HakJak Games

Game Developer, currently making a bad ass game called Guts and Glory

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Charity Sale - One Gamer Fund

CHARITY SALE!

Pickup Guts and Glory for 34% OFF now through Steam's "One Gamer Fund" page, now through October 6th, and 50% of the proceeds go to charities helping kids, veterans, and people with disabilities using the power of gaming!

You can read more about One Gamer Fund and the awesome charities supported by it here: http://igdafoundation.org/ogf/

Lots of other cool indie games on there as well! Please help me share this so we can raise more funds before the event ends.

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Switch Patch Progress

Hey guys! Here’s a long due progress update on the Nintendo Switch patch for Guts and Glory. The porting team is still working on everything, but tinyBuild just sent me this update and I thought I would share the results so far.

It’s taken a while, but as you can see they’ve made some huge improvements so far!

Thank you guys for your patience. I’ll keep you posted when I have more info.

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SteelSeries Giveaway!

I just added SteelSeries’ new GameSense lighting FX to Guts and Glory. This feature let’s you see realtime indicators of in-game events, like your character’s health, last checkpoint type, or police in vicinity via lights directly on the keyboard, mouse, etc.

To celebrate, I’m giving away over $300 in sweet new hardware capable of these fancy lighting features. I made entry super easy. All you have to do to enter is leave a comment on the Steam Announcement page with a link to your favorite Workshop Level for G&G.

You can find the rest of the details there. Entry is only open for 1 week, so jump on it while you can!

Happy Holidays!

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Xbox Patch Released

A new patch for the Xbox version has been released this week.

This patch fixes the very annoying “message prompts bug” that caused annoying system debug messages to suddenly pop-up on screen during gameplay. All Achievements should work now too, but you may have to re-complete the relevant challenges to unlock the broken ones.

Due to the nature of the issue, it’s a rather large download (around 2GB). This isn’t a bunch of new content. It just replaces core files.

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Console Patches: progress update

GameDev Law #1

Everything will always take longer than expected.

In general, I think game developers are a rather optimistic bunch.  We have to be, really.  Making games is a ton of hard work, requiring hundreds of hours to create something that you can't even be sure will be a success.  In our optimism, we seem to think everything will get done faster than we should; we forget the first "law" of making games, that everything will take at least twice as long as we initially estimate.

I just got another update from tinyBuild, and it looks like it will take at least another month before the console patches are ready.  Why?  Because they need to be done right, rather than rushed.  We tried some quick solutions to the problems, but they didn't suffice.  So now we have to take a longer, more involved approach.  This means things like re-writing scripts to handle reloading for every object, instead of just loading the entire scene, and other labor-intensive stuff. 

The good side of this though, is that the outcome should be much better!

Here are the main issues we're hoping to resolve with the upcoming patch:

Fix gore system glitches (mostly a Switch port issue)

Improve load times

Fix Achievement unlocks

Improved performance in general

Some minor bugs

It's never easy waiting, but I hope you guys understand.  As soon as I have a date for the patch release, I'll let you all know!

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AlienFX + Guts and Glory Patch (PC)

AlienFX Lighting

The fine folks over at Alienware hooked me up with this awesome laptop so I can build games anywhere! In return I've added AlienFX lighting to Guts and Glory and expanded their SDK for other Unity devs. If you're gaming with an Alienware computer/accessories it will react to different things in the game, like checkpoints and police sirens. Just a fun little bonus feature.

If you're a Unity developer and want to add AlienFX lighting support to your app, feel free to download my Easy AlienFX package.  It's FREE and super easy to use!  

PC Patch

I also rolled out a post-launch patch to fix some bugs that were missed for v1.0 launch:

Fixed Hat Counter

Fixed Steam Achievements glitches

Fixed the 100% Completion Reward in the Halls of Glory (appears in yellow glow area when 30 Achievements are unlocked).

Removed mouse-based orbit cam when "Orbit Camera" mode is turned off, except when paused.

Added more Credits

Console Patches

TinyBuild's porting team is still working on the console patches.  Improving the optimizations has proven to be a more difficult task than we anticipated, so it's taking some time.  I will post an update here as soon as I have more info.

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New desk just arrived... some assembly required 🤦‍♂️

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More @alienware lights! This is evolving into a whole package for other Unity devs now.... #gamedev #alienware #alienfx #pclighting

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Ooooh pretty colors... @alienware #alienfx #gamedev #Unity3d

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New laptop from @alienware and I’m loving this thing. So much better than my “bargain” laptop with comparable specs. So fast! Now I can add AlienFX lighting to Guts and Glory too :D #gamedev #alienware #pcgaming

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v1.0 Launch Date: July 19th

At last!  I just received final confirmation that Guts and Glory v1.0 will be released on July 19th for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

Woooooooooooooooooooo!!

I know many of you have been asking about console ports for a long time, and I'm happy to say that the wait is nearly over.  I've dreamed of having a game on a Nintendo since I was a kid, so this is a personal victory for me as well; a check off my bucket list.  Thanks to everyone who has supported this crazy game!

The Guts and Glory Soundtrack will also be released on Steam that day, featuring 32 original compositions.

The 19th is right around the corner.  I was hoping for a longer lead time, but coordinating a multi-platform launch makes this extra difficult, so I hope you'll all help me spread the word about this so we can have an exciting launch day!

Long live Guts and Glorrrrrraay!!

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Steam Trading Cards + v1.0 Progress Update

The G&G Trading Cards have been released!

As you play the game, new cards will be dropped to your inventory.  Trade them with friends or buy/sell them on the Steam Marketplace to complete sets.

Collect all 7 to unlock glorious Badges, Emoticons, and Wallpapers for your Steam Profile.  Each time you collect a full set, you'll level-up to an even better badge and more virtual loot.  Collect the rare foil cards, and you'll unlock the prestigous Winner Takes All badge, featuring John's dismembered head in a glowing, golden trophy.

I made sure to include fun and useful emoticons, like the "Bloodthirsty" one above, and dismembered hands giving the thumbs up.  I hope you all like them.

Happy Collecting!

v1.0 Progress & Console Versions

Version 1.0 will be released soon for PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.  At this point, we're just waiting on the manufacturers to get back to us, saying that everything has passed their strict certifications process.  Then I can finally set a release date!

In the meantime, I'm continuing to hunt down some of the more rare bugs and optimizations, as well as working on some miscellaneous stuff such as adding AlienFX lighting.

UPDATE: Sony gave us the thumbs up!  Now we're just waiting on Microsoft and Nintendo.

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Follow for automatic updates when I start my next projects

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Picked up one of these Yeti mics for tomorrow’s live-stream. Gotta say, I love this thing! Eventually I’ll add a stand or something so it doesn’t pick up desk vibrations, but still an impressive mic. So easy to setup and adjust too. #audiophile #streaming #steamgames #steamsale #gutsandglory #live #recording #audio #twitch #youtubegaming

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How I built a commercially successful first game as a solo developer while working full-time, going to college, and raising a family. (PLUS: Video Story)

How to make it as an indie game developer!

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Professional Language Translations

Guts and Glory is now professionally translated into eight major languages! The updates should automatically download to your game within a week.

Professional Translations

Chinese (Simplified & Traditional)

Korean

Japanese

German

Russian

French

Portuguese (Brazil)

Spanish

Volunteer / Google Translations

Italian

Turkish

Arabic

Estonian

A special thanks to everyone who has volunteered throughout the life of this project to help with translation work!

Also, if you speak one of these languages, please help me spread the word about the translation updates. Thanks!

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Solo Game Developer becomes Overnight Sensation with Guts & Glory

Jedediah “HakJak” Steen Jedediah “HakJak” Steen is a solo game developer, striving to live a life-long dream of making games for a living. He started HakJak Productions part-time in 2015, while fin…