Hero Interactive Gets Scientific

The Hero Interactive office has been a really busy place lately.  Jared, Eric, and I are in and out all day sometimes six days a week.  Sometimes we just need a minute to write down our thoughts and ideas for games…or just in general.  So we’ve devised a highly scientific way of relaying such thoughts and ideas to eachother: we write it on the wall!  whiteboard_hi.jpg

This is the Hero Interactive white board.  It is a very important part of the game design process.  At least, it is for us, haha!  If you’ll notice we’ve been brainstorming a lot about StarShine 2 as well as (apparently) little mutated martian men.

There you have it!  A little more insight to the inner workings of HI.

P.S. As a quick update, Puzzle Master is almost complete and the guys are using it to awesomeize (please put up with all my weird words) StarShine 2.  It’s looking fantastic and making tons of progress.  Also, I’m starting to get submissions for the latest contest and they’re looking SOOOO cool!  Keep ‘em coming!

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Biweekly Poll

What is your favorite board game? (pick three)

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If your favorite game isn’t here leave its name in the comments so we can see!

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Flash Games Rock!

For those of you who aren’t familiar with XKCD, it’s a really hilarious webcomic that can also be rather insightful.  Jared found one today that makes us at the office very happy.  Check it out!

We’re very excited about the future and potential of online Flash games.  They really are addictive and capture the attention of some players much more wholy than console games.

What do you think?

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It’s Contest Time Again!

Well boys and girls we have come up with a few good contest ideas for you and we intend to offer up some good prizes over the next few months.  Last month we didn’t really get too many entrants in our Bubble Tanks story contest, but we still had a blast and we’re hoping to see more this time.  Here it is:

The objective: Give us your fan art.  That’s it!  Draw it, Photoshop it, collage it, make it in Paint, as long as it’s yours we want to see it.  It could be doodled in crayons for all we care, we just want to see your Hero Interactive fan art.

The subject: Anything Hero Interactive.  Do you like Light Sprites the best?  Did you have an idea for a sweet ship in StormWinds?  Would you like to revamp the Hero Interactive man?   Have at it.

The prize: First place winner gets a Hero Interactive t-shirt, HI magnets, stickers, and their winning art featured in the blog and HI newsletter.  Second place gets HI magnets, stickers, and a mention on the blog and newsletter.  Third place (come on people lets have more than two entries!) gets a mention on the blog and newsletter.

The Rules:
1) All entries must be submitted via e-mail by October 25th at midnight (this gives you over three weeks) at steph@herointeractive.com.  If you don’t have a scanner or good way to e-mail us your entry please mail it to us before the deadline at:

Hero Interactive
P.O. Box 405
St. Joseph, MI
49085

2) All art must be Hero Interactive related.  Cool BT designs, a new logo, and a new kind of microbe for MK are all acceptable ideas.  Spore or Fancy Pants artwork will NOT be accepted.  You get the idea.

3) All art must be your own original work.  If you work together with someone, that’s fine, just please let us know that you have their permission to use it.

4) You must be 13 or older to participate, sorry again!

The Judging: The Hero Interactive team will judge the pieces and chose the winners.  Winners will be announced probably a day or two after the deadline so late entries will be ignored (sorry to be so mean!).

Have fun!  The team and I are VERY excited to see what you all come up with.  We know you all have creative minds so don’t hold out on us!

Here are a couple of my things that would be acceptable:
Bubble Tanks cake
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Bubble Tanks birthday card
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StarShine 2 Screenshot

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Hey everybody!  I really love how StarShine 2 is coming along.  It’s looking incredibly cool and thought you might like to see how the puzzle creator for Puzzle Master is looking.  I can’t wait to make my own starry puzzles.

What do you think so far?

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I need some ideas…

I had a lot of fun with our last contest and I’d really like to continue to do them.  However, I’m running pathetically short on good contest ideas.  Do you have any thoughts?

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Microbe Kombat on Newgrounds and Kongregate!

Yeah, that’s pretty much it, haha!  Microbe Kombat was released on Newgrounds and Kongregate today so go check it out!

Also, from what I hear StarShine 2 is really coming along.  We shouldn’t have to wait TOO long to play it.  :)  Of course, there’s no release date yet, I’m just betting it’ll be released sooner than later!

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StarShine 2 and HI Updates

Hey everybody!  I just have a couple of StarShine 2 and Hero Interactive updates.

First, StarShine 2 is really coming along.  Eric just showed me what he’s been working on and it looks really cool!  Right now they’re trying to finish up the Puzzle Master editor so that you can make your own puzzles which I’m so excited about.  I think it’s such a cool idea especially since LOTS of people could potentially play your puzzles (or mine, for that matter!).  It’s like being a game developer without having to know how to code!  Hahaha!  That’s mostly a good thing for me.

Second, Microbe Kombat is still doing awesome.  After tomorrow (Thursday) it will NOT be exclusive to Armor Games any more.  It’s going up on a bunch of other popular sites.  Keep your eyes open!

Third, for those of you signed up for our newsletter, yesterday we sent out our first one since January of this year!  We’re really happy to have that back up on its feet and it’s looking fantastic.  For those of you who aren’t signed up and are interested in getting news and updates about HI and our games every month, you can sign up VERY easily on our main site.  www.herointeractive.com

And lastly, Jared and Eric would like me to mention that yesterday they beat Wii Tanks, not once, but twice after work.  All twenty levels!  They have been playing that game for about a year and have only beaten it three times so that was quite an exciting accomplishment for them.  Awesome job to them!

Hey leave us some messages!  We always love hearing from you and talking with you.
Stay cool everyone!

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Fish’s Winning Bubble Tanks Story

4/19/1978:
Franklin asked me today, “Scott, are you sure you want to do this?” At this point I couldn’t stop, I had to continue with the experiment.

Today was the day that we began to use the water-metamorphosis solution on various mediums of water. We tested the liquid, gaseous, and solid forms. But, only the liquid seemed to get any movement. It made slight trembles, but nothing quite interesting yet.

4/25/1978:
Pursuing the experiment further, Franklin and I are looking at different ways to manipulate the liquid water in order to find any ways to make the water-metamorphosis effect more powerful. Lately we’ve noticed that the water is just too heavy. My associate Franklin is considering things like bubbles being better, but that’s ridiculous, they are far too fragile and don’t have a long lifetime before popping in the air.

4/26/1978:
I can’t believe it. Today Franklin brought a bottle of bubble solution and after dropping some of our water-metamorphosis solution, he blew into the circle on the stick and bubbles came out. But I noticed strange behaviors in the bubbles. First, they seemed almost magnetic to one-another, some grouping up. Secondly, the bubble masses began moving side to side regardless of any wind in the lab. After a few seconds they began popping of course, but this is a very large step in our water-metamorphosis experiment.

5/19/1978:
After the bubble experiment, Franklin and I have begun to investigate further, trying to make smaller and longer-lasting bubbles. So far, it seems the smaller they are, the faster they group. Late today, I tried making bubbles within a pool of water and the results were startling. For starters, it appears all the water needs is just air within the water in large groups to begin water-metamorphosis. Also, the bubbles created within the water lasted until they reached the top. Franklin went home already, I’m still at the lab working…

5/20/1978:
Things are gaining momentum fast. So far Franklin and I have begun trapping bubble under a glass bowl under the water, but what we need now is to make the bubbles even smaller. I have requested for a small can of compressed air. I’m planning on using the smallest nozzle I can think of.

5/23/1978:
I came back to the lab this morning to find several beakers destroyed. I know it couldn’t have been Franklin, since he was home sick all day. Throughout the day I had two more beakers break, seemingly randomly. I don’t understand, but I will continue to watch the bubbles under my microscope.

5/30/1978:
The water-metamorphosis is having a much more powerful effect than I thought. It seems to almost give the bubbles a mind of their own. Not only that, but these bubble masses almost look like they’re competing for any bubbles coming out of the small can of compressed air. Today I witnessed one mass completely ram into a second, generating enough kinetic energy to make the second mass fall apart immediately. Swarms of bubbles came to the area, looking for leftover bubbles. I do not fully understand, but I will continue researching.

6/7/1978:
I found out what’s causing these beakers to break. Early today I found a mass of bubbles that could propel a single bubble, almost like a missile. Some of these bubble missiles are going at extremely high speeds, high enough to crack, and break beakers within range. I am considering abandoning the project, since the water-metamorphosis is beginning to create what I believe might be a sign of man-made intelligence.

6/22/1978:
The project is abandoned. Today Frank and I bagged up everything, and went to a dump to drop off everything. However, we are keeping the water-metamorphosis solution here in the lab, for safety reasons.

6/29/1978:
The container that had the water-metamorphosis solution was gone this morning. I believe Franklin might have taken it. I asked him, but he won’t say anything today, and acts like he doesn’t know what I’m talking about.

7/3/1978:
This is very bad, today Franklin admitted to taking the container, but it broke while he was driving down the road. This was probably because the water-metamorphosis solution was able to find some moisture and create masses of bubbles that could shoot a bubble missile out of the glass container. Hopefully, none of the solution found it’s way onto the road and into the storm drains. I have decided I will have to monitor the storm drains and hope nothing has happened.

7/13/1978:
A specimen of water from the drains I collected had startling attributes. It was filled with tiny bubble masses that were fighting one another, almost like a war. Some were big, some were small, and some had different colored bubbles. I’m going to call these masses “Bubble Tanks” from now on. There must be some weird chemical in the storm drains that’s causing such a quick evolution of the bubble masses.

7/25/1978:
Franklin and I have come up with a plan to make sure the water-metamorphosis solution doesn’t do any damage to the city. We’re almost done with the preparations, and the real work begins tomorrow.

7/26/1978:
Our plan has been set into motion now. Since telling the city leaders about the recent experiments and mishaps would likely lead to Franklin’s and myself being fired, we’ve decided that we will have to do this covertly. The basic plan is very much like how a vaccine works, since the bubble masses appear to behave like a pathogen that can’t perform meiosis, this will work very nicely. We’ll try injecting a weaker version of the water-metamorphosis solution into a native fish to the area and hope that it can naturally create a way to fight back the masses of bubbles. A few hours ago, Franklin and I have just finished inserting the weak solution into the fish tanks. In a week from now, we’ll check out the fish and look for any that are still alive.

 Click here to read Corenat Rovarnus’s runner up story!

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The Winner of the BT Contest Is……

You may already have guessed by looking at the results of the vote, but our winner for the Bubble Tanks story contest is Fish!  Congratulations, Fish!  His prize package includes a Bubble Tanks t-shirt, Hero Interactive magnets, lots of stickers, an Alien Hominid postcard, a free Stormwinds 1.5 keycode, and his story being posted on the blog later today; all this adds up to about $60 in prizes!  Lets all congratulate Fish on a job well done.

Our runner up was Corenat Rovarnus who wrote a continuation of Fish’s story.  His prize package includes Hero Interactive magnets and stickers.  Both stories were fantastic and deserve congratulations!  We’ll keep you updated on our next contest.

prize-package.jpg

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New HI Team Member

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Hero Interactive is excited to announce that we have officially brought another member onto our team: Jim Lester is now working with us to help make the best games possible as head of game testing.  He has helped us out a lot in the past with great ideas and vigorous bug searching previously- now he’s finally joining us! Everybody welcome Jim!!  Huzzah!

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Biweekly Poll

Which age group do you fall in?

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