Posted by Al
Tue, 4th Jan 2011
Hey all,
Happy New Year one and all. Just a quick one today to let you all know some great news we had today.
Upon getting into the office and dusting things down after the Christmas holidays, we've opened our copy of the UK's official PlayStation Magazine to find that 'Ace Armstrong vs. the Alien Scumbags!' has been voted their Mini of the Month. Yay!
We even pipped 'Who's That Flying?!' to the post, which is very flattering if statisically unrepresentative! ;)
Peace out - more news on Friday. :)
Al
Posted by Al
Fri, 17th Dec 2010
Hey everyone,
Just a short one this week to pass on all the Laughing Jackal team’s best festive wishes for a very Merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous New Year in 2011. Here, have an environmentally friendly e-card:
Here at LJ Towers we’re already excited about what the New Year will bring us – we’ve got Cubixx HD (PS3 PSN), Duæl Invaders (PSN minis), Fighting Fantasy: Talisman of Death (PSN minis), and a couple of other titles planned for the first half of 2011, so its an exciting time for everyone here and hopefully for you guys as well, once the games are finished and on sale. :)
That’s it for 2010 then – we hope you’ve enjoyed the games we’ve released in the last 12 months. I can’t believe it’s over a year since our first minis title, Cubixx, was released; just in time for Christmas! Here we are a year later and we’ve got a fully fledged PS3-powered sequel in the works as well as loads more stuff on the go.
It’s been a fun year and a big thank you to everyone out there who has supported us or taken an interest in what we do (not least the regulars on pspminis.com). A special thank you, too, to those of you who’ve bought a Laughing Jackal game (or multiple games). A very Merry Christmas to all of you!
Heck, Merry Christmas to EVERYONE! HO HO HO!
See you next year,
Al
Posted by Al
Fri, 10th Dec 2010
Hey everyone,
As promised last week, here’s a timelier blog update for you. This week we’re talking about our forthcoming PSN minis title, Duæl Invaders.
Duæl Invaders is a seriously old-school fixed-screen shoot ‘em up, mixing the classic formula seen in games like Taito’s Space Invaders and Namco’s Galaxian, with its own unique brand of simultaneous 2-ship control.
The game’s concept is centred on the idea of controlling two player ships simultaneously on a single PSP or PS3 controller across single player, and 2-player co-operative and adversarial game modes.
In all modes your ships (one red, one blue) are tasked with destroying wave upon wave of red and blue enemies; the idea being to survive, waste the bad guys and attain the highest score possible. Some of your enemies will cause chain reactions or change other enemies’ colours, so picking out the best shots will really help you survive and rack up those high scores!
Killing enemies with a like-coloured ship, builds the player’s Skew Rate (a mix of ‘score multiplier’ and ‘aggro meter’), awarding you massively boosted scores, and also massively increasing the enemy’s aggro towards the opposite-coloured player ship!
Its important to stress that while the ‘Skew Rate’ and colour matching is worth mastering, it’s by no means totally essential; you can just mash the buttons and kill everything in sight if you really want – this is a shmup after all! ;)
Like the player ships, all regular enemies in Duæl Invaders are red or blue. Enemy types and their behaviours are described below:
Grunts – Grunts are your regular cannon fodder. They fire at you every so often, and move towards your player ships according to your skew rate. That is all.
Horis –When killed, Horis (or Horizontals) destroy adjacent enemies on the same horizontal line within a limited range.
Verts – When killed, Verts (or Verticals) destroy adjacent enemies on the same vertical line within a limited range.
Rads – When killed, Rads (or Radials) destroy adjacent enemies in a limited 360-degree range.
Anti-Rads – When killed, Anti-Rads (or Anti-Radials for those of you who aren’t getting this yet!) change the colour of adjacent enemies in a limited 360-degree range.
Attackers – Attackers behave much like Grunts, but will periodically dive-attack the player ship of the same colour. Their aggression depends on the player’s current Skew Rate, but they can be a problem, so watch out!
Mother Ships – Mother Ships are passive enemies and are only there to destroy, so you can get your hands on the big bucks!
BTW, if anyone has any ideas regarding enemy names (the ones above are totally Work in Progress) send them in via the Comments section below. We’re more than happy to hear your (sensible!) suggestions. :)
That’s all for now. We’ll have more news on the game soon, along with some screenshots once things are looking a little sexier. Hope you like the sound of things so far!
Cheers until next week,
Al
