Because We May

A lot of games are going on sale at the end of March as part of the Because We May promotion, including Zombie Minesweeper: A Love Story.

Starting on May 24th, you can grab Zombie Minesweeper: A Love Story for 75% off.  But don't stop there -- there are tons of great games going on sale.  Check them all out at BecauseWeMay.com.

Love Without Loss: Only from Frogtoss Games

For the first time, you can experience the joy of Love… without chance of loss!  That's right, we released a Lite version of Zombie Minesweeer: A Love Story on iTunes today.

This got us so fired up that we actually released 1.6 for all of our paying customers while we were fixing stuff up.  What's new? Well, we know you'll love our new icon… and as for the behind the scene changes: you'll have to take our word that they are great!  In all seriousness, we made sure the game you purchased gels well with iOS 5 which you all have by now.

If you haven't checked the game out in awhile, you really should.  Randomly generated levels kept it fresh while we were testing it.  It'll be fresh for you, too.

Signed,

The snail in level 3

Zombie Minesweeper 1.5 is Released!

Alright! We've just put out the first patch for Zombie Minesweeper, and it solves a host of the issues that people were having problems with!

Stability!

We've further reduced the memory usage of the game, and changed the way the initial launch works. This should drastically reduce the number of crashes encountered! As well, several specific crash bugs have been located and eliminated!

Score!

Game Center has been fully integrated thanks to the great tools in OpenFeint. But what's the point of having Game Center and OpenFeint without leaderboards!? We've improved the visibility of the scoring system within the game: now your top score for each level is saved, along with your cumulative score for the whole game. These numbers are pushed to leaderboards so it's easier to see how you are progressing in the game!

Touch!

We've addressed a number of interface issues as well! The tiles are now about 25% larger when playing on a small screen (iPhone or iTouch), which should greatly increase tapping accuracy. As well, there is now an option to put the interface on the right-hand side of the screen, if that's what you're in to.

There have also been a number of other small fixes and improvements behind the scenes, but I won't bore you with the details. Hop on over to the app store and update the game, or buy it if you haven't already; it's awesome and getting better!

First Week Review Roundup

It's been a week since Zombie Minesweeper launched in the App Store! We've had absolutely awesome feedback so far, a huge thanks to everyone who has comment on the game!

Reviews

AppAdvice: "This is my kind of love story. Mainly because there are zombies. And explosions."

iFanzine: (4.5/5) "The threat of moving enemies really ups the ante on ye olde Minesweeperformula; stir in Frogtoss Games’ macabre sense of humor and you’ve got a product that’s ripe for a cult following among casual and hardcore gamers alike."

DaxGamer: "It brought back memories of playing the classic Minesweeper while managing to give to give players a really well done update."

Clearance Bin Review: (7.5/10) "Overall, Zombie minesweeper was lots of fun. It’s not the type of game you’ll find yourself staying up late playing, telling yourself “just one more level” but it is a game that will keep you entertained throughout the entire experience."

Gamezebo: (4.5/5) "Zombie Minesweeper is one of those games that sounds like it might be stupid but winds up being stupidly fun. It's adorable and strange and just violent enough to be goofily awesome."

Touch Arcade: "There's something special in the combination of zombies and minefields. This top-down action puzzler puts the two together to explosive effect."

Video Sightings

GameSideStory, GameTrailers.com, GameCola, Indie Games Blog

Why Zombies? -- Big Decisions in Design

The Zombie Minesweeper trailer was recently featured on IndieGames.com. What an extremely proud moment! Getting posted there has been one of the little tick-boxes on my list of 'things to do before I'm a real indie.'

However, there was a fairly strong sentiment running through the comments:

"Bleh.... zombies." ~Briker Ed

Zombies are a funny theme: They've been going strong for a long time, and regardless of how much fatigue players express, developers keep making these games, and players keep buying them! But that's no excuse for us to jump on the bandwagon and pump out 'yet another zombie game'. No, in fact our choice of zombies was fairly carefully considered, and it's just our burden that we have to push past all the 'me too' zombie games out there.

So why zombies?

The first thing was that, making Minesweeper, we wanted some kind of slow, clueless enemy. This would allow us to keep it a puzzle game where the enemies are there to add pressure, rather than having fast, smart enemies, which would have turned it in to more of an action game. We thought of a few different kinds of enemies, and zombies just seemed the most 'right'.

The second was that land mines are kind of a touchy subject, so we wanted an enemy that would be 'okay' to blow to bits. Again, there were a lot of possibilities, but zombies seemed to strike the right balance between 'okay to destroy' and 'make a big mess when you destroy them'.

We did try to inject our own flavour in to it though by making the zombies cute animals, and even plants (cue zombie mushroom). Although there are probably other games that have done this (there are a LOT of zombie games. ;) ), we felt that at least that was an aspect of zombies that hadn't been done to death.

But here is, I think, the most important part: We decided that we wanted zombies, and we threw ourselves into it fully. We considered the ramifications and alternatives, put our own style on it, and ensure that it was made to the highest quality. It's important to never get caught in the flow and do something without intention. Make a choice! Even if it's the wrong choice, being conscious of the decision allows you to evaluate the outcome and make better choices in the future. This is the only way to improve and be happy with what you've created!

 - Graham Jans