Starship Rubicon | Cheerful Ghost

Game Dev's Quest: Cheerful Ghost, Publishing Starship Rubicon and Chasing The Next 60 Dollar Game!

I was recently a guest on Game Dev's Quest which is a local Podcast all about the process of making Indie Games and in the latest episode I talk about Cheerful Ghost and my involvement publishing Starship Rubicon. Rett, Taylor and I talk about all of that and also round things off talking about mindfulness and chasing the next $60 game. For quite some time i've been thinking about how to structure the games I pick next to play to better fit in my life and find something sustainable because it seems like every couple days a new incredibly engrossing $60 game comes out I have no time to play. I really enjoy Game Dev's Quest and if you like a couple of friends talking... Read All

scrypt Supporter wrote on 11/28/2017 at 06:23pm

Very cool! And, a new podcast to listen to :D!

I didn't realize that Scanner Sombre was done by the devs that made Prison Architect (and also Darwinia and Uplink, both of which I loved). The discussion you guys get into around this - let's call it the ethos of game development - is interesting. I feel like there is a lot to dig through there, that it might tie into the games-as-art conversation from a developer standpoint, rather than just the outsider/observational aspect that we've been discussing, and how the two co-exist.

scrypt Supporter wrote on 11/28/2017 at 11:38pm

There was also a little bit at the end about cleaning out your digital items, and someone said something to the effect that you couldn't get rid of your games on Steam, even if you wanted to. Maybe some aren't aware, but you can permanently remove games from your library, via the Support system. If you don't want to go that far, you can also simply hide the game from showing up in your library by simply right-clicking the game icon, selecting "Set Categories..." and ticking the box that says "Hide this game in my library."

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 11/29/2017 at 02:53am

Yeah I did know that and i've hidden some Steam games, but not many. I'm trying to not add to many to the mix i'll never play, which is a start but it's a really intimidating pile at ... checks Steam ... 365 games

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 11/29/2017 at 02:54am

The discussion in the Podcast is also part of a larger thing where i'm coming up with some goals for 2018 and i'm still refining them but one I keep coming back to is putting a hard limit on my video game purchases for the year. My thinking is that it will mean i'm more mindful about what I buy and having to make time to make it part of my life or just not buy it.

scrypt Supporter wrote on 11/29/2017 at 07:24pm

Part of the sacrifice of having a family!

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 11/29/2017 at 08:09pm

Yeah the parameters of what I can do has changed a lot

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Steam Developer Days Day II - A Wrap Up To A Great Conference

Even though i'm more than a couple days late to writing about the second day of Steam Developer Days I wanted to get out my thoughts while they are still nearly fresh in my mind. Spoiler alert, day two was incredible but the drive home from Seattle to Portland that night was precarious as I had to navigate the freak storm that occurred as some remnants of Typhoon Songda hit the west coast. I feel bad for my steering wheel as my clenched fingers strangled it for many tense driving moments but the wheel and I made it home safely.

One of the most interesting parts of the second devs days was Mike Ambinder's talk on The Psychology Of Games. When the talks are released from... Read All Even though i'm more than a couple days late to writing about the second day of Steam Developer Days I wanted to get out my thoughts while they are still nearly fresh in my mind. Spoiler alert, day two was incredible but the drive home from Seattle to Portland that night was precarious as I had to navigate the freak storm that occurred as some remnants of Typhoon Songda hit the west coast. I feel bad for my steering wheel as my clenched fingers strangled it for many tense driving moments but the wheel and I made it home safely.

One of the most interesting parts of the second devs days was Mike Ambinder's talk on The Psychology Of Games. When the talks are released from Steam Developer Days I plan on featuring the talk in a post for people to watch and talk more about it. There were many standout parts to Mike's talk but the thing I thought about was how Developer choice can effect player preference. Mike also talked about cognitive dissonance and how they used that to change toxic behavior in DoTA 2. His talk also featured the hilarious picture of him and Gabe embedded above and I want to thank Mike letting me use the image in this blog post.

Another interesting talk was by Ronimo Games(the creators of Awesomenauts) about games as a service. Traditionally a game was released as a physical product and after the initial wave of sales you were done with it. You'd maybe drop a patch or two and sometimes an expansion but for the most part, after launch, developers and companies were done with the game. Ronimo takes a different approach to this with Awesomenauts as they are always releasing content in the form of game patches, heroes, skins and expansions. They've been utilizing the games as a service model since 2012 and it seems to have served them and the fans of the game well. Fans get more of what they love and Ronimo can keep the studio lights on. I found a few things out in this talk in that when players buy Awesomenauts skins one reason they often do that is to support the developers. Players see it more as a patronage of the company and want to support them as a studio. Ronimo also was straight up honest that they held back some content at launch so they could focus on post release promises and be able to fund fixing bugs. Usually companies are not transparent about this but Ronimo was pretty straight forward about the costs of running a studio and being able to keep post release commitments by having the work done in advance.

If I had one suggestion for next years Steam Developer Days it is that I would focus on more advanced topics. It's good to cover things from a beginner level but I wasn't finding each talk to be as meaty or topical as i'd of liked. The talks I highlighted in my two posts were superb but not every talk was as deep as i'd have wanted. That said, I loved that Steam Developer Days was only two days as i've had a rough time when conferences overstay their welcome. All that said, I really enjoyed this years Steam Developer Days and can't wait to head back when Valve does it again in 2018.

If you want to read up on my thoughts on the first day of the conference hit the link below

http://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/3127/steam-developer-days-day-1-vr-is-all-around-you

Steam Developer Days Day 1 - VR Is All Around You

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In 2014 Cheerful Ghost published it's first game Starship Rubicon, an asteroids-esque rogue lite. Working with Wick to take his game to a wider audience was a really fun experience and along the way we hit some fun milestones like releasing the game on Windows, Mac and Linux on Steam. Because of that Cheerful Ghost was asked to attend this years Steam Developer Days and we happily signed up. I wasn't sure what to expect but I figured we'd learn more about what Valve was up to and maybe play some fun games along the way.

It's All About VR Baby!

It might not be too surprising that Valve is focusing heavily on VR and the Vive. The main social area here at Steam Developer... Read All

Starship Rubicon And The Holiday Of Green!

Greetings lovers of the Irish and all things green! If Warwick Davis’s Leprechaun taught us anything is that you don’t get between the little green people and a pot of gold or gamers and great gaming deal. So keeping in Saint Patrick's Day Holiday season we are marking Starship Rubicon to 60% off! WHAT? THAT’S SO CRAZY! The luck of the Irish won’t be with you forever as this sale packs up and walks back over the Rainbow Monday March 21st.

And really, what were you going to spend your money on anyway? You can only buy so much beer dyed color green anyway. We're not saying don’t buy a ton of green beer but buy a ton of green beer AND Starship Rubicon too!

... Read All

The Best Gift Of All - The Starship Rubicon Demo For The Holidays

After a string of summer events showing Starship Rubicon, winter approaches, and as such comes the incredible march of the holiday sales. Starship Rubicon will join the legions of games on sale and we want to give people an extra incentive to buy the game at its super discounted rate so today we are launching a demo. If you haven’t tried Rubicon and have always wanted to this is your chance! As everything awesome in the PC space the Starship Rubicon demo runs on PC, Mac and Linux and contains a tasty slice of the actual game in 3 playable ships and the entirety of level Sol level 2. As with most demos we keep some of the great stuff for the full meal deal but we think... Read All

Update: 2.13! -- Boss tweaks, larger dialogue, technical fixes.

After showing at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo, it became apparent that some of the bosses (I'm looking at you, Dodongo) still had a couple bugs. I took the opportunity to wrap those tweaks up with the bugfixes that I've done since Steamlaunch into a new patch.

I haven't done a boatload of testing with this version, but how bad could it be? You can opt into the "stable" branch if you would like to roll back to 2.12 for whatever reason.

I would like to hear what people think! Probably the most visible change is the doubling of the dialogue + portrait boxes. It was a little jarring for me, but there were enough people that couldn't read the text that I decided it... Read All

Portland Retro Game Expo 2015

I want to thank everyone that came to our booth at this years Portland Retro Game Expo. Wick and I enjoyed talking with people about the game and seeing what cool stuff people picked up. I also want to applaud the 6 winners of our ranked ladder, some of those scores were no small feat!

Portland Retro Game Expo is my favorite convention of the year because the community and vendors are so much fun. This year I came to the expo with a goal. Replace my broken Gameboy. Beforehand I made the choice to buy a Gameboy Advance SP as it plays original Gameboy games as well as advance games. The backlit display and nicer form factor make the Advance SP a much better Gameboy and... Read All

Cheerful Ghost & Starship Rubicon Will Be At Portland Retro Gaming Expo 2015!

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Hey Everyone,

Cheerful Ghost & Starship Rubicon will have a booth at this years Portland Retro Gaming Expo. This Expo looks blow the doors off the last one with over three thousand tickets already sold! They plan on even more people attended so if you want to lock in your ticket, click the link below. Wick and I have our new booth ready to go and are excited to have people check it out. We are also having a daily Starship Rubicon ranked ladder where the top 3 scored players will win a free copy of the game! So stop by, play the game to get ranked, grab a free sticker and remember that Wick loves selfies so make sure to ask him to take as many with him as you can!

I... Read All

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 10/16/2015 at 03:36am

My daughters and I will be there Saturday! It's always a fun time :)

hellasad wrote on 10/18/2015 at 02:27am

hopefully im still first

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 10/18/2015 at 02:31am

Hey hella. Wick is going to send out the keys tonight for the winners soon, hopefully. And yeah, you got second place congrats!

Kuta wrote on 10/18/2015 at 07:20pm

I wish I was able to come today, too. You guys were hella cool.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 10/19/2015 at 03:30pm

Thanks for stopping by the booth Kuta. Wick and I had a really good time.

hellasad wrote on 10/20/2015 at 03:02am

no key yet but I beat the game had thing were cry pods were gone so hordes of them kept coming so I ram and ram lol 4k gems and then coasted thru rest of match

hellasad wrote on 10/20/2015 at 03:05am

nvm found it cant wait to get it to a friend

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Come Hear Our Starship Rubicon Talk And See Our Booth At This Years IndieGame Con

Greetings human. Wick and I will be giving a co-talk at this years Eugene IndieGame Con about Starship Rubicon from it's early stages to eventual Steam launch. We talk about the games humble beginnings, Kickstarter and also discuss the age old question "why make another indie game?" Spoiler alert, we ain't rich but we can hopefully convince you we had fun and learned... something. Oh and come by and check out our all new Cheerful Ghost / Starship Rubicon booth. We will have some surprises for people so come check it out.

IndieGame Con is happening October 2nd-3rd and we will be boothing and give our talk October 3rd. For more information about IndieGame con, ticket... Read All

Starship Rubicon Review

Azurephile gives this a solid "Rad" on the Ghost Scale

This is fun, with very few issues, and is well worth your time.

Azurephile gives this a "Rad" on the Ghost Scale

This is fun, with very few issues, and is well worth your time.

Review

Recommended :1:

Fun, retro-looking, good controls, similar to Asteroids

Pros: Fun, retro, great control scheme (and in-game reminders of how to control your ship).

Cons: I can't really think of any. The game's difficulty could go here, but it's not horrible. Many improvements have been made over the course of development to ease the game's difficulty.

Tips: Collect as many blue orbs as you can, they are currency. Repair ship in-between battles

Synopsis: Starship Rubicon is a fun and challenging game, which was inspired by Asteroids. This takes many players back to their childhood playing classic games, something that's missing from many modern day games. However,... Read All