Toronto Thumbs

DEERTASE 2: REINDEERTASE
Production Notes and Some Art

On Monday, we launched our second game, Deertase 2: Reindeertase. With it, we also released a few extra bits of content related to the game, such as the soundtrack, the instruction manual, and the desktop background downloads. Today, while cleaning up my files, I came across some early notes I had jotted down to help understand some of the functions that needed to be built into the game.

The notes are a little disjointed, and focus heavily on the item inventory system, but they also include mention of a few things that ended up being dumped from the final build of the game. If you’re into seeing handwritten notes, feel free to check out the scans of them.

On the subject of the actual game, it appears that no one has found this secret character yet.

Deertase 2: Reindeertase notes »

Posted in Art, Gallery, Indie, TORONTO THUMBS ORIGINAL GAMES | 2 Comments »

HAPPY HOLITASE AND SEASON’S BEATINGS
Deertase 2: Reindeertase Is Here

The wait is over. Rather than send out cards, or even e-cards this year, our holiday gift to you is a Christmas-themed game. We are proud to present Deertase 2: Reindeertase for your gaming enjoyment. May it bring you much joy this holiday season and throughout the coming year. Go play it now.

Reindeertase is approximately ten times bigger than its predecessor. We’ve added more items, more enemies, more music, some fun game options, in-game accomplishments, a download of the soundtrack (composed by DJ Finish Him), a 14-page instruction manual PDF, and some desktop background downloads as part of the whole package. We also feel that the game itself is a good amount of fun, but being so close to the project makes us a little biased.

We started production on this game for two reasons. The first is that we would have liked to make the original Deertase a more fleshed-out game but couldn’t due to time constraints. The second was that Jim Squires commented, rather offhandedly, that it would be cool to have a follow-up game themed for the holidays called “Reindeertase.” What seemed like a funny idea at the time soon exploded into what we feel was a pretty good one. Hundreds of ideas and two short weeks later, the game was completed. (Reindeertase is the main reason we haven’t been posting as much this month. Now that the game is out, we expect things to get back to normal fairly soon.)

So thank you, Jim. Thank you to everyone who helped track down bugs during beta testing. Thank you to all the wonderful publicists who have answered our questions, invited us to events, and sent us games to play and review.

Last but not least, thank YOU for your participation in Toronto Thumbs, whether you check the blog daily, chat on the forum, subscribe to our infrequent podcasts, or even if you just check in once in a while. You are a big reason why we continue to work on this site and we hope you not only enjoy Reindeertase, but more importantly, enjoy the coming year.

Play Reindeertase »

Posted in Indie, Music, TORONTO THUMBS ORIGINAL GAMES | 14 Comments »

Toronto Thumbs Original Games
Deertase Special Edition and Deertase 2 in Production

As announced on our Twitter feed earlier today, we are currently deep into the development of Deertase 2. As you may recall, the first Deertase was an unexpected hit, garnering thousands of game plays within a week of its release and fast becoming the most popular thing on Toronto Thumbs, ever.

While Toronto Thumbs will still publish videogame news, reviews, and related articles, it’s hard to deny how much fun it was to both work on the original game and to hear the reception to it. Since that game was made within four hours to meet a short deadline, many of the features we would have liked to have in the game had to be excluded. Although we won’t be able to fit everything into the sequel, it’s already shaping up quite nicely and we’re hopeful that it will go over well with the community. It won’t be tied to a current event, nor will it be a surprise, but we’re hoping it will be a lot more fun.

Deertase 2, as it is tentatively called, will be released on December 21, 2009 – just in time for the holiday. We’re not prepared to release details on it just yet, but one number we’re throwing around is that there will be 10 times as many battles.

In other Deertase news, we are also finalizing some technical details for a hard copy limited release of the first game, along with some fun bonus content.

Posted in Awesome, News Bytes, TORONTO THUMBS ORIGINAL GAMES | 5 Comments »

TORONTO THUMBS ORIGINAL GAME
RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES: DEERTASE

On November 24, 2009, Downtown Toronto was abuzz due to a lost doe that had somehow found her way to the downtown core. After a standoff that lasted hours, involved way too many police and animal care workers, and resulted in stunned onlookers, the police tranquilized the deer (who wasn’t doing anything, really) and then tased it.

For some reason, I thought this would be a good subject for my first ever game, which I created in four hours and am publishing exclusively on Toronto Thumbs, right on this page. Keep in mind I’m not a programmer, so this is pretty basic – no pun intended. Maybe I’ll make another game in the future, and hopefully it will be better.

Have fun, and tell your friends about this one if they live in Toronto. They should get a kick out of it, or think it’s the worst thing ever.

UPDATE: Due to the great feedback already given, DEERTASE has received an update which includes:

• DEERTASE Original Soundtrack Recording download link (Easter egg)
• Revised TRNQ logic (less Nerfed)
• TALK works under certain conditions
• PET has certain consequences

Posted in Art, Awesome, TORONTO THUMBS ORIGINAL GAMES | 17 Comments »