Android tablets take a bite out of iPad

We're pretty bullish on Android as a gaming platform these days, particularly with the announcement at CES this year of all the new graphically-supercharged tablets and phones coming out with Nvidia's Tegra 2 chipset.

Add to that momentum the report from CNet today that  Android tablets made huge gains against the iPad's market share in the fourth quarter of last year:

In the fourth quarter, Apple's tablet captured 75.3 percent of worldwide market share, easily besting Android-based devices' 21.6 percent share, according to market-research firm Strategy Analytics. However, those figures differ vastly from the third quarter when Apple had 95.5 percent share and Android had just 2.3 percent.

From 2.3 to 21.6 percent share in just 3 months?  That's pretty impressive.  If they can keep that momentum up, 2011 going to be a good year to be an Android developer.  

I'm not saying anything, just, you know...ahem.

Full article:  iPad loses significant share to Android tablets

Get Hydro Thunder Hurricane for 800 points

Hey we realize times are tough, and not everybody has $15 lying around to spend on a totally awesome and completely worth it rocket-powered speedboat game with thrilling waterfall jumps and technologically amazing water physics.

Well, if money is the one thing that's been holding you back from buying Hydro Thunder Hurricane, now's your chance to stop crying about it and break out the virtual wallet.

As Major Nelson has reported, Hurricane will be discounted 33% to 800 points during the week of January 31st.

The discount is part of a "Get Wet!" promotion that also features Hydrophobia and Aqua.  

The existentialism of Hydro Thunder

I don't know about you, but personally I love philosophical ramblings about video games.  We spend so much time talking about high def graphics and multiplayer teabagging and flaming each other about whether Bioshock looks ever so lightly better on the 360 or the PS3.  But what about the deeper truths?  What about the soul?

Well Richard Clark at Kill Screen has turned his minds eye upon the churning waters of Hydro Thunder Hurricane, and has mined hidden veins of meaning that even I didn't know were there.  

In Hydro Thunder Hurricane, as with most videogames, we're never really dead. On the contrary, all human frailty is cast off in exchange for the pure power and mechanical nature of the speedboat. We no longer need to sleep. We don't even need to slow down. If the game has a brake button, it is the rare player who is actually aware of it. There are only two speeds: boosting and not boosting.

Hydro Thunder Hurricane portrays speed in such a way that it seems like a defensive and necessary response to the world.

To be honest, all I heard was "blah blah blah Hydro Thunder is totally awesome blah blah."  But I appreciate the love.

Actually, seriously, I got a kick out of this article, and I highly recommend it.  It's amusing, and actually really well written.  Thanks, Richard!  I'll remember you next time I'm lying awake at night thinking about the ontology of boost.

Game with the developers, February 7!

So you think you got skills because you beat some chumps playing Hydro Thunder Hurricane online?  Test those skills against the people who made the game!  

Vector Unit will host a Game with Developers event on Xbox LIVE, February 7 from 6-8pm PST.  Look for us online during those hours and join in the mayhem!  We'll be playing on all tracks including the Tempest Pack, so be sure to download the full version of the DLC if you want to join us.

We'll post more details as the date draws closer.  Check back for more info!

Vector Unit at GDC 2011

Creative Director Matt Small will be speaking at GDC 25 this year, hosting a 60 minute presentation entitled "Tales from the Trenches: Startup Advice from a Vet".  

The presentation will give an insider's look at the first years of Vector Unit, from our inception as a couple of guys working out of a home office to the development of Hydro Thunder Hurricane and beyond. We'll provide a candid overview of how we got our company off the ground, and provide attendees with a roadmap tailored to established game professionals who dream of some day striking out on their own.

Date and time still to be announced.  Check back for details!

Update on 2011-01-29 01:32 by Vector Unit

The session has been scheduled for Friday, March 4, from 9:30am to 10:30am.  Location is North Hall, Room 130.  

Fan Mail: So good your girl will hate you

From time to time we get mail from people telling us they love Hydro Thunder Hurricane.  Which is no surprise, because we think it's ten kinds of awesome.  But we still like hearing it from other people because we also think Blood Wake was awesome, so what do we know?

But every now and then we get a letter that's extra special.  After reading it we slowly lean back in our seats with a little smile and just let the warmth from the email window expand out and envelop us.  It feels like a Hawaiian sunset.

Such a letter is Parnell Lutz's:

To whom may concern and the entire VU team,

Sorry if this is a long winded story, but I thought I would share my excitement and enjoyment to see a fantastic game brought back and executed so well.

I remember as a young person going into the Arcade and seeing HT for the first time. Blew my mind, and became an obsession to find it at every arcade we stopped at. When the dreamcast was released and HT was available for it, my dream of playing the crap out of the game and beating it could become true! This is one of my favorite games, ever. I was at E3 2010 and got to see the game. My childhood memories and excitement erupted with glee. You know, like when you're a child on Christmas? That sparked my desire to play the original again, in its entirety. I went on a mission, bought a DC w/ HT, and HT for pc. I think I went on a month binge of only talking about HT and had it on a few of my laptops so I could play it, everywhere. Got a few coworkers obsessed too, in the process.

I bought Hurricane very soon after release and I love the freaking hydro out of it. I literally cannot get enough of the game. I have put more time into this single game than any other game I have ever owned on a console. This has been the best $20 (I had to buy the expansion) I have ever spent on a game. My excitement and obsession with this game has made one girl hate me and many friends, and coworkers purchase the game. I'm on a mission to unlock everything, almost there. Recently my coworker and myself have been on a mission to beat each others track times. Even playing the same track 40 times in a row to get .10 seconds ahead of said coworker, still does not bore me with this game. The expansion was great, and has added some life and fun. But I am wondering if VU will release another expansion. I really think more tracks would be perfect addition for 2011. The boat selection is good and vast, so even porting the original HT levels to the game would be fantastic. If you can even give me a hint that more DLC would be out, to hold me over, I would appreciate the tip, but understand if you cannot. 

Thank you again for making such a fantastic game, and I hope you keep supporting it with DLC, to keep my addicted.

Parnell Lutz

p.s. How do you feel about h2overdrive? I played it, enjoyed it, but still LOVE Hurricane more, so again thank you for bringing it to console :)

Ahhhh.  Feels great to get kudos from (a) a fan of the original, (b) a well-written gentleman of letters, and (c) anybody who likes HTH better than H2O.

Thanks, Parnell!  I actually answered him personally.  The rest of you will have to guess the answers.

Can games make you smarter?

Just got back from a conference in Washington DC about language learning and video games.  

I was there along with a number of other game industry peeps to explain some basic ideas about game design and the game industry to government and university language acquisition experts.  The idea was to get everybody in a room together from our different industries and see if by sharing knowledge we could come up with some ideas about ways that video games might be able to make the process of learning a language (or anything else for that matter) more engaging and productive.

Sounds like it could have been kind of dry, but was actually super interesting.  In addition to speakers from the games biz, Dr. David Traum spoke on the research his team has done in natural language simulation at USC, and Dr. Ray Perez of the Office of Naval Research told us about several experiments his group has done to improve training in the US Navy and other branches of the US Armed Forces.

The whole thing got me thinking about "edutainment", which is often treated as a dirty word in game development circles.  But why?  Everybody has to learn; everybody has to go to school.  Surely there must be a way to make games that are fun to play and teach you something in the process.  

Too busy getting ready for our visit to Microsoft next week to blog deeply about this right now, but I'll come back to the topic again -- it's got the little gears in my brain spinning.

Oh, and eventually they're going to post the videos of our presentations online.  I'll update this when they do.

Cheaters (almost) never win

One question we get a lot is:  "When are you going to clean those dirty rotten cheat times out of the Hydro Thunder Leaderboards?"

Well my friends, the time of reckoning is at hand.  

We just tested the clean-o-matic code on Partner Net, which is the internal Xbox LIVE test network at Microsoft.  And it works, so now we're applying for a certificate to let us make changes to the real Leaderboards.

Sorry it's taken so long.  You'd think maybe the ability to edit or clean the Leaderboards would be something that Microsoft would include in its standard XBLA tools.  But you'd be wrong.  

Every developer needs to roll their own solution, and we've been busy with other stuff, like working on new game concepts.  And eating nachos.

But thanks in large part to some incredibly generous support from the guys at Red Lynx, we have broken through to the other side, and are now prepared to unleash the cleansing fires of justice.

Cheaters, you had your day in the sun.  But that day is over.  Your ill-begotten times will not stand!

Now about those nachos...

If a tree falls and nobody hears it...

I understand that running a gaming website is a lot of work.  There are thousands of new titles coming out every year, each one clamoring for coverage, hoping to snag a spot on your front page, a review, a preview.  Each one wanting a little special attention.  

But man -- getting coverage for a small game, when you're running a small company, is hard.  If you're reading this, you already know that we released the Tempest Pack DLC for HTH the week before last.  And if you read some of the fan blogs out there you might have even read a review of it.

But if you're like millions of people out there and all you ever read was Gamespot or GamePro -- I doubt you'd know anything about the Tempest Pack.  You might not even know about Hydro Thunder Hurricane.  

Which means you'd be sad, because Hydro Thunder Hurricane and the Tempest Pack make smiles.

I guess I'm starting to see the value in having a real PR team working for you.  We've been trying to handle our own PR since the HTH launch, and it's a cold hard world out there.  As far as I can see, most larger sites don't spend the time to post separate reviews of DLC for smaller games.  Actually, many XBLA titles don't even get full reviews, period, so maybe I should count us lucky.  

Not much of a point here -- just griping.  And -- once again -- I need to mention my appreciation for all those smaller sites who've shown appreciation -- and taken the time to review -- both our game and our DLC.  Sniff.  We love you, man.