The MGC Times

December 2011 Newsletter

Dear customers and fans,

For those of you living in the U.S., I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving holiday. I spent the week visiting my parents in Florida. I've also been reflecting on everything I'm thankful for: my wife, my health, my job (I get to do something I love - making games), and of course, my customers, fans, and newsletter subscribers.

As we look now toward Christmas, I want to remind you once again of the gifting option that is available in my new shopping cart that is powered by BMT Micro. Games make great gifts for family and friends, and I could really use the extra sales! After you click on the Buy button for one of my games and are taken to the order page, just click the little gift icon and you'll be given a place where you can enter the e-mail address for the person you want to send your gift to.

Enjoy the holidays!

- Troy Hepfner

Vote for Dirk Dashing 2!

I need your votes to help Dirk Dashing 2 get into IndieDB's Top 100 games, so it can qualify for their 2011 Indie of the Year Award. Please click on the link below and vote now!

You can also help by asking all of your family and friends to vote. Post it on your Facebook page, tweet it on Twitter, share it in your blog or in various forums where you hang out, etc! Do whatever you can to help spread the word. I can't get into the Top 100 without your help!

2011 Indie of the Year Awards via Indie DB

Dirk Dashing 2 Production Update

I'm very close to finishing the levels for Part 3 of the story, which I've titled "The Sinister Skyscraper". Six of the eight levels are done. All I have left to do are the boss battle for Chapter 3-7 and the secret level, Chapter 3-X.

Customers who have pre-ordered the game will be happy to know that the new levels will be available in v0.7, which I plan to release by December 16. The update will also include some new music (most notably a new jazz piece for the party in Chapter 2-2), a new ambient loop for labs and computer rooms (which you will hear for example in Chapter 1-5), and several bug fixes for issues with movable boxes and guards that walk through alarm lasers. Here's a little teaser for you from one of the new levels:

Dirk has a new gadget for Part 3: a pair of night vision goggles that allow him to see in the dark. This further enhances his stealth abilities because Dirk's enemies cannot see him if he turns out the lights. In fact, they won't move because they can't see where they would be going. This gives Dirk a distinct tactical advantage. Enemies can still hear Dirk, and on the hard skill level, the guards will shoot at anything they hear in the dark that they can't see. But Dirk can turn out the lights, equip a set of night vision goggles, and easily tip-toe past them or knock them out. This will be very helpful for dealing with more powerful enemies like Bombshelle or the Ninja.

The night vision goggles don't work yet with the existing Part 1 and Part 2 levels. At some point I will need to retrofit those levels so you can use the night vision goggles when you replay them. But since that will require changing the save game format for those levels, I'm going to hold off for now. I'm sure I'll have more retrofitting to do before the game is done, so I'll save all those updates until the end.

I was planning to include a new weapon for Dirk in v0.7; however, I need more time to implement it. It has turned out to be more work than I had thought. So it won't be available in this update. I don't want to keep pre-order customers waiting any longer for the new levels.

Stay tuned!

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