Here we go with a quick update for the Thumps & Blows demo.
If you read the last post... What am I saying? Nobody reads this. Thumps & Blows players can't read and only want to smack and destroy everything...
Anyway, the demo launched with less content and fewer features than I would have liked, so I've been slowly adding some things through updates. This week, the latest update arrived with some cool new stuff!
The things I missed the most when releasing the demo were the Weirdo's initial cutscene and the final arrangement for his musical theme. And they are finally available!
Weirdo feels something weird, so he quickly flies out to meet his companion, Cronchman, to discuss the situation. You can witness a quick interaction between these two contrasting characters.
Also, Weirdo's music theme, called The Interdimensional One, is finally available in the game! Before that, different music was used for his stage, Hardrock Mountain.
Music is something very important for Thumps & Blows: it not only serves to create a chaotic and dynamic atmosphere for battle, but it also reflects a character's personality and background.
Weirdo's theme starts with an epic feel: the hero from another dimension that has incredible powers is kicking the bad guys' asses! A wind instrument, imitating an ocarina, represents Weirdo's personality and values: he is noble and humble, and fights for peace. But, as the music evolves, it takes a darker tone. Weirdo has a dramatic past.
Have you listened to this theme yet? Share your impressions in the comments!
As you may have guessed... Thumps & Blows demo is now localized into Japanese!
Now I'm sure you are wondering, "How did you manage to do it? You are just a miserable indie dev!" Yes, I am, but not my mother (thanks, mum!).
I'm a native speaker of Spanish and Galician, and I'm pretty fluent in English, so, with some friends' help, we could bring these 3 languages at low cost.
But, unlike other developers, I would like to bring the game into more languages than those I speak. And you may have noticed that learning, like, 8 languages just to translate your game is a dumb idea. So, the game is being localized into other languages thanks to the amazing people at Native Prime.
The demo is now available in Japanese, but the text has already been localized into Simplified Chinese, Korean, Russian and Brazilian Portuguese, so the demo will soon be available in those languages too. If you spot any localization errors in these languages... go blame Native Prime. I'm sure they love receiving angry emails.
And now I'm sure you are wondering, "Why are you only adding Japanese if the text is already localized into other languages?" I'm going to tell you a story.
Once upon a time, there was an indie game developer called Widijou, who was working hard to launch his videogame, Thumps & Blows. He was convinced that adding 5 languages to his game would be an easy task that would take only a couple of days, in time for the release of his demo. But Widijou was a complete idiot, and realized that adding an ENTIRE language to a video game is so difficult that you could die in the process. Even more if you haven't prepared multilingual support for your game. Even more if you want to add Asian languages that don't fit in your tiny text boxes. Even more if you don't even know what the hell UTF-8 means and why it is important. So, Widijou launched his demo with only 3 languages and wasted several weeks fixing all kinds of different issues. The end.
Hope you liked the story.
Also, we localized the game's name into all the languages it will support. Yes, I know that is a terrible idea for marketing and SEO, but who cares?
So that's the end of the announcement. There are other minor fixes that nobody cares about.
Have you tried the demo? No? Then go right now to download it and start breaking legs! Then you can share your impressions in the comments. And don't forget to add Thumps & Blows to your wishlist, and to force recommend your friends to play it!