Author Archive

new game+

it’s been 12 years…

…but it’s still on

in fact my current plan is to focus on it exclusively until i can finally release it

thankyou for your patience. i’ll try to update this place occasionally with progress. i understand there’s probably a lot to talk about at this point, having kept silent about my development for over a decade.

the next game from superflat games is…

… LONE WARRIOR

thankyou to those who’ve played and supported super lone survivor. i’m glad some of you enjoyed it, thankyou to those who took the time to give feedback, and share their stories, and those who painstakingly discovered all the secrets and wrote / filmed walkthroughs.

i’m now back in development mode on a new game in the series, with a different protagonist. it’s going to be a bit different in gameplay terms. this time it’s less of a focus on stealth and survival and more of a focus on action / panic scenarios. aliens to lone survivor’s alien, if you like. there is more of a range of combat options, but not really anywhere to hide. it’ll probably be a shorter but (hopefully) more intense game than lone survivor.

i actually started this before super lone survivor before deciding it would be more sensible to rerelease the original game first. i’m still not sure if that was the right choice but i’m glad to be back in the flow of making this.

SUPER LONE SURVIVOR is out now

after three years rebuilding the game from scratch, and adding a world of new content, i’m happy to announce this new version of the game is live right now on Steam, priced $24.99. it’ll be coming to Nintendo Switch on 8/11/22, next tuesday.

here is the steam link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1907440/Super_Lone_Survivor

i hope you enjoy the new version of the game. it’s meant to somehow capture what i would like to see in a remake.

~jasper

HAPPY 10NE SURVIVOR!

hey friends. it gives me great pleasure to share with you this new teaser trailer for SUPER LONE SURVIVOR on this day, the 10th anniversary of the original game. happy birthday, LONE SURVIVOR!

i remember this day very well, a decade ago, having been up all night fixing last minute bugs, watching the sales and reviews come in with excitement as people seemed to really connect with the game. i was down to the end of my funds, was recently made redundant from frontier developments, and had a 2 year old daughter. it HAD TO work out.

somehow it all worked out! it’s still the last game i released, despite working on another for over 8 years. it is my biggest regret in life that i was not able to release that game yet. i want to talk about it publically for the first time soon, but it is a somewhat raw subject for me. i do still want to release it after LONE WARRIOR (it’s basically my life’s work at this point) but i feel like i might need to expand from a solo operation to do so … we’ll see … anyway, it shows to what extent LONE SURVIVOR has kept my family going over the years, along with my music. so thankyou all so much for your support.

SUPER has been over two years in the making now, it’s rebuilt from the ground up. it really is more of a remake than a remaster at this point. though i have tried to keep the main experience very true to the original game for purists, there is a lot more to discover and the presentation is subtly enhanced all the way through, from the remastered audio to the improved shaders, lighting and scrolling. it should both be more accessible and challenging through the difficulty modes, something i feel improves the game (my views were quite different a decade ago.). i look forward to seeing people rediscover the game, and hope it finds a new audience too. most of all i hope people feel as i do that this is the definitive version!

once again, thankyou for sticking with me over the years, I hope that LONE WARRIOR (the followup which is half complete) will be coming out in less than a decade!

and who knows, maybe even <SECRET_GAME> too.

~jasper

SUPER 10NE SURVIVOR

hey there, it’s coming up on the 10 year anniversary, March 27th 2022, and i’ve got some pretty exciting news: if all goes to plan, i should be launching the brand new, remastered version of the original game, until now codenamed Lone Survivor Remastered.

i’ve actually decided to go back to the SUPER LONE SURVIVOR title for it, despite it not containing the new protagonist and their scenario, which i’ll now be doing as a full length game entitled LONE WARRIOR, once SUPER LONE SURVIVOR is released.

i’m hoping to release SUPER LONE SURVIVOR on PC and Switch at the same time, depending on how long certification and bug fixing takes. the game is in great shape and i’m super excited to share this new version. at the very least i want to drop it on PC on the anniversary.

the game features full joypad support on PC for multiple pads and has customisable button prompts as well as other options like scanline strength, and whether to enable the new blood effects. there is customisable rumble support on all Xbox pads.

the other huge new feature is the 4:3 presentation. all the original art has been painstakingly redrawn to make use of this taller aspect ratio, using the original methods, while adding parallax scrolling layers for additional depth. the game is switchable from its original 16:9 presentation to 4:3 at any time with the touch of a button. as low as 640×480 resolution is supported, so vintage CRT’s that support VGA / 31Khz type signals should be able to play the game. i may look into a 240p mode too – it works, it’s just adding the UI for it if the demand is there. it would be cool to play it on an old TV though.

here you can see the additional height 4:3 adds, as well as the new parallax layers..

the lighting and shaders have been massively improved over the original game, there are now realtime shadows, the scrolling is now ultra smooth and the game supports all monitor aspect ratios with appropriate bars. the game supports up to 8K resolutions and beyond, making it hopefully more future proof. the higher the res you run it, the smoother the scrolling and lighting effects.

all of the music and sounds have been painstakingly tracked down and recreated in full uncompressed audio, compared to the original’s 128kbps mp3’s.

i’m now working on a couple of optional secrets, and possibly even a few secret locations, we’ll have to see how it comes together, but i’ve got a few ideas to expand the game without hopefully upsetting the balance at all

i look forward to sharing it with you

Super Lone Survivor

Super Lone Survivor is a remake of the original game, with a whole new scenario, ‘Ascending’.

it has been rewritten from scratch in a modern engine, to support gamepads on PC, to work with high refresh rate or ultrawide monitors, and to work in 64-bit only systems. it will have ultra smooth scrolling and support for 4k effects. it’s already up and running in 60fps on Switch.

i’m considering difficulty modes.

the Ascending scenario is new content i’m currently making, using some of the features of the new engine, such as shadows, new effects, and parallax scrolling.

i still have no idea how long Ascending will be, i don’t want it to spiral, but then again the story feels relevant right now. by packaging it with the original game, it removes the pressure to do a full sequel, something i never intended to do.

the whole trailer was made in-engine with no edits or post-processing.

more details to follow.

NIGHT

i have just finished a new album called NIGHT.

find it here: http://spacerecordings.bandcamp.com

design: Caspar Newbolt (v_i)

photo: Liam Wong


mastering: Glenn Schick Mastering

Another year has passed

I hope you’re doing well. I will have game-related news for you in the next year or two, guaranteed <3

HAPPY LONESUR5OR!

hey everyone,

thanks for continuing to support my game, and to send your many kind and thoughtful messages. just thought i’d post as today is the 5th anniversary of the original release.

wow, has that gone fast! my daughter has grown from toddler to young lady, and i have a few new wrinkles.

in other news, i am working on something good, don’t worry.

in celebration, i’ll be livestreaming the game tonight at 8pm gmt over on:

twitch.tv/superflattv

love to you all,

jasper

ps here is a making-of video i always meant to upload:

my debut album

hi there. as usual i’m going to start by apologising for the length between blog posts (over 18 months – a new record?) i will be updating the front page of superflatgames.com this year (at least i keep telling myself that.) who knows, maybe i’ll even be releasing some more games in the next couple of years. however, this post is on an altogether different subject.

i’m releasing my new album on Bandcamp today, entitled “GHOST DRIVES” under my own name. i’ve prepared a few somewhat pretentious notes for your reading pleasure, after the jump. i’ve really put my heart and soul into this, and so i figured i could indulge myself somewhat.

jazz-style sleeve notes

so here it is, the album i’ve spent far too long working on, the larger part of four years i’m almost ashamed to admit. the title is supposed to represent the fragility of digital data in an age where a literal part of ourselves is stored digitally.

i was thinking of all these lost fragments of music, art, writing and videogames that i may or may not have on old failed hard drives, floppies, ZIP’s, sticks, DAT’s and CD/DVD’s in my drawers, or computers which have long since passed on, and so on. fragments of ideas that didn’t take form that were potentially better than ones that did. i’ve lost a great deal of digital work over the years (thank good for vinyl or i’d have little to leave my daughter) through combinations of travelling and failed hard drives and computers, and just being careless, and the modern age makes things even more ephemeral, with a reliance on the cloud and social media taking over the roles of preserving our creations, any of which could evaporate overnight at any point.

i feel that, these days more than ever, leaving behind something as a creator means going all in and shooting to make something that’s unique enough that people feel it’s worth preserving. so i made my humble attempt to try and make something that represented how i feel right now, without any concessions to genre or commerce, in the hope that it may at least turn out to be a little bit different, to try and give it some small chance of not being lost in the sea of ghost data.

that said, i do hope the next album takes slightly less time! this is my debut solo album, despite having had one out as ‘The Accidental Heroes’ back in 2002 with Silver, and and as i turn 40 today (which means i’ve been putting out records for half my life), it feels like a good time to release one. it will be coming to all other major online distributors soon, but i thought i’d give it a surprise release on Bandcamp first (as they are the best site for the artist currently, in my opinion.)

a very special thanks to Nick, Nick, Makoto, Dean, James, Kieran and Jimmy and to everyone who’s supported me on this project, to the kind fans of my videogames and music, and of course to my amazing family for putting up with me through projects like this.
~jasper