Just a quick note, I made us a page over at ModDB/IndieDB for Unstoppable, check it out. Also I uploaded Egoraptor's concept art for the main character, Jermaine Uberheimer, have a look at him. He's the next big video game superstar!

So summer is here, which means no school for Jonny and Ty, and since I quit my job and moved back in with my parents, and since Ty got FIRED from his job as head waiter, and since we have money from Avatar Showdown, that means we're all working full-time on games...dream come true, right? Well, not quite, because, you see, we hate making games and we hate playing games and we hate gamers and OK YES IT'S A DREAM COME TRUE THIS IS AWESOME! ...I've actually never been happier in my entire life (of course I'll be a lot more happy once I get away from the parents, but hey, beats delivering pizza).

Anyway, the image above shows our new workplace, tokbox. It's the best site I could find that allows free webcamming for more than 2 users (we each live about 45 minutes away from each other now and we're definitely not ready to get actual office space yet). So we're treating this like a real job, every weekday we log-in to the site at 9 and work til 4 or so. That gives us each at least 30-35 hours a week, which really isn't enough, but we here at JForce Games are lazy folk, you know. Naw I kid, we'll work more than that, those are just the required "together hours." Now we're also using 14dayz to track our time, and TightVNC for screen-sharing. I strongly recommend a system like this for any geographically-challenged indie teams out there, especially if you lack self-discipline. Obviously it's great for communication, but it also really helps with accountability.

So what are we up to, you ask? Heh, we're actually working on like 5 different games. Crazy right? Actually forget I said that. Just know this:

-Ty's been learning programming. Seeing how he's really good at everything, I have no doubt he'll become a very competent programmer, and in short time too. He's also spending time on all my required reading material over marketing and business and stuff.

-Jonny is working on the Unstoppable level editor & PC version (and a secret game).

-I'm working on design stuff for Unstoppable (plus doing some 3d animation for a secret game or two).

-Jordan is back, working on level graphics for our new Unstoppable art direction (more on that later).

-Jesse is keepin it gangster...and actually he'll be helping out with reference footage later this week.

-Egoraptor's hard at work on cutscenes, says this is his best work yet. He showed us a rough draft for the first scene awhile ago, and yes...awesome. He even said that if he was making a demo reel then this would be the only thing he'd include on it. Awesome overload. Can't wait to see it finished!

Also can't wait to play the new Zelda! And the new Donkey Kong Country! And the new Metroid!

OMG!!!

Yeah! Egoraptor is doing Unstoppable's cutscenes! Everything considered, (art skills/voice acting/humor/writing/popularity) he's really the best animator in the entire world, in our opinion at least. He's mostly known for the Awesome Series, Metal Gear Awesome being his biggest hit. I think Awesome Gaiden is my favorite...or this one, even though I've never played that game. Really it's hard to choose a favorite, they're all just too funny! He also has the Girlchan in Paradise series which is a hilarious spoof of anime cartoons. And here's a short (but incomplete) bio of him, case you're interested.

So yeah, go subscribe to his youtube and twitter!

The online crashes should be gone, though you may still be disconnected from your opponent every once in awhile due to latency and synchronization issues. The problem was really hard to fix and Jonny just couldn't get it perfect, but it's still a LOT better than it was before. We also added two new avatars to the game, one of which is shown above. :D

Oh and we got Matt Myers of the Leet Street Boys to make us the new face-off sound effect. So yeah, go download the game if you haven't already!

PS: big awesome announcement will be made in the next day or so...

Ok, if you're one of the poor saps who doesn't pay attention to our twitter updates over there on the sidebar, well first off you should kill yourself promptly, then you should go read our interview at xblaratings.com. Then ask yourself, are we not the greatest interviewees ever? The answer is yes, yes we are. The interview covers stuff like Avatar Showdown conceptualization, strategies, hype-bait for Unstoppable, and obese women with diarrhea & extremely heavy menstrual cycles.

Next up, our biggest splash in the press was here on Kotaku (probably the most popular gaming blog in the world). Yours truly had the genius idea to include their chief editor in the game, with a quote from that hilarious Brian Crecente spoof video.

And The Sixth Axis posted the trailer, admitted it's awesome stuff. Speaking of which, I think we may have created the most black or white trailer of all time. Some say it sucks, while others say it's the best trailer ever, better than the game itself, or even the only reason they bought the game. So that's good.

Now on to the reviews. Most of them are pretty negative, basically because the game is so simple. But hey, all that matters is that WE like the game, right guys? ...guys? Continue »

JForce takes transparency to the next level. The complete sales data for Avatar Showdown is now available here on our nifty sales stats page. It'll be updated every day to show the previous day's sales (usually after 2pm CT, but sometimes there's delays). There's cool little graphs there at the bottom too, plus you can even see how big a slice each member of JForce is taking. This is revolutionary! Yes, so as you can see the game is selling really well. It was the #1 seller its first three weeks, and #2 on the fourth week. So looks like we proved all our doubters wrong, eh? But that's expected, anyone who doubts JForce is foolish! Anyway, all this is really great because we can use this money to make Unstoppable even better.

And hey if you're an xna member and you find these stats helpful, you could return the favor by reviewing our updated Avatar Showdown.* It fixes a crashing issue with the online mode, which is pissing off many players probably this very moment, so we'd like to get this through review ASAP. Thanks!

*Nevermind! I'm an idiot and didn't upload the updated build to review. I thought I did! Grrrr. Now we have to wait a week before we submit again. Sorry.
Ok, it's back in review! -April 12th

The game just got through peer review this morning. We're super pumped! We finally have a game finished and out on the marketplace. You can queue up the download to your Xbox 360 right here!

However, we have bad news. Some people are experiencing crashes when rematching an opponent in online mode. I'm pretty upset about this because it didn't turn up in testing, though it's only our fault as we should have tested it with more people. But fear not, we're working on a fix! And if it's any consolation, at one point we weren't even going to have an online mode. And hey, if this kinda thing happens to big games like Gears of War, I guess we shouldn't be too hard on ourselves. Plus the game's only a dollar. Just sayin. But nevertheless, a fix is on the way. Apologies from JForce, we know we messed up and you obviously have a right to be pissed. Please forgive us!

And here is our little press release for those interested: Continue »

Now in Peer Review. If all goes well it should be out on the marketplace within a few days.

UPDATE: Well all didn't go well, we had to pull the game from review for prohibited content. One of the characters in single player mode is supposed to mimic Allen Iverson, so we bought a Sixers jersey from the avatar marketplace for him to wear. But they just added a new rule, you can't have premium avatar gear on NPC's. So we pulled the game, sat in "jail" for a week while also in playtest, got some good feedback, made a few changes and resubmitted on Friday. So hopefully it'll be out in the next week or so.

Here's the youtube comments.

Ok, I knew this day would come. Jesse has lost all dignity. He needs to be...terminated...or something.

But, more importantly, Avatar Showdown is almost done. I'll be very shocked and disappointed if it's not a top ten seller. The last top ten list includes all the avatar games that were out at that time (there's been two released since then). They're mostly crap. Really. It looks like Xbox users will buy anything that has Avatar in the title. So we're gonna cash in on that. Also, it's a remake of the popular mini-game Samurai Kirby, so this should definitely do well. And we really need the money too so we can pour it into Unstoppable.

Here's the youtube comments.