Interview: Diro-Diro on Cluster Lander

We're launching Cluster Lander in just a few short weeks, and getting pumped up about it with videos and now an interview with developers Mariano Larronde and Santiago Puente (they're starting a company called Diro-Diro). Check out details about Cluster Lander's development, inspiration and what's next for the guys.

So how was Cluster Lander born?
Cluster Lander is the first step of a very large project we've been planning for a few years. We've been studying and slowly building a game engine that will be the base for our next games.

Mariano and I got together about two years ago with the idea of making a spaceship combat game. At that time we were planning to use the little ships to create a website-game that let the users fly around the site and that way promote our advergames.

I remember that it took us about 8 hours just to get a missile-like spaceship moving around the screen. We didn't know anything about physics or vectors math so we soon realised that if we wanted to create the game that we were aiming for we had to study VERY hard (I didn't even know any programming language).

Six months later we had a very basic physics engine and many prototypes for ships. Of the many ships we tried, we decided to go with a Lander since it was the easier one to implement (our physics engine was too basic).

The first version can be seen at http://www.lebox.com.ar/. The game was much more fun than we expected so we decided to make it a full game. That's how Cluster Lander was born.

What kind of games influenced Cluster Lander's development?
Any 2D game that has a spaceship in it had some kind of inspiration on us. Gravitation - a net-yaroze game for PSOne - was awesome, Lunar lander and asteroid's type of ship movement of course, but also classic flash games like Monkey Lander and UFO-Joe.

One of the coolest features of Cluster Lander is the ability to save/share ghost runs - where did that come from?
The idea of the Ghosts comes from the need of giving the player more incentive to keep improving their flying skills. This game is all about ship control and there's not a better way to improve than to compare against previous runs. Many games use Ghost Replays for this kind of training but what's great about Flash is that players can share their replays extremely easily with just a few clicks.

Combat with intense bullet dodging also helps!

So what's next? 
We have lots of plans to improve the engine, especially the graphics and physics... and audio (yeah, we know, that's almost everything...). We are going to build this big project in parts. Each part is a game, and the first one is Cluster Lander.

What are Diro-Diro's recommended games?
We've been playing lots of indie games. Gratuitous Space Battles looks awesome. Fantastic Contraptions is one of the best for us.

All time best: Metal Gear Solid, Tenchu (the first one), StarFox, Poy Poy 2 (!!!), Mario 64, the first Gran Turismos, Forsaken.

Electric Box on iPhone Getting Five Free New Levels!

As they say, you can never have enough of a good thing! And in the case of iPhone/iPod Touch owners, the good thing comes in the form of a brand-new level pack for our popular App Store game, Electric Box! The downloadable game came with 50 levels originally, which we updated in September to include ten more levels. 

We're happy to announce that we've just submitted an update for Electric Box that will add five new levels to the game, bringing the grand total to **65** brainbending physics puzzles in one sweet game. Did we mention that this update is free to all paid owners of the game? 

You can head over to our Facebook fan page to check out a sneak peek of all five new levels. No spoilers, though! We're only showing you the puzzle, not the solution or the items you'll use on each level. ;D

The update is currently undergoing review by Apple, and we're hoping that it will be available by the end of the week. If you've already bought a copy of Electric Box, the update will show up in the 'Applications' section of your iTunes Library when it is released. 

If you haven't bought a copy... what exactly are you waiting for? There's a free demo version with 10 levels if you're risk-averse, and we bet you'll be jonesing for more when those are done. 

Don't have an iPhone or iPod Touch? You can play Electric Box right on Candystand.com! Additional user-generated levels are available, too. 

Vector TD on PSP: It's Coming!

This is the PSP Mini game we've been hyping for the last few weeks -- popular Candystand tower defense game Vector TD is coming to the PSP! We currently have a build of the game running on a devkit PlayStation Portable in the office, and it's looking really sweet. We'll post more screens and video in the coming weeks before the game releases as a PSP Mini on the PlayStation Network (we're hoping to have it done by the holidays) -- stay tuned!

Interview: Copy Cat Developer Adam Abeshouse

Did you know that one of our most popular games was developed by a high schooler? It impressed us, too -- match-the-painting puzzler Copy Cat on Candystand.com launched just over a month ago and has already garnered serious praise from sites such as Jay is Games and Gamezebo. We were able to have a quick chat with the developer himself, Adam Abeshouse, in between finishing his senior year and applying to colleges. Check out the interview below!

Tell us about the development of Copy Cat. 
I started development after I came up with the idea on a college visit last February. I had been tossing around the idea of reverse-engineering something for a couple of months and all of a sudden in a car ride, the idea for Copy Cat hit me. I worked non-stop on the main game for about 5 or 6 months, then finished up the level editor in a few weeks. It was tough a lot of the time because I had to balance my school workload and it was a pretty large project.

What kinds of games inspired you to create the game?
I was heavily inspired by the reverse-engineering theme of Bart Bonte's great Factory Balls. More abstractly, I was inspired by the trend of “physics games” to give the player a sort of sandbox environment in which anything goes to complete the puzzle. With Copy Cat, I wanted to do the same by giving the player an ultimate goal and any number of ways to get there.

What are you working on next?
Right now I'm throwing around ideas about an online board game-type puzzler (think Minesweeper) and I'm working on a game inspired by some things I've learned in Physics.

What are your favorite games to play?
My favorite games are of the genre “puzzle-platformer.” For the last few months I've been completely obsessed with Jonathan Blow's “Braid.” I also really enjoy most things by Edmund McMillen, most recently Spewer, and I'm a big fan of so-called “art game” developers, like Jason Rohrer, Gregory Weir, and Daniel Benmergui. I have also really been into Tom Sennett and Matt Thorson's “RunMan: Race Across the World,” and Erik Svedang's “Blueberry Garden.”

Play Copy Cat now >

Download Copy Cat for the iPhone/iPod Touch >

This Week in Games, Oct. 26 - 30

Your weekly wrap-up of casual, social and video gaming news. Got a news tip? Send it to robin@funtank.com! 

Game Releases

Our crossword/paint by numbers brainteaser, Picma, launched this week! We've shaved a few years off our life by trying to crack the image in each of the game's 100+ puzzles. Have you played yet? 

Move over Guitar Hero, DJ Hero's arrived. The newest game to feature a plastic peripheral, DJ Hero lets you live out your record-spinning party-rocking dreams -- with 80 mashup songs and a turntable, the only thing we're missing is a pair of gigantic headphones to clutch while we're bobbing our heads to the beat. 

The last episode of Grand Theft Auto IV has arrived on the Xbox Live Marketplace and retail stores. The Ballad of Gay Tony extends the storyline of the main game, following new protagonist Luis Lopez as he navigates the glitz and glamour of Liberty City. Among other things, the expansion features base-jumping and tank-driving. Yeah, it's pretty cool. 

Racing devotees got Forza Motorsport 3 this week, a driving game featuring hyper-realistic cars, tons of customization and a built-in video editor. Decals, tuned setups and videos created can also be downloaded and shared (even sold!) with the game's storefront. Earning money by creating content for a popular 360 game? Sounds like our life goal!

News

Mashable's Open Web Awards are now open for nomations! You know who could use a nomination? Candystand for the 'Most Creative Use of Facebook Connect' category! You can vote once a day -- so please do!

You might be trick-or-treating tomorrow night, but what will you do during the day? Games.com and Gamezebo's Halloween casual game roundups might just be the thing to tie you over. 

Changes are coming to Facebook which may change the way social gamers are notified of activities in and around games such as Mafia Wars, Farmville and Pet Society. The social network's messaging system will be used for communication between users (invitations to games, gifts, etc) while email will be used for interactions between application developers and users. Games will also get their own section on a redesigned homepage.