Hello pinball fans!

Over the past year or so, Steve and I have been working on an entirely new game that has nothing to do with pinball! It's called HexiHashi, and it's an abstract puzzle game about connecting nodes with bridges. Steve wrote the most amazing piano score for it, check out the trailer below for a sample. We even did that thing the new Mario game did, where the sound effects harmonize to the background music. Overall, I personally think it's a much better game than SSP2D, due in no small part to all the lessons learned.

I'd also like to express some appreciation for all the people who have enjoyed SSP2D. This was my first commercially released project, and I've learned a heck of a lot from you guys over this journey (like how next time I make a game using keyboard controls I should do it in such a way that I can easily integrate keyboard remapping...) You guys rock.

Here's the trailer!
So yeah, I guess I've exposed myself as not being a hardcore steampunk guy, but you probably already knew that. The game is planned for a Jan 19th launch, but if you wouldn't mind taking a look at the store page and maybe wish-listing if it looks appealing it would shine some sunlight into a poor solo developer's heart. How high traffic peaks on launch day really has a strong effect on the recommendation algorithm. If I write any more it'll sound like begging so I'll leave it here.


Happy 2021 everyone!

NCC Moore

Hi Everyone, here are the results of the December contest!

1. Major_Melon - 98,730,973
   
2. Gormandizer - 20,371,832
   
3. SVW1899 - 16,188,718
   
4. Zotmeister - 14,463,886
   
5. Sakurazaki - 7,340,691

I will be running down the list and trying to friend people to be able to chat with them, so if you are on the list, please accept any friend request from me you may receive if you want your prize!

Thanks again to all who participated!

NCC Moore

Merry Christmas Everyone! The December contest begins today!!

• The contest begins Dec 20th!
  
• The contest ends at Midnight on Boxing Day (EST).
  
• Whichever player manages to get the Highest Score during this period of time will receive a FABULOUS PRIZE with NO CASH VALUE!!!
  
• There will be a new and independent leaderboard set up specifically for this contest, so that everyone can keep track of their progress!
  
• After the contest is over, I will attempt to reach the winner through Steam, but if I can't get in contact with the winner within a few days, I will go for the next runner up, etc.
  
• People who have already received a contest prize are not eligible to receive further prizes! They are still welcome to participate, but I'm going to select the best player who hasn't already won. This keeps it more interesting for everyone!

The winner will get a custom ball skin designed for them by me that will be included in the game for all time!

• This basically means I will draw a picture, put it in the game, and you will be able to play with this picture as the ball.
  
• The skin will be accessible in-game by means of cheat code from the title screen.
  
• The picture can be of whatever you like, so long as it's not explicit or overly violent or drug-related, or anything like that. Basically, I reserve the right to say "can you think of something else you'd like maybe?"
  
• Other people's copyrighted images are out as well.
  
• This image will be an image, not an animation.
  
• The prize ball will not have any associated field effects. Unless I really like the idea and want to integrate the ball into the game and add the ball to the regular roster. In order for that to happen, though, the ball has to fit the overall steampunk theme, and it will take a bit longer ;-)

Before attempting the contest, please make sure you have the most up-to-date version of the game, or else your score probably won't be recorded!

NCC Moore

Hi all! Long time no see!

This update is a quick one, because something really cool has happened! Steve has been inspired to continue writing music for the game, so we have a new track! In addition to adding it to the OST, the new track has been set to the background music for the main board while playing with the stopwatch ball. I think he's really outdone himself with this one, so please have a listen!

Further to that, some really interesting things have been happening behind the scenes, and while I can't talk about it just yet, I will say that I'll be starting contests back up again some time in December!

In addition, this update represent several updates to the Unity engine, so fingers crossed that this might solve some of the ongoing Linux issues! Please leave me comments here or on the forum if this fixed it.

And no, I haven't forgotten about the stuff for the next patch!


NCC Moore

Greetings Pinball Maniacs!

It's been a while! I'd like to share some news about how the game is doing, things that have been going with me, and various other items of note.

So, we did pretty well on the summer sale (relative to how things have been going so far). We sold about 50 units, which is a nice little bump to our numbers, but something far more interesting happened as a result of that bump. SSP2D managed to accumulate enough user reviews to go from an "unreviewed" game to a reviewed game! This is actually a major turning point! The result of getting our thumbs-up icon is that SSP2D appears on the first page of results when steam users search "pinball," and we even show up reasonably close to the top! I really expected sales to dry up completely after the summer sale (they usually do after a big sale, right?), but they haven't been holding this steady since the launch window! The fact that SSP2D undercuts pretty much every game in it's new bracket probably helps.

At any rate, I really wanted to sincerely thank all of the players who thought my game was good enough to upvote. A lot of you wrote very in-depth reviews that were extremely complimentary, and I'm grateful. We did it! We pushed through and broke the threshold!

My hope throughout this crazy journey has been that if you offer a high-quality software product at a good price, it should be possible to be sucessful in a marketplace like Steam. Well... so far so good!

So, I know it's been a few months now since I released a patch or anything, and the status of the contests has been somewhat ambiguous. A lot of things have been happening in my life lately which have definitely cut in to my SSP2D time. My doctoral thesis is really ramping up right now, and I recently became engaged to be married... things have been pretty busy! I will definitely be able to release more patches and updates once things settle down a bit, but in the mean time, I beg your indulgence, gentle player.

I am working on a patch right now for the following items:

• A "Save and Quit" system
  
• Triggers as well as bumpers work for the flippers

If anybody has any other ideas for patch items, please leave me a comment here or on the forum.

Anyway, thanks again to everyone! You guys are what make this possible

( ^_^)-b

NCC Moore

Hello everyone!
So here are the results of the May contest!

1. Major_Melon -- 11
   
2. sroger -- 5
   
3. AnthonyCZ95 -- 4
   
4. kbean -- 3
   
5. vinny21 -- 2
   
6. WearyAmoeba -- 2
   
   The highest scoring player that hasn't yet won the contest is kbean! Congratulations!
   
   I've been trying to get in contact with the winner for a little while, and I fear they may be unresponsive. If that's the case, I will award the prize to whichever of the people who tied for 5th & 6th place I can get ahold of first (possibly both of them, we'll see...)
   
   Thanks to everybody who participated!
   
   NCC Moore

Felicitations Malfactors! The May contest begins today!!

• The contest begins at 5pm Today! (EST).
  
• The contest ends at Midnight this Sunday (EST).
  
• Whichever player manages to get the MOST TURBO LOOP SPINS during this period of time will receive a FABULOUS PRIZE with NO CASH VALUE!!!
  
• There will be a new and independent leaderboard set up specifically for this contest, so that everyone can keep track of their progress!
  
• After the contest is over, I will attempt to reach the winner through Steam, but if I can't get in contact with the winner within a week or so, I will go for the next runner up, etc.
  
• People who have already received a contest prize are not eligible to receive further prizes! They are still welcome to participate, but I'm going to select the best player who hasn't already won. This keeps it more interesting for everyone!

The winner will get a custom ball skin designed for them by me that will be included in the game for all time!

• This basically means I will draw a picture, put it in the game, and you will be able to play with this picture as the ball.
  
• The skin will be accessible in-game by means of cheat code from the title screen.
  
• The picture can be of whatever you like, so long as it's not explicit or overly violent or drug-related, or anything like that. Basically, I reserve the right to say "can you think of something else you'd like maybe?"
  
• This image will be an image, not an animation.
  
• The prize ball will not have any associated field effects. Unless I really like the idea and want to integrate the ball into the game and add the ball to the regular roster. In order for that to happen, though, the ball has to fit the overall steampunk theme.

Before attempting the contest, please make sure you have the most up-to-date version of the game, or else your score probably won't be recorded!

And a quick note to all my hard-core pinball fans out there, I'm sorry the patches haven't been coming as frequently this month. Truthfully, I've had my plate full with all kinds of trying-to-get-my-thesis-done-so-I-graduate-this-decade type stuff. I also really want to get a website up and running for Devonian, but I've also been super busy with end-of-term stuff and getting my marks in and all that jazz... At any rate, I wish to beg your indulgence...

NCC Moore

Hi all! Another Friday, another Patch!

But first! Contest Results!

Our top 5 for the contest were as follows:

1. Major_Melon --- 149,812,121
   
2. sroger --- 9,713,803
   
3. ==> AnthonyCZ95 --- 883,638 <==
   
4. joan --- 184,200
   
5. MinusBrain --- 125,008

Once again, an excellent showing from everyone! The highest scoring player who hasn't already won a prize is AnthonyCZ95! Congratulations! Your prize has been included in this very patch!

PATCH NOTES:

• Extended cannon colliders slightly to prevent ball from slipping underneath and to its doom.
  
• Extra ball conditions are now reset after every game (no idea how I missed that... ːsteamfacepalmː )
  
• Ball shrapnel has been set to a separate collision layer to the ball, so it is (theoretically) no longer possible for the ball to get caught on shrapnel and prevent the end of a round. In my opinion, the effect has been to make the shrapnel effect a bit more sparse, but a bonus effect is that the time between losing the ball and ending the round has been decreased as a consequence, so that might be a good thing.
  
• Things have been set up for the May contest, code-wise. I will of course post an announcement about all that closer to the date.
  
• AnthonyCZ95's reward has been added to the game! It will of course be up to him if he wants to share his code on the discussion board.

Stuff for the future:

• Save & Quit / Continue feature
  
• Control remapping (no, I haven't forgotten about that!)
  
• Maybe I might finally get around to some localizations!

Miscellaneous State-of-the-Enterprise Notes:

• I thought I'd share some good news. I was looking through the game's sales statistics, and apparently we're doing quite well on our wishlist conversion rate! (That's the percentage of people who actually buy the game after having wishlisted it). We're beating the average conversion rate by almost double!
  
• Generally speaking, I've been pretty happy with the sales numbers, even though any "real" game studio would consider our numbers a collosal failure. We're three months out from release and the game is still being bought and played (even without the current sale), and that's more than can be said for a lot of projects that just sort of fade into irrelevancy quite quickly. So thanks for playing! Steve and I have really been overwhelmed by the positive response.
  
• In related news, the game has still not acquired enough user reviews to have an official steam rating. I know there's no particular reason for you guys to care about that sort of thing, but if you think it would be cool if the game were more popular, you could do me a solid and give the game a review! For those of you who've done this already, ten thousand thank-yous! It actually, really helps.

Thanks again to everyone!


NCC Moore

Greetings vertebrates! The April contest begins THIS VERY EVENING!

• The contest begins at 5pm Today! (EST).
  
• The contest ends at Midnight this Sunday (EST).
  
• Whichever player manages to get the HIGHEST SCORE IN ONE GAME during this period of time will receive a FABULOUS PRIZE with NO CASH VALUE!!!
  
• There will be a new and independent leaderboard set up specifically for this contest, so that everyone can keep track of their progress!
  
• After the contest is over, I will attempt to reach the winner through Steam, but if I can't get in contact with the winner within a week or so, I will go for the next runner up, etc.
  
• People who have already received a contest prize are not eligible to receive further prizes! They are still welcome to participate, but I'm going to select the best player who hasn't already won. This keeps it more interesting for everyone!

The winner will get a custom ball skin designed for them by me that will be included in the game for all time!

• This basically means I will draw a picture, put it in the game, and you will be able to play with this picture as the ball.
  
• The skin will be accessible in-game by means of cheat code from the title screen.
  
• The picture can be of whatever you like, so long as it's not explicit or overly violent or drug-related, or anything like that. Basically, I reserve the right to say "can you think of something else you'd like maybe?"
  
• This image will be an image, not an animation.
  
• The prize ball will not have any associated field effects. Unless I really like the idea and want to integrate the ball into the game and add the ball to the regular roster. In order for that to happen, though, the ball has to fit the overall steampunk theme.

Before attempting the contest, please make sure you have the most up-to-date version of the game, or else your score probably won't be recorded! Which would be a shame!

HAVE FUN GUYZ!!!