ClickShake's Dev Blog

New Rewards, Chapter 4 almost done, Ballads Pre-order Deadline Extended

Steve Castro — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 01:13:35 +0000

Our heads have been buried in finishing up Chapter 4 and plugging away at Ballads of Reemus. Chapter 4 is just about finished. For now, we’ve got new Rewards for you! Zeebarf’s first Small Favor game now has 4 new ClickShake Rewards you can earn. Go get ‘em!

In other news, we are extending the deadline for Ballads pre-orders since it’s going to be a bit longer before it comes out (new deadline to be determined). To commemorate the extension, we are giving away a free Ballads of Reemus pre-order! Just like all pre-orderer-erer-ers, the winner will be entitled to play Journeys of Reemus Chapter 4 as soon as it’s done (rather than waiting with the rest of the world to play it when it officially comes out during the Ballads launch). To win the pre-order, be the first person to respond to this post with the exactly correct answer to this question: Where do the Salt n’ Pepper flowers normally grow? (Must not already have a pre-order.) Good luck!

Announcing ClickShake Rewards Achievement System!

Steve Castro — Fri, 07 May 2010 22:59:26 +0000

Members can now earn ClickShake Rewards from playing games on our site! Rewards are like achievements you get by accomplishing in-game goals, except that earned Rewards can then be used in other ClickShake games in inter-game quests.

The first game to implement this new system is Zeebarf’s The Visitor, which has 3 Rewards you can earn. You can see in the screenshot that the Heroic Revolver has been earned but the other 2 are still locked.

If you earn the Revolver from The Visitor, you might see it show up in A Small Favor allowing you to unlock a new side quest with it. This is just an example of how we plan to utilize Rewards as right now Visitor is the only game using Rewards. Now that the system has been built we are planning to roll them out to several more games in the very near future. Stay tuned for more ClickShake Rewards.

The system is brand new so if you run into any glitches, please let us know what browser you are using and describe what happened. Thanks and have fun!

Social media site Newgrounds creates opportunity for indie game developer ClickShake Games

Steve Castro — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 18:25:00 +0000

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Newgrounds.com Power of Three event created the opportunity independent game developers Jay Ziebarth and Steve Castro needed to form the new company ClickShakeGames.com. They are now working on a 2 game simultaneous release: a new Several Journeys of Reemus chapter, plus The Ballads of Reemus: When the Bed Bites.

Columbus, OH, March 31, 2010 – Last summer, Newgrounds.com launched the Power of Three event, encouraging independent programmers, artists and musicians to team up and use their combined talents to create an original online game using Adobe Flash. The goal was to support the Child’s Play charity and to form teams of skilled developers who might stay together even after the event and continue contributing higher quality games to the Flash gaming community. As of January 2010, their goal was met when one of the resulting teams launched their own website ClickShakeGames.com and released several more games since then.

Newgrounds.com is an online community website featuring user-created movies and games long before “Web 2.0” was a buzzword. Its creator Tom Fulp himself participated in a collaboration with artist Dan Paladin through the site and this partnership turned into The Behemoth, a successful console game studio responsible for the hit Xbox 360 title Castle Crashers. Fulp’s announcement of the event included enticements to try to match this level of success, which generated a good amount of interest from the community.

The Power of Three event yielded several games, including IGN’s Best Free-To-Play PC Game of 2009, Time Fcuk. Among the entries was Paradox Embrace, a puzzle platformer game made by Steve Castro and Jay Ziebarth with music by Caulder Bradford. After the game’s release, Castro and Ziebarth went on to form ClickShake Games and develop 2 new games for Comedy Central, including an adventure game for their new animated series Ugly Americans.

Ziebarth, better known as Zeebarf, had independently created popular online game series The Several Journeys of Reemus, A Small Favor and The Visitor. His primary experience is in animation, but working independently meant he had to work with various programmers or even program the games himself. Ziebarth says having a partnership with programmer Steve Castro “frees you up to concentrate on your area of expertise instead of being a jack of all trades. It takes the pressure off in a lot of ways and strengthens the project all around.” This sentiment was echoed by Castro, who himself had been an independent game developer working with various artists, sometimes animating games himself such as with Shape Switcher.

Currently ClickShake is developing a two part simultaneous adventure game release for The Several Journeys of Reemus characters. Chapter 4 of the Several Journeys continues the story line and will be launched first to the registered members of their website and then later to sites like Newgrounds and Kongregate.com. The second game will be called The Ballads of Reemus: When the Bed Bites, the first premium game in the series featuring voice acting for the adventuring duo. Ballads will be a stand-alone adventure prior to the events of the earlier Several Journeys chapters. This ambitious dual game release might not have been possible if not for the collaboration catalyzed by Newgrounds’ Power of Three event.

Social sites with user-created content such as Newgrounds are an important online resource for independent developers like ClickShake, providing opportunities to learn, practice and get feedback on their work. Tom Fulp runs multiple annual collaboration events throughout the year that developers from around the world are encouraged to participate in.

For more information, contact Steve Castro at contact (at) clickshakegames.com

About ClickShakeGames.com:
ClickShake is a professional game development company focused on hand-drawn adventure, puzzle and platform games with colorful characters and imaginative story lines. It is run by Jay Ziebarth from Ontario and Steve Castro from Ohio. Both have developed Flash games and movies since around 2000. Play their games online at http://www.clickshakegames.com.

References:
http://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1060106
http://bestof.ign.com/2009/free-to-play/best-free-to-play-pc-game.html
http://www.clickshakegames.com/blog/2010/04/09/2-new-reemus-games-coming-this-summer/

# # #

2 new Reemus games coming this Summer!

Steve Castro — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 04:01:18 +0000

ClickShake Games is planning to release 2 brand new point and click adventure games starring Reemus and Liam, including the first premium game in the series: Ballads of Reemus: When the Bed Bites!

Read on to get details on Ballads and Several Journeys Chapter 4.

Several Journeys of Reemus: Chapter 4 – This chapter continues the story of the Death Slug enslaved Gygax army and your favorite exterminator’s quest to become recognized as the hero who is able to stop them. This free game will be released to ClickShakeGames.com members 2 weeks before being released to non-members or other websites. Free member registration is now available.

Ballads of Reemus: When the Bed Bites – Ballads is a new line of premium Reemus games, and will feature full voice acting, a first in the series! When the Bed Bites is a stand-alone story line for the adventuring duo, that takes place prior to the Death Slug invasion. You’ll also be able to save your progress online so that you can resume progress from any computer, which you’ll want to use because actions you take in Ballads will unlock special features in Chapter 4 and other games. You can now preorder your copy of Ballads.

Both games are planned to be released in Summer 2010. Read the official press release. Also, did you notice that the forums are live?! We just hit 100 CSG members too!

Blog Comments, Member Accounts

Steve Castro — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 20:57:44 +0000

We’ve just rolled out ClickShake member accounts, which gets you a cool monster illustrated by Katherine Garner, unique to each member! Members will also be eligible for exclusive content and benefits, like getting to play new games before anyone else. We’ve also integrated our WordPress blog, so now you can respond to our posts and let us know what’s up. Create your free account today. Gratz to DarkRose for becoming our first ClickShake member!

Back from FGS and ready to rock

Steve Castro — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 23:38:01 +0000

We’re back from San Francisco with lots of new ideas for our next big game release. If you haven’t filled out our adventure game survey yet, please do! Your responses will influence the direction we go with our games, so make yourself heard. In other news, our Facebook page now has 100 fans and growing! We posted a bunch of pictures from California so check it out.

New adventure game released!

Steve Castro — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 23:35:53 +0000

Our latest point and click adventure game is now released! It’s called Ugly Americans: Citizen Ugly for Comedy Central’s new animated series coming out in 2 weeks. We also just rolled out a brand new layout for the site that allows us to do cool things like custom layouts for Reemus and Small Favor. Now we’re off to the Flash Gaming Summit. We’ll see you later with pics from the event!

New game coming soon

Steve Castro — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 23:35:09 +0000

We are planning to release a new adventure web game in March. Wondering what it will be? You’ll have to check back next month to find out! Here’s a hint: the story is set in New York City.

ClickShakeGames.com is born!

Steve Castro — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 23:18:59 +0000

We’re very excited about all the things we have planned for this site and upcoming games, so stayed tuned. We are planning to attend the Flash Gaming Summit this March and we hope to see you there.