Dyson

No, this isn’t a plug for the excellent Zombie Cow Studios point and clicker (whoops – it is now), but just a note to say that entry for the naming competition is now closed.

We’ve received an overwhelming number of entries, and it is going to take us a few days to go through them and gently pluck out the finest and most delightful name you lovely people have come up with. We’ve taken a quick peek through the hundreds of mails and found some names to go in pretty much every category from outrageous all the way to sublime, so it should be entertaining!

We’d like to thank everyone who entered and we will be back soon with the results.

(Image credit: waferboard)

Right people, big news. I am quoting a press release to give you all the relevant info. (Not because we are pompous, but because it is quicker that way.

PRESS RELEASE – 24 September 2009

2009 Independent Games Festival Finalist, Dyson, To Be Renamed By The Public Via Contest on IGN’s Direct2Drive

Special 25% off pre-order discount available now on Direct2Drive

Indie game “Dyson,” a 2009 Independent Games Festival finalist and the festival’s Grand Prize and Direct2Drive Vision Award nominee, is to be published as a full commercial title under a new name to be chosen by the public via a contest sponsored by IGN’s Direct2Drive.com.

The game’s original name was inspired by the work of theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson, which was suitable whilst it was a freeware exploration of procedural gameplay. The game has since adopted a commercial dimension, which made the developers, Rudolf Kremers and Alex May, feel that the name was no longer appropriate.

To reflect the new status of the project and to honour the loyal fans of the game, the developers have teamed up with Direct2Drive, IGN’s digital download store, to invite fans and other members of the public to come up with a new name for the game.

The competition will launch on Wednesday 23rd September, and the rules are simple:
Find a new name for Dyson (www.dyson-game.com) that best encompasses the mood and themes of the game. For those that haven’t yet played it, a demo is available at FilePlanet (Download here). Name ideas will be submitted directly to the developers, who will pick and announce the best name by Tuesday 29th September.

Direct2Drive will offer prizes for the winning entry: a copy of the as-yet-to-be-renamed Dyson, as well as any two digital PC games available on D2D. Contest details can be found at the content page and name suggestions can be emailed directly to . A pre-order of the game is currently available, with 25% discount, on Direct2Drive, until the game is released. The Game Formerly Known as Dyson is slated for release approximately 20th October 2009 and will host a large number of improvements and new content.

The game’s commercial version features:

A single player campaign boasting over 20 levels
A skirmish mode against AI opponents with highly procedural (and replayable) original levels
Integrated LUA Scripting allowing for enormous modding potential
A unique soundtrack of over two hours of music created by Brian Grainger, AKA Milieu (www.milieu-music.com)
New unit types that expand on the game’s unique aesthetics and gameplay
A massive improvement in AI
An improved and almost completely mouse-based interface
Many visual improvements

Original inspiration for the game can be found here in this: previous blog entry.
For further questions contact Rudolf Kremers at:

Here’s the link to the preorder page: Click here!

So there you have it! Please have fun and help us out at the same time!

Rudolf

How did we get here?

Within a few days Alex and myself will be on our way to San Francisco on our way to what I can only describe as a “Dream come true” event. One moment we are entering a purely quality motivated small and fun competition, and a few months later we suddenly find ourselves up for several awards, including best game, at the prestigious Independent Games Festival. WHAT HAPPENED!!!??

A major reason why we have stuck with Dyson and why we feel so strongly about it is the superb and utterly supportive feedback we receive from you guys and gals. A great little community seems to have sprung up around the game and it is growing every week. We are completely humbled by the amount of people that play the game, February for example saw 50 thousand downloads from our site alone, not even including mirrors. Them’s silly numbers! 0_0

So a big thank you and virtual bear-hugs to all of you who have downloaded the game and those of you who are telling us what you think of it. Our forum deserves a special mention as it is such a fun and positive place. All we can do on our part is to try to make the game as good as we can, which something we are working very hard on.

First the festival though, and will make sure there will be photos and footage of the event for readers of the blog to peruse. If you are visiting yourself please come by our booth and say hi! We will also for the first time finally meet our audio and music genius Brian Grainger (Milieu) in person. Such are the strange ways of web-based game development.

Anyway, to finish this post we want to share some news:

First: We have picked up a distribution deal with the sponsors of the festival, direct2drive, who in our opinion are building up a very impressive catalogue of independent titles for digital distribution. We are quite honoured that Dyson is deemed to be strong enough to feature alongside the other great games in the service. (Have a look, the selection is great!)

Second: Alex and I are enjoying working together so much that we decided to do another game together after Dyson. What this game will be is not going to be known for a while (even to us) but between us we have a wealth of ideas and concepts to choose from, all sound like good fun to us.

Right, have to pack my toothbrush now and prepare my laptop for Dyson demonstrations to press and other interested parties. We may or not be able to blog a bit while we are over there, keep an eye out on the major news sites anyways in regards to the general coverage of all the great games out there, but have a peek here once in a while you never know

Hello everyone,

DOWNLOAD DYSON v1.10

We released version 1.10 of Dyson! It is the public demo that will also be made available at the IGF site for the Audience Award.

This version contains new music from Brian, which is really superb. We love it. We think the new version is worth the download purely for the music.

We also reworked the font code so now the game has really smooth fonts instead of the old pixel font, which was hard to read and didn’t really fit with the theme.

This also meant we had to redo the tutorial, which is now a bit nicer again.

There is a new level (level 2), which is designed to help people understand more how the attributes work. We also changed some of the balancing in the levels.

There are a few other tweaks that you may discover if you’re a seasoned Dyson colonist see if you can spot the changes! Don’t be looking in the build log! I know your tricks!

Have fun!

The Bytejacker crew organised a vote for their viewers to determine which free indie of 2008 they liked most and we were more than happy to find ourself skyhigh with Dyson nabbing the 2nd spot!

You should go have a look at the countdown, check out all the great games, and see if you can guess who got first place Check it out: Bytejacker Free Indie of the year!

We’re going to the IGF. We’re going to the IGF!

That news is still sinking in. But there it is: Dyson is a finalist for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize. We’re really pleased, and personally I’m pretty daunted and mildly surprised! But it’s great to have Dyson acknowledged in this way, it’s an honour to be up there with the other finalists (I’ve played Blueberry Garden and it’s *awesome*). Good luck guys!

Rudolf and I were recently interviewed by Sarah from TunaSnax, who have also nabbed a finalist nomination for Excellence in Visual Art, for Cletus Clay. It was great fun, and now the interview has been put up on the Snax website for all to read VISITER LE LINK Thanks guys, and congratulations on the nomination! Looking forward to playing Cletus Clay at the IGF (finally – been waiting to play this for years now)!

Also stay tuned for more news soon, hopefully

Now this is very nice. Anthony Carboni and co. host a web show dedicated to reviewing and promoting indie games, and the show does it with gusto and a nice professional sheen. It is called BYTEJACKER and I have embedded the current episode at the top of this post.

They genuinely love games and review them fairly, in my opinion, so I decided to drop them a line about Dyson the other day. As it turned out they knew the game anyway and decided to include it in the current Monday episode. The Monday episode introduced three different free indie games, people can then go on an play them an vote for the one they like best on the Bytejacker blog. The THURSDAY show will then take the game with most votes and review it in more detail as the “Free indie of the week!”

Have ago at the three games yourself and pick the one you like best!

Rudolf

Many thanks to Dan Marshall over at Zombie Cow, who has just declared Dyson the winner of the recent £200 cash giveaway. We were up there with some stiff competition so it’s really wonderful to be considered worthy of the prize.

We’ll be spending the cash on music, subscriptions and fees. This is a real helping hand, so thanks again Dan!

Voting is over! We came second place in the competition by a mere 4 votes. Needless to say we are very pleased and would like to thank everyone who voted for us. We are really happy that people are enjoying Dyson.