DAT BETA NOW UP N OUT!

Version 1.8

And here's the devblog tumblr where I'll be posting updates and things.

AND UH... artwork?  Nope sorry not today.

BYE!

New Name

Ballpoint Universe!  Yes, the former name, College Ruled Universe, was confusing for those outside of North America, where they don't use that term to describe notebook paper.  So, to make sense to our growing international audience, I changed the name.  Hope you guys like it.  :)

Development is still going smoothly, fueled by many late nights and dozens of pots of coffee.  I wanna show you some artwork from an exciting feature of the game:  special attacks.  Combo your kills without getting hit, and you'll build your Overload Gauge.  Overload skills include summons, temporary shielding, and special ammo.  Here's some of the summons.

ForceWill:  Demolishes your enemies with a powerful thrust across the screen! 
(inspired by beer can stack dog)

Piercing Gaze:  Overwhelm your foes with a flurry of arrows!

Cheers peopleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

-Leo

CRU Trailer!

Yes!  Finally I have a showcase of our lush platforming segments, intense battles, and ship costomization!

And it's all in one sweet, concise, 82 second trailer.  Enjoy!

The Flamethrower

ER hey!  The flight segment is starting to look pretty sick, so here's a quick video showing one of my favorite weapons in the game.

Enjoy!

Yes, I return!  I bet you weren't expecting to see me.

Well then.

I've got some screenshots from our in-progress build of CRU, and a short clip!  Woo.  Unity has been quite a challenge to learn, but now that I'm getting used to it, I'm realizing what an elegant and versatile tool it really is. *golf clap*


We had some major technical difficulties getting that little guy in there.  The entire world built around him took less time.  We finally found a great plugin called uniSWF that just let us take the sprite from Flash and slap it into Unity.

Doodle running around an NPC!

 
The bridges are his only way of achieving depth!  Poor fellow, he must be so shallow.  Ba-dum TSH

 Asteroid field:  Beginner level.

 Space castle:  Not so beginner.

Here is my really short clip, as promised!

That's all for now.  Cheers!

CRU dev blog

Hey!  Sorry about the long blackout, I'm about as good at updating blogs consistently as Hellen Keller was at twister.

Okay so what I've got here is some footage myself messing around with unity and showing you some gameplay footage from our flagship, College Ruled Universe.  This game is a huge undertaking for a team of only three people, and I'm super proud of how its coming out so far.  Good job team.

A special thanks to my Kickstarter backers, who have been supportive and awesome even after we passed the deadline.  You people are great.

I will post again.  In 3 days.  Really.  I will. 

Bye

-Leo

Tallboy

Today Arachnid Games released tallboy!

Tallboy is a game built around the character himself, who just came out in a doodle one day.  I was sketching with Andrew Mar, and we both really liked this strange being.

So I began developing!  As always, I have my priorities all mixed up and when I get a new project like this I'll dedicate all my time to it.  Tallboy continued to push my schoolwork and hygiene back until the day he was finished.

All the assets were done in a simple pseudo-geometric style in Adobe Illustrator.   I animated the game in Flash, and coded in AS 2.0.  (I'll learn 3.0 one of these days!  : x)

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out!  It was a small Flash project with a gameplay style that's been done many times before, but I feel like tallboy brings a new quirkyness to the endless sidescroller genre.

So, he may not be as popular as robot unicorn, but I hope he does gain some limelight in his internet life.  ;)

You can play the game here.

Here's Diane Wu's take on tallboy.  I love this.

Peace,

-Leo

Building Blocks

Welcome to Entrino!  It's the first planet you'll be introduced to in CRU.  

 The imagination spring is the beginning point for all idea sprites.  Every element of CRU derives from a spring at some point.

 Introducing the platforming!

 The reject pile.  Every single idea that comes out is judged, and a lot of them don't make it.

The Judge, patiently waiting for the next sprite to approach.

The Judge

We're getting our first NPC put into College Ruled Universe!

I started doodling, and as always, it got out of hand.

He looks like this, all put together.

The Judge.  Sitting atop a pile of rotting, rejected ideas, he sorts the good from the bad.  Or more like the useful from the useless.  With new ones popping up all the time, his job never ends.

Arachnid at LA Games Conference

Hey all!

I'm gonna be speaking on a panel at: 

LA Games Conference

I'll be talking about College Ruled Universe, and how to group-fund for minimal game budgets.  If you're gonna be there, come say hi.  :)

I'll be speaking at 4:45 pm.  The panel includes others for medium and large budget game projects also funded through Kickstarter.  You lookin' to learn?  Come check it out!

CRU now featured on Newgrounds

Newgrounds.com was kind enough to feature our demo on the front page!  

Check it out here.

The Intro

What is Arachnid?

We don't just make games.  We are devoted to them.  We are up until 6 am working on them, we wake up mid sleep and jot down ideas.  We jump out of our seats when we get the results we want.

Arachnid specializes in artistically driven games with a unique twist on classic gameplay styles.

Our first project is College-Ruled Universe, a side scrolling shooter incorporating RPG elements and a fresh visual style!  You can check out the playable demo HERE.

So...what else to put in this first post.  Well, if you're interested in indie games, or just art in general, this is a good place for you!

Cheers,
-Leo