As Asked

MAGFest's most requested feature was some kind of radar system. I am proud to say that you asked and we listened, here is a preview:

New Radar: 1st version of a fixed orientation radar system. Measured from
the engine (green), enemies (red) are always shown with the top representing the
forward direction of the trains current orientation.

We'll be stylizing and working on the implementation during our upcoming design meeting, but the functionality is great.

MAGFest: Most Discussed

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Playtesters at MAGFest played 196 games of Tumbleweed Express and generated 259 unique items that include: feedback, feature requests, bugs, and user experience issues. After cataloging these issues, here is the top 20 items:

1. Add Radar; could be a purchasable option (14)
2. Boss fight needs more indicators relating where to shoot; and more colliders (8)
3. Destructable Spawners (8)
4. Mouse Sentivity needs to be adjustable (7)
5. Iterate on design of battle men; it's a little confusing (6)
6. Weapon switching is slow and cumbersome (5)
7. Put on Steam; with achievements (4)
8. Drillcars are very aggressive (4)
9. Track switching; and destination control (4)
10. Multiplayer and/or co-op  (4)
11. Assignments for crew via the shop is not intuitive (3)
12. Chain gun feature with or without Cool down rate, spin up rate (3)
13. SoundFX make hearing voiceovers very difficult (3)
14. Drillcar Jim's health stays on the screen after abandoning the town (3)
15. Switch weapons via number keys; not everyone has or likes mouse wheel (3)
16. Train cars (Cannons?) are inaccurate (3)
17. Not obvious why the train stops when the engine is dying (3)
18. Add Minimap (3)
19. Make prices and cash more noticeable (3)
20. Consider doing a train on train battle of the line style level/encounter (3)

Feel free to leave questions, comments, or feedback in general in the comments section below.

Dirigiballers Breaking It Down! Part 2

Just in case you needed more proof that the team can really break it down!

Dirigiballers Breaking It Down! Part 1

We work hard and play even harder!
(For the record neither one of us had played this game until MAGfest)

Tumbleweed Express MAGFest Trailer

Newest Tumbleweed Express trailer, uploaded in 1080p!

This trailer features all the recent content built for our demonstration at MAGFest.

The Dirigiballers are now on Twitter!

Follow the Dirigiballers on Twitter here: @drigiballers :)

Dirigiballers at MAGFest!

Partial team photo. Front: Andy 
LtoR: Matt, Greg, Keelan, David, and Jake
In spirit: David To, Arnoud, and Sam!

This past weekend has been so awesome for the team! We were able to show off a really nice demo of the game to a great audience at the Music and Games Festival (MAGFest) annually held at the National Harbor. We were all nervous about how people would receive the new updates, especially the final boss Drillcar Jim.

As people made their way to the Indie games area, we could see a lot of interest from people when they saw the newly designed intro screen at our booth. After some persuasion from the team, several patrons of the event sat down and played. Once players saw the train and got behind the main turret, their faces instantly lit up as they began to shoot anything in sight while the train chugged along through the desert and mechanical bits of blown up enemies. It was amazing to see that people were having fun with something that we all worked so hard on.

Some of the first players to play Friday afternoon.

One thing that we wanted to fix at this release that we saw as an issue at Artscape was the shop and assignment screens. After working tirelessly these past couple of months, a lot of confusion had disappeared, and several players easily understood the concept of using these elements strategically in order to make it to the end of each level.

Still going strong on Sunday.

Another concern we had coming into this weekend was with the captivation of each level. But that concern was quickly forgotten as we saw players going through not only a couple of levels, but making it all the way to the boss and wanting more! At some moments of the event, we had people waiting to play our game! It was truly heart warming to see.

Audience at the table on Saturday.

Of course the game was not perfect, but with each player we got amazing feedback on how to make the game more enjoyable. After a much deserved break from development, we will sit down and pour through the notes and see what changes and additions we will implement next to make a greater game experience.

A fraction of the generated notes.

From the bottom of our hearts we would like to thank every single person who played Tumbleweed Express. Though we created this game from our own ideas and motivations, everyone on this team wants to make a fun game for everyone to enjoy. Thanks MAGFest for assisting with the creation of our game, you guys truly rock!

Western steampunk approved!