Disposable Heroes Launch Day – what’s going on?

It’s launch day for the full and final version of Disposable Heroes – the madcap hack & slash medieval cartoon caper from Evilized Games.

After six months’ live development in Steam Early Access and dress rehearsals aplenty for the Orc, the Princess, the Gladiator and the Wizard, it’s time for the curtain to go up and the show to begin!

What’s going on today?

The Launch 

The full & final version of Disposable Heroes will be available to download from Steam from Wednesday 23 March.

DOWNLOAD DISPOSABLE HEROES FROM STEAM TODAY! 

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Win yourself a copy of Disposable Heroes with The Gaming Ground

Visit our friends The Gaming Ground at thegg.net during the day to find out how you can snaffle yourself one of ten Disposable Heroes Steam keys that are just waiting to be won!

Stick with us, kiddo…

We’ll be giving out keys on our Twitter account throughout the day – follow us and stay tuned to find out how you could win a free copy of the full game!

A bit of Twitching

Join Blue Luna of the Power Planeeters for a special Disposable Heroes Twitch session. Find her at twitter.com/deadsydoll and get twitching at twitch.tv/DeadsyDoll. She will also be giving out Disposable Heroes Steam keys so make sure you join her for the stream.

…and then later…

Are you in the Netherlands this weekend (26 – 27 March)? Join us at Dutch Comic Con in Utrecht to play Disposable Heroes on our superb arcade machine, like this dude…

Read more: Disposable Heroes at Dutch Comic Con

Come & play Disposable Heroes on our retro arcade machine!

Who’s going to EGX: Rezzed? We are, as part of the SEGA-sponsored Leftfield Collection that serves to showcase some of the finest and most intriguing indie games currently out there. And boy, is Disposable Heroes ‘out there’, in every sense… If you’re headed to Tobacco Dock in London from April 7 to 9 please drop by, say hello, and test your warrior skills!

Read more: Disposable Heroes at EGX 

Disposable Heroes full launch!

Hey all! I am delighted to be able to announce that after six months in Early Access since the primary release in October, and having worked over that time with feedback from the Steam gaming community to enhance and complete the game, my hack & slash medieval cartoon caper Disposable Heroes will have its full launch on Wednesday, 23 March.

This will be followed by a very special showcase appearance – as I posted last month, we’ve been selected to appear as part of the SEGA Leftfield Collection at EGX Rezzed 2016 in London from April 7 to 9. Having been selected as one of only around 20 from a list of 300 indie games, I couldn’t be more delighted at this.

With a nod to absurd adventures such as Monty Python & The Holy Grail and The Mighty Boosh, Disposable Heroes now has 40 more enemies, 50 additional levels, more weapons, spells, lotions and potions, leading people to describe it as ‘The Binding of Isaac’ meets ‘South Park’ – comparisons which I am understandably delighted that have been drawn.

This was the first time I have released a game in Early Access, and it was something I wanted to do in order to work with the gaming community to enhance the structure, content and playability of ideas that were pouring from my head at quite a rate.

I always wanted it to be something different from the usual fare so working with gamers to get their input was particularly important to me. Six months on from entering Early Access and 18 months on from the initial ideas phase for this game, I’m really proud of what we’ve produced and hope that gamers around the world continue to enjoy this crazy caper.

The game now has over 150 levels for players to navigate, I wrote a little about what’s been included in a previous post. I had quite a lot of people comment on how difficult the game was and I was forced to concede that much to an extent; the very nature of the game is that it’s so continually ludicrous with all manner of weird devilish things trying to slice and dice you or lop off your head or fill you full of arrows, or massive bosses almost too big for the screen trying to flatten you. So to this end I included additional power-ups throughout the arena, from energy-boosting cupcakes to bags of fries and chocolate bars, all of which help players during the crazy combat.

Looking back on the home straight period, with all of the wackiness flying around I guess the principal challenge – aside from bug splatting and checking that controls worked properly – was to package up all of the wackiness into some semblance of structure, so that the journey through the game feels tight, tidy, coherent and balanced. This entailed everything from tightening up the level and screen progression, tweaking gameplay aspects like damage and health, and producing instruction screens to let people know what the potions and spells did, which weapons to use and suchlike. Hopefully I have managed to achieve that, but take a look and see what you think.

There’s also a whole bunch of extra stuff from additional DLC to voiceovers, new soundtrack segments and animations to guide you through the story – and through your quest.

You will be able to download the full and final version of Disposable Heroes from Steam from Wednesday 23 March 2016, and obviously you can keep up with all the latest developments either here on the Disposable Heroes blog site or over on Twitter.

Thank you so much to everyone who has downloaded and supported the game and particularly to those who have provided the invaluable feedback, which has made the final game possible. Particular thanks must go to everyone who has taken the time to play the game and make videos, all of which help to spread the word – you can see these LPs here.

The game has been on show at the Clickteam booth at GDC in San Francisco this week (they’re the people who make the software which I used to make the game); we are exhibiting at Dutch Comic Con in my home city of Utrecht at the end of March and of course at the beginning of April the Evilized team are travelling to London to see what gamers at EGX make of Disposable Heroes. Truly exciting times – thank you again for all your support, I really, really appreciate it.

Until next time then, go forth and be Disposable!

 

Ben

 

P.S. Are you a press type? You can find Disposable Heroes press resources here.

 

Get Twitchin’

Hey hi hola hello!

Hope you all had a smashing weekend?

Disposable Heroes was released in Early Access on Steam last Thursday… seems a long time ago now but we’re delighted to be able to say that it seems a lot of people around the world have been playing and enjoying the wacky world in which the game is set.

Check out Traveldog & Preocts‘ hilarious escapades as they tackle the phalanx of deadly witches, warlocks, orcs, zombies, worms and leeches, terrifying knife-throwing bosses and more – not to mention trying to cross the road in good ol’ 1995!

Click here to watch the archive of their stream… this will be available until the beginning of December:

Disposable Heroes has been released in Early Access so there are still numerous tweaks, amendments and additions to be made; among the things we want your feedback on is how you think the gameplay works and how difficult certain parts should be. Please join our Steam community hub to be part of the development of our game.

In addition to the arsenal of weapons at the Disposable Heroes’, er, disposal, there are always the lotions and potions to explore – wizardry and alchemy that will aid you in defeating your evil foes including one potion that restores you to full health!

You can get hold of Disposable Heroes with a special launch discount of 30% – please click here to visit the Steam store.