Dude it’s been years, where’s SHWIP??
Shwip has been in development a while now, mostly because we built it once and then rebuilt it from scratch again. We realized that the original game would have been good, but not the introduction we would have wanted. Switching engines was also due in part to our relationship with Microsoft and id@Xbox. Getting “OG Shwip” to run on the Xbox One would have been a gargantuan task of porting XNA to a modern language, and we didn’t want our first game on Xbox to be less than it could be. So we made the decision to start from scratch in Unity. Being a team of only two part-time guys, we needed that single codebase that Unity could provide, not to mention it would also allow us to launch on new platforms. Unity also allowed us to spin off the game into Shwip Turbo Thumb, our top down mobile endless shooter. It’s available on Google Play and the App store if you want to go check it out.
Jahammer in 2017
2017 was our “breakthrough” year, as we began our roll-out of Shwip to the public. We started in Toronto with the CNE Gaming Garage back in August. While incredibly fun and an awesome experience overall, it didn’t have the greatest impact to our game. We met some really great people, but ultimately – the people walking around were not as interested in gaming as we had initially hoped. Fortunately, we received a bunch of feedback from potential casual players of the game and have since implemented it.
Next, we headed to Forest City Comicon in London, Ontario for a one day event where we showcased the game to cosplayers and gaming fanatics. The con was a great success and we had a lot of new players introduced to the game. With that came a boatload of new feedback we recently implemented. Hype train in gear, we then headed to a dev only event at Raiders eSports bar – it was nuts! Met up with some folks we had met earlier in the year and had a great night of gaming and drinking. That same weekend we then headed to Extravalanza for a two day AMD sponsored ROMP.
Other than sore feet and huge smiles, we learned that our next appearance to the public would only happen after the game is released. Nothing sucks more than having someone super excited to play your game and then fall flat when you tell them it isn’t available yet. We did get an insane amount of insight into new players of our game, and we look forward to getting it to them ASAP.
Shwip will be available sometime this summer. We’re finalizing a few of the modes and will then settle on a release date for Steam. Until then, look for an update to Turbo Thumb in the next week or so! The update will introduce Minefield mode and a few awesome upgrades to Endless, and the game over all. Until next time – PEACE!
