I’m afraid the sun has set on my time at Cipher Prime. Two weeks notice was given. Two weeks have passed. Now I must ride my bike into the distance as the credits roll.
But don’t worry!
I totally cranked out a hefty collection of baller @$$ Pulse levels before throwing in the towel. Keep an eye out for that update in the VERY NEAR FUTURE (and new levels aren’t the only thing to get excited about)!
Anyway, it’s been an extreme pleasure working with such awesome dudes and I will surely miss developing games that excite each and every one of your lovely little fingers… Now I’m headed to work for these guys: www.punkave.com (also awesome dudes).
Now we know we’re a little past-due on Pulse’s newest update but fret not, dearest dot tappers. We will deliver. Our second free update features four brand new levels, a slew of small bug fixes and a major performance increase!
Last month, we received a good deal of feedback pointing out that our “Philly is Golden” update might be a bit too challenging for the more casual gamer. We certainly want to maintain a nice balance between the simpler levels and ones that induce sheer panic (ZOMGTHIZIMPOSIBAL). To ensure this balance, we put our guest artists on hold, went back to our synthesizers and cooked you up a handful of tracks that range from easy and breezy to moderately tricky.
Needless to say, we’re beyond excited to push this puppy into the world BUT here’s the rub:
We’ve entered Pulse in this year’s IndieCade festival and while they’re reviewing our game, we’ve got to keep it the same as it was when the judging process began. Pulse would be disqualified if we were to make any changes to it — and we wouldn’t want that! After all, it was at last year’s IndieCade when Pulse was first conceived.
So please bear with us! We’ll have that update out as soon as possible and we WILL make up for lost time. We’ve already got our next four guest artist tracks in the pipeline and will make damn sure to release them before you go hungry for levels again. Your patience and understanding is greatly appreciated. Y’all are the best fans an indie studio could ask for, and without your helpful feedback and constant support, we would be nowhere at all.
Remember, The Pulse soundtrack is still available on the Cipher Prime Store and we’re ALWAYS looking for new music to put in Pulse. If you are interested in submitting or making a track for the game, please shoot us a cyber letter addressed to pulse@cipherprime.com!
P.S. No cats were harmed during the creation of this blog post.
As you may have gathered, it’s been an extremely busy couple of months for the gang here at Cipher Prime. In between perspiration-inducing bouts of Starcraft and Dain’s all-too-frequent group demonstrations of the Insanity Workout program, we’ve been laboring tirelessly on our baby girl, Pulse.
As CP’s designated content developer and resident hipster (according to my business card), it’s been my task to build levels for this sweet little cherub of a game. On top of that, I’ve had the immense pleasure of co-composing Pulse’s soundtrack with Dain.
Only days after Will first scribbled a few rings on a dirty paper napkin, (when little Pulse was conceived) Dain and I were banging away on our MIDI keyboards, searching for the right tunes to compliment our baby’s delicious gameplay. After a bit of deliberation and experimentation we landed on a scatterbrained assortment of orchestral arrangements, 80′s dance riots, chiptune fusion, and pirate shanties.
We had the chance to show off Pulse a bit at this years Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco. That went well, and we were lucky enough to get some feedback in articles from by Tracy Erickson from Pocket Gamer who called Pulse, “a package so thoroughly well put together that you’re reminded of why music games were popular in the first place.” and Chris Holt from Macworld who said that Pulse was a, “remarkable rhythm game” in his feature.
Anyway, here’s the scoop:
Pulse will be released sometime in the NEAR future with 7 core levels for just $4.99 through the iTunes App Store- how sweet is that? These will be made up of the aforementioned collection of songs that big D and I have been tag-teamin’ for the past couple months. We’ve already released one track called “Porcelain Doll,” which was really well received. Now, we’re excited to release our second track called “Straylight,” available through the Cipher Prime Store for $0.99. Both tracks have an ethereal quality that hint at a magical world.
And it doesn’t stop there! Every week, Cipher Prime will release a new track collaborated with local Philadelphia artists that makes Pulse a lot more interesting. We’re excited to announce our new rhythm-based game, while being able to promote the independent local music scene at the same time. Unfortunately, I’m going to have to keep you guessing for another few days before we unveil our next bit of juicy news. I will, however, leave you with the following three words: Mountain, Bounce, Godzilla.
Having read all that, try and tell me your ears aren’t tingling with anticipation.
I’d like to introduce myself as Cipher Prime’s newest team member.
It’s been just over a month since I started here at CP, but now that I’ve officially been dubbed a “Zealot”, I can finally unveil myself to all of you.
So just to fill you guys in, here’s a quick recap of what the past month has been like at the studio:
Right off the bat, Will and Dain had me designing the new levels for Auditorium HD (only after I was able to beat the game). Thanks to Auditorium’s level editor, the process of actually building the levels was relatively simple. The tricky part was coming up with puzzles that were unique, intuitive and challenging- but never TOO challenging, of course. This can prove to be difficult if you’ve been staring at the same puzzles for days on end. Needless to say, after each round of testing, the levels had to go through several iterations before they started to feel like they were flowing nicely.
From there, it was on to choosing color palettes to go along with Dain’s new compositions and re-testing the levels on the PS3 build.
Between all of that, miscellaneous design work, putting together our First Friday event, and a healthy amount of Starcraft, they’ve kept me pretty busy for sure.
You all can expect to hear more from me in the coming months but for now, I’ve got to get back to Startcraft. Just kidding… Sort of…
