What's up NGers, hopefully this doesn't feel like an ad, but I really wanna chat about a game we're releasing right now, here's a Let's Play:

It's Boid! A strategy game that's chiseled down to just the essentials. No base-building, no resource-mining, just the fun part where you sneak around and outsmart each other. It's a common format of an RTS with games like Eufloria and Tentacle Wars out there in browsers, but I don't think anyone's really reached out to the Steam audience yet with a big competetive online push.
I'm not a big RTS guy, I think Starcraft is terrifying, so I've been excited about Boid since we first saw it. I like the idea of those games, but it's usually such an uphill struggle to figure them out- now here's this thing where a typical match is about 6 minutes and it's exactly what I needed. I'm still making tactical decisions on managing a hundred units on a map, but without pouring half an hour into mining ore to build refineries to build power plants to build factories. I think it's a great example for all of the 2-man-teams out there on how to condense a project down, and still deliver the games you want to play.

The developer is a promising small studio named Mokus. I've met Max, who's the designer, and he's about as talented and interesting of a developer you could ask for. He's reasonable, informed, humble, and surprising! The guy got into games as a side-project from break-dancing. The only thing that was bugging me all year was "Why would he name it Boid?" -but eventually I really searched it out and it ends up at thisff  huge rabbit-hole of simulated flocking algorithms, which get cited a lot in building strategy games. Cool!

Boid is one of the games I play in my off-hours, and I'd reccomend checking out academically as a developer. I'm legit proud of the stuff we put out as a publisher! Did anyone spot us as a sponsor for Awesome Games Done Quick?

Life-wise, I went to Rome with my amazing-cool girlfriend and then spent New Years snowboarding in Slovenia with my friends. I met a jazz-pianist in Maribor, we smoked cigars and talked about the socialist agenda and the collapse of Yugoslavia! People are so cool, everyone's got a life, it's amazing.

One more thing, I have this prototype I like right now, it's codenamed Battle Snooker. It's like a turn-based RPG battle-system, but in the interface of a pool game, or mini-golf or whatever.
When you hit an enemy ball with your ball, you deal it 25 damage.
If you bounce off a wall first, that's +5 damage.
If you riccochet a support-ball into an attack-ball, and then that hits the enemy, that's double damage.
All enemy balls within the effective radius of your support-ball take +10% damage.
And vice-versa, the enemy also lines up these tricks on you during their turn!

It's suitable for online play, suitable for mice, or gamepads, or tablets or god-damn whatever! I think it's a cute idea and I hope it evolves into something that feels intelligent and new. I'm aiming for Advance Wars meets Peggle. Nothing official, just a project on my hard-drive :)

That's it for now- bye! Happy 2015!