RC Becomes SmashPunks

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Smash Punks

Gaslight continue to work with Prospect Games on their latest title. You may remember this was a robot fighting game called Robot Champions, well, the team has been busy over the past few months, expanding the gameplay and focusing in what makes the game fun. This resulted in some significant changes to the vision for the game, starting with the camera and mechanics but quickly moving into areas like narrative and tone.

The game has moved from a limited free-for-all general combat game to a team based, objective based game full of chaotic battles and epic moments!

The fighters and maps have been had a huge overhaul and a new support bot (Pulse) has been introduced. It’s been an exciting time!

The game is available through Patreon so head on over there if you fancy trying it out!

https://www.patreon.com/posts/huge-update-rc-54467462

Bafta Game 2020

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Congratulations to all those games that were recently were nominated for or won awards at the 16th British Academy Awards! I’m sure it was a tough call for the judges with all the great games that came out in 2020!

It was great to see some of our favourites, Outer Wilds and Disco Elysium picking up three awards each! Game of the Year and the awards for Original Property and Game Design for Outer Wilds and Narrative, Music and Debut Game for Disco Elysium!

Awesome work and a big congratulations to both the Mobius Digital and ZA/UK teams and all involved!

If you haven’t played either of these games, stop what you’re doing and go give them a try!

Remote Working Tips

MarkBlog

We hope that everyone out there is keeping safe and well. We here at Gaslight transitioned to working remotely a while back, so we’re lucky in that regard, but it must be difficult for some places to get used to working from home. We have a few tips that helped us make the transition, which we hope others may find useful:

  • Try and maintain regular hours, while it’s great to be able to be a bit more flexible, it’s really easy to blur the lines between work and home life. Having regular hours helps you to maintain that work-life balance.
  • Set some ground rules for the people you live with. It’s handy to have a chat with those you live with and let them know that when you’re working, you’re working, even though you’re at home!
  • Take breaks and don’t fall into the overtime trap. When you haven’t got people leaving the office in the evening, it can be really easy to lose track of time!
  • Over-communicate! Talk to people about when you’re about or not about. Let them know how work or tasks are going. Ask them questions about their work. It’s all too easy to get lost in your own little world at home and suddenly all that great teamwork has disappeared and no one knows who is doing what!
  • Try and get out and about. As much as it is safe to do so it can be really good to take a break and head outside for a while. Whether that be a trip around the block, out into your garden or onto a balcony. Fresh air and natural light does us the world of good.
  • Try and socialise with colleagues. We’ll all be missing the round the coffee machine banter so try and finds ways to just have some time to check in with colleagues, have a chat and maybe try some online interactive experiences a try. Online gaming anyone?
  • Take sick days. Just because you’re at home doesn’t mean you should be working if you’re poorly. Take the time to get better and come back when you’re ready.
  • Be patient and kind. Remember everyone could be struggling at various levels, it’s not only a new way of working to get used to but also a scary time to be going through. Try and cut people some slack, you never know what it is they’re going through.

Prospect and Gaslight Games Join Forces

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We’re excited to announce that Gaslight has begun to work on an awesome project with the team over at Prospect Games! The game is Robot Champions and is an online robot fighting game with real-time physics and crazy battles!

We’re looking forward to getting stuck in with the team and seeing what we can create!

Gaslight Games Consulting for None in Three

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At Gaslight Games we’re passionate about the prevention of gender based violence across the world and this has meant that Mark has been fortunate to be able to consult on a project that is trying to tackle this very issue. None in Three is a research centre for the global prevention of gender-based violence and their innovative approach involves developing and evaluating prosocial computer games as culturally appropriate, educational tools.

The games team, based at the University of Huddersfield, are creating four, story-driven games that explore the reality of gender-based violence. There will be an emphasis on choices that allow the player to connect to the characters and understand an environment of gender-based violence. The games created will be made available for free for the children in the partner countries of Uganda, Jamaica, India and the UK. You can learn more about None In Three here.