The title says “ Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chicken is Available on PSN”, but then in Japanese. Yes, we launch on PSN in Japan today – and here’s our official Japanese Rocketbirds website!
Whew… we’ve finally gotten off our tired asses and updated the Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chicken webpages. It now includes links to the various trailers, reviews, screenshots, features yadda yadda yadda. Take a gander (pun?)
Our blogs, tweets and “Rocketbirds: Revolution!” updates have been non-existent lately, but I really wanted to try and combine a lot of info into one, compact and non-spammy post that may be fit to post. What a ride it has been getting our game through to launch for Playstation 3 and the phenomemal support we’ve been getting from everyone – This trip has been surreal!
But first, here’s the game’s new launch trailer which has racked up over 200k views since it was posted yesterday!
With the exception of Japan (soon) and Brazil, from today our game is available almost everywhere you have PSN - we’ve translated it from English into 10 different languages (French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Korean, Japanese, Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese) and gotten it age rated for the different countries/regions that needed them, where we’ve received the entire spectrum of ratings starting with: Korea 18+, ESRB (USA / CAN) 17+, USK (Germany) 16+, CERO (Japan) 15+, ACB (Aus / NZ) 12-15 and PEGI (Rest of Europe) 12+. Hmmm… Say what?
Anyhoos, here’s a recap of what we’ve been posting on Playstation Blog (SCEA / SCEE) these past few months – enjoy!
19 July: Coming to PSN: Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chicken - Our first SCEA Blog post. Debut of the Early Alpha Trailer to the sound of New World Revolution’s “Double Agents”. We were going to Comic-Con San Diego!
22 September: Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chicken Hits PSN This October, Meet the Birds - Going from early concept sketches to arriving at the final charater designs for the birds, in scans and screenshots we show you how we got there.
23 September: Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chicken Brings Jet-Pack Poultry To PSN - Our first SCEE Blog post. Debut of the Preview Trailer to the sound of New World Revolution’s “The One”.
5 October: Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chicken Takes Flight October 18th - We show some before and after storyboards of two of the in-game cutscenes.
10 October: Rocketbirds: Couch Co-Op Mode Revealed - We delve into how we arrived at the pretty unique couch-co-op mode for the game. Debut of the Co-Op Vid to the sound of New World Revolution’s “Stars & Snakes”
12 October: Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chicken: From Flash To Full 3D On PS3 - We talk a bit about the 3D in Rocketbirds and getting the game working in stereoscopic 3D. Fitting it in 500 words or less is no small feat!
18 October:Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chicken is Only on PSN Starting Today - Debut of the Launch Trailer to the sound of New World Revolution’s “Once I Was Lost (Rocketbirds Theme)” – Kurti Files Remix
19 October: Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chicken Launches Today! - Launch Post in Europe / Aus / NZ
Some cool sites have reported on our short preview demo at Comic-Con! IGN reported: “We played it on the show floor here at Comic-Con 2011 and are happy to let you know you should be looking forward to it. Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chicken (as it will be known on PSN) is stylish and amusing”. DIY Gamer did a ‘Hands On’. Their opening line cracks me up: “Penguins think they’re so cute, but how cute do they think they’ll be after a face full of bullets from a chicken commando?”… “Jetpack battles in the game are also extremely fun, as you can fly anyone where on the screen and grief any and all enemies that are so unlucky as to find themselves under your fire” - they even even included a short, video of some parts of the game played at the booth!
Apart from it coming to Playstation 3 (end 2011 / early 2012), we’ve put together a list and are spilling the beans over all the cool stuff we came up with for “Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chicken”! You want to know what’s new since “Revolution”? Take a lookie!
Our first post on SCEA’s PSN Blog and we’ll have a special preview build at the Sony Booth at Comic-Con San Diego (runs from 21st to 24th July)! Check out the post - there’s a trailer and some more info up…
Oh, and you may have noticed the small name change – “Rocketbirds: Reloaded!” is now – “Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chicken”… Sorry about that, but he has his big ego plastered all over this game, so we thought it more fitting – and there’s so much new stuff and improvements in it, it’s not Reloaded anymore at all!
We cut together a vid of our latest game in progress over the weekend. Enjoy! link
Pre-alpha Trailer for Ratloop's "Rocketbirds: Reloaded"
Here’s a pic of Lucas and Keiko holding the trophy after Helsing’s Fire wins the Best Mobile Game category at the 13th Annual Independent Games Festival awards ceremony last Wednesday.
…And I’ve transcribed their acceptance speech – I think it was awesome, Congratulations guys!
Lucas: “I was dreading this, actually relieved! We have been finalists for the last three years for three different games and this is our first win. First I’d like to thank a few people and institutions, our friends and family of course: there’s an old song that goes “what is love, baby don’t hurt me”… and buying an iPad just so you can buy our game for one dollar, that’s love right there, thanks mom. Thank you to Clickgamer, everybody over there, thank you Tom, Marvin, Chris, Joe for all their support, they were great. Lastly, of course, ultimately, thanks to everybody involved in the IGF, from all the developers out there who are making the awesome games and the judges who have to judge them to all the volunteers, who worked hard to make the show go smoothly, especially thank you to the coordinators, this year “Brandon Boyer” who was assigned to us you guys rock. The IGF has always been a big part of what motivates us to make games and it feels great to get this recognition.”
Keiko: “THANK YOU!!!”
Here’s a snap of a game show visitor playing the Rocketbirds Reloaded! “PSN Preview Build” on the stereo 3D Screens at the Sony booths! The Taiwanese game show expects some 300,000 visitors and will run from the 18th to the 22nd of March, so if you’re in Taipei, you can still catch a peek of (and play) our game in progress!
Leading up to the 2011 Independent Games Festival, read the interview with creator Lucas Pope on ‘Helsing’s Fire‘ over at Gamasutra / IndieGames! We’re all rootin’ for you Keiko and Lucas!
