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Hey Nitromians,

We have been treating you to a lot of previews this week. So to follow suit, here is a one of Green Ninja: Year of the frog! still in production right now. More info on this game in the coming weeks. 

Click here to see two more polished screenshots from the game.

Those jelly bean ninjas sure are messing with the wrong frog! HWAAAAAAAAAAA...

by Jon

Take a quick look at Cooped Up in action!

by Nitrome

Hi Nitromians,

Time for a new game reveal. It's early in development but we're already super happy with how it's going.

It's by the same team that worked on Magic Touch and as such their just putting the finishing touches to the Magic Touch a update before getting back full speed into this. More on that update soon!

It's a platformer of sorts coming to both mobile and the browser for free. It's got super simple mobile friendly controls that are not a virtual dPad or like Platform Panic, it's random and endless but also fixed with checkpoints....and we don't mean there's two modes.

Ok enough for now...certainly some cryptic info there for you to speculate on :)

Oh and in case you were wondering the shots are 100% mocked up. We do have the game running with some of the art in but a lot of the monsters and art is not yet in the game so things are subject to change.

Click here for 3 full shots

by Mat

Hi Nitromians,

We have some sad news today. A few of you already noticed but we removed Touchy from the App Store and Google Play store a little while back. For those of you who have downloaded it already you can still use it for the moment. If you have already paid for the full unlock then it will still function but those with the App that have not already done so will not be able to use the IAP to unlock the full version.

So what's going on?

A few weeks back Nitrome and Brass Monkey had a meeting about Touchy. Brass Monkey (or InfaRed5 as their new company is now known) are the developers of the tech that makes Touchy work. They also run the servers that makes the initial connection happen between your computer and your phone.

They wanted to talk about the future of Touchy. Since setting up their new company they were closing down the old servers that ran Touchy as they said it was not cost effective to keep it running just for our app.

Swapping over to new servers meant a substantial update to both versions of the App and there were costs involved to do this. It also meant running our own servers for the service in future. We have been discussing these costs over the last couple of weeks. We removed the app from download and the iAP during this time as we did not feel comfortable letting downloads or sales continue while its future was uncertain.

The costs it turned out were quite a lot more than we had hoped. They would take us over two years of sales at the current rate to recoup the costs....or just maybe due to sliding sales we would never recoup the costs.

Touchy is a service based app. As people use it an external server has to pair the computer and phone and this costs money to run. If you turn off the server the app would cease to function.

Touchy never made a lot of money for Nitrome but we were happy to keep it running at this point as it did still make some and Brass Monkey handled the servers. There was no reason to not keep it running until this happened.

Having said that Nitrome changed direction in its approach to Apps late last year. We started making apps that were free and as part of that it meant we could also put the same game on the website. Because you can now get all our planned games on mobile there is very little point in adding Touchy controls to the web versions of the games. As we see it, if you have a mobile device you are lightly to just download the game given the choice rather than playing it in the browser using your mobile.

That's not to say that all Touchy experiences are possible on mobile. Some games did benefit from having your phone as a separate device and there were lots of ideas we had that we would have loved to have made just for it if it had made enough money from the app to justify it. But it didn't, and as that is the case it was yet another reason that we felt Touchy would eventually burn out regardless with no real chance of future support.

It was telling that nobody noticed for quite a while that we had even taken it down. Only very recently did we start seeing people ask where it had gone.

So what now?

Nitrome have negotiated a 3 month cool down period from today where current owners of the Touchy App will still be able to use it. Nitrome have offered to pay Brass Money their usual revenue they would receive in royalties to make this happen despite the fact we will make no money from the app during this period. We are doing this because we love our fans and the support you give us. We want to minimise the impact of anyone who may have recently downloaded the app or for those that truly love it. We wish we could keep it running forever but that is just not realistic given the circumstances and on researching previously closed down service based apps this seemed a reasonable length of notice.

We will remove Touchy functionality from the apps after the 3 months. Unfortunately this means some games will lose some features...in particular 4 player mode. If we are at all able to bring that functionality back at a later date through some other option such as controller support we will do our best to do so but we can't promise anything at this point as no such support currently exists.

The last day you will be able to use Touchy will be the 30th of June 2015. If anybody has further concerns or questions please email us and we will do our best to alleviate them.

To soften the blow we will be announcing a previously unmentioned upcoming game later today and we will give updates to other games and game updates throughout the week. We hope you can understand the decision we have had to make and can focus on future exciting projects with us rather than getting to upset about what gets left behind. 

by Mat

Today's Pixel Love choice is Glow Grid!

Glow Grid is a simple match-4 game which has been executed very well with great aesthetics and sound design. The simplicity in the designed elements helps frame, and doesn't draw away from, what your objective is.

It is a very addictive well made little game.

Available on iOS and Android! http://zutgames.com/glowgrid/

Have fun Nitromians! We'll bring you more Pixel Love next week!

by Tom

Hi Nitromians, well Silly Sausage seems to be doing great in the charts on iOS after another great feature from Apple.

The press seem to be digging it too with Touch Arcade giving it 4.5/5 and Pocket Gamer giving it 9/10! Horray!

We thought we would end the week though with Lonnies coverage of the game which is as ever hillarious.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Silly Sausage on iOS: Click Here!

Silly Sausage on Google Play: Click Here!

Silly Sausage on Amazon: Click Here!

by Nitrome

Hi Nitromians,

we have seen a few articles now about our new Silly Sausage game and what people think is the insperation behind it. Most commonly it has been called a cross between Snake and Rovios Retry. Retry was certainly an insperation for the restart element of the game (and it is also a great game that we chose in our Indie Showcase picks) but it is not really an insperation for the main mechanic in the game.

Snake was certainly an influence to the game mechanic but there is a greater influence and we felt we should highlight it as it is also a great game. James Pond 2: Robocod was a huge influence to the mechanic. The game is a platform game but in a twist you can stretch your body upwards until you hit a surface(which you can also grab onto). Unlike Silly Sausage you can't turn while stretching and thats where Snake comes in. So the premise really was what if you could stretch your character like Robocod but could make turns like Snake and we would then not need the Platforming element.

So there we have it for anyone who was curious as to where the idea came from :)

by Mat

Well we have been a bit busy today and totally forgot to actually announce the game was out on the blog and social.

So if you didn’t notice everything else that went on, the game is now out on iOS and Google Play and on Amazon first thing tomorrow (sorry we were waiting for an update to go through their system so minor delay).

The web version of the game should be along shortly too in both WebGL and Unity Player formats.

by Nitrome

Hi Nitromians,

Big news our next game Silly Sausage in Meat Land will be hitting app stores this Wednesday! Yes you heard that right THIS WEDNESDAY!! (cue epic echo sound). We held off on telling you as we made a last minute change to the app which because of submission times might have meant it was delayed a week. Thankfully that has turned out not to be the case.

Silly Sausage is like a cross between Mario world and Snake…well that’s about as close a comparison as we can make to anything.

The game will also be hitting the website though there will be a bit of a delay. This will be the first of our Unity made games which we will be providing in both Unity Player and Web GL formats. This should really up the compatibility of the game for any of you that have been having issues in the past but were still setting it up so that’s the main reason it is running a little behind.

Oh and you might want to check the fancy new trailer. If you read this far and didn’t click already please do so... wait for it... now!

by Nitrome

Today we have chosen Shark Lifting 2 as our pixel love game choice!

What made this one stand out was its absurd yet awesome premise of... well... lifting sharks!

This game is broken up into sections of mini games in which, over time, your lifting prowess is tested to the max.

We like the nod to Street Fighter 2 in the opening graphic user interface design. This one is a lot of fun with some great music!

Get Lifting! http://www.pixellovegames.com/games/sharklifting2/

Have fun everyone, we'll bring you another Pixel Love Game next week!

by Tom

Hot on the heals of Platform Panic being Apple's Indie Game Showcase it seemed a perfect time to reveal that we have been working on the games second major update!

This update is in fact even bigger than the first and focus on the rooms themselves adding new background art and new traps!

We will let you know more as the update readys completion but for now take a look at our juicy mock up shot :)

Get Platform Panic on iOS (Free)

Get Plaform Panic on Google Play (Free)

Get Plaform Panic on Amazon (Free)

Play Plaform Panic on Nitrome.com (Free)

by Mat

Hi Nitromians,

we're thrilled to announce that Apple has once again blessed us and picked our Plaform Panic game for their Indie Game Showcase!

It is a real honor to have been picked for the Showcase which features not only Plaform Panic but all of Nitromes games and a list of other games chosen by our good selves that we think you should check out. 

Stay tuned for some more juicy Plaform Panic related news very soon :)

Get Platform Panic on iOS (Free)

Get Plaform Panic on Google Play (Free)

Get Plaform Panic on Amazon (Free)

Play Plaform Panic on Nitrome.com (Free)

by Mat

Hi Nitromians!

This week we have chosen Range Man by The Village Blacksmith as our Pixel Love game choice!

We have featured The Village Blacksmith's work before with Recursion, another great game.

The art style in this one has a similar look and feel. Use enemy for some extra air in your jump and to get to hard to reach platforms/areas. Avoid the spikes. This is a clean uninterrupted take on the classic platform genre. A really refreshing fun to play little title.

Have fun everyone, we'll bring you another Pixel Love choice next week!

by Tom

Hi Nitromians,

Apple have picked our game 8bit Doves as their Free App of the Week! So in case that wasn't obvious enough people with iOS devices that have not been so kind as to download it already can for the next week do so for gratis!

No catches, no Ads and no iAP just FREE!!!!

Go now our freeloading fans and grasp some Gameboy(ehem Nitromeboy) greatness while you still can!

Get 8Bit Doves!

by Mat

Back at the end of 2014 we had an idea for a small game that we were calling 'Feeding Time', so we started to develop the engine and draw the characters... now we're mid-March it's all changed many, many, MANY times!

Now the game is nearing completion we thought we'd share with you a little nibble of what you can expect.

The game will now be called 'Cooped Up'

We think the development journey whilst has been far longer than we expected, is actually quite interesting and we will share with you different sides to the design adventure as we near the release.

So here's the pitch...

You are the new bird in a caged environment, all the other inhabitants have gone a bit loopy, they've just been cooped up too long! You must survive by twanging between the perches and maybe snack on a few bugs along the way!

Full image

by JK