This week's blog post is brought to you on a Friday, because weekly updates work better on Fridays, right?
The last two weeks have been a whirlwind of excitement, because two NK folk from Dundee were visiting Auckland. David and Barry were in New Zealand to check out the sights and more easily talk to us without having to stay at work late and make us get up early.
What happened in those meetings around circular tables, with laptops fighting for space and the door closed (literally, though occasionally figuratively speaking) will not be revealed on these pages. We can, however, imagine the very serious discussions that would have been happening all day, every day.
One activity that we all shared though: some sweet go karting. Not serious go karting with brakes that worked. No, these karts were made to drift and the brakes would only stop you if you were already stopped. And the thing that inevitably stopped you would be someone else's go kart. Someone who had drifted too much and ended up facing the wrong direction.
The karts also didn't enjoy turning if they could help it. Corners had to be taken sideways by intentionally losing control and flailing a foot over the accelerator while spinning the steering wheel wildly as if it had an effect on your direction.
It was on these death traps that we hooned for a few hours before returning back to sanity for a nice lunch and a few hours of slightly less efficient work. A day that will be remembered by all, I am sure.
Today was the last day of Barry and David's visit, so they've gone off to the airport to catch a plane home, ready to start doing more serious things. We bid them farewell and safe flight etc.
Can you sell those posters? They look cool!
The posters from the last blog post are indeed very rad. They were put together by Stacy, a somewhat newer artist of ours with a lot of talent. You haven't seen much of his Ninja Kiwi work yet, but it shouldn't be too long...
Unfortunately without an on-line shop to sell them, the posters cannot be sold. An on-line shop is an idea that's been floating around for a while though, so while it's not much closer to existing than it's ever been, there could come a day when one does exist.
On Monkey City the game has been cut off along the side. I can no longer play because of this. Can it be fixed?
This happens because your browser has been zoomed in a bit. The best way to reset the zoom and be able to see the whole game is this:
With the game open, click the URL bar at that top of your browser.
Press the "Control" key and the "0" (zero) key at the same time.
And done!
Can you make it possible to visit our friends' cities in Bloons Monkey City?
This has been something we would like to do for a long time, so it could happen one day. We're still in the midst of getting all the known features into the game at this point, so while visiting other cities will be cool, we're not yet at a point where we want to start working on that kind of thing.
Keep an eye on updates though, most of them should be bringing something fun with them.
What is Hardcore mode in Bloons Monkey City?
Speaking of BMC updates, Hardcore Mode was introduced today. Recently we brought out an update to make the game a bit easier and less frustrating for players. Hardcore Mode was added to give a challenge to the players who liked the old difficulty.
In Hardcore Mode you get a bit less money, more bloon clusters than you can shake a stick at and tower/upgrades are a bit more expensive. Hardcore mode is optional at the start of the tile and only affects that one game.
Hardcore mode doubles the reward of City Cash, Bloonstones and even City Honor in the case of MvM attacks you take on at the higher difficulty.
It's not going to be for everyone, but give it a try on some easier tiles and you might be able to earn a little extra to fill your pockets.
And that's all folks. There appear to be some secrets going on around the office so I'm going to try find out what's happening. Leave a comment below if you've got any questions for next week and keep on being Awesome.
Aaron
anyone of you had nightmares after the go karting? :)
What about loading issues in BMC!
What might the portal artifact do? It seems to have no purpose
Are you going to introduce any achievements related to Hardcore Mode?
i like the hardcore difficulty. Great way of getting bloonstones more quickly
Man,wanted to get my hands on that sweet SAS4 poster :P
Thank you for tweaking the difficulty. I'm finally capturing tiles again without spending 100 odd bloonstones. I don't mind spending money on games i like but around $2 a tile was way too much. I was starting to think about giving up BMC. Please keep reviewing the difficulty, it should be a fun game not a frustration because you can't get a single tile around you no matter what strategy you try. Please keep up the good work and I'll keep putting money into it
Is it possible to give us info on the Portal Artifact in BMC?
Still gonna sell those posters? I want the BP one.
Y'know, I still think those posters should be given to us mods for all of our hard work. We don't get paid after all ;).