Howdy! We've been quiet for a bit- but we are back with a new direction for Shot One! Following our original concept being cloned by a much larger company (and then bombing hard)- We were forced to switch directions. And we are now reborn as a fighting game- With the help of some really talented peeps. Shot One Fighters is our new future.

Wanted to update the socials:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ShotOneFighters (Our main dev feed)

Discord: https://discord.gg/v2aa4tng (We're always talking to folks in here)

And of course, Newgrounds. <3

It's been a tough ass year as a small indie group but it's been nice seeing all the new followers. Do our best to spread the love as well when time permits. We've been busy with dev and a toy project as well (Trying to figure out an interesting way to support the game). As a reminder- If you want to know where to follow our goodies:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ShotOneFighters (Our main dev feed)

Discord: https://discord.gg/GEPAWCE (We're always talking to folks in here)

Youtube: https://youtube.com/c/ShotOne

And of course, Newgrounds. <3

http://discord.gg/9bbvQfk

We've opened up our Discord server after hitting a milestone, it's just a chill place to hang out and talk with devs, share your art and other fine goodies. I'll admit I was nervous about opening it up, but it's been a trickle of really chill people and artists coming in over time-Including a good chunk of people we met on NG.

Development continues as we move onwards to PAX! So look forward to chatting with you guys. Cheers!

Been a while since the last devlog, we're just slammed atm due to upcoming events. A convention in Austin called SXSW Gaming (Part of the gigantic South by Southwest event), and the upcoming GDC-Which we're going to for business reasons. Have to put on the dog and pony show!

(This was animated by Jen, aka MidnightMilo featuring the voice of Melody Muze as Volley.)

That aside, we recently got some amazing reception to some cutscene work we're doing. These are early mockups, but hopefully show the quality we're trying to hit with the dialogue scenes. I got a little frustrated seeing major budget games half assing the dialogue exchange during story segments, so we set out to try and one up that.

Usually in game dialogue segments are reduced to flat images of characters with speech bubbles, maybe some voice over work. We'll be able to execute this as we plan on having episodic content for our story mode, either that or we might be able to condense the game into a short and sweet story that's a few hours long.

It's all up in the air still! We've got plenty of other goodies in progress. Also wanted to thank fellow Newgrounder BridgeofFaust for his amazing Volley fanart in his ridiculously cool style! Team melted when they saw it.

Over and out! Wish us luck!

Since day 1, music was super important to me. I've grown up listening to incredible soundtracks but noticed as we entered the most recent generations, it felt like larger companies treated it like an afterthought. Generic orchestral overtook memorable tunes with great melodies that would get stuck in your head forever.

However in the indie space some amazing things happened, and in the shadows (or so it felt) were some amazing musicians creating soundtracks that would resonate with the world. The best example of this was probably Toby Fox and Undertale, which on all fronts had a huge impact on myself and the team. The music was incredible, and so powerful when it needed to be. No orchestral nonsense required (Not crapping on it, I just feel like it's been used lazily in a lot of games).

So to tell the story we have with Shot One, I really needed to find someone with that special something extra going on. Someone who understood the power of a good melody, who had fun making music and had injected it with their own personality. It took nearly a year of tirelessly searching on Soundcloud mainly and some failures, but one day I finally ran into a track simply called 'Soundbank74' by an awesome dude called Niko, aka Arcien who does music as a hobby.

It was like a lightning bolt struck my brain. It had energy, it had an incredible melody and the variety in it's 6 minute duration was amazing. It's hard to describe when you feel like someone goes that extra mile in their work, but he had that extra something I'd been looking on for so long. This was just last December! I was close to losing my mind at that point as we had PAX right around the corner and no music we were happy with. Music was just too important, we couldn't settle. I've stopped playing games because they had uninspired soundtracks! Anyone else feel the same?

With only a month and some spare change, he had to capture the spirit of the project and this uphill battle we were fighting. When he finally posted the theme he had come up with- It was like we watched the game gain it's soul in such an early state. It's hard to forget how it felt. So I am excited to eventually share what else Arcien is going to cook up if this is just the appetizer round..We want the soundtrack to be something you go back and listen to time and time again.

Cheers and thanks for tuning in. Be sure to check us out our silly game devlog on Twitter! <3

So things have been a little quieter than usual, it's because we're hunkering down for the next phase and planning. Now that we saw at PAX that people really enjoyed the game we're going to keep developing and pushing forward. The next phase involves getting the game online ready, as well as some new content. We got a ton of feedback at the event- So we're shifting focus to building Queen Kyu and her battle mech next!

Kyu by Jaya (Twitter)

She's probably the third character I designed. A tyrannous queen who is testing out her kingdom's latest technological achievement, the Feline Battlemech. Generic, I know. Still working on the name. Her mech will feature herself and her squire. We were thinking she would never speak English (As it is a dirty bottom feeders tongue) but only in meows, which her loyal squire would translate in game. No idea if that will stick but we're having fun with it.

(She might look cute but don't trust her) - Anyways, her rig is currently being reworked as we found some issues but she'll be getting re-animated pretty soon. Excited people loved her character so much. She'll be the first heavier class character that will be playable.

In the story her and Kiera will be at major odds, and there will be a plot point centered around our characters getting trapped in the feline kingdom and toyed with by Kyu. Did I mention Kyu's race runs the galaxies equivalent of a 711? You guys should check out Kyumart, it's got some of the best late night snacks.

Anyways, wanted to share this mini update as to what's cooking! Check us out on the Shot One twitter account if you get a chance as well! Cheers.

So let's get this out of the way, the road leading up to your first convention is probably the worst stress you'll ever encounter. We were losing our minds, everything went wrong..But someone close to us reassured us that things always work out. Our booth was double booked, we were moved to the wrong place, and eventually nearly didn't have a booth. I had to drive a van loaded with stuff to PAX's loading dock and sit there till someone would come help us, it came that close to not happening! Thankfully a staff organizer eventually came and gave us more than what we bargained for...

For our headache, we got 3 times the booth we imagined! And moved next to Bandai Namco (Which kinda scared us, haha) We were planning on having a normal booth but were upgraded to a 10x30 (The normal is 10x10). So we had to scramble to adjust our layout last minute. Then we spent the day before bug fixing and rebalancing the game up till 3am, when the final build came out. It's what stereotypical game developer stories are made of.

We had no idea if people were even going to enjoy the game or play it. It was really a nerve wracking lead up. However, what ultimately happened was the opposite of our worst fears- Everyone actually enjoyed the hell out of it! We don't have any gameplay footage up yet but people had a blast. We had a demo with Vlad and Volley in the beach stage and it was super easy to pick up and play for everyone. We had crowds nonstop for 3 days, and the team got to see that...Really feel grateful as we've been working away on a bubble of a Discord server with barely any money, it was SO good for morale and showed us we might have something good here. It's hard to state how much better it performed than we expected.

So after a short bout of PAX plague work has resumed! We're all excited for what the future holds now. Thank you for following our little journey so far. And yes, it was totally worth the stress! We also celebrated hitting 3k followers on Twitter recently! It might not seem like much but this was a huge milestone for us considering how early we are in development. We're tryhards so we made a gif to immortalize the moment! (Gifs are so much more fun than proper dev, good way to turn off our brains)

PS: Also, woohoo to another front page! :) Happy day.

PS2: Always wash your hands every 30 seconds at PAX. Con flu is too real.

Being from Texas and all, we couldn't miss the chance to head to PAX in San Antonio for our first con. Problem: It's in super early January (Jan 18-20). As a result we've been working over the holidays to get everything we need done. Not terribly enjoyable but we're all filled with motivation.

However, if everything works out it should be really dope! Will have the early build of the game featuring Vlad&Volley playable. And some swag to give out. Just need to survive the next week!

Come say hello at Booth #10229! We'll be hard to miss with our colorful booth we're all cranking on.

Edit: Also, front page feature recently! Woo! 

Nice to be back on Newgrounds after all these years. :) Look forward to sharing progress on our indie game on here from now on, always loved this community, glad to see it exploding again. Makes me so happy to see everyone flood back here like old times. 

Cheers and look forward to hanging out.