to be able to land, retract the parachute, then take off again in order to search for secrets. DanB also thought this was a good idea, but perhaps as an unlockable much later? I don't want to spoil the game's sense of motion.

7:33pm - The Inward Focus level is a challenge.

7:34pm - DanR suggests that there should be many levels. Replayability is key. Secrets allow the player to repeat completed runs? (First step in our solution is the experience system.)

7:40pm - DanR asks if there's a benefit to opening your parachute as late as possible. What if there were other avatars? The player currently has no identity at all. (Solution: ?)

7:41pm - It is unclear to DanR how damage is handled. He suggests a blue-becomes-red (hit-points) interface that doesn't distract. Could we write the game to allow players to hit walls and take advantage of the rebound? Broken bones = less control? (No solution as yet -- whether you bounce or die depends on the angle and velocity of the hit.)

7:45pm - DanR suggests a Marioesque tube that shunts you to a different level, if you know the secret. (We can do similar things within the game already. This is a job for... Level Design Man! DanB?)

7:49pm - DanR always tries to "break" a level, in the same way that Tribes players first tried to ski, and Quake players tried to rocket jump. Experiment to learn some neat trick?

7:50pm - "What if you were tiny, or in a video game?" He mentions the waterfall agaon. What other interesting environments can we come up with?

7:55pm - He likes the game, as a whole, and feels that he could sit and play it for a stretch.

This is the first game we're playtesting this rigorously. Already, it's paying off in the ways we've tweaked the alpha. Our next step is another few closed alpha tests, and then an open one. Fingers crossed.

Tony and Audio Engineering

2009-04-24T22:17:00.004-04:00

Tony (aka AnthemAudio, n-Space audio engineer and staff writer at Music4Games) just did an awesome thing -- he recast the AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! Alpha #2 test video with new audio.

Take a gander. Here's the original, followed by Tony's version:

The latter definitely conveys a sense of excitement. Awesome.

Simplify, Simplify, Simplify, Simplify, Simplify, Simplify, Simplify, Simplify, Simplify, Simplify, Simplify, Simplify, Simplify, Simplify, Simplify.

2009-04-24T18:50:00.002-04:00

With four different areas of information and 14 stats showing at any given time, it was clear that we were overwhelming people:

When selecting a new map to play, players needed to consider...

Their total points ever, forever
Their total "experience" points
Their total jumps attempted
Their safe landings
From those two stats, their failed landings
Their total "kisses" received
Their total "hugs" received
The total number of plates they'd hit
The total distance they'd fallen (in kilometers)
The number of fans they'd outraged throughout their career
The most points they'd received in a single jump
The most kisses in same
The most hugs in same
The most plates hit in same
The most fans outraged in same

...then, they needed to look at the lower-right corner of the screen to see which of those they needed to get where in order to unlock a map. What follows is a photographic re-imagining of what I imagine I was doing before I came up with that scheme:

That's my bathroom wallpaper, by the way. I did not select it; it was here when I bought the house. Anyway, the bottom line is that we kept all that data, but hid it. Here's what we show players now:

The game's still as complex, but the dozen or so pieces of data weren't fun to process when players selected a map, so we simplified.

The Opening Voiceover

2009-04-23T01:51:00.001-04:00

"In the year of our Lord, Nineteen Eighty Two, Polystructures fell from space. Massive but light, they touched the atmosphere and stuck.

Scientists made new materials. Builders made new cities. Families made their homes thousands of feet above ground level.

Art made the floating super-sculptures, and culture made the floating caviar socials to regard them.

In the year of our Lord, Twenty Eleven, you cannot look up from beneath a city and see the stars.

But you can look down from above it. And you can jump.

The jumps you make are not about art. They are about a reckless disregard for safety.

The jumps you make are not about culture. They are about a reckless disregard for regulation.

The jumps you make are not about science. They are about a reckless disregard for gravity."

So goes AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! -- A Reckless Disregard for Gravity's opening voiceover.

I Fly on a Jellyfish -- Prototype Song and Saturday Morning Cartoon

2009-04-22T14:10:00.003-04:00

I fly on a Jellyfish
And your hopes and dreams are with me

Cause it's high time I departed sun-
light that shone on our virginal days

Sky high flies a Jellyfish
Won't you seek our past beside me?

The years have come between us
And the Golden Age of Sailing.

| We'll dig our way back to the surface
| Sun by sun.
|
| Everything's different
| If I defy the journey onward

Have you ever cast your gaze
down and seen the constellations?

Below our feet's been earth enough;
jump skyward to Creation.

> In my visor you can see
> Your face reflected astrally, so
>
> While your hands are sturdy take
> ahold of our futurity.

| We climbed our way beyond beginnings
| One by one.
|
| Everything is different for
| we had made the journey onward

My skies were a Jellyfish
Where your hopes and dreams had brought me

The years have run beyond my own.
Leaving you this Age of Sailing.

> In my memoirs you can see
> Your future written peacefully.
> Resume this story past my years
> And make the skies my elegy.

This was a song for a game we'd prototyped called I Fly on a Jellyfish, a year or so back. It was meant to have the whimsy (and, well, shallowness) of a Saturday morning cartoon. Can you see the title sequence, followed by an ad for Cabbage Patch Kids? How about My Little Pony?

Check out the full (rough, rough, rough) version of the actual song here (MP3).

How Much Sex Can You Cram Into Your Video Game?

2009-04-20T23:12:00.002-04:00

Oh, PETA! You use sexuality so well. And we're satirizing you and jeans companies in our latest GDN Dev Diary entry: http://www.gamersdailynews.com/blog-105-How-Much-Sex-Can-You-Cram-Into-Your-Video-Game.html

BORING! -> These are the Stats We Track, We Track -> EXCITING!

2009-04-15T15:58:00.003-04:00

Linear level progression is really boring from a meta-game perspective:

You complete level 1 to get to level 2. You complete level 2 to get to level 3. You complete level 3 to get to level 4. And so forth. And so on. Not too bad, if the low-level gameplay is interesting. But in many instances, you can improve the whole experience by offering a good game-atop-a-game. Give players the ability to circumvent the standard level progression by being creative. That's why we track a number of stats above and beyond level completion:

Experience Points
Total Jumps
Total Successful Jumps
Total Failed Jumps
Total Megapoints
Total Kisses Ever
Total Hugs Ever
Total Distance Fallen
Total Plates Hit

What if the player could use these to advance in a number of different ways?

They move from Trainer Tower to I Forgot My Parachute by completing the former. From there, they can go through each level linearly. But they saw that they could unlock Aaaaa!!! by getting 10,000 kisses, there's a chance to make a decision -- and that's fun.

The Alpha Test Video #2

2009-04-10T15:26:00.003-04:00

This demonstrates the new aesthetic and a work-in-progress narrator. Some of the VO:

"Watch your step! Oop. You clumsy oaf, you! Good thing you're wearing a wingsuit." - Just flavor text.
"Boom. Ninety KPH." - Player hits a maximum speed via accelerator.
"You're at 10 lips." - Player's "kissed" 10 buildings.
"20 lips."
"We're coming up on halfway."
"Niiiice." - Player "threads the needle."
"30 lips."
"35."
"Ooh! Nice needle. Keep going." - Another needle.
"Landing's coming up." - The player will shortly reach an "out-of-bounds" area.
"50 lips."
"Good! Hit the chute."
"Safe, safe, safe, safe... Nice. Nicely done. AND you didn't even break any bones this time. Stay there; we'll come get you." - The player lands safely.

Again, a work-in-progress; something we hope we can randomize enough not to annoy the players.

GDN Dev Diary #3 - The Details are in the Devils are in the Details are in the Debbbbbbbbbils are in the Details are in the Devils are in the Details.

2009-04-09T11:45:00.003-04:00

What is it about small details that grab our attention? Whether it's an easter egg in a game or the scene from the movie Magnolia with frogs raining from the skies, it's often the details in a game, a song, a movie, or even a sandwich that make it memorable. What would the Big Mac be without special sauce!? This dev diary entry relies heavily on media from the soon-to-be released playable alpha to show you some of the flavor we added to the prototype to make it a game that people must play.

Dev Diary #3 called your mother a loose sack of doorknobs. Go kick its ass: http://www.gamersdailynews.com/blog-96.html

"What Do You Do?"

2009-04-08T16:45:00.004-04:00

Every game developer is asked this this now and again. What do you say? "I program stuff!" "I'm a software developer!" "I write games!" "I... do... stuff with code! Wait, come back here!" It's a tough question to answer. Doubly so if you're an indie game developer. Here's my answer:

There's your handy-dandy guide. Click for a larger view.

How the Hell do we Attract Students to our Breathtakingly Sexy Project?

2009-04-01T16:52:00.004-04:00

Pitch: The game development industry is imploding. Help combine wetware and software to bring about its next incarnation.

We have the opportunity to sponsor an MQP project for the WPI IMGD, a great new major available at the undergraduate level. Our goal is now to try and get the best students interested a project for next fall:

In 1989, Peter Molyneux created Populous, one of the best-selling games of its decade. In 2008, he wrote Fable II. Both sold 3.5 million units. The difference? Populous cost $9,000 to build. Fable II cost over a thousand times as much -- and this trend is changing for the worse! In this MQP, students will accomplish what the video game industry has completely failed to do: reign in development costs by empowering content creators.

Procedural content generation has existed for decades, but the industry has only barely begun to use it reduce runaway development costs. While some games use it good effect (Elite, Diablo, and Spore, for example), there have been many failures -- think samey-samey dungeons; uniform, boring terrain; and dozens of identical random encounters. The best successes have come about as follows: don't replace content creators with algorithms -- use algorithms to make the content creators unbelievably powerful. Tools such as Genetica, SpeedTree, and Mojoworld combine intricate equations with the creativity of an actual human at the helm. These are just the tip of the iceberg.

2 art-track and 2 tech-track students will research topics on procedural model/level generation, L-systems, and animation. Based on this research, they'll design and construct a simple system that's general-purpose enough to be used for multiple tasks, with an interface familiar to content creators. Our goal for this MQP is to provide a topic that we believe will be an industry focus over the next decade.

Q: How do we get 4 students interested in slaving away (in their windowless cellars for 12 hours a day) at work we think will benefit us and the industry, and help them land jobs?

Alpha #1 - We're Almost at Public Alpha!

2009-03-30T19:28:00.005-04:00

AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! -- Alpha Test Video #1 from Ichiro Lambe on Vimeo.

We're almost ready to distribute AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! in its publicly-playable alpha format. Just a few more weeks, probably. Here's the alpha test's first video.

We Love You on Facebook

2009-03-27T16:39:00.003-04:00

Are you reading this? Is your butt planted on a chair? Join us on our new Dejobaan Facebook Fan page on Facebook's Dejobaan Facebook Fan page on Facebook.

Creating the Game's Textures Without Slave Labor

2009-03-25T16:12:00.007-04:00

We're using a utility called Genetica to help create AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!!'s in-game textures:

Rather than painting brushtrokes, the program allows us to tell it how to twist, turn, and otherwise manipulate an image until we get it to where we want: "Create a circle. Create an arc. Create a checkerboard. Cut the arc and circle out of the checkerboard shape. Trace outlines. Make it glow."

For example, each node in the below image is a different process applied to a bunch of circles:

We combine all these to create concentric arcs, then apply a series of different operations:

When we render that to a texture, we get something that looks like this:

If we want something different, we can tweak some of the operations and re-render. For example, if we were to add in the hand-drawn shape of a jellyfish, and replace the arcs with circular cells (generated via a built-in algorithm), we'd get this:

When used in-game, the rings looks like this:

Check out Genetica here -- it's a lot of fun.

The Name is Cool. The Graphics SSSUUUUUCCKKKK!!

2009-03-24T10:48:00.001-04:00

Q: Electronic Arts is spending $40,000,000.00 making their next game look ultra-realistic. You are not Electronic Arts. What do you do?

A: Check out our latest dev diary entry at GDN!

Item Images in AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!!

2009-03-17T22:04:00.002-04:00

Two items from the last post's list. The fish denotes that you're carrying nothing. Absolutely nothing! The item on the right? The "Flip-It" glove, which allows you to make rude gestures at spectators as you pass them.

Items in AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!!

2009-03-12T22:09:00.007-04:00

Carry something with you as you jump. Candy. Dirty magazines. A warm kitten. Or carry something useful:

Popcorn Eyeglasses - It's said that the Society of Avian Rescue Society sometimes gives these out to pilots who hit too many birds.
Optical Fiber "Flip-It" Glove - Use this glow-in-the-dark glove to flip spectators off. Savor their shock and gain extra points.
0.9 Megapixel Camera - Rumor has it that magazines will pay top dollar for snapshots of interesting advertisements during a jump.
Spitwad Blowgun - Spit + Paper + Suburbanite = Points
Autarch Magnum Lite Beer - There's currently a world record of 20 successful jumps while drunk, held by Carmen "Donkey Rage" Andrews, may she rest in pieces.
Double Mocha Espresso Espresso - Congratulations on your Tashtego's sponsorship! Mainline their Double Mocha Espresso Espresso, and you'll be able to slow time at will. Just hold down the left mouse button during your jump. Hooray for stimulants.

We're working on it.

Dead Simple Cinematic Swooping Camera Algorithm Kicks Ass

2009-03-11T18:55:00.004-04:00

Slightly shiny cubes and a swooping camera that arcs between random points. Now that's progress. We whipped this up some time ago, and are using part of the code for AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!!. It's useful for when a player wishes to view an arena from multiple points in preview window.

AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! Dev Diary on Gamers Daily News

2009-03-10T13:01:00.001-04:00

AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!!

onomatopoeia/ 1: The sound emitted by a person falling towards the Earth at a high speed, after jumping from a low altitude, with a very small parachute. 2: The sound of pure exhilaration mixed with terror.

Don’t believe us? Check your Merriam Webster. Then check out Dev Diary Session 1 over at Gamers Daily News!

Chitter!

2009-03-05T00:51:00.003-05:00

Ever wanted to bug the hell out of an Olympic athlete? In the fiction of the gameworld, Chitter allows fans to post little 256-character comments about a given event. It's hugely popular, and the event's coordinators project these Chitter comments (called "cheeps") up to where the jumpers can see 'em. (Yes, it's a parody of Twitter -- follow us at usernames Dejobaan and RoRoDejobaan.)

The words in the above photo will eventually be comments from the (computer-generated) peanut gallery. They either love you or hate you -- and they'll let you know.

A Quick Video of the "Luminous Aesthetic"

2009-02-26T02:11:00.002-05:00

It's a low-resolution video for the latest Aaaaa!, what with the graphics we talked about earlier. Really low-resolution. It looks like someone ate the video and regurgitated it. Still, there's much love here.

The Next Step in Skycubes

2009-02-25T14:25:00.004-05:00

Here's a test level with a luminous skycube (or skybox):

The color palette doesn't match the pieces yet (the background rings are less saturated than the foreground blocks), but if we reduce this to monochrome, I think we're headed in the right direction:

Playing with Skycubes

2009-02-25T01:02:00.003-05:00

Developers generally use skycubes as level backdrops. Think of a background matte in a movie. Same thing. We used this one in Inago Rage, for example:

We've been experimenting with more abstract skycubes for AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!!; what if we used geometric shapes, for example?

All very early, simple stuff to be sure. But who's to say that a backdrop has to include a planetary horizon?

Evolution of A Concept

2009-02-20T17:18:00.002-05:00

When we create a prototype, we often use whatever art assets are lying around. In the case of Aaaaa!, this meant using old building models dating back to 2004. Most aesthetics-related comments we've heard on the Web have been either "man, those graphics suck" or "man, I hope they stop using prototype graphics soon."

Since we don't have a dedicated 3d modeler on staff, we often consult with artists and then iterate on a good idea. Above, we took the the original building concepts and add regions of color. Since everyone and his brother is spending tens of millions of dollars on making photorealistic games, we're firmly headed in the opposite direction:

Lights all over the damned place. We have what I now think is a good starting point to explore what we call a "luminous look." This fits in well with our use of holograms and floating advertisements within the game.

Octagonal prisms for the win.

Textures Galore

2009-02-16T11:45:00.002-05:00

Everything needs a good coat of paint. In games, you create the paint, then throw it onto whatever you're painting. At the upper left, we have Graffiti in Multilayered Metal. At the bottom, This Place Used to be Nice. Lower left is My Shiny Metal Shop Project. Every texture has a name and a story.

Pretty Glowing Buildings

2009-02-09T10:05:00.002-05:00

As we transition from prototype to alpha to beta, we're working on aesthetics. We're experimenting with the new radiosity rendering, but could also go with the glow.

Localization Maaaadness!

2009-02-06T13:58:00.003-05:00

We're talking to a publisher about localizing one of our games, The Wonderful End of the World. Since not everyone in the world speaks English, we dug to see how many of our assets we'd really need to alter. Surely there isn't that much? We started the game, and...

Well, right from the beginning, we have a voiceover that says, "Dejobaan Games: bringing you quality video games for over 75 years." Once we get to the level selection menu, there's more:

So, there's that. And then we'd have to translate the trophy screen. And the preferences screen. And interstitials. And, finally...

...a level made up entirely of English words and western expressions. All to be translated. Seemed like a good idea (and still one of our favorite levels), but man. We have our work cut out for us.

Glowing Textures

2009-02-06T13:16:00.004-05:00

We're beautifying Aaaaa! because every game deserves to be beautiful. Right now, I'm experimenting with different aesthetics -- do we bother with radiosity?

Should we go with something glowy? Our best shot at competing with the aesthetics of a AAA title is to go in exactly the opposite direction. They go realistic? We go surreal, as we've tried with Galaxy Rage:

What's on Our Screens?

2009-02-03T15:31:00.003-05:00

Buildings and an attempt at a new aesthetic. What will people accept as interesting? (Because if we learned anything, it's that the prototype is ugly.) What can we actually create on an indie budget? The trick here will be to sidestep a traditional, photorealistic aesthetic, because companies like EA have millions of dollars to throw at that, and we do not.

Inspiration for the Game's Title

2009-02-02T23:33:00.003-05:00

Over on Kotaku, toofmeister posits that this is where we got the inspiration for our upcoming game's name. He may be right, but I'm not letting on just yet.

File Under "Inhuman Interest"

2009-02-02T11:54:00.003-05:00

Local artist K. Adam White noted a recent Telegraph article about a species of immortal jellyfish. This brings up the question as to how longevitous the Dejobaan Games jellyfish is. Who would win in a fight?

My Favorite Mockup

2009-02-02T11:35:00.002-05:00

Here's my favorite mockup so far. Tinted corners imply an almost claustrophobic, helmeted view. A blue HUD provides good feedback. Increased contrast gives the view a certain amount of character.

YouTube traffic looking pretty good too!

2009-01-30T23:19:00.001-05:00

Day 1, 11:17pm: 8333 views of our three video previews of the alpha! That's more views than we have had for all previous videos. Needless to say we are very excited and will be working harder than ever to make sure we outdo ourselves in the playable Beta.

Game 13, ALPHA - AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! - A Reckless Disregard for Gravity

2009-01-30T20:33:00.000-05:00

So last night, we sent out a couple of press releases, and hoped that at best we would get a couple of pleasant previews and maybe a one: "That's a great title"

This morning, laying in bed at 7:34, with a bad case of the sniffles and a sore throat (thank you New England weather), I picked up my Iphone, looked at my inbox... AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! It was nuts, I already had 4 responses from press folks and it hadn't even been 8 hours! A Google search revealed 3 pages of hits, who is up this early???

Turns out it was just the beginning... As the day wore on, my phone kept buzzing, and we started to see posts on blogs, twitter and -- what's this? -- more press inquiries?? Time for us to start facebooking, twittering... and then the comments started. This is where we were really tickled pink:

VideoGaming247: "In what must be the best title for a game ever, AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! promises that “you can dive off a skyscraper, relying on quick reflexes to negotiate the intricate tangle of girders that make up the City.”

Joystiq: "Title of the Year: Dejobaan's AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!!"

GamerSince: "AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! - A Reckless Disregard for Gravity. C’est pas moi qui pète un plomb, c’est bel et bien le nom d’un jeu. Un jeu de BASE jump, pour être plus précis, et du coup ça m’a l’air plutôt bien pensé. J’ai même presque envie de dire “Best…game…title…ever !”, mais non, j’irais pas jusque là, y’a aussi Zombie BBQ qui concourt pour le titre."

Ok so we have no idea what the last one is saying, but we think its good, Merci!