NinjaBee Studio Releases Outpost Kaloki

[terin]

*Publisher's note: This game is awesome. That isn't normally in the "official" press release.*

September 18, 2004 – (Pleasant Grove, Utah) – NinjaBee Studio, a division of Wahoo Studios, (http://www.NinjaBee.com) announced that their space station tycoon style game, Outpost Kaloki, has successfully been released. Outpost Kaloki features a family oriented design with all the challenge of managing your own space station. Keep your visiting aliens happy, keep your attractions in working condition, and money (and maybe love with a beautiful princess) will follow.

Outpost Kaloki combines a very simple interface with the game play of a complicated strategy game. Each space station has a number of “spokes� that you can build attachments to. Each attachment fulfills a specific need, such as social interaction, business, energy production, and maintenance. Most objects are designed to produce revenue, but some, like solar collectors and repair bays, are designed to keep your station functioning. If you can meet the demand of your customers while maintaining all your structures and energy production you will be on your way to victory.

This non-violent strategy game can be enjoyed by everyone in the family. Outpost Kaloki is simple enough for children and challenging enough for any adult. With funny dialogue and compelling graphics it will have even the worst business person predicting supply and demand as they race towards financial success. Best of all, you can download Outpost Kaloki free from http://www.NinjaBee.com in a matter of minutes.

NinjaBee Studio, a division of Wahoo Studios, is dedicated to bringing retail quality family games back to the online market. Outpost Kaloki is the first of many games from NinjaBee designed to bring fun for everyone age six to sixty and beyond. Find out more at http://www.NinjaBee.com.

[Sunshine]

This is one of the funnest games I've played in a long time. Very simple design, but still very cool.

[stay]

Sorry for the late reply (I only just signed up on indiegamer.com).

Thanks very much for the positive feedback!

[Jack Norton]

I agree, very good game

p.s. Terin you monopolized the News & Announcement forums!

[Dan MacDonald]

Everyone should try this game, it is tons of fun. I've never been a "tycoon" type gamer but I was sucked right into this game and played it for 45min straight the first time I tried it.

[Greg Squire]

I tried this on my machine at work (Radeon 7000 series card) and it ran fine. I'm not really a Tycoon gamer either, but I found that I enjoyed it as well (especially when things started heating up). I liked the learning prompts, they were really helpful learning what to do, especially for a "non-tycooner" like me. The graphics are very attractive as well. This one looks like a winner to me. If you haven't tried this one then do so. It's fun!

[terin]

Interestingly, Kaloki is not faring well (I learned this from a public posting by them if you are concerned about confidentiality).

I think part of the problem may be that they anticipated immediate gains, but any great suggestions you could name I will forward to them.

It is a bit funny though, everyone who plays it agrees that the game is a winner (myself included). Yet they seem to be struggling to obtain a substantial download and conversion.

Thoughts?

[swollen]

Seems like a tough time to release a shareware game. With the holiday flood of retail pc and console titles well underway, how many gamers are willing to spend money on shareware titles?

[Greg Squire]

Interestingly, Kaloki is not faring well (I learned this from a public posting by them if you are concerned about confidentiality).

I think part of the problem may be that they anticipated immediate gains, but any great suggestions you could name I will forward to them.

It is a bit funny though, everyone who plays it agrees that the game is a winner (myself included). Yet they seem to be struggling to obtain a substantial download and conversion.

Thoughts?

I think it's easy to get expections out of line in this industry. From my understanding, it can take months and years before people start coming to you in the numbers you hope for. Also, they need to look for ways to increase their exposure. Obviously, you're trying to help them with some of that Terin. But maybe they need to do some more "Guerilla Marketing" techniques and find cheap ways to plug their product in non-traditional (but relevent) channels. Things like, finding where the "Tycooner's" go and then finding ways to get in their face there. I know I'm talking in generalities, but if I think of some specifics, I'll post them here.

[Mark Fassett]

In my 60 minutes of play, it seemed I went through between 6 and 8 scenarios. When I look on the website (and in the nag at the end of the game) it isn't easy to see what I would get from registering. And when I found it, it didn't seem like all that much - 14 story mode scenarios, and I was able to finish at least 6 of them in my 60 minutes? Admittedly, it did seem like they took longer as I got farther along, but still - cap it at 2 story scenarios (one easy and one harder) and one sandbox scenario. Then tell me when I close the game what I'm going to get if I want to buy it. Don't make me go searching for the information.

Having said that - the game is great. I played my 60 mins once on one computer, and then put it on my laptop and played through it again. I'll probably buy it at some point, especially if they add more story scenarios.

[Addictive 247]

Have to agree with everyone that the game is superb and I'm not even into "tycoon" type games. It's nice and easy to pick up and play, great presentation and very addictive - nice work

However, I do think that the demo version gives too much away. Cut down the amount of scenarios available to the player and you're sure to be onto a winner!

[Promaginy]

Thoughts?

The name is obscure. I am not sure what a Kaloki is. It does not scream Tycoon style game because it does not have Tycoon in the title. The fact is that '<insert name here> Tycoon ' is the de facto naming convention for these types of games. People expect to see that.

Still, the game is only a month and a half old. I think they need to give it some time and let the enthusiastic customers convert people which will take some time. Good luck to them! I will definately try a download.

[Matthew]

Thoughts?

Improve the Armadillo splash screens. They look very unfinished--probably unimportant to many of us, but vital when it comes to convincing paranoid mainstream customers. You can do a lot with the HTML reminder windows, particularly with JavaScript digesting the number of uses/minutes remaining. This is the Armadillo splash for an upcoming version of Buzzwords (link so as not to disrupt the thread topic too much): http://www.flashbangstudios.com/test...zwordswrap.jpg

[Jack Norton]

However, I do think that the demo version gives too much away. Cut down the amount of scenarios available to the player and you're sure to be onto a winner!

They just need to put 1 hour play limit... best deal

[stay]

Wow, this is great feedback. Thanks, guys.

We do have a one-hour time limit, which was essentially required by one of the distributing sites for the game, but which has since been questioned by others. People have said that a feature-limited demo would be better for this game than time-limited. But I realize this is a heavily argued topic.

I'm amazed that a new player could get through 6 levels of the game in the one hour demo, let alone 8. It's true that there are only 14 levels in the story mode of the game, but there are also additional scenarios for more than 20 total scenarios in the full version. Someone playing through 8 levels in one hour surely wouldn't have time to also have played through the additional scenarios. We do feel that there's at least 15 hours of gameplay in the full game, so giving away one hour didn't seem like a bad thing to do, but I'm getting the impression that we gave away too much...

You're right that the game should explain what you get for buying, rather than making you check out the web page. This was just inexperience on our part - we modeled our Armadillo screens after the ones used by one of the big game portals, and it was only later that we realized how much was lacking. Our next release will have much better information about what's added in the full version, but it doesn't look as good as the buzzwords screen yet.

We've had a few industry people mention the name issue. We spent a LOT of time discussing the name, and deciding whether to include "Tycoon" in the name. In the end we decided on the current name because it's cute and very easily searched for and also because it builds a brand - we intend to do a series of Kaloki games. That said, we're considering a subtitle or something for the next round of changes to the website, maybe something like:

Outpost Kaloki: Space Station Tycoon

Thanks again for the awesome feedback,

-- stay

[Dan MacDonald]

Keep at it steve, you've got a winner here!

[Promaginy]

That said, we're considering a subtitle or something for the next round of changes to the website, maybe something like:

Outpost Kaloki: Space Station Tycoon

Some other variations on the name might be:

Space Outpost Tycoon : The Kaloki Sector
Space Station Tycoon : The Kaloki Sector
or substitute 'Sector' with Adventure, Challange, etc.

Once the game develops a following, then you can shift to putting Kaloki at the front of the name. The Tycoon name is just a way to draw people in.

Also, do you know where all of these tycoon players are congregating? Perhaps promote/upload the demo to
http://www.terragame.com/tycoon/index_1_sort2.html
http://www.tycoonmatch.com/

Have you sent out review copies to review sites?

[Yossarian]

That terragames link is kinda scary. Seems that any well rated game immediately gets jumped on to get hacked for free gameplay, and the website doesn't seem to mind them posting links to FTPs where you can grab the hacked full versions.

I'd personally be kinda wary of making your stuff available on a site that allows that kind of thing.

[EpicBoy]

We've had discussions about names before and from those discussions:

"Space Outpost Tycoon : The Kaloki Sector"

...would be a terrible name for a long list of reasons.

"Space Station Tycoon" rolls of the tongue and immediately tells people what the game is about and how they would be expected to play it. The current name isn't much better though:

"Outpost Kaloki"

...says absolutely nothing about the game and gives you no indication of what you're getting into by downloading it.

[Mark Sheeky]

Isn't Space Station Tycoon already a game? Personally (and I know I make stupid descisions about such things) I don't like the idea of putting Tycoon in there (Manager or Commander are other options). If you want to change the name (and it might be too late anyway) "Outpost Commander" would by my idea in the hat.

Personally, Outpost Kaloki sounds fine to me. I mean, "Doom" was not about forboding disaster and "Duke Nukem" was not about killing aristocrats with nuclear weapons. A name is important but the game is more important. Oh, and a unique name, no matter how wierd, is often more important than an easily understood one.

Mark

[EpicBoy]

Oh, and a unique name, no matter how wierd, is often more important than an easily understood one.

That's completely incorrect, but that's another discussion.

[Vectrex]

'Deep space Kaloki'?

[Vectrex]

btw Stay: the game is cool. I think it would be more interesting if one of the objects you could build was an extention to the space station itself which had more nodes on it. then you could build off the extention and built extentions on the extentions making it feel like it's more 'yours' and adding a more creative element to it. So the start space station would have less nodes. This could effect traffic flow and have scenarios for it as well... Maybe one for the sequel!!

ps how long did it take your group to finish? whats it made with/in?

[stay]

Vectrex: The game was made with a custom engine, based on OpenGL, written in C++. We spent more than a year on the engine (off and on) and a little less than a year on the game, but we were working on other contract jobs at the same time.

I completely agree about the "extensions" idea. In fact, the team nagged me frequently about that. We did some mockups with the jungle station and some little jungle extensions coming off it, but we just didn't have the time or money to make it happen. The number of things we *didn't* put into the game but wanted to is pretty depressing sometimes... But yeah, maybe in the sequel.

I tend to agree with Mark about the unique name, but that's probably obvious, given the name we chose. And we're certainly not experts at chosing names for games. Again, I'm grateful for all the opinions here, and it's certainly making me rethink some things.

It's really unlikely that we'll change the core name of the game at this point - VGSmart did hundreds of press release mailings, we've had a dozen news blurbs and reviews posted on the web and more pending, and we've talked to a ton of bigger publishers about the game for months. I think it's a little late to completely change the title, which is why I was thinking along the lines of a subtitle. Outpost Kaloki: Blah Blah Blah. We'll certainly consider all this advice, though, in naming the next game. If it's a Kaloki title (which we're working on) then we'll include the name Kaloki, 'cause that was the whole point, but maybe it will be something like "Kaloki First Person Shooter"...

-- stay

[Coyote]

Kaloki the FPS?

Lemme know if I can help out. I really want to blow away some of those fishy guys...

[ggambett]

Interestingly, Kaloki is not faring well [...] Thoughts?

I downloaded a couple of games to see what's going on (Magic Vines, Bejewelled 2, Kaloki) and I tried Kaloki last. Man, what a pleasant surprise!

I really liked this one, I love its humor, and I feel truly sad to see a game clearly superior to the usual match-three-thingies doing bad

It could be improved though. It's overly complicated (assuming it's targeted at the casual market). Managing $, energy and other stuff is complicated enough to, in addition, have the option to regulate the output of the energy generators increasing its periodic cost. For moments, it felt like an accounting class!

I felt lost a couple of times, even during the first level. Maybe a very guided tutorial should be useful.

Overall, I think this game has a lot of potential, I hope you can work out what isn't working and make it successful, it truly deserves it!

[Jack Norton]

Didn't know that they aren't doing well... I saw their game on all major portals... oh, maybe you mean direct sales from their website... hmm maybe everyone has already bought it from portals?

btw I asked them to sell the game as affiliate but I have yet to receive an answer...