Hey guys! I’ve just put an entry into Olivia Broadfield/TUAW‘s “Say” remix competition! As some of you know, I’m a huge fan of Propellerhead‘s Reason software, and while Reason 5 has been pretty great to me, after using the trial of Reason 6 to do this competition I’m simply not going back. Being able to have live audio go directly into Reason is amazing enough, but the changes to the work flow are also stunning — this remix took me less than 6 hours!

The great thing about this competition is that the winner gets a free, fully licensed copy of Reason 6, as well as a Balance input/mixing board, which would be a welcome replacement for my busted MobilePre (which I’ve dropped one too many times, methinks).

So if you’ve got a SoundCloud account, head over to the track and leave a comment! There are over 425 entries in the competition, so anything you can do to help me stand out will be awesome. And if you don’t have a SoundCloud account, head over and give it a listen anyway! I hope you like it!

Good news! We’ve worked out the kinks with Valve, and I’m happy to announce that we’ve gotten codes for all Fractal owners to activate their copies on Steam! All you’ll need to do is:

1. Log into your account at the Cipher Prime Store.
2. If you haven’t already, Activate Your Copy of Fractal.
3. In the product list, under Fractal, click Generate Serial.
4. Launch Steam and log into your Steam account.
5. Click the Games Menu.
6. Choose Activate a Product on Steam…
7. Follow the onscreen instructions to complete the process.

As always, when Cipher Prime goes radio silent, it’s usually because we’re working on something awesome.

Or playing Starcraft II in a rum-and-whiskey fueled haze. Which, to be fair, is also awesome.

First, we deal with the rumours. Yes, we are working on a new title! No, I’m not telling you anything about it yet. Yes, Pulse is getting new tracks! No, you can’t hear them yet.

What I can tell you is that Fractal, in all its Unity-powered-3d-accelerated glory, is coming to your Mac via the Mac App Store and the Cipher Prime Store right the #$%! now for $6.99. As always, if you purchase directly from us, we get 100% of the proceeds!

So much has changed since Fractal originally came out I don’t even know where to begin. We’ve rebalanced Campaign mode so that you can start from any level. We rebalanced Arcade mode so that it’s fun and challenging. We’ve updated our graphics and smoothed out the engine so the game runs, crisp, clean, and beautiful – even at full-screen, 1680×1050. New drum loops, crisper strings, cleaner sounds — this Fractal is the real deal.

Now as we said before, if you already own Fractal, you will get this desktop upgrade totally gratis. Just log into your account at store.cipherprime.com and get to downloading! You can also get Iterate!, the official theme from Fractal, from our music page, for 99 cents; this also includes the contemplative reprise that appears in the menu screens.

As for Steam? It’s coming, I promise. No seriously. We are this close.

You spoke and we listened. We carefully read through your customer reviews both on the iTunes Store and on our blog. It looks like many of you have been experience crashing and problems with OpenFeint on older firmware, so we’ve fixed up a few bugs and temporarily taken out OpenFeint support until it is thoroughly stable. Also, a big shout-out to RubyX, who pointed out some problems we were having with localization! We’ve fixed those issues, so now you can enjoy Fractal in German, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish. We really appreciate everyone’s patience with us and for keeping us in the know! The new update has been submitted to Apple, so as soon as it is approved we’ll let you guys know!

On a lighter note, the new version of Pulse will be submitted some time next week. Between judging for IndieCade and finishing up Fractal, the Pulse update fell by the wayside a bit — but don’t fret! Pulse v1.2 will have new tracks, a new difficulty ranking system, clearer scoring, timing fixes, and all around better performance.  We’ve personally been playing the new levels and we’re having a lot of fun — we really think you’re going to be pleased with the new levels and features!

Lastly, as some of you know, we’re a small, dedicated team.  Your support and feedback helps us thrive and grow, and your feedback helps make our games better.  We simply wouldn’t be who we are without you.  We simply can’t state it enough, thank you for continually supporting and communicating with us! Don’t hesitate to reach out to us for any reason, and keep sending in bug reports! Thanks to super-fans like RubyX and Dan Nye (who singlehandedly found like 20 bugs in Pulse!), we’re able to keep giving you the best experiences we can muster. So in addition to our blog, keep in touch with us on Twitter, Facebook, or our mailing list.  And remember, updates coming soon… very soon.

Things are really starting to come together at Cipher Prime.

Thanks to you, we’ve got one of the top 10 music games on the iPad. We’ve got a great new work schedule that’s keeping us fed, rested, and sane. I think I actually saw Will eat a vegetable the other day. And to top it off? Fractal for iPad is done.

That’s right. Fractal : Make Blooms Not War hits iTunes tomorrow, Thursday, August 18th!

So here’s the deal. On Thursday morning, we’re moving the official Fractal website from www.playfractal.com to its new home here at cipherprime.com. When we do that, you won’t be able to purchase the legacy desktop version anymore. Why? Well, as previously mentioned, we’re taking all of the enhancements we gained by porting Fractal to Unity and taking it straight to the desktop. Also, as previously mentioned, if you already own the legacy desktop version of Fractal, you will get upgraded to the new version absolutely free.

Here’s the fun bit. We’ve been so stoked about this re-release, we figured it’s time invite more people to the Fractal family. And that means it’s sale time.

From now until Thursday morning, you’ll be able to purchase the legacy version of Fractal for only $0.99.

And yes. If you purchase Fractal during the sale, you will get the upgraded PC/Mac version when it is released — free. Think of it as a pre-pre-order. So head on over to the store! I guarantee — you won’t be disappointed.

P.S. Oh yeah. Fractal is coming to Steam. I don’t think we mentioned that before.

It seems like only yesterday (hah!) that Pulse: Volume One released on the iTunes App Store.  Now 12 weeks later, it’s still rocking the App Store’s top 10 list for iPad music games!

To celebrate, and bring even more players to the party, we’re running a limited time sale beginning now.  If you’ve got an iPad and haven’t tried Pulse yet, now’s the time.  We’ve reduced the price to $1.99 (60% savings over the regular $4.99 price) now through next Wednesday this Friday.  You can get it here: http://itunes.apple.com/app/pulse-volume-one/id432667443

Those of you already playing Pulse and waiting for the next update, rest assured, it’s on its way.  As Kerry mentioned in our last post, an IndieCade contest requirement has thrown a wrinkle into our updating plans.  That said, we’re getting the content all ready and will be pulling the trigger as soon as all’s clear with IndieCade.  This should all be happening later this month.

And, if you’re a current Pulse owner and fan, tell your friends that now’s the time to check it out at a great discount!

Update:

Thanks to the phenomenal response, we’ve extended the sale through Friday, August 12th!

This post contains 3 BIG announcements. After the response to our Pulse announcement, I’d wanted to make some things very clear about the direction of Cipher Prime.

We’re not switching to the iPad.

We’re switching to Unity.

Now, we love Flash. And we’re really good at it. But it does have limitations. Auditorium and Fractal represent some of the most advanced Flash work possible for the player versions they were released on. Within Fractal, for instance, we employed:

• A full real-time synthesizer, capable of waveform and sample synthesis and DST effects
• Extensive real-time bitmap caching and pre-rendering
• A simplified version of the Auditorium particle engine

to name a few. But getting all this in was no easy task, taking well over a year, and it still grinds to a halt on some machines. Additionally, using mProjector to wrap our game has led to many issues that still cannot be properly resolved (how many of you are still having resolution issues?). So, as much as we love Flash, it’s time for us to pull up our breeches and dive into a platform that is designed to handle whatever we can throw at it. This isn’t “goodbye forever” for Flash, but our focus has definitely shifted to Unity.

Pulse is our first step into the Unity waters. We’ll be releasing more details about Pulse soon, but for now you should know that it is in fact a touch-based reaction game, so the likelihood of it appearing on a non-touch platform are slim at best. We are however looking at Android tablets, and while this not an official announcement for that platform, I feel pretty good about our odds.

So if Pulse is the first step, what’s next at CP? Let’s get it off our chests:

Fractal is coming to the iPad.

We’ve signed a deal with indiePub, who helped us get Auditorium on PS3, to get Fractal ported to America’s Favorite Mobile Device. Now before you set the internet ablaze (“OMFG!! u said u weren’t switching to iPad FAIL!!! ;_;”), I’ll take a moment to briefly rephrase that: Fractal is coming to Unity. That’s right: Fractal, powered by a real game engine, with access to the graphics card, and all the fun toys Unity provides. Now that we’ve gotten our feet wet with Pulse, we’re confident we’ll be able to deliver the experience we actually wanted to deliver to begin with. Which does make the version of Fractal we have now obsolete. So we’ll be re-releasing Fractal, powered by Unity, on PC and Mac platforms.

Now for the most exciting announcement. People will likely ask why we went with a publisher for a game we already released, and if you want to know details on that, you should definitely check out what Will has to say over at indiePub. But in getting this deal signed, we’ve done one very important thing: We’ve retained all rights to the PC and Mac versions of Fractal. Why, do you ask?

If you own Fractal, you’ll get the remastered edition. Free.

Our fans are our greatest asset. Without you guys, we wouldn’t be where we are today — working in Old City, making video games, and having an awesome time doing it. We hit this New Year with a level of energy and optimism previously unheard of. We’re gonna keep making games for as long as it’s fun, and you should expect to see an awful lot out of us this year — some web, some mobile, some desktop, and God willing, some console. But all Cipher Prime.

To reiterate:  Those of you without iPads, you are not forgotten.

Now that we’re switching to Unity, we have the ability to bump up our productivity. In fact, our goal for 2011 is to release at least 3 games, bringing more entertainment to more platforms at the quality you’ve come to expect from us. This means new games will be relased cross-platform, and no fan — with or without an iPad — will be left in the dust.

P.S. I haven’t forgotten about the Auditorium soundtrack. Expect updates soon.

A-thousand-and-one thanks to everyone that participated in the Moving Sale! If there is anyone that still has not received their free audio tracks, shoot us an email at support@cipherprime.com and we’ll get that squared away for you right away.

And now, pictures!

Old office @ 910 S 8th St.

Lonely Bike

Do you want sunlight, or reasonable temperatures?

It looked exactly like this, all the time.

180 sqft. of former candy store nestled away one block from the Italian Market, this prime piece of real estate was… too bloody small. On the average beta-testing night, we’d have three developers, 6 testers, 4 pizzas, 3 cases of Mountain Dew, and no real AC to speak of. It was an excellent starter office, but alas, we have outgrown its cozy confines.

And the New Office @ 239 Chestnut St!

Classy!

+10 Feng Shui

Natural light, oh how we've missed you.

This room alone is bigger than our old office.

Mini-loft awaiting beanbag chairs

The view down Chestnut St.

A spacious 1000 sq ft gem nestled in the heart of Philadelphia’s Old City, this absolute steal features all the accoutrements of a modern studio. An open floor plan, secondary room, and cozy loft await!

Sorry guys. I’ve been looking for a new apartment lately and all the realtor talk is rubbing off on me.

In other news, if 5 bucks for Fractal wasn’t cheap enough for you, here’s a way you can get it free. Friend of the site XboxPlus is giving away 5 copies in a promotion. Head on over to check it out!

We’re pushing an update that will finally link Auditorium and the Cipher Prime Store! You’ll no longer need to remember two different usernames and passwords!

The update process is very simple and streamlined — all you’ll need to do is log into your Auditorium account and follow the instructions there. If you already have a CP Store account, you’ll be able to link Auditorium; if you don’t, you’ll be able to easily create one. And all of your progress in Auditorium will still be saved.

This change also means that Auditorium will benefit from the Store’s streamlined purchase process. You’ll be able to log into the store, click the Auditorium link, and be automatically logged in — and vice-versa.

Both sites will be down for a few hours while we push this update. You can contact us anytime at support@cipherprime.com if you have any questions about the transition.

By popular demand, we’ve extended the Fractal Preorder deadline to May 24th, 2010!

Why May 24th? Umm, well you see, the thing is…

OFFICIAL FRACTAL RELEASE DATE: MAY 24th, 2010

On Monday, we’ll flip the switch! Everyone who has preordered will be able to download their games; everyone who hasn’t will have to pay full price! Don’t miss your chance to save!