GUNPOINT
A stealth puzzle game that lets you rewire its levels to trick people.
Mailing List
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Release
Out now! $10!
Platform
Windows, Mac and Linux.
Problems?
Tell us about it! Literally do tell us about it, or nothing will happen.
Yes, You Can Monetise Videos You Make Of This Game
Here's the formal permission bit.
Other Projects
Here's a page about what else I'm working on and what else I've done.
Team
Design/Code/Words
Character/Level Art
Background Art
Mission Music
Title Music
Menu Music
Theme
By Tom Francis. Uses Adaptive Images by Matt Wilcox.
Res Gestae
This is my face when coding resolution menus.
And this will probably be the last time I whine about how screen settings stuff is harder than relativity, because I think I’ve done it.
The reason it’s so brain-meltingly complicated is that resolution is tied into so many other systems in ways that are really fiddly to unpick, and I needed to completely restructure all of those systems and come up with a final design for them before it even made sense to spend time on the res menu. It’s been the second most complicated of the very few truly boring things to figure out – the winner, as ever, being collision.
I decided to reward myself with Quantum Conundrum if I got this sorted today, and I did. Quantum Conundrum launches in the wrong resolution, and its resolution select menu is staggeringly, unforgivably bad. To the point where I just had to give up trying to use it, and will now search the Steam forums for some way to hack my res into the game files.
As a gamer, this is super frustrating. As a coder, I get a new, dark and terrible thrill from seeing other people fail at the thing I just solved.
Gunpoint will be playable at both Rezzed in Brighton on the 6th-7th of July, and Games Britannia in Sheffield on the 7th-8th. I can’t make it – I’ll go to all these things once I’ve actually released a game, but until then I should really focus on finishing one.
“I get a new, dark and terrible thrill from seeing other people fail at the thing I just solved.”
You are a terrible person – and I wholeheartedly agree.
Murray Lorden:
As a recent mover from game design to coding myself, too, there is a deep satisfaction in solving annoying problems in an elegant way.
And part of you wished the problem just wasn’t there – that it would solve itself through some magical “common sense” algorithm! Like, “why do I need to totally rearrange my HUD based on the resolution, and worse, the pet ratio?! Can’t the HUD just kinda sort itself out!”.
But once you’ve actually put in the brain and leg work yourself, there can be a vindictively satisfying feeling that you are now on the well-earned superior side of the fence! You’ve earned an advantage over your competitors and peers that you now don’t want to be “easy to solve”, because you’ve earned your stripes the hard way!
Philippe:
Now, just wait until you do a German translation and none of your stings fit in the boxes anymore.
Awesome to hear :D
So go on then, what solution did you go for? Don’t leave us hanging :)
Scott Parker:
Thank you so much for the effort. As someone that plays with a non-traditional resolution (my only gaming rig is hooked up to our HDTV), I’ve had to write all Paradox games as un-runnable and others like Warlock as un-playable because of incredibly tiny text.
I was hoping to hug you at Rezzed! Oh well, I suppose you have your priorities…
Dan:
There’s a bunch of standard resolutions, but more importantly, they’re closely associated with aspect ratios. I think the best resolution selector menu, from a user perspective, would:
a) use my desktop resolution/refresh rate as a default (pick the main monitor if more than one)
b) if I go to configure it, offer a drop-down of common/sensible resolutions at that aspect ratio, a drop-down box with other aspect ratios and a separate refresh rate box.
c) have an advanced button and let those crazy power-users just type in the horizontal, vertical and refresh rates that they want. For bonus points, indicate the aspect ratio they’ve chosen to show how crazy they are.
d) Have an apply button, change the resolution live (so you can see the results) and do the whole ‘is this new resolution ok?’. Yeah, it’s annoying to most, but when you accidentally screw things up, it saves your bacon. Make sure the default choice isn’t ‘ok” so people don’t double click through it.
e) Write/read everything to/from an .ini file for people who prefer the old-school approach (or screw things up and manage to hit ok despite it).
Of course, this is assuming that the underlaying game supports it. Best of luck!