Winding Techknowledgy

Hello my fellow BIT.TRIP fans!  My name is Mike Roska and I'm the lead programmer on the 3D portion of Runner 3 (SPOILER).  My day is filled with typing things like "if (bug_Really_exists) { sweep_under_rug(); }".

Some of you may have seen me lurking around the Tharsis forums and Twitch streams being all friendly and polite, but behind the scenes I'm a typical programmer with the social skills of a Canadian Mounty.  Wait, that's a good thing?  Oh, well then, thank you!

Speaking of Canadian Mounties, I'd like to dip my toes (and yours, if you'll allow me) into the wonderful technical world of Runner3. 

Making a linear beat-based infinite-runner game isn't that difficult, technically.  However, one huge, awesome, mind-bending feature we're adding to Runner3 is winding paths!  That makes programmer-y things a little more difficult as CV can now go any-which-way Alex wants him to.  Not only that, he has to interact with things on the beat! However, at the cost of a little more elbow grease, the upside is tremendous, and we're seeing some amazing gameplay come out of it.  So, I'm up to the task of coding it.  Are you up to the task of playing it?

What do you think about all the possibilities winding paths bring?  What do you think of me?  How about my Canadian Mounty comparison?  My mom and I think all of the above are pretty amazing but we're biased.

It's been great meeting you all on here and I look forward to seeing your comments in the section below.  Mounty, out!

- Mike (Roska)

Introducing... Spookyland

We mentioned in last week’s post that we planned to announce something cool today. Well, seeing as how today is today, we figured the time had finally arrived. 

Some of our previous reveals hinted at it, but we’re excited to finally be able to come out and say it: One of the worlds in Runner3 is going to be a strange, peculiar place known as Spookyland.

Pretty creepy, no? And yet, there’s also a bit of an undeniable charm to it. I think it comes from the doll heads in the background.

We have plenty more to share about Spookyland in the weeks ahead, including why it is that CommanderVideo and friends have made the crazy decision to go to such a place. Then again, maybe some of you already have some good guesses about this. Let’s hear them—along with anything else you’d like to chat about—in the comments!

- Dant

A Few New Faces

Hey! What’s up, everyone?  My name is Josh Defries and I’m the new guy here at Choice Provisions.  But I’m not just the new guy, I’m also an artist and when I’m not working hard on art for a character or level asset, I’m usually sinking shots at will from anywhere in the office on our basketball hoop.  For real, I can’t miss.  

Why am I telling you about my basketball skills?  Oh, I don’t know, most likely to remind the person I sit next to how much better I am than he is.  This probably isn’t terribly interesting to you, but I do know something that is, and its Runner3 and the characters that live in its world.

As many of you know the RUNNER universe is filled with an amazing collection of characters and personalities.  Some of them are a little more on the tame side and others not so much (I’m looking at you, Reverse Merman!).  But one thing is clear, they are all fun and bring their own unique flavor to the world.  For Runner3 you will see some familiar faces as well as a few new, and today I wanted to show you one of the latter.

Any clue what her name is?  Who she may or may not be romantically involved with?  Go ahead and speculate in the comments and be sure to check back as we reveal more details about the characters and worlds.

- Josh

It’s Schlörtz Tuesday!

Hey, everyone. I hope our twice-a-week posts have been keeping you entertained. More than that, though, I hope they’ve been increasing your excitement for Runner3. 

Today’s post is a new take on an old favorite. Many of you likely remember Schlörtz from Runner2, most notably as the preferred beverage of Bigfoot. Well, you may be chuffed to hear that the Schlörtz brand is doing better than ever, and you can expect to see it make a serious comeback in Runner3!

Here’s a sneak peek of everyone’s favorite Premium Malt Fluid:

The cans may be a little rusty, but the beverage inside is surely no worse for the wear.  Much like Twinkies, Schlörtz never goes bad. Our lawyers won't allow us to say why that is, but you can trust us when we say it's all on the up and up.

While I have your attention, I’d also like to mention that we’ll be announcing something appropriately spooky about the game next week. Does Monday work for everyone? 

Stay tuned!

- Dant

Let's get the juices flow'n...

DISCLAIMER: I would like to point out that this is some of the first imagery that we are sharing. It's a screenshot in-engine--this means that there are no post-rendering effects, you can see the engine widgets, and of course you can see the placeholder art in the background. In other words: Don't consider what you see here to be final art in any way!

As my nasty little "hombre" Alex said in his post last week, we are beginning to find the fun! This has been quite a process and we are going in FULL blast! 

We wanted to share this image, because it showcases some of the things we have talked about in our past posts. You can see our path splitting up and down and a curving path going off down another route. We can also see our old friend THE MOON peeking in on his friend Commandervideo. 

This is a very small slice of what we have planned for Runner3. In fact, we are VERY excited to share what lies beyond that sand dune, because it's part of the game's special dipping sauce...

Any guesses as to what it is we're hinting at here? Feel free to speculate in the comments so that we may respond with cryptic-yet-friendly replies!

-Mike