Nitrome News

99% Done and BIG News Tomorrow!

Mon, 13 May 2013 17:31:05 BST

We are still busy working away on Icebreaker! Despite the silence there have been 6 of the Nitrome crew busy on the game for quite some time and were making great progress! The game is just about complete now and to show just how close to complete we are we have upped the percentage bar to 99%!

Why is it not finished already? Well mainly it is just a lot of work to make such a huge game...it has just shy of 100 levels and they are packed with story secrets and variety!

There is also another reason however...something that has been going on behind the scenes since the beginning of this year...a secret! Woooo! We're going to be revealing just what that secret is TOMORROW and we hope it will surprise and excite a lot of you when we explain just what it means to Icebreaker! Keep checking this page for the news which will be coming alongside a big Icebreaker site overhaul and a new video! We also have tons of other bits and bobs written up now to be posted between now and the games release so get ready for an Icebreaker news overload!

Icebreaker Dev Diary 4: Click Here!

Test Subject Complete: Updated

Mon, 13 May 2013 15:00:57 BST

Hello all,

We have uploaded a new version of Test Subject Complete. We done a few bug fixes, they are as follows:

More robust reset functionality. – The “R” key for resetting the level had a few bugs depending on when it was pressed. These issues have now been resolved.

Invisible steps! – They are no more!!! If you don’t know about them, then don’t worry! ;0)

Laser sound loop issues. – Again this was related to the reset functionality, this should be no more.

Thank you all for giving us your feedback, especially the guys and gals that do nitrome.wikia.com

We hope you have all enjoyed playing Test Subject Complete, and if you’ve not tried it yet… why not?! Get your gaming head on and head over to the Test Subject Complete game page!

Test Subject Complete: Click Here!

Take care all!

Upcoming Accounts

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 15:05:56 GMT

Hi Nitromians,

It's been a while since we spoke about the accounts, so today I thought that we’d take a little peak at the progress made so far.

Registration

Upon launch, there will be multiple methods open to you from which you will be able to create a Nitrome account.

You will either be able create a Nitrome account from the registration page, or you will be able register with an existing Facebook account.

The second option will be great fun for people that want to enjoy that social network experience, like letting people know about the games you are playing or bragging about scores or new badges you've earned, we'll talk about badges a little bit later.

If you decide that you want to connect your Facebook account to your Nitrome account after registration, the option will be there for you to do that (there is also a shiny badge for connecting your Facebook account to a Nitrome account).

When accounts launch, we will be looking out for any bugs that we were unaware of during the development phase and ironing them out. The reason this is not as feasible in the development process is due to the high traffic / load that we would need the accounts system to experience and the different user scenarios that occur. There are many linear methods that can aid us in stress testing and unit testing the accounts, but we all know that nothing can emulate that human behaviour quite like you can! So you could say that, technically, accounts will be in beta when we launch them and the Nitrome community will be the account stress testers!

We have carried out some preliminary testing to make sure that any issues that can be found at this early stage are dealt with and the system will be monitored after launch to seek out any hiccups that may arise from then onwards.

Let’s talk about the badges, what are they exactly?

Badges are cool new unlockables which will be introduced alongside accounts at launch. You can earn badges by performing actions that are not necessarily linked to the games themselves. This could be things you do around the site, like commenting, private messaging, unlocking new avatars, reporting abuse etc. We thought we would keep them separate from any game specific achievements that will be introduced after accounts launch and things are all running along smoothly.

Upon launch, we will have included a light content moderation system which will try and help us keep the site as clean as possible. The moderation system may need the help of a few good Nitromians to start with, and by this we mean reporting any bad behaviour. Remember, this is going to be a community and we want you all to take pride in it and be apart of it. You will also be able to earn the reporting badges if a user you've reported is dealt with by an admin.

A typical scenario.

Let’s say that a rogue user decides to spam in the comments of a game or blog post to achieve badges quickly, what can you do about it?

Well, if you are one of the people that report them, you will be rewarded with a report badge for your community support effort and we will remove the badges from the offending user, possibly even removing their account if they persist. So in essence, you get something - the community gets something and everyone’s happy.

Features to expect at launch

Facebook account integration
Badges
Notifications
Commenting
Reporting
Friending
Private Messaging
Personal 'hearted games'
Avatars
Unlockable Avatars

Features to come after initial launch

Things we will be working towards, once the accounts are considered stable, are game saves and achievements.

Game saving is something we know you all want and we know why it’s so sought after. We’ve had plenty of emails that come through regarding saved games being lost from computers.

There are two main reasons for this:

Local Shared Object (LSO) files size limits
Some browsers mark the LSO content to be deleted along with your browser history.

This is something that a cloud saving system could help us fix for you all so it is on our road map.

Game saves and achievements will be coming after launch as they need to be fitted into every game that will support them. This means actively going through our games catalogue to retrofit them with this new functionality.

Profile Page Screenshot: Click Here!

We are getting very close to launching accounts now. We hope you are all as excited as we are!

News Feed Fixed

Fri, 04 Jan 2013 16:23:36 GMT

We've recently fixed an issue with our news feed. If you are using an RSS reader, you may notice some new unread entries appear. These are the missing blog entries since the site was updated.

So you will now be able to carry on reading the latest Nitrome news from your favourite RSS reader!

News Feed: Click Here!
Games Feed: Click Here!

Back with game fixes!

Thu, 03 Jan 2013 14:59:20 GMT

Hey Nitromians,

Nitrome is back... and you may be pleased to hear that our xmas treat Bad Ice-Cream 2 has been fixed and uploaded for you to complete.

Bug fixes include:

Level 34 - fixed major freezing bug.
Instructional panel - Now shows up the correct info for the Frost tiles level.
Highscores text - There was a bug which deleted your name when longer than a certain length. This issue has now been resolved.
The 'R' key can now be pressed to restart the level...neat.

For all you loyal touchy subscribers
We are working on finishing a 4 player Touchy implementation right now so that shouldn't be too far off. We will post an update as soon as it has been uploaded.

Play Bad Ice-Cream 2: Click Here!

Thanks for all of the helpful feedback. Enjoy ;0)

Swindler 2 Touchy Demo

Thu, 20 Dec 2012 17:57:28 GMT

Being that it's almost Christmas we have a festive treat for you.

If you update your Touchy app, we have added the ability to support demos within the Touchy ecosystem. The first game to support this feature is the most recent Touchy released game Swindler 2.

Go try it, like it, and if you do, please upgrade!

Nitrome Touchy gets an update!

Wed, 19 Dec 2012 17:58:15 GMT

Hey there! Our Nitrome Touchy app has been updated for both iOS and Android!

Due to popular demand you can now play Swindler for free! We hope you enjoy playing Swindler with Touchy and decide to upgrade to the full unlocked version.

Happy gaming!

New Site Layout

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 05:00:00 GMT

Hey Nitromians,

Some of you may have noticed a snazzy new layout of the Nitrome site. We are currently undergoing a transitional phase over the coming months to make the site even more awesome.And before you ask, 'yes' this means accounts are in the works...;)

If you could all report any bugs, games not working and general out of the ordinary activity then it would help this process run smoothly.

Send you findings to:
support@nitrome.com
bugs@nitrome.com

Or just drop us a message on Facebook thanks =0)

Nitrome Fullscreen ????

Fri, 26 Oct 2012 05:00:00 BST

Did we forget to mention that you can play Full screen on the Nitrome site with our soon to be released Touchy App?

Nitrome Fullscreen: Click Here!

Have a great weekend ;)

Calamari Loading Fixed!

Thu, 06 Sep 2012 05:00:00 BST

Hi Nitromians!

We have been busy looking at fixing bugs with our latest release Calamari.

We noticed that some of the people on Facebook were experiencing issues with the game not loading when played on our site.

We have now fixed this. The same bug appeared in Super Snotput.

This means you should all now be able to play the games from our site!

Play Calamari: Click Here!

Thanks for reporting the bug. Happy gaming everyone! :)

Icon Game tweaks

Fri, 24 Aug 2012 05:00:00 BST

Hey Nitromians,

We have made a few little/big tweaks to our icon games to make your gaming experience that bit more enjoyable.

You now have the option to scale the game between 10 different sizes for optimum viewing. There is also an all new handy level select, so that you can replay your favourite levels to your heart’s content.

Play Gunbrick: Click Here!
Play J-J-Jump: Click Here!

Happy gaming =0)

Updated Ice Breaker FAQs

Tue, 14 Aug 2012 05:00:00 BST

Hi Nitromians,

We thought that we'd let you know that we have just updated the Ice Breaker iOS FAQs to get some more relevant questions answered for you all.

Feel free to ask more questions about the upcoming game, and we'll try our best to answer them!

Ice Breaker iOS Page: Click Here!

Super Snotput Fixed!

Wed, 13 Jun 2012 05:00:00 BST

Hi Nitromians!

You should all now be able to play our latest social offering Super Snotput!

The reason we delayed the launch of Super Snotput was due to SSL Certificates.

Facebook wanted us to supply a secure link to the game. After giving Facebook a secure link, we then needed an SSL certificate (one that wasn't self-signed).

We have now setup SSL certificates on our servers and everything seems to be in order. There are still a couple of issues that are present in the Facebook version of our game.

We are still looking into the issue with Opera browsers when trying to play on Facebook.

Opera users shouldn't have issues when playing the game from Nitrome. Also if you want your score to be discoverable to your friends, make sure that you allow Friends to see your timeline posts!

Play on Nitrome: Click Here!
Play on Facebook: Click Here!

If you see any other issues whilst playing, please let us know!

Thanks for playing everyone, have fun! :D

Fixing Super Snotput

Thu, 07 Jun 2012 05:00:00 BST

Hi Everyone,

We have had to take Super Snotput down to fix some things and we are currently talking to our hosting company to resolve the issues. Many of you could not play the game on our Facebook app page and that resulted in a lot of the invites that users sent out also not working.

Please bare with us as we are actively trying to get this working for you as soon as we can.

Thanks for your patience!

Small Fry Fixed!

Wed, 06 Jun 2012 05:00:00 BST

Hi Nitromians!

We noticed that some of you had pointed out a bug telling us that Small Fry was not working properly. Thanks for reporting the issue, we have now resolved this!

Play Small Fry: Click Here!

Site Update News

Fri, 04 May 2012 05:00:00 BST

Hi Nitromians!

It has been a while since we gave you the last update as to what is happening with the user accounts, so today I thought I would let you know what’s currently happening with our upcoming site features. I’ll also take this opportunity to let you know why it’s taking us a little longer than originally anticipated.

We have been experimenting with our ads lately to help us strike a reasonable balance in revenue whilst not adversely affecting your gaming experience.

One of the most obvious changes included adding the ‘balloon panel’ on our game pages. We are aware that it isn’t the prettiest solution for the time being, yet it has been a relatively quick way for us to help with our ad revenue whilst not hindering the games or your game play.

We know that we’ll be able to make much better use of the space when we introduce the next major site update, accounts!

The advertising issue has taken away some time from the development of really fun stuff, like user accounts, but it was very important.

We have also got a new member on the Nitrome team, Jack, and he will be taking care of our ads, freeing up time to focus on the site update.

I’m very happy to say that we are now currently back to work on the new site update, accounts and more features!

I have attached a preview of a new avatars section that will be included in the update. You may also notice that we will be including a search bar.

That’ll make it easier to find games, news and friends! :)

Avatars Page Preview: Click Here!

Gunbrick Update!

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 05:00:00 BST

Hi Nitromians,

We are thrilled to see that you are all enjoying playing through our latest little puzzle game Gunbrick!

We noticed some issues after launch with the game whilst running in Internet Explorer 9. You should now all be able to play Gunbrick in icons and on the game page using Internet Explorer 9 now, be sure to clear the old game from your browser's cache!

We also thought it was slightly odd that, in the game page, there was actually no title screen to the game whilst all of our other games have title screens.

So there is now a title screen! :)

Play Gunbrick from within its icon: Click Here!
Play Gunbrick on its game page: Click Here!

Thanks to everyone for playing!

Facebook Layout Change

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 05:00:00 BST

Hi Nitromians!

We have recently had to change our Facebook page to the new ‘timeline’ layout. We have got no control over being able to keep the old layout as all pages will have been rolled out with the new layout today.

We have had a bit of a tidy up and revamped the page already to give it a hint of Nitrome! We plan to look more into the timeline layout and its features to bring you the best functionality and design that we can.

If you haven’t already joined our Facebook community, you can head on over and start getting involved in all things Nitrome!

Facebook Page: Click Here!

Skywire VIP Extended Changed

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 04:00:00 GMT

Hi Nitromians,

We have made some small changes to Skywire VIP Extended. We have removed 'My Neighbour Totoro' from the line-up. The reason was due to the difference in the UK and US spelling of the word Neighbour.

We were lucky enough to have some extra characters to put into the game referred to as 'The Z-listers'. We may show you the characters that didn't make it into the game at a later date.

Some of the Z-listers have been introduced to the games line-up as a result, but we can't tell you which ones! There was a spacing issue with some of the characters that's also been fixed.

Skywire VIP Extended: Click Here!

Website Maintenance

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 05:00:00 GMT

Hi Nitromians!

You may have recently experienced issues with our site (yesterday or this morning) that resulted in our game pages not loading up.

This is something we are going to look into a bit deeper soon. For now, we have got our games back up and running! So feel free to play your favourite Nitrome games!

Also, you can now submit and checkout the high scores. Again we're not sure what happened, it was something that came up that was related to us trying to launch our game yesterday. The new game coming very, very soon!