Compromise is such a nasty word.  Nobody ends up getting what they want; each party involved just gets something they don’t hate as opposed to something they truly care about.  Whether it is two friends deciding on a place to eat, or ANY part of the game design process.  Luckily, compromise between two people with very similar tastes ends up being very agreeable; there are of course moments.
  Read more »

Despite having a large break room as an office we still have plenty of work to do around here.  Balance tests and bug finding was the extent of most of our weekend, 12am Skype calls to discuss where we need to go from there and neglecting our loved ones made up the rest.  In fact Nate, our incredibly talented game designer, is currently having a love affair with data analysis:
------------
Nathaniel- Read more »

Ah high school, iPods were the next big thing, Windows XP was finally washing the taste of previous windows releases out of our mouths, and nano-technology was a flimsy plot device in Metal Gear Solid and Michael Crichton novels.  I also worked for a neat little retail start-up called Best Buy.  One of my regular customers, a very eccentric scientist, was working on a top secret research project involving nano-technology. 
  Read more »

When the Giants make it to the Super Bowl I tend to take it pretty seriously.  What is usually an excuse to go to someone else’s house, get a little drunk, eat whatever food they prepare, and watch a minimal amount of the game had turned into a fully fledged commitment to make food, buy drinks, and clean my house.  I’m using the term ‘house’ generously here, if as many people as I invited (six) showed up to the game it would have been way over crowded.  Luckily I have friends who don’t care so much about the game and didn’t want to hear me screaming at my television all night Read more »

A rapid exchange of opinions tends to sweep this office into frenzy at least three times a day.  While some reach all corners of the office, most only consume a few members of the team at a time; this one in particular was between me and who’ve I’ve decided to be my arch nemesis.  Not that I actually have anything against him, he’s a nice enough guy.  He does not, however, live close enough to the office to come in so a video conference has been set up; this essentially makes him a floating head, and I’ve always wanted a floating head as a nemesis.
  Read more »

Just to give a quick update on this save file situation:
The functionality of the ability to save and load games within Shadows has not been affected whatsoever.  You are able to save games in 1.0.2 without issue, and you are able to load games saved from version 1.0.2 without issue.
 
Further, save files from Shadows version 1.0.1 are NOT being destroyed by updating to version 1.0.2; rather, the meta data used to generate and display the information about the save on the Load Game menu became corrupted by the update.  You will notice at the end-user level in 1.0.2 that if you attempt to save over a slot that previously housed a saved game in 1.0.1, but appears empty in 1.0.2, you will be prompted with regard to a file overwrite.
 
We've identified the source of the issue and will be expediting an update to Apple as soon as we have implemented a solution to the issue.
 
Thanks for your patience, we apologize for the inconvenience. :) After the break is the explanation for how to get around the issue until our fix goes live. Read more »

It's official: Ash II is out! It's a joint collaboration between Konami and SRRN: we developed it, showed it to Konami, and they loved it enough to publish it for us. We're pretty thrilled with the result, so let me take some time to explain the game itself, its pricing strategy (Gold vs. Silver vs. a-yet-unannounced Bronze), and other "various and sundry" (thanks Dan) things behind the curtain of silence we've maintained. Read more »

If you don't know who John Scalzi is I will help you rectify that sad state of affairs right now.  He's an excellent science fiction author who broke onto the scene in 2005 with Hugo-nominated Old Man's War. Read more »

Eric Jackson over at Forbes thinks it will.  As a mobile developer we obviously pay attention to the smartphone war, even though we use Unity and therefore can release our games on multiple platforms, but this piece is talking about a much bigger fight than just Android and iOS.  The key points Eric seems to make are these: first of all Siri is hard to beat.  Right now Siri is the  best voice recognition system on the planet and the first one to really work. Read more »

At SRRN Games we have a lot of tile-based games, however, prior to producing Ash in 2010, none of the RPG team had ever worked on one in the industry before.  Not many people do this kind of tech anymore, and no one on our team had been tasked with anything similar, for obvious reasons--people don't make these anymore.  Therefore, when it comes to things that have been "solved" already, like how to properly create and display tilemaps using tilesets, we had to learn only with our wits, the resources on the internet, and trial-and-error. Read more »

It's been several weeks since PAX Prime 2011 and SRRN has been making the rounds in the press. We sat down with many bloggers and podcasters who got the chance to get the nitty gritties on two of SRRN's future releases, Archibald and Remus: Minor Lords and Monster School. Some of them loved it so much that they even wrote about us. 

Read more »

PAX 2011 has come and gone and SRRN had a blast. The crowds were amazing this year and we've met a whole bunch of pretty awesome people.

This year we were very excited to announce two new games that will be releasing Q4 2011. Read more »

Thanks to the 505 people who filled out our survey over the last two weeks at GDC, PAX East, and on the web. We really appreciate all your help. We’re still going through the results now, and I think we’ll have a blog post or two about them in the near future. PS: Tell your friends about Ash! It’s currently on sale for just $0.99 (that’s less than a soda!), and they’ll love it.

So, you loved our last survey, and are dying to take it again? Or maybe you missed it the first time? Well, here’s your second chance. SRRN is at PAX East, and is running another survey! Read more »

An excerpt from our dev chat: Read more »

The AV Club has handed out the grades and Ash has received an A-!

“Ash brings retro RPGs to a new platform with a game that looks like it was designed for the SNES.”

Ash is currently on sale for $2.99 so if you haven’t picked up a copy yet, now is the time to do it!

There’s a new portmanteau making the rounds of the blogosphere these days, and I’m pretty sure it’s here to stay: Armdroid.   (The plural of portmanteau is Portmanteaux, by the way.  In case you were wondering.  Which you should have been.) Read more »

If you still aren't sure about Ash, you now have a few more reasons to get this game...

Ash got runner up in two of RPGFan's Games of 2010; iOS RPG Of The Year and Best Indie RPG.

Ash also made Dave Yeager's Editor's Pick - "The value proposition on Ash is incredible – for $5 you're getting one of the best RPG stories of the year." Read more »

Still haven't played Ash? Still unsure about how awesome the game is? Want to try it out for free?

Well here's your chance.

Ash Lite launched today. Find it here in the iTunes App Store.

Nathaniel:  I wish I could get a book club started
Nathaniel:  but everyone is lame
me: hahahahahahaha
me: wow bro
me: a book club
me: you sure you don't want to take up crocheting?
me: i'm gonna get you a frock for christmas
Nathaniel: lolzorz
Nathaniel: you laugh
Nathaniel: but book clubs are cool
me: ROFL
me: this has to go on our website
Nathaniel: you mock
Nathaniel: but only because you choose ignorant humor
Nathaniel: real creativity requires a social aspect
Nathaniel: but everyone around me is too dumb or uncommited to realize that Read more »

Thank you everyone who has downloaded the Ash OST. We are no longer offering this for free. Fret not! You will soon be able to purchase copies directly from the composer himself.

Don't forget, we are currently running a contest. The deadline for entries is January 1, 2011, and that's quickly approaching. Please feel free to contact us with any questions you may have.

Update: We will be posting a hint a day for the items in the contest. Follow us on Twitter for these hints.

Wired thinks we're one of the best portable apps for the holiday season! To celebrate, we've slashed the price of Ash by 40%! Get it while you can!

Hey everyone:

If you love SRRN as much as we love you, and you’ve got experience in Objective-C, drop us a line at: jobs AT srrngames DOT com. We’re looking for some dartboards talented programmers to join the team!

P.S. The position may or may not involve darts.

Hey all–some users have reported issues activating merchants behind counters using the action button. We’re looking into what might be causing that, but in the meantime if you need to talk to a merchant while using the dpad, you can still tap the merchant manually. We’ll let you know as soon as we have more information. Thanks!