Rebuild 3: Coming to mobile September 3rd

rebuild3devicesFor reals this time, rain or shine! My apologies again for the delay, but hey, it wouldn’t be a Rebuild release without a little drama.

You’ll be able to get Rebuild 3 on your iPhones, iPads, Android phones and tablets this coming Thursday September 3rd. Even if I catch the PAX Pox this year, I’ll drag myself to my laptop and make sure this game gets released!

PAX Prime

Yes I’m at PAX right now, for my 9th year in a row. We don’t have a booth this year, but I’m helping show my friend Tim’s game Antihero in the Minibooth. It’s a strategic multiplayer game where you fight for control of the crime underworld in quaint little Dickensian towns. I’m planning to do all my salesman patter in a Victorian accent. “Fancy a spot o’ larceny mate?”.

On Saturday I’ll be pitting my artistic skills against actual professionals including Mr Krahulik himself, in a cutthroat winner-takes all Virtual Reality Art-Off in Tiltbrush for the HTC Vive.

…actually they tell me it’ll be more of a fun demonstration of this neat 3-d painting tool. Anyway come watch me doodle at the nVidia booth at 2pm on Saturday!

Fantastic Contraption VR

And if you haven’t heard yet, Northway Games’ next game will be a bit of a departure. It’s Fantastic Contraption for the HTC Vive, a room-sized VR rig where you can walk around and build things with your own two hands. It’s truly spectacular future-tech and I’m incredibly lucky to be a part of it. I’ve got loads of other game ideas brewing, but VR is one wild ride I don’t want to miss. I’ve been waiting for this since I was 10 years old.

We’re showing Fantastic Contraption off at the HTC Vive PAX booth this weekend so come over to the Sheraton to try it out.

Fantastic Contraption VR

fantasticcontraption_logo_500

Announcing Northway Games’ next project: Fantastic Contraption for the HTC Vive.

It’s something we couldn’t have done when we were travelling every 3 months: a game played in a 10’x10′ virtual reality space, where you walk around (yes, walk around in VR!), building gigantic tinker toys and rolling them off to solve puzzles. If you remember the original Fantastic Contraption, it’s like stepping inside of that world and putting contraptions together with your own two hands.

Colin’s been working on it with Radial Games while I finish Rebuild 3 mobile and I’ll be joining them shortly. It’s way too exciting a game to pass up.

We’re showing it off at the HTC Vive PAX booth this weekend so come over to the Sheraton to try room-sized VR. Feel like you’re finally living in the future we were promised back in the 80’s. Yes, that future is coming!!

Rebuild 3: Mobile release delayed

Edit: The iOS test slots have been filled, but Android still has some available.

Edit: The delay has been further delayed due to unexpected delays in getting the new build approved. I’m aiming for September 3rd now but it’s best I stop promising things I don’t have control over!

Unfortunately a last-minute device incompatibility issue has forced me to delay the launch just a leeetle bit longer until August 27 Edit: FURTHER NOTICE. I’m so so sorry everyone!

To make sure this doesn’t happen again in future updates or games, I’m expanding my mobile testing team. This means you can play the game right now if you volunteer. I’ve got 2000 slots (1000 iOS and 1000 Android), and all you have to do is promise you’ll report any major bugs you run across. So easy.

Right now I’m extremely keen to know how the game runs on older and less common phones and tablets, so if you have an old phone sitting in a drawer somewhere I would love if you could dust it off and see if Rebuild 3 will run on it.

iPhone and iPad testers

I’m looking for volunteers to join my iOS TestFlight team, especially if you have an older or rarer device like the iPhone 4, iPad 2 or one of the iPod touches, but it turns out I also need more newer ones like the iPhone 6 plus, so everyone is welcome. UPDATE: Testing is now closed and the game is released, thank you for your help!

Android testers

Android players can still get the mobile beta instantly if you buy the full $15 PC/Mac game from northwaygames.com or if you backed the Kickstarter (visit humble.com to grab your copy).

I’ve also started a limited open beta test of Rebuild 3 via on Google Play. If you’re not sure whether it will run on your Android phone or tablet… well I want to know too! Just visit this link to sign up and play.

How to send feedback

Please send bug, crash or laggy gameplay reports via the config > feedback menu inside the game, unless the game won’t run at all on your phone or tablet in which case PLEASE email me and tell me what kind of device you’re using.

Thank you again SO MUCH to all the Rebuild 3 playtesters on every platform. I can’t stress this enough: I couldn’t have made this game without you!!

Rebuild 3: Mobile Release August 13

EDIT: The Rebuild 3 mobile release has been delayed until August 27th. Details.

rebuild3devicesA cry rings out throughout the land: “We want Rebuild 3 on our phones! We want it on our tablets!”. From high in her tower in the City of Glass, Sarah Northway heeds the call.

“There will be a mobile version.” she shouts down to the gathered masses. “And you will find Rebuild 3 on the shelves of the Apple App Store and of Google Play on August 13th 2015.”

Then Sarah retreated back into her sky palace and was never heard from again. Some say she’s still up there, fretting away at her next project, some cross between Pokemon Snap and Railroad Tycoon… or was it a spiritual successor to Barcode Battler? A virtual reality Sim Ant?

We’ll just have to wait and see…

Rebuild 3: Launch and Steam Refunds

rebuild3happy300It’s out! After nearly 3 years of work and a fair amount of stress and crunching, I released Rebuild 3: Gangs of Deadsville on May 29th. Yaaaaay!

I wasn’t expecting a launch bump since it was Kickstarted and spent a year in Early Access… plus gaming press were too busy with E3 to review it. But release went well! There were Rebuild 3 banners on the front page of Steam, GOG, and IndieGameStand. It was exciting to see my own creation up there with other games I have so much respect for.

I launched at a 15% discount and had the same deal for the Steam summer sale 2 weeks later. I keep hearing from players who are glad I launched on GOG at the same time; looks like about 10% of my launch sales came from GOG which I think is high. The game’s Steam Spy data is currently accurate… though it’s way off for some of our other games.

Rebuild 3 launch sales
Rebuild 3 launch bump and teeny summer sale echo

Steam refunds system

Daily % seems high but cumulative is only 2.33%
Daily % looks high but cumulative since May 27 is only 2.33%

Steam dropped their refund bomb four days after Rebuild 3 released, allowing players to easily refund purchases for any reason including not liking a game or finding it on sale for cheaper, just so long as they’ve played less than 2 hours. As someone who buys a lot of games I love it; they’ve basically brought back demos and made them mandatory for all games. Ideally players will spend their refunded money on a new game and stop when they find one they like. Everybody wins!

But I grew up in the shareware era and I know that sometimes 2 hours of a game is enough, especially for bite-sized indie titles. I don’t think that’s an issue for Rebuild 3 (which has a whopping average play time of 15 hours), but it might be for other games.

Rebuild’s had cumulative refunds of 2.3% since launch – nothing remotely close to the hit/miss ratio of actual demos. Most of them say it’s “Not what I expected” and that the game is too simple and looks like a mobile game. I guess that’s fair enough (she says while working on the mobile port).

Version 1.1 update

I’m rolling out the first big bugfix update for Rebuild 3 to all stores. It fixes 50-odd small bugs, and introduces (in that I fixed the bug preventing it from running) a very rare questline which forumgoers are crowdsourcing to solve as a group.

I also just added Steam trading cards, so you can collect various faction leaders and trade them in for unique profile backgrounds and emoji.

Farmer Bucket's trading card art
Farmer Bucket’s trading card art

Now back to that mobile version… I’ve had some hiccups but it should be coming out to iOS and Android sometime in August. You can get the Android beta version now if you buy the game direct from RebuildGame.com, or if you’d like to be in the iOS TestFlight beta you can email me to request a slot.