News

Eufloria HD and Deluxe Edition on Windows, OSX and Linux

We’re proud to announce Eufloria HD and Eufloria HD Deluxe Edition of Eufloria HD on Windows, OSX and Linux platforms. They were a long time coming due to many distractions, illnesses and family expansions, but you can buy them here now!

All of you who bought the original Eufloria direct from ourselves or Steam are eligible for a free copy of Eufloria HD. Steam owners will shortly be upgraded automatically. If you don’t own a Steam copy, contact us with proof of purchase from this website. Anyone who purchased from other Windows stores, we’ll look to upgrade you soon.

Here’s the official blurb:

Eufloria HD and Eufloria HD Deluxe Edition out now on Windows, OSX and Linux Platforms

Multiple award winning ambient strategy game Eufloria HD now available on Windows, OSX and Linux platforms from https://eufloria-game.com and Steam for $14.99 and Eufloria HD Deluxe Edition for $19.99.

14th October 2014: Omni Systems Ltd announced today that award winning Eufloria HD is now available for Windows, OSX and Linux platforms. Eufloria HD Deluxe Edition also includes the original sound track and the original Eufloria (Windows only).

As a thank you to the fans for their tremendous support of the game over the years, those who purchased the game from the Eufloria website or Steam can claim Eufloria HD for free. “I’m extremely proud of what we’ve achieved and we wanted our fans to share in that success” explained Rudolf Kremers.

Eufloria HD is a gorgeous-looking, easy-to-control and elegant strategy title that anyone can play.

Co-developed with fellow indie developer Tuna, Eufloria HD is an atmospheric, beautiful and addictive real-time strategy game that has won several awards, and earned a five-out-of-five stars user review average from players.

Eufloria HD is the enhanced and evolved version of the BAFTA-nominated indie game Eufloria, with a 25-level Story Mode, a Relaxed Mode for a truly chilled-out experience and a stunning original soundtrack by Milieu.

What the press has been saying about Eufloria HD:

“It’s hard to express how much we love Eufloria” – Pocket Lint (App of the Day)

“Soothing ambient music, beautiful abstraction… one of the most enjoyably relaxing wars we’ve ever waged” – Mac Life

“The most stylish and unique strategy games you’ve ever seen” – AppAdvice

Eufloria HD features:

Gorgeous high-definition visuals

A 25-level Story Mode with many hours of gameplay

Relaxed Mode for a more ambient experience which anyone can enjoy

Skirmish levels that can be played again and again

Dark Matter Mode for a stylish, more challenging way to play

Original ambient soundtrack by Brian Grainger (Milieu)

Procedurally-generated levels which are different every time

Also available for iPad, iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry PlayBook

Eufloria HD Deluxe Edition features:

Original sound track from Milieu

The original Eufloria (Windows only)

Eufloria HD is now available on Windows, OSX and Linux platforms from https://eufloria-game.com and Steam for $14.99 and Eufloria HD Deluxe Edition for $19.99.

For more information on Eufloria HD and Media Enquiries:

Official website: www.eufloria-game.com

Twitter: @RudolfKremers

About Omni Systems Ltd

Eufloria and Eufloria HD are published by Omni Systems Limited, Rudolf Kremer’s indie media production company. Omni has been set up as a new kind of independent games (and other media) company, offering an alternative to corporate restraints and rewarding developers in a way that traditional game development often does not allow. Additionally Omni produces and develops other media including screenplays, comics, PS3 Dynamic Themes and more, while also offering consultancy services ranging from interactive software development to consultancy on creating virtual spaces. Current projects of note are two new games: StarLit and Neopolis, a series of Sci-Fi dynamic themes for PlayStation 3 and a comic called Spire.

www.omni-labs.com

About Tuna

Tuna is an international award-nominated boutique indie game production company who specialise in developing projects for mobile, traditional gaming and on-line platforms. With many years experience in the field, Tuna have worked with a range of partners including marketing and advertising agencies, independent game developers, universities, and solo artists. Services include digital consultancy, concept development, production management, software development and establishing software development partnerships. Brands Tuna has worked with include Family Guy, Big Brother, Cadbury, Asteroids, Boulder Dash, and indie hits Alien Hominid and Eufloria on platforms as wide ranging as iPhone, iPad, Android, Facebook, Nintendo DS, Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Xbox 360 and Sony PS3.

www.tunahq.com

Eufloria Adventures Debuts on PlayStation Mobile

Hello friends!

It took a while, but our little spinoff game is finally finished, and out on PlayStation Mobile today and tomorrow in the US/EU (plus rest of the world)

HURRAH!

Here is an edited snippet from the official Sony blog post:

Xenon 2 meets Eufloria! Transcendence meets Flower! Errr… to be honest our new Eufloria game is hard to classify…

Let me try again:

“Eufloria Adventures” will be released on PlayStation Mobile, on the 15th and 16th of April.

It’s a completely new game within the Eufloria Universe, in which you can evolve a single Seedling Ship in different ways. You can specialise by attribute, focusing on Speed, Strength, or Energy.

The Mother Tree has sent you to investigate a strange alien installation, filled with wondrous habitats and sectors. Your ultimate aim is to explore three large environments to discover ancient artifacts, with which you can power up your ship, find lost seedlings, and take over enemy seedling colonies.

Other seedlings have gone before you and as you find their diaries in old data canisters you learn more and more about the installation, yourself, and your role in this universe.

All your evolving ships have their own story arc, although that aspect is fairly unobtrusive. (But nice for people who like a bit of lore)

Gameplay: The game experience can be hard-core or casual or something in between, depending on your own choices. Eufloria Adventures lets you delve deeper and deeper into ever harder areas, but if you haven’t powered up enough you will run into trouble. If you prefer an easier ride you stay in the easier levels for longer periods, while if you crave a challenge you can dive in headfirst and see how long you can last.

This is pretty similar to classic dungeon crawlers and roguelikes, but done with our own twist on things.

We also added a casual mode for people who prefer to just explore, and a roguelike mode for people who crave a BRUTALLY HARD experience. (Seriously, it’s hard)

Brian Grainger provided the music again, and Anthony Flack did some stunning art for the game. (It really does look lovely)

About those visuals: The levels are procedurally generated, and populated with procedural plants, trees, flowers, and strange creatures. Where Eufloria is zen and subdued, “Eufloria Adventures” is lush and splendiferous. The idea is that each new level discovery is a reward in its own right. A joy to explore and see the wondrous sights in this strange alien installation.

Whenever you fin dor conquer a new colony, beautiful random flowers shoot up and bloom. While you fly around the many levels strange plants grow in your path, giving you useful information on where you have been before, while making the levels look better and better.

Simple Controls: We stuck with pure touch controls for now, as it seemed the best fit for all the PlayStation Mobile devices we need to support, and we wanted to keep the game accessible. There is something quite rewarding about having direct physical control as well. Touch your ship to bring up a hud, touch an ancient artifact to activate it, touch the screen and your ship flies to your finger. Simple but effective.

NOTE: The game does not use a virtual pad as a default! These are fully integrated touch controls!

About the music: Brian Grainger (AKA Milieu) did such a good job on the Eufloria OST that we asked him back to provide beats and moods. This time he operates as “Coppice Halifax” for a trippy, dubby and more direct experience, but with plenty of relaxed ambient vibes too. Hope you like it.

Eufloria HD on PlayStation Vita

The official announcement is here! This is what I posted on the Sony blog:

Vita loves Eufloria HD

by Rudolf Kremers, Creative Director , Omni Systems Limited







Hello Friends! Eufloria HD for PlayStation Vita is coming out very soon.

To be precise: Dec 17th in the USA and Dec 18th in the EU.

This makes me happy indeed.:-) As an indie game developer I remain amazed at the journey this game is taking, and the superb response it gets from fans. And as a proud Vita owner it’s fantastic to be able to announce this release.

“Having released a few different iterations of Eufloria over the years I’ve come to appreciate that each one poses a new challenge. How do we adapt the controls to joypad? Does the game speed work nicely? Are the visuals “right”? Generally there are real problems to overcome before you can settle on a solution that is right for everybody. Well, This Vita release is quite different, but in a very positive way. Here’s why:

Performance: Eufloria is a funny old game. It may be “just” 2d, but you end up controlling thousands of seedlings across dozens of asteroids, zooming in to the level of individual blades of grass, or zooming out to see a bird’s eye view of an entire asteroid belt, all within the space of seconds.

This works really well, and is very pretty, but admittedly can be a bit of a strain on the game’s frame-rate. As a result we have often tried to lock the frame-rate to 30fps, and this is a pretty good compromise for most levels. On Vita however, we found that with we could push things much harder, and as a result the Eufloria HD Vita release runs at 60 fps in almost all circumstances. NICE!

Controls: Not only does this performance increase make the levels much smoother, it really makes the controls super responsive. More so than I anticipated… The superfast update we get from running at 60f fps, combined with the Vita touch screen makes for a very immediate and tactile experience. It’s a very different feel from the PlayStation 3 release, which I am very proud of, but requires one to get used to radial controls on a joypad.

This new release offers dedicated and refined touch controls, which supports a broad range of play styles. Because we allow the player to play at three speed settings, it is possible to luxuriate (yes it’s a word) in Eufloria’s ambient mood, strategise nicely at double speed, and really go for it at triple speed. And it all feels natural.

I actually had to get used to how quick and easy it was to control the game. (And I know it pretty well). Panning and zooming is insanely crisp, and when you speed the game up (a nice feature anyway) you don’t lose any control at all. The screen is sensitive enough to deal with the responsiveness, but not so sensitive that it becomes fiddly. It becomes 2nd nature very quickly.

Visuals: Eufloria HD has (rightfully IMO) received a lot of praise for it procedural visuals. Alex May created a look that took inspiration from Japanese art, watercolours, nature… not really typical sources of inspiration for most games. But that is what is cool about indie games. You can do whatever you feel is right for your game, without corporate stakeholders being a huge influence or worse; vetoing anything too risky.

We have also integrated the play mechanics in the visuals, so the entire look of the game is designed to deliver vital gameplay information through visual cues. You can “read” the game very well, after spending some time with it.

Ironically, Vita’s excellent screen worried me a bit. Because of its super high pixel density (bear with me) the visuals can become very sharp, which could alter the overall feel of what we achieved. In reality it has given us the best of both worlds. The almost hazy and zen-like quality of the visuals is intact, but a new clarity is added in places as well. You can easily see the small details on the game’s inhabitants, enhancing the game’s readability. I like this a lot.

Vita loves Eufloria HD!

This port was developed by Titanium studios, and they did a wonderful job in my opinion. The lovely surprise for me is that, without detracting Titanium’s achievement, how well it all gels on this hardware. Great port meets great platform.

I am a life-long gamer, and remain a huge fan of all kinds of different devices, but I must say that I have fallen in love with the Vita. This means I’m pretty excited that we can add to its gaming ecosystem with the newest (and in my opinion best) iteration of Eufloria HD. Vita is already a home to some amazing indie games, and I hope that people will appreciate Eufloria HD in a similar light. I am playing through it myself again, and despite my knowledge of the game (I did design it after all) it feels fresh and immersive again. Hopefully you will feel the same.

Let me know what you think in the comments below? I can answer any and all questions you have. Alternatively get in touch via our website: www.eufloria-game.com (www.eufloria-game.com).

Win Win Win for Eufloria HD!

A few months ago we submitted Eufloria HD for something called the Big Chip Awards. They are the main UK awards for digital agencies outside London and are hotly contested. They had a (best use of) games category so we decided to have a go. We were allowed to enter two categories so also entered the design one because, well, why not?!

And you know what? We got nominated for both, much to our surprise! We assumed it was to add a bit of flavour to what we thought where primarily web targeted awards.

I nearly didn’t go to the ceremony itself as I only knew a non gaming friend of mine there plus we’re all really busy with Eufloria Adventures, Bitcoin research, and other gaming projects. Still, the lovely people at Playrise (Tabletop Racers) organised a table and Manchester is an easy trip across the Pennines. It was just me as we didn’t even really think about a bigger outing as we’re very busy and these aren’t game industry awards so we didn’t think we had a chance. We also never win anway so had pretty much resigned ourselves to always being the bridesmaid as it were.

Fast forward to Thursday night. After a Champagne reception and a splendid dinner, the design award comes up. They show some pretty cool looking sites and then Eufloria last of all.. and then they read out our name.

We’d won. WE’D WON!

We’d finally ****ing won something! And Rudolf/Alex/Mark et al weren’t even there. Aaargh! I definitely gave a shout of delight but felt a bit silly having taken on all these design agencies and won. Apparently several in the audience were, ahem, asking who on earth we were. At awards like these, people tend to know each other.

So there you go. Eufloria HD, finally a full award winner. Not a nomination, not a runner up award, but the top prize. Totally unexpected so I was really chuffed for all of us. Now time to sit back and enjoy the night with a few drinks, at least once I’d persuaded my phone network that yes, Rudolf, Alex and Mark did indeed need to see a picture of the trophy.

Next up is Best Use of Gaming, for which a mate’s company was nominated, ourselves, and Playrise. We’d already won, the others hadn’t so far, and Playrise had even organised the table which allowed me to be there. I fully expected both games to beat Eufloria anyway, even more so now.

And then we won again.

Eh? What? I couldn’t believe it.

I apologised a lot to everyone, then walked up for another award. And felt very silly indeed. I had to answer a couple of questions on the stage, like where everyone else was. I mentioned that this was a collaboration and that no one had thought we had any chance of winning.

So yeah, two awards. 100% record. Woohoo!

Only… it wasn’t finished.

I didn’t realise but there was a grand prize for the best of the Big Chips 2013. I was busy tweeting when I got a nudge from my neighbour, looked up, and saw that we’d just come out on top against the North’s top digital agencies and won the main award of the night, their Grand Prix award. It’s gold coloured so it must be special.

I have never, ever been so embarrassed. And there will never ever by a more coy award winner. I turned and shrugged I think. I knew that a lot of people in front of me cared a great deal about that award in particular and had worked really hard, and yet we’d just won it. Not that we hadn’t near killed ourselves any number of times developing Eufloria.

What is it they say in Team America?

TEAM EUFLORIA! **** YEAH!

Thanks to everyone at Big Chip, Playrise, Yippee (another award winning game company that night), and special congratulations to everyone who has contributed to Eufloria over the years.

The press release is over at TunaHQ and you can see what they said about Eufloria here.

The Bitcoin Bundle

So now you can buy Eufloria with Bitcoins, and more besides!

The Bitcoin Bundle: Top indie developers support Bitcoins

Pay What You Want in Bitcoins for hit indie games Eufloria HD, World of Goo, And Yet It Moves, and Spirits.

Thursday 16th May 2013: The Bitcoin Bundle launched today, allowing Bitcoin users to pay whatever they want for four multiple award nominated Indie Games and contribute to the EFF. Unlike other bundles, this is entirely based around Bitcoin, the much talked about on-line currency. Not only do users buy with Bitcoins, but the developers are paid in Bitcoins.

Support has come from 2D Boy (World of Goo), Omni Systems (Eufloria), Spaces of Play (Spirits), and Broken Rules (And Yet It Moves). The developers all wished to show support for the nascent currency, seeing it as a way for players and creators to become a step closer together.

Bitcoin uses peer-to-peer technology to operate as a currency with no central authority. It can be used to pay anyone, anywhere in the world, almost instantly, anonymously, and without paying bank or other significant charges.

“We created this bundle to be special – it’s exclusively handled in Bitcoin. We didn’t just want to have it as a payment option, we wanted to promote the currency itself”, said Alex Amsel, director of The Bitcoin Bundle.

Marek Plichta, from contributor Spaces of Play, says more creative businesses should be paying attention to Bitcoin. “Digital distribution removed the need for publishers as the middleman between customers and game developers. Bitcoin might be able to do the same thing for all kinds of creative businesses and help them thrive.”

The Bitcoin Bundle is available for 2 weeks, from now, Thursday 16th May, until 30th May 2013. The games are DRM free, available for PC, Mac and Linux, and are on Steam where available. 10% of all proceeds will be gifted to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (https://www.eff.org/).

Bitcoins may be purchased from various companies, including Blockchain.info (International; not UK), Coinbase (US), BitInstant (US), and BitBargain (UK). The Bitcoin Bundle uses industry leading technology from Coinbase to handle Bitcoin transactions.

For more information

Official website: http://www.thebitcoinbundle.com

Press pack: http://www.thebitcoinbundle.com/press/bb1presspack.zip

Twitter: bitcoinbundle

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thebitcoinbundle