Nothing Good has finally been released on Steam! This project has been a labor of love for the past decade, spending most of its life as an arcade game in NYC venues.
I wrote the original version while a student at the NYU Game Center. It was for a class called "Prototype Studio" taught by Bennett Foddy of QWOP fame. Every week, Professor Foddy would give us a prompt for a new game jam style digital game project. For this particular week, the prompt was "Violence." Inspired by the original Saw movie, I placed characters in a confined space where they were presented with the opportunity to commit violent acts with a gun that falls through a hole in the ceiling.
It was a hit with my fellow students and playtesters. It eventually caught the eye of Mark Kleeb, curator of the arcade the underground music venue Death By Audio. Mark gave me the opportunity to build a full arcade machine at his workshop, debuting with a big launch event eight years ago. Since then the machine has been to BostonFIG, SAAM Arcade, and MAGFest Indie Arcade. It now resides in Mark's bar Wonderville in Brooklyn, and maintained by the Arcade Commons game collective.
In the 5.0 version of the game, I have introduced quite a few changes, quality of improvements, and features.
Changes
- A full overhaul of the UI with a new menu system with settings and match options sub menus.
- View play statistics by pressing F1 on the title screen.
- Pass-and-play tournament/party mode. Up to 32 players can play in the single-elimination format, and 8 in the round robin format.
- I've added a method of switching color palettes to give the game some variety. If you have an arcade machine, consider switching to the "Dark" mode to prevent screen burn-in. Press F2 to switch palettes or change it in the settings menu.
- XBox and Steam controller support added via Steam Input API, supporting custom mapping.
- Localized the game into 14 new languages: Czech, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Traditional Chinese, and Ukrainian. I used AI to translate because, well, it's a zero budget indie game, so please let me know if you spot any wonky phrasing.
- Hidden game modes - There are four Easter egg modes and one more hidden "roster" feature somewhere in the game. They have not been properly play-tested, so I'm burying them a bit until I'm more confident that they're fun. Just think of unconventional ways to play the game if you're looking for them.
- Numerous bug fixes and optimizations.
Arcade Launch Options
This game is primarily an arcade game, with my own machine hosted at the Wonderville arcade bar in Brooklyn, NYC. So naturally I decided to add a bunch of arcade-friendly features to make integration into an arcade cabinet easier.
- Arcade launch option: The game will have a more limited menu with "Insert Credit" and "Ready?" prompts. The "1" and "2" keys will add credits (maybe hook one up to an internal test button and the other to the coin door). Once credits are inserted "F" and ";" keys will set player 1 and player 2 to to the "ready" state, respectively.
- Free play arcade launch option: Same as paid but credits aren't needed, obviously.
- Attract Mode - Some of your matches will be saved and replayed if you idle on the title screen for too long. This is to prevent some screen burn-in and to show a preview of gameplay to passing users in an arcade setting.
- Press F4 on the title screen to start a tournament while either arcade mode is active.
- Press F5 on the title screen to cycle between arcade and the standard launch mode. Use this to access the Settings or Play menus to change game or match settings.