Rudolf

The pre-purchase for Eufloria on Valve’s Steam distribution service is now available. Get 25% off by pre-purchasing before we release the game!

Go get it!

If you can’t see a purchase link over there right now, drop by the page in an hour or so, and it should have popped up by then.

We are also working on getting our own store and new web site ready. More news soon!

Alex and I have gone through over 400 names, and there were some very interesting, entertaining, baffling, horrifying, charming, and “almost right” entries out there… However, we feel there is one that stands out for a number of reasons and that is the delightful:

“Eufloria”

We love the name as it nicely sums up the general mood of the game, and ties it in with the “flora” theme that sets our game apart from many other titles. It is also easy to remember, nice to say and hear, and nicely compact. In short: an excellent name!

Looks good in a screenshot too:

It was quite hard to choose initially, We liked a range of other entries like: Arborealis, Bloom Automata, Flowbotica, Starboretum, Bloom (or variations thereof) and others.

We were especially thrilled by the fact that somebody submitted “Panda Box” as a name. It is an intriguing choice as it has the distinct quality of a brilliant name, yet there is no connection to our game whatsoever. We are tempted to create a game solely for the use of the name, but haven’t decided yet one way or another. What kind of game would it be?

Either way, Eufloria it is, so congratulations to our winner: Vernon Sydnor, for providing the winning entry and many thanks for helping us out. Enjoy your free games!

Special thanks to the lovely people at IGN and Direct2Drive who have done so much to make this contest a success. And finally, extra special thanks to all the great people who have submitted a staggering amount of names for us to pour and puzzle over.

You guys/gals are the best.

So, October 20th (aproximately) will be Eufloria Day, but meanwhile, you can purchase the pre-order for 25% off now until launch date!

UK link here.
US link here.

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 namechange@www.dyson-game.com. 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: rudolf@www.dyson-game.com

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

Had I posted this yet?
We have been offered a booth at this lovely indie games event and gratefully accepted. The main event will bee pretty cool, as there will be some great games on offer, but the big deal for us is that we wil be showcasing Dyson at the Indie Games Arcade 

which is a real opportunity to show Dyson to loads of people and to meet some of our fans. Please drop in if you can! I suspect it will be loads of fun!

Rudolf

We have enough testers for now, sorry for those we can’t accomodate, and many thanks for all who have sent in an application. If we need addititional testers we will pick from the many people whose emails we have received but could not include in the Beta. The response was very good, my inbox is a disasterzone at the moment.

Thanks all!

UPDATE

Whoa! Nice response people We will need some time to sort through all the emails we have been getting, so don’t worry if you have had no reply yet. Also, even more diversity would be great, so non males are encouraged to reply as well.

========================================

Hello friends,

We are getting pretty close to our release date, and the game is shaping up rapidly. In fact there is so much content now that we feel it is a good time to start getting some feedback on all the new stuff. The game is nearly content complete with regards to levels, and most of the gameplay features are in, so we are about to hit beta. In our excitement we decided to let people test the game now, while we still have some time to make changes, and in honour of this optimisation process we are not calling this a beta, as that would be too boring. Instead, we are calling this beta:

“OPTIMUS!”

So, in order to make our Optimus BETA a success and get a good range of feedback we are going to pick some testers from people who have already volunteered previously, and some additional people responding to our call for help. We are looking to get a good mix of people, so we want to encourage people of all persuasions, newbies and veterans, to help us out. So, We would like to assemble a small group of very diverse Optimus testers, whose work will be very important to making the final game as good as it can be.

Testing takes a fair bit of time, so any participant needs to be aware of this and other challenges. The process will mean exposure to bugs, placeholder narrative, missing help screens, crashes, and other creaky pitfalls of a title that is in development.  If you are interested nonetheless please drop us an email titled:  “Optimus Beta Tester”

The email should include the following info:

 - Tell us a bit about yourself, and if you have any experience playing our game (It is fine if you don’t)
 - List your hardware specs
 - Tell us why you want to participate
 - How long you can participate
 - What games you normally like to play

Once the Optimus testers have been assembled we will let people know not to send in more requests. Regrettably we won’t be able to take on all volunteers, so please don’t hate us if you don’t get picked from the hat. At least you won’t hear spoilers about the game.

Thanks everybody! More news soon.

Rudolf

Massive thanks to everyone who has sent in reports, patches, etc. You’re awesome!

Somebody recently asked us to start a Dyson Facebook page, which I dutifully set up and is quietly starting to attract a friendly crowd of people. However, I just realized that we didn’t tell anybody about this, or indeed some of the other ways to get news about Dyson.

So, for those who want to know more:

Dyson on Facebook
Twitter (I started using twitter and am including Dyson related content)
Alex, Rudolf (1, 2) and Brian’s websites

We will try not to be too boring!

As some of you have already noticed we have decided to publish the game later than the hoped-for July release, and will now release the game in the Fall. After some serious thought we decided this was the best course of action due to a number of factors, all to do with providing an extra high quality experience.

Modding/Scripting
While working on the new game content and seeing the work done by the greatly appreciated modders on the forum we realized that we wanted to facilitate modding and scripting to a much higher degree than we do now. To do so we decided to integrate Lua script in the game at a fundamental level. This has massive positive consequences and potential. For us it makes it possible to create much more varied gameplay and really boost the variation in the gameplay goals of the levels, among other things. For the fans of the game it means that they will be able to heavily mod the game in ways that are really quite fundamental and should guarantee additional content being created for the game for a long time after the initial release. It therefore really adds to the game as a whole.

Playmodes
To make sure people have a real blast playing the game we wanted to include an extra playmode. This is now progressing apace, but this choice also added some more time to the schedule. The extra ways to enjoy the game and the added longevity are really important to us and hopefully will make sure that more people with different play styles will enjoy the game.

Playtesting
The added functionality, depth, and content has also meant that the play testing time has increased manifold. In fact, we will invite play testers to help us with this the moment we have progressed to a slightly more finalized build of the game. Watch this spot

Capacity
Not meant as a cry for sympathy but it is also good to remember that we are just two game developers and audio guy, so we have only so much capacity to do all the work that needs doing. We are trying very very hard though to make this game as good as it can be. Hopefully it is understood that the expanded scope, and subsequent delay, comes out of a desire to give you something that is really worthwhile.

News Updates
Finally, I think we will start to release some more details about the game (starting with this news post as you can see) so things are going to be a bit less tightlipped from now on. We want to be careful not to promise things we can’t deliver, so as things get implemented we have a bit more scope for news on the game itself.

Wow, long post, but I think this covers it for now. Thanks for your patience!

Rudolf