Your Game Can Change People's Lives (Even Unintentionally)

I recently received an email, directed to our company, that I feel I need to share with the world, and especially with the game development world. This email, which I was given permission to quote below, is the proof that games can truly make a difference, and I personally think that it gives our craft meaning and purpose.

Before getting into it, I should stress something; our game is not a serious game. It's not a game that tries to convey a deep message, and not a game with a moral mission. It's silly, it's fun, it's ridiculous, and it involves animals building traps for each other, jumping around levels that they've built themselves, and occasionally getting hit by crossbows and spinning saws.

I'll share with you the message, with the name switched up for anonymity:

"My husband bought Ultimate Chicken Horse at PAX East this year, and I wanted to relate to you a story about my son (Jake).

He's nine and been having a lot of trouble in school / socially because of his Aspergers / anxiety diagnoses. He has an in-home behavioral therapist (that he kind of hates) and a whole bunch of other support, but there is just something about your game that has really opened him up. He plays it with EVERYONE who comes to our house. It has allowed his therapist to reach him because they've bonded playing the game together. The neighborhood kids come over and play with him and he has really socially progressed and started to make some good connections with his peers-- all because of your game!

There is something about the mix of cooperation, building, competition, and random chance that's just reached him in a way that other games (like Minecraft) haven't. 

Anyway, I just thought you'd like to hear about the little way your game is making a big difference in Jake's life."

This. This is it. This is what gives our careers meaning. This is what proves to me that games are so much more than what the majority of the world thinks they are, and this shows that even unintentionally, games have the power to change the course of people's lives. 

I love my job, and I love coming to work every day to do what I enjoy doing. But knowing that our game can have this profound of an effect on a nine-year old boy magnifies that love and gives it meaning. I thought I'd share this tidbit with the world and I hope that you realize that games, your games (if you're in this industry), even the silly ones, can be strong agents for change.

Online Updates and Features!

This week I'd like to talk about the new stuff that we've put in Ultimate Chicken Horse, which should help make the online experience much smoother.

The first big improvement is that when a player leaves the game, it no longer kicks everyone out. Previously, even if someone (who wasn't the host) left, the game would end and you wouldn't necessarily know what happened to kick you out. 

Next, we've added the ability to mute players, and to kick them from the Treehouse lobby or from the game. This mute feature is something that people have been asking for because, as we know, online players can sometimes get a little inappropriate. 

We've also re-made sure that the animal outfits are working in the online play, which had some issues previously. Oh and we fixed the networked audio bug so that all of the character and item sounds should be properly synced. 

Beyond that, just some bug fixes that you won't necessarily notice but were definitely in need of fixing. Then, the next step is to finish fixing all of the bugs and bring the online Beta out of Beta! Looks like it's coming soon, then we can start working on some more game content. Yay!

4-Pack for Ultimate Chicken Horse NOW AVAILABLE!

It's finally here! Go go go! 4 copies of Ultimate Chicken Horse for the price of 3!

Unfortunately, Steam no longer lets people do 4-packs of games. "But what about that other cool game that just came out and has a 4-pack?? Lies!" you cry out in anger. Well, apparently, the games that were in early access or already had Steam pages before a certain time (before ours) were able to keep their bundle packs. 

But that's alright! We have the solution, and it comes in the form of the Humble Bundle store. While it's not bundled like a monthly deal, they also have a storefront where we can put our product, and they've worked with us to make a custom deal which allows us to sell 4 for the price of 3. 

So, all that to say thanks to the Humble folks and their awesome team, and now you can enjoy UCH with friends and not worry about paying full price for 4 copies!

That's all for this week, we're continuing hard work to get the Beta out of Beta and into awesome. Expect updates soon!