Alas, this one contest is for Press Start Studio.

The folks over at computerandvideogames.com have nominated Twin Blades into several categories for the 28th Golden Joystick Awards!
Votes are user-based, and I was told people with bad karma problems could redeem of few good points by voting for Twin Blades in the Portable, Downloadable and Ultimate Game of the Year categories.

Voting is open until may 27th and no registration is needed.

Now whether or not they actually are giving winners a gold-plated joystick and, most importantly, whether said joystick would feature Japanese components remains unknown.

KidKobun even made us this nice looking mockup of where you can vote for Twin Blades, and because his mockup features much better-looking arrows than mine it is showcased below.

We have passed the point where Twin Blades has become profitable (which sounds like a delectable dessert to our ears).
So we’ve got this big bag of money right now and being a big bunch of nerds we had no idea what to do with it, so we made a quick vote and unanimously decided to spend it all on custom t-shirts.

And because we have too many of these classy t-shirts, we thought we should give them away to our most dedicated fans. But we’re not going to throw them away randomly, or else where would the feeling of achievement be in that? How could you unsuspiciously parade in the streets with your PSS t-shirt and swell with pride in society without emanating the subtle odor of own sweat?

We’ve noticed Twin Blades had its fans and we like that, a lot. But further than that we’ve also noticed how some of these fans take initiatives to actively participate in the promotion of the game. And we want to reward those active fans, and we want to equip them with the best gear the world has to offer so they can beat the crap out of the other games’ fans.

Thus, we collectively decided that Phil should sacrifice the unique custom Twin Blades joystick he crafted out of a Xbox 360 pad and equipped with full Sanwa/Seimitsu japanese parts, and give it to our best uberfan.

Well that’s interesting, now how exactly do I become an uberfan so I can beat the crap out of other games’ fans with a unique joystick in a cool t-shirt? you ask. And the good news is we haven’t set any boundaries for that. All you need to do is promote Twin Blades in any way of your choosing and send us a picture or whatever you did at uberfan@press-start-studio.com before the 30th of may to enter the contest!

Get involved, do it your way! You could either tell about the game and how much you’ve liked it on your favorite forum like Gamer_Kyio did on IGN, or send a message to your daily game news blog to incite them to update their review with the DLC, or draw some fan art like Aphex did with the nun (along with a completely NSFW version), or send a tip to any website you think would like the game like KidKobun did with Mtv, or use your own prose to post a review of on the app store, possibilities are endless, creativity is all yours!

Yes, the DLC is on its way. The peer review of the XBLIG version is roughly 85% complete and the iPhone version is still making its way to you.

In the meantime I’d like to introduce you with a neat little feature we haven’t mentionned before: you will now be given the opportunity to set the level of transparency of the HUD all by yourself!

In the story mode we have de-zoomed the action slightly in order for the nun not to overlay with the controls too much. But for those of you who can find the controls solely with the Force™ rather than relying on your good old eyesight will be pleased to know that you can make the bottom-screen icons completely disappear if you so wish!

Oh yes, you can also adjust the level of the in-game sounds and music separately as well. But who would ever want to lower the sound of an imploding zombie head I wonder.

And as a special treat I’ve also added a screen of one of the new environments at night time – featuring what seems to be the most popular weapon of all: the flame-thrower of course!

I’ve found the process of retreiving artworks from an elusive concept artist to be quite tedious. These people, ‘the creative people‘ as the politically-correct term seems to be these days, tend to turn into ostriches whenever a situation revolves around their previous creations, presumably because they see it as a flawed thing from the past, an ignomous monster they’ve spawned and are terribly ashamed of.

If you ask me tho, there’s nothing wrong with it. In fact I quite like the first version of Father Richiardo, the nun’s mentor.

In the updated version of Twin Blades Father Richiardo will be the central hub not only for the story as he gives indications to the nun, but also as a 24/7 convenience store as he’s now holding the shop accessible anytime between missions. That’s right, no more waiting until the End of Day to buy new weapons!

Next up we have a tree who’s role isn’t as central in the storyline, but is a nice tree anyway.

All that green stuff (along with many others) fit particularly well in the forest level, which has a certain eerie touch that make it particularly charming (if you take no notice of the zombies).

Feel free to send us your comments if you’d like to see more artworks!

The trailer is live with footage of the update content of Twin Blades, showing off slaaaaaash combos! (applause) The mini map! (applause) New environments! (applause) The story mode! (applause) Badass bosses! (booo)

Let us know what you think of the new content in the comments!

Twin Blades’ update is coming end of march (of this year) on XBLIG and the App store, and we’ve got a screenshot to prove it, featuring the second boss in its dedicated arena!

The scenario gave us a hard time, but it’s finally over with and we are satisfied with the outcome. You guys asked for a storyline and you are gonna get it, hard!

All of the graphic assets are now complete and it is up to Jeff & Fab our two code monkeys to finish the thing (which should take a couple of weeks because of all the stuff we kept adding into the game design while they were asleep).

More screens and vids coming in very soon!

Isn’t it amazing how people take firm resolutions only to give them up all half a bottle of wine later?

Because this is the whole story behind iPad Twin Blades, the very first iPad optimized game IN THE WORLD. Forget about major publishers, we ain’t just porting our game with a crappy x2 pixellated zoom: we will offer native HD graphics and it’s gonna kick ass.

I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone just yet but in all this excitment I forgot myself and sent a screen to pocketgamer picturing one of the bosses of the update.

(click on the image for iPad resolution)

Obviously the build is still under heavy work – and we’re prioritizing the update more than the iPad version, but it is looking great in the emulator already!
The update will feature bosses, new environments, a story mode, a mini map to let players chose whichever level suits them best and several NPCs. As we stated previously said update will be free to all of you who have already purchased the game.

The update is scheduled for release end of february on the iPhone & iPod touch, and end of march on XBLIG and the iPad. Stay tuned for more screens very soon!

Twin Blades has been nominated at the International Mobile Games Award in the Excellence in Design category (now how poach is that).

Whilst the Excellence in Design is awarded by a panel of judges you can vote for Twin Blades as the “People’s Choice Award” by clicking on the logo above (registration needed).

The final results will be announced at the Mobile World Congress amidst hundreds of escort girls and a recreative drugs banquet – although it could be a panel of industry representatives and a sandwich buffet, the promotional brochure is hardly readable.




So the good news is: it takes place in Barcelona.
And the bad news is: it happens in mid-february.

At the heart of winter I think I’ll give it a pass – when it comes to cerveza I’d rather have mine mildly-warm on a sunny beach rather than very cold on a bench.

So we’re sending Jeff instead. Farewell Jeff, send us a postcard when you get there.

Twin Blades has been nominated in the best graphics category for the second (and last ) round of the best app ever death-fight.

Only one click is necessary to cast your vote, and you can change it afterward (which of course you won’t do, hmm?).

Vote for
Twin Blades
in
Best Game Graphics

Mako said he’ll draw a topless version of the nun if we win.

The contest is over, and we have drawn the winner thanks to a very complex algorithm (Mako’s 3 years old daughter picked a name from a hat).

I hope you’ll enjoy the subtle cruelty of the process as much as I do. In essence it gives “Beat Mako and get rewarded for it…BY HIS OWN DAUGHTER”

We’ve been very impressed by your performances, some of you went as far as to break the 4.5 million mark – a 4x fold to our concept artist’s ridicule 1.1 mil. You all pwned him good.

And the winner is…

Congratulations Aldex! We’ll get in touch with you shortly.

And to all of you whose name wasn’t drawn rejoice, for we have other sweet stuff coming along – stay tuned for more very soon!