We had a little technical hiccup yesterday but I'm happy to say we've finally launched all the goodies: soundtrack, 1.1 and last but not least: Eliss finally lands on Android!
Soundtrack
The soundtrack consists of two EPs: Eliss EP, with the original 2009 music, and ∞ EP, with the 2014 music additions of Eliss Infinity. This second EP was reworked and extended into a short concept album. I'm really happy to finally release this music.
Hello Android
Eliss was designed for multitouch screens and became a multitouch classic. After its 2009 release, amongst much praise, Touch Arcade called it "a multi-touch masterpiece." and EDGE "a multi-touch marvel". Earlier this year I launched Eliss Infinity, a new infinite game based on the original, which also included the full original game modernized, and a whole pack of goodies, which was again praised by the press. Mac|Life wrote "what was innovative in 2009 remains fresh, tactile, and truly terrific today." But until today, it was not available on one of the two biggest multi-touch platforms: Android. I'm happy to finally fix this with the best version of Eliss yet: Eliss Infinity, up to date with all the features of the 1.1 iOS update. Speaking of which...
1.1 Update
This is the first Eliss Infinity update and it's a big one. A big change is it makes the Infinity game first and foremost, so the flow has changed a bit, in hindsight it should have been this way on launch. It also lowers the difficulty on the beginning of Infinity but also in many sectors of Odyssey, so if you were stuck, give it another shot. Tutorial steps were also changed to communicate some concepts better, so if you're still confused by some aspects of Eliss, give the new tutorial a shot. The update also adds multiple new features and improvements. One big introduction is Game Center achievements and their in-game counterparts, Gems. If you already played Eliss Infinity, depending on your progress, when you update you'll automatically get a bunch of achievements and gems! But there's a lot more. Here's the full list of changes:
- new: achievements,
- new: gems (achievements counterparts within Eliss interface),
- new: ∞ score displays visualization of recent supernovas,
- new: immediate visual feedback shows if planet should be bigger or smaller,
- new: planet-grab anim and sound,
- improved: damage sound now positional making it easier to locate collisions by sound when using headphones,
- improved: portals will now only rarely overlap,
- improved: removed 5 fingers limitation on iPad, now allows up to 11,
- new: unlocking a mode displays an animation during game,
- new unlock flow: tutorial -> Infinity -> Odyssey after 5000 pts -> sandbox after 3 sectors,
- improved: Infinity difficulty: gentler difficulty curve until 4000 points,
- improved: Odyssey difficulty: less supernovas required in many sectors,
- improved: tutorial better at teaching disc-portal matching, collision, multitouch and infinity combos,
- improved: Infinity nova score to stay on screen longer,
- improved: pause takes to modes screen instead of home,
- improved: resume button more obvious,
- improved: help pages,
- improved: arp button now in Odyssey screen (appears after beating sector 1),
- fixed: bug with syncing offline progress with online progress,
- fixed: bug with infinity best score flag,
- and more miscellaneous tweaks and fixes.
Stay tuned on the RSS feed or on my Twitter.
I have multiple Eliss related things to announce today:
Eliss Infinity 1.1. This is a big update with dozens of new features and improvements. I posted a few quick previews of some of the new features on Vine, go ahead and peek here, here, here, and here. Other changes include a gentler difficulty curve in Infinity mode, better portal spawning for less overlapping, positional damage sound, and better interface flow, amongst others.
Eliss Infinity for Android. Eliss is often referred as a multitouch classic; it's about time it lands on Android. This will be the first time Eliss can be played on this platform. It will come out with the same features as the upcoming 1.1 update on iOS. I partnered with Finji to help make this happen. The road of making and selling games (specially by yourself) can get a bit rocky sometimes and it's been great to have the support of such smart and talented people, who happen to love the same things I do, to bring this game to Android.
Eliss soundtrack. This is also a first, the music from Eliss will finally be available for purchase. This will be in the shape of two EPs: the first will contain the music of 2009's Eliss, and the second will rock the music additions from 2014's Eliss Infinity.
All of the above come out next week, on June 26th.
Stay tuned on the RSS feed or on my Twitter.
I’m happy to announce Eliss Infinity! It’s coming out next Thursday, February 6th.
Eliss Infinity is multiple things. It’s the original Eliss sectors - which I’m now calling Odyssey - with a new look, a tutorial, early collision warnings, and more tweaks. It’s a universal app, so you can finally play it using the full screen of iPads and 4-inch devices. It comes with Spacebox - an Eliss sandbox for training or for chill times. It can sync progress across devices using Game Center. It has a slick new interface. And more things I’ll save for you to discover. It’s the Eliss I wish I could have released on day one.
One more thing... :)
The thing I’m the most excited to talk about: Infinity. It’s a score based, endless version of Eliss, with a new chaining mechanic. It’s a short burst, deep focus game, that ends fast and makes you go back for a higher score, until you master it and beyond. Think Tetris meets Super Hexagon meets ... Eliss, in all its multi-touch intensity. I love this game and I’m excited to put it out there. It has a new epic soundtrack, and it comes with Game Center leaderboards baked in and in-game challenges.
To sum up, Eliss Infinity: Infinity, Odyssey, Spacebox, universal, sync, Game Center, and more. Coming Feb 6th, at a launch price of $2.99.
Game Center achievements and to be announced features will be coming on a future update.
You can watch the announcement video here. I’m saving all the other goodies - screenshots and trailer - for launch day.
I’m still working on Faraway. I’ll publish a write up about how this project came to be in the coming days.
I don’t tweet much but you can follow me on Twitter: @stephbysteph
<3
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To those in a rush who just want to know the details of the 1.1 update, you can skip to “Enters Eliss 1.1”
So following my previous post, the critical response to Eliss has been very positive. The most recurring statement is that Eliss is nothing less than the best use of multi-touch on the iphone/itouch so far. Some compared its freshness with the release of classics like Pong or Tetris. I’m being invited at all the cool parties and Hef has been insisting that I spend a few days at the mansion. But not all has been a whipped cream strawberry cake for Eliss: a dark shadow has been laying over it, and it’s not hot chocolate. It’s its difficulty.
If you have tried Eliss, you know it’s challenging. It’s fast and precise, and you need to put a good deal of concentration into it. I wanted to make a game that you’d feel proud of progressing into. So when reviews and comments started popping over the internet, the challenge was a frequent topic. And while some people appreciated it, others seemed really bothered by it. But that didn’t worry me too much. I thought that it had to do with multitouch still being very new to players, and also with the fact that we’re kind of getting used to be babysitted through games, and Eliss doesn’t do that. So I thought people had rushed into their own conclusions without really trying. But then I saw that some folks were putting my head for a price on internet. And I got some hate mails. And I was asked some funny questions like: “Did you actually finish your game?”
So I gathered the gaming statistics I had recorded so far, and this was my reaction to when I first saw them: “uh oh.” According to the stats, many, many players were spending way, way too much time to beat certain levels. I was consterned. Challenge is fun only until you want to rip your own skin off. But I was also puzzled. I honestly believed the controls worked, they were fun, and the reviews and comments just confirmed it. Why was there such a huge gap between players?
And then I realized that there’s a special skill involved in the Eliss gameplay. And it’s not just about the fact that you can use up to five fingers at the same time.
If we look at other multitouch games, like say Touchgrind, Sway (and kudos to Illusion Labs for their multitouch controls) or DropShip, we see that multiple fingers are used to control one object. In Eliss, on the other hand (no pun intended), multitouch is used for multitasking: you control one independent object per finger. It’s not just about synchronizing multiple fingers on a surface, it’s also about using your brain to orchestrate multiple objects at once. And this is a skill that takes its time to grow in you. I had just spent five months of development doing it, and it had become so natural to me that I had completely lost touch with the idea that this could be hard for a beginner. So I let the difficulty curve increase pretty fast, without really giving people the needed time to forge their multitasking skills.
Again, the curious part, is the huge gap between players. Some grasp it right away, while others need much more time. This is speculation, but maybe certain users have done specific activities that have somehow prepared them to this kind of multitasking. For instance, I observed that some people that know how to play a music instrument might grasp Eliss’ controls faster than others. And if we think about it, playing an instrument is a type of multitasking: we keep track of multiple notes, a very often these notes are crossing themselves at different paces - during the sustaining of a couple of notes, a couple of others might have the time to change three times.
Anyway, the problem with the original version of Eliss, was that it roughly showed the basics, and then it took the clueless players on a chopper and parachuted them right into the heart of the action. I wanted to avoid babysitting players through the game, and it resulted in the other extreme. Players needed a better training.
Enters Eliss 1.1
On the first update to Eliss, which was released today, the original 20 sectors have been modified into 25 sectors, to have a gentler difficulty curve and to allow a better learning progression. And some specific levels that were too hard have been tweaked down. Don’t get me wrong, Eliss is still challenging, but in a way that is better balanced, less jumpy, more user friendly.
For those who progressed far into the game, let’s get some details down. On the original group of sectors, there was a serious jump after sector 2. Too many new things were introduced on sector 3, there was no time to get prepared for them. To fill up that missing space, four new sectors were added in between those. None of these sectors brings anything truly new compared to version 1.0, but they allow a better pacing. I also moved quite a few sectors around, to make a more logical difficulty progression, and did some tweaking in specific sectors. In the process I also added a little bonus, sector 14, which is a new thing. Also, the suns' appearance has been modified to be spotted earlier, making the much dreaded sector 10 (which has been moved to sector 20 by the way) easier to beat.
I’ve tried to save your progress the best I could. So when you’ll update, your progress will be at a position that makes sense in your logical training. Perfect levels are also saved (they will move to their respective new positions). But if you want to restart from the beginning, to go through a better paced training, there’s nothing wrong with that.
I know I announced in a few places that Eliss would have difficulty modes. I even implemented half of that, but then I abandoned the idea. I don’t think difficulty modes are right for Eliss. There should be only one path to the ending. Of course, how you walk that path, is up to you.
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Since its release, I’ve seen Eliss rocket from total obscurity to being written about by a respectable amount of blogs and played by thousands. Now, part of the point of putting all the work into it was actually this - getting it to an audience. And I won’t deceive with false modesty, with Eliss, I honestly believed I was working on something special. But I had never achieved such a thing, reaching an audience. And picture me working all by myself on an original idea - not a tried and tested formula - and the only people who had seen the game were from my circle of friends and colleagues - none of which were even remotely connected to the gaming industry. Often insomnia would strike in, and I would ask aloud, to the darkness of the room, “will anyone appreciate this”? (My girlfriend had by that time developed the habit of using earplugs). And then in a spectacle of light rays and stars, the Fairy of Reason would appear to me and speak tenderly: "good hearted child, if you love it, some people, who have things in common with you, will too”. And then, on my knees, holding my hands together, tears shaking on the corners of my begging eyes, I would ask, “what if I’m just a freak and no one is like me?” And then she’d say, in her soothing voice: “Well, it’s true that you do some weird shit. Do you always have to do the dishes with gloves on?” And then I’d reply: “I don’t like detergent, my hands get all dehydrated and”. But the Fairy of Reason would not wait for me to finish: “Do you really need four duvets, in springtime?” And me: “Look, I get chilly when I sleep. Can we get back to my game?” And then, just as she appeared, in a beautiful glow of white color, she was gone.
So when it actually happened, when I moved from where I only had the opinions of dear friends and family, to the state of having a multitude of people that I had never met - including individuals whose work I follow and admire - who got excited about my work, my brain blew up in a million particles inside my head. And although it’s been almost two months since Eliss was released, I’m still floating around in a dreamy haze, with a stupid smile stamped over my face. These are some exciting times for me. To those who are part of the audience, thank you.
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