Friday 19 December 2014

Time Rifters 20% Off During Steam Holiday Sale!

Steam's annual winter holiday sale has begun & Time Rifters is available for 20% off!


This is a great opportunity to check out our holiday gift wrapped enemies & fire cracker confetti which is only available in the Daily Challenge until December 31.

~ Jackie

Friday 12 December 2014

Steam Trading Cards Now Available


We're happy to announce that Steam trading cards are now available.

Play Time Rifters to start collecting the 6 trading cards, 6 badges, 5 emoticons and 5 backgrounds that we've created.

You can turn newly acquired items into gems for the Steam Holiday auction, which we're participating in:
http://steamcommunity.com/auction/item/1703-Time-Rifters 

Just a reminder, all the enemies in our Daily Challenge mode are gift wrapped until December 31.


~ Jackie

Monday 1 December 2014

Christmas Update - Only Available Until December 31!


All enemies in the Daily Challenge have been gift wrapped and contain confetti fire crackers.

The Christmas Update is available from December 1 - 31.

Have fun!

Friday 21 November 2014

Time Rifters Challenge Update is now live!


The Challenge Update is now live! Compete for a highscore in the Daily Challenge, or if you're feeling more creative, design, build and share your own rooms and arenas.

This is a free update for all Time Rifters owners.

Check out our new Time Rifters: Challenge Update trailer for a preview of the new features, or just exit & restart Steam to check them out for yourself.

Join us on our Steam forums and let us know what you think.

Release Notes:

Gameplay Changes:
  • New 'Daily Challenge'. Team up with yourself in randomly created arenas of user created rooms.
  • New 'Custom Arenas'. Play arenas created by other players via Steam Workshop.
  • New 'Room Editor'. Create enemy configurations, platforms, buildings, forcefields, jump pads, triggers & wires. Your room may appear in a Daily Challenge.
  • New 'Arena Editor'. Point and click to create a configuration of rooms, then share that arena on the Steam Workshop.
  • Added 6 new Steam Achievements (Room Creator, Arena Creator, Arena Player, Daily Challenge x3)
  • Added 'Show/Hide Body' toggle.

Virtual Reality Changes:
  • Updated Oculus SDK to 0.4.3.1 Beta
  • Added ability to toggle Vignette

Performance Changes:
  • Reduced overdraw on explosions
  • Gold now uses simpler physics
  • Each enemy is 2 draw call instead of 2
  • All red/white/yellow blocks draw call batch together now
  • Better batching of bullet holes and weapon effects
  • Occlusion culling for Daily Challenge
  • Optimized performance of blocks on acid

~ Jackie

Tuesday 18 November 2014

Ready for a new challenge?

Time Rifters 'Challenge Update' is coming soon!

Team-up with yourself & get a highscore by navigating the Daily Challenge; a maze of user created rooms. Feeling a bit more creative? Create your own rooms and custom arenas using the new editors.

We're just working on implementing some last minute features, so stay tuned.


~ Jackie

Thursday 30 October 2014

Time Rifters Daily Challenge Concept

Feedback and reviews have been great! The top 2 requests are for more arenas and a level editor. After a lot of brainstorming, we've created a concept that combines those 2 requests into a Daily Challenge.

Each day a new randomly generated maze of user created rooms will be available. Once again you'll team-up with yourself to get a highscore, but this time that's done by collecting the most gold.

If there's enough support for this game mode, we'll continue development, and it'll be released as a free Time Rifters update.

We made a short video to give you more details and a closer look at our prototype arena:


We want to know what you think of the new concept. Please leave your comments/feedback here or in our Daily Challenge Steam Discussion thread.

~ Jackie

Tuesday 21 October 2014

Time Rifters Now Available on Steam!

Time Rifters is now officially released on Steam!

Check us out and leave a review letting us know what you think of the game.

http://store.steampowered.com//app/270010

~ Jackie

Friday 17 October 2014

New Let's Replay Features

Time Rifters is filling up with awesome Let's Replays, so we've just updated the Let's Replay menu so you can easily see which ones you've already played and your highscore.


The Steam avatars used for the Let's Replays looked so cool we wanted to show them off more. The avatars & custom Steam Workshop item descriptions are now showcased in the clone room before each arena.


~ Jackie

Tuesday 14 October 2014

Time Rifters Release Date Announcement

Time Rifters will be available on Steam on Tuesday October 21 for $9.99 USD.

Be notified when the game goes on sale by adding Time Rifters to your Steam Wishlist through our store page.

And we've got a brand new launch trailer:


~ Jackie

Wednesday 8 October 2014

Time Rifters New Experiment Mode

Beta feedback introduced Experiment mode. Plan your attack with infinite gold to optimize your high score.


~Jackie

Thursday 2 October 2014

Boss Destruction

Reworked final boss fight, way more action packed now!


~ Jackie

Tuesday 30 September 2014

New Time Rifters Particle Ball Effects

Check out some new effects on the Time Rifters Particle Ball weapon.


~ Jackie

Thursday 25 September 2014

Time Rifters Updated Holodeck Arena

Putting the finishing touches on the levels & decided to update Castle, one of our holodeck arenas. What do you think?


On Egypt we added more pops of color to the walls. The colored blocks create a maze for climbing.


~ Jackie

Tuesday 23 September 2014

Time Rifters Scatter Pistol

This dark little spot in the Caveworm arena was perfect for comparing the base and upgraded Scatter Pistol. Scatter Pistol upgrades include bullets spread on hit, increased damage, faster shooting, acid, and make bullets bounce.

BASE
UPGRADED

With Steam's new Discovery update you can now Wishlist (be notified when game goes on sale) and Follow (receive updates/announcements) Time Rifters, all from our Steam store page.

~ Jackie

Monday 15 September 2014

Developer Discussion on Time Rifters DK2 Demo Features

We're in the process of submitting the Time Rifters DK2 demo to Oculus Share. Doug & I discuss some of the new features in the video below:


Topics include:
- Player Re-centering
- Render Modes
- DK2 Options
- Control Schemes
- Customizable Keys
- Razer Hydra Integration

For more updates and announcements check out our Steam Page and/or follow Time Rifters on Twitter.

~ Jackie

Thursday 14 August 2014

Wednesday 30 July 2014

Time Rifters DK2 Update & Steam Store Page Images

For those that might be wondering, we're still waiting for our Oculus Rift DK2 to arrive. Our order was placed at 2:53 pm PDT on day 1 (March 19), so hopefully it'll be in the next shipment.

We've recently finished creating the images for our Steam store page. After trying out a few different concepts that didn't work, we created a dark futuristic image that we really liked but decided it was missing the brightness that our current branding has.


We took the futuristic and cinematic feeling from the dark picture and combined it with the brightness of our current branding, and created the new Time Rifters image:


~ Jackie

Friday 11 July 2014

Time Rifters Let's Replay Audio & Time Warping Clones

In the last update we mentioned that players are now able to record a play through of an episode as the first two time clones. We've now added the ability to record audio commentary, making the Let's Replay functionally complete.

As part of the audio component we added a microphone visualizer to show the Let's Replay recorder that their voices are being recorded. Those playing a Let's Replay will also see the visualizer as it is displayed above the head of the time clone that is speaking.


While playing through the game we noticed that it felt like something was missing at the end of the episode, since the other time clones where just standing around. We made a small change so that the other time clones will now time warp back to the clone room at the end of an episode.


~ Jackie

Monday 30 June 2014

Time Rifters Let's Replay & NPlay Maintenance

Just a quick update....

Besides the Oculus DK2 integration, the last big task that we have on our Time Rifters to do list is the Let's Replay system, which we've begun to implement. We can now record a play through using just 2 clones, as well as the ability to play alongside that recording using the other 2 clones. Our focus is now on the audio recording/playback as well as the Steam Workshop integration.

We've also spent some time recently performing maintenance and increasing performance on our NPlay servers which host our games BeGone and InvinciCarOnline.

~ Jackie

Thursday 12 June 2014

Time Rifters: Sunk Costs

A recent Freakonomics podcast said "... people fall prey to what economists call sunk costs, once you've invested a lot in something you hang on to it even though it's not worth anything".

With one arena left to design, we decided to make a zombie graveyard. We bought the assets and spent time designing the arena, modifying textures to match our style, adding features like bioluminescent trees and grass, ensuring the gravestones glowed, etc


The Freakonomics podcast summed it up perfectly "... it would have been so easy to say, okay, it's not exactly perfect, let's just keep going".

We found ourselves with a choice to make; do we stick with an okay arena that we've already invested time and money into and try to make it work, or do we scrap it all and start from scratch. We chose to create a brand new, clean and simple arena, that we are excited about.


It's extremely difficult to walk away from something that you've invested time, money and heart into, but in our opinion, this is a skill that is required in order to be successful.

~ Jackie

Thursday 5 June 2014

Time Rifters: Switching Gameplay Styles

We originally thought that Time Rifters would have a long gameplay style, where the player continuously levels up as they progress through each episode. But the more we worked on the game, the more obvious the limitations became, so we've switched to a short gameplay style.


There are still 3 episodes (each containing 5 arenas) but weapons and upgrades now reset at the end of each episode. Here's why we switched styles:

  • Balanced Progression - instead of trying to make sure the game is easy for new players as well as challenging for experts, we get to focus on balancing each episode (easy, medium and hard)
  • Let's Replays - Let's Replays will be broken out by episode, making it easier to record and providing players with shorter Let's Replays that are easier to consume
  • Leaderboards - each episode, as well as each Let's Replay, will have their own leaderboards, providing lots of opportunities to post high scores
  • Re-Playability - since the episodes are shorter there are more opportunities to try out various weapon and upgrade combinations
~ Jackie

Friday 23 May 2014

Time Rifters Microsite & Completed Clone Room

It's definitely been a busy couple of weeks.

We recently launched a Time Rifters microsite at TimeRifters.net. The new site combines the latest game information, screenshots, trailers, demo links and press articles into one place.

www.timerifters.net

The driving factor for the clone-room redesign was making the weapon selection and shop more intuitive. The new weapon selection area and upgrades shop have been added, finishing the clone room re-design.

 
With the clone room complete, our focus has turned to integrating Time Rifters with Steam Leaderboards.

~ Jackie

Thursday 1 May 2014

Time Rifters Clone Room Re-Design

For easier navigation we always try to have the player moving forward, which also has the added bonus of being more comfortable in VR (less turning). Because of this we have re-designed the clone room so the shop and exit are both located directly in front of the spawn area.


We both really liked the skylight in the current clone room so we decided to make it a focal point in the new design. The new giant skylight provides some natural light, plus it gave us the ability to add additional features like hanging leaves and light shafts which are great in VR.


~ Jackie

Friday 25 April 2014

Quadruple Rocket Launcher

Being in VR and watching a rocket fly past, with its fiery tail and whoosh noise, is what made a rocket launcher one of the top weapons on our list to add into the game.

The green clone in the video below is firing the base weapon, and the blue clone is firing the upgraded launcher which includes 4 rockets.


~ Jackie

Wednesday 16 April 2014

Acid Now Makes Time Rifters Enemies Glow Green

Enemies should glow green when hit with acid. It seems so obvious, but we didn't think about it until Doug was watching me play recently and he noticed that I couldn't tell whether or not I had hit the enemies with acid. It was a small change but it made a large and satisfying impact on the game.

 
This is one of our 'duh' moments where we wonder why we didn't think of it sooner. It is one of those situations where working harder or faster wouldn't have made a difference, instead we just had to wait for a spark to trigger the idea.

~Jackie

Wednesday 9 April 2014

Time Rifters Laser Gun & Double-Slit Experiment

The laser gun is another brand new weapon that we've added to Time Rifters. The base weapon is pretty powerful but add upgrades like wave damage, shoot through multiple enemies, and acid to cause even more destruction.

UPGRADED
BASE

We thought a double-slit upgrade (as explained in the Dr Quantum - Double Slit Experiment video) would be perfect for the laser gun. Our plan was for the gun to emit a wave that causes damage to any enemy it collides with, however the combination of the long-range laser and short-range double-slit upgrade are not as much fun as we hoped. We still want to have the double-slit in the game, we just need to find the best way to use it. Any suggestions?


~Jackie

Wednesday 2 April 2014

Time Rifters new particle weapon with proton & electron upgrades!

We recently changed our focus from level design to working on the weapons and upgrades.

We now have a close range weapon that features a neutron base, with proton and electron upgrades that add additional damage and range.

BASE
UPGRADED

We are still exploring what to call it. Some ideas we've had are Atom Smasher, Atomic Crusher, Atom Destroyer, Atomic Ball, and Particle Ball.

Would love to hear your thoughts and suggestions, what do you think this weapon should be called?

~Jackie








Wednesday 5 March 2014

Bioluminescent Tree: From Concept To Completion

While browsing Reddit we came across this amazing photo and immediately wanted to experience it in VR.


As an homage to the screen door effect, the level walls are floor to ceiling screens with raining pixels bringing them to life.


Next it was on to building the perfect tree (yeah, you can use your climbing skills on it :) ).


~Jackie

Wednesday 19 February 2014

Printer Levels

We were intrigued by the idea of a level that worked like a 3D printer. Our vision included walls covered with the spawning blocks that would "print" enemies in certain patterns.

Here's what we came up with:


For the second level, we upped the ante and turned the printer into a twisted donut!


~Jackie

Saturday 15 February 2014

Time Rifters Soundtrack

We've received lots of requests from people wanting a copy of the Time Rifters soundtrack. We really enjoyed collaborating with talented musicians to create custom music that we are proud of.

Our philosophy has always been to release as much free content as possible; the more positivity we put out, the more we get back. We are happy to share that the Time Rifters Soundtrack is now on YouTube!

Time Rifters Soundtrack

Game development is progressing well, with our main focus continuing to be on level creation. Screenshots of the new levels will be shared soon.

~Jackie

Thursday 30 January 2014

Inspirations & Nostalgia

We've received some requests to include more enemies that aren't blocks in the game. Here are a couple of non-block mechanics that have been implemented in some new levels we've been working on.

The original cave level (Episode 1, Arena 3) was one of our favorite arenas, at least up until now. Once again your characters are exploring the caves but this time they will encounter a giant worm-like creature inspired by the 90's movie Tremors.


Sticking with the nostalgic, we have also introduced a door mechanic similar to one that would be found in the NES game Contra.


Tuesday 21 January 2014

Time Rifters Greenlit! And Let's Re-Play?

Really excited to announce that Time Rifters was Greenlit today, thanks for all the support!


Let's Re-Play?

We have recently come up with the idea of turning a Let's Play into in-game asynchronous multi-player, giving you the ability to play the game with replays of other people (friends, YouTubers, podcasters, etc). We have just started exploring this idea, but based on our current vision it would work like this:

Recording Let's Plays:
  • JesseCox (for example) would walk to the 'Record Let's Play' area on the title screen
  • He would choose Episode 1
  • He would play through the entire episode only using the first 2 time clones, his voice would be recorded.
  • After his play through, he could choose to upload it to the Steam Workshop/Marketplace and either give away or sell his Let's Play (so he could give away episode 1 for free and then charge for episode 2 & 3). All the profits from let's play sales would go to the recorder.

Playback Let's Plays:
  • You walk into the 'Let's Play' area on the title screen, look through a list of available Let's Plays and choose 'JesseCox Fan Friday - Episode 1'
  • You now start playing as the 3rd player, the 1st player controlled and voiced by JesseCox starts walking around and talking (positional voice audio of course). The 2nd and 4th time clones are idle.
  • At the end of the first round, you start controlling the 4th clone, the 3rd clone is the replay you just did, the 2nd clone is now active as JesseCox (with voice), the 1st clone is also JesseCox (without voice).
  • After you finish the episode, it shows how well you did together (percent complete).
Hopefully we explained it well, we've just been exploring this concept over the past few days. What do you think?

Saturday 18 January 2014

TrackIR & Greenlight Update

All of the pieces of our TrackIR finally arrived and we have been able to test it in Time Rifters. We plan on posting a video with our experience so look for that in the near future.

Greenlight is still going great, we have received close to 16,000 yes votes and are sitting at #7.

It is great to see all the Time Rifters play through videos that are being uploaded to YouTube including videos by JSmithOTI, TheSocomMr, The Indie Game Promoter, JaR Dev and MrJTDekker.

Lastly, here are a couple more places you can read up on Time Rifters:

Destructoid's article Play with yourself in first person shooter Time Rifters
http://www.destructoid.com/play-with-yourself-in-first-person-shooter-time-rifters-269077.phtml

Control Multiple Characters By Yourself in Time Rifters article on TwoDashStash
http://twodashstash.com/2014/01/control-multiple-characters-time-rifters/



Friday 10 January 2014

#4 on Greenlight & SteamOS News

Time Rifters is now ranked #4 on Greenlight with almost 13,000 Yes votes!

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=193620967

SteamOS is now installed and Time Rifters is up and running on our homemade Steam Box. We just released a new Linux build (0.5.1) which fixed a gamepad compatibility problem.


Wednesday 8 January 2014

#60 on Greenlight!

The Time Rifters Greenlight campaign is going great, we are currently 60 out of 1,499 games!


We have also received a lot of great mentions lately. We had a great time chatting about Time Rifters, game development and VR with Reverend Kyle on his RevVR Podcast.

http://www.reverendkyle.com/media/com_podcastmanager/revvr_podcast_36.mp3

Time Rifters was voted #6 in Cymatic Bruce's Top 20 Oculus Rift VR Experiences of 2013.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmnjvCR-lS4

Lastly thanks for all the great game play videos on YouTube, we've been enjoying watching them all.