The last post had many design tour requests, so I picked one of the most popular for this week. Sorry it took so long; it's a long game! This is the fourth design tour, and it is about Aquaria by Bit Blot.

Be sure to click here to watch it in HD!

Press the triangle button for captions (download transcript)

Be sure to subscribe to the blog so you don't miss our next video! If you missed the first three, you can check them out here: Gish, Knytt Stories and World of Goo.

One challenge I have as the artist on Overgrowth is working with David so that each area can help tell the story of the game. As a gamer, I don't like having to sit through drawn-out cinematics when I could be playing. To help avoid that, I am working hard so that the visuals of each level tell you what is going on there. Some parts of the story are still best told in cut-scenes or with dialog, or even with ambient audio. When designing a level I can plan that out too.

The setup for the level in this concept is that Turner is trying to get some information from a specific pack of dog warriors.

The dog soldiers have decided to stage a last stand against a superior force. They have chosen this location because it is easily defended, and thus has been the site of numerous previous battles. The rocky crag is covered with the graves of those dog warriors who fought and died in the past -- these graves are monuments to their bravery in combat.

Happy New Year!

It seems like just yesterday we officially formed Wolfire Games and announced Overgrowth. In just a few short months, I think we have accomplished a lot and Overgrowth is really starting to pick up.

2009 is going to be awesome, and I can't wait to show you guys what we have in store.

It's things like this that make me proud to be an indie game developer. RealArcade, a subsidiary of RealNetworks, recently released Tiki Towers, a game that looks quite similar to 2DBoy's hot game World of Goo. Like identical twin similar.

I don't want to make any allegations about the inspiration for Tiki Towers. For all I know, they could have came up with the idea totally independently. However, what is really noteworthy, is that despite this game having the backing of RealNetworks, and over a year of professional development, the indie game World of Goo is totally kicking its ass.

The reviews are coming in and so far, it looks pretty weak. Now compare it to World of Goo, one of the highest rated games of the year, with "universal acclaim" according to Metacritic.

It's refreshing to know that two dedicated and independent game developers, Ron Carmel and Kyle Gabler, can still utterly destroy a team of programmers, PR people, and the corporate behemoth backing Tiki Towers - a company with over half a billion dollars in annual revenue.

Here is a bonus, indie fail whale:

At Wolfire, we don't take breaks for pesky occasions like Christmas or Hanukkah. One of the advantages we have over the big guys is our insane work ethic. Continuing our fine tradition of weekly alphas and open development, I bring you Overgrowth Alpha 7!

Following right on the tail of our unexpectedly hot post about why you should support Mac OS X, we're eating our own dog food.

The big news this week is that THE UI WORKS ON OS X. We are using Google Chrome for all sorts of hot stuff in Overgrowth, including the user interface. I'll explain this in more detail later, but Chrome is not very Mac friendly (yet).

However, in the spirit of the holidays, I recently gave my personal Macbook Air to the Webkit genius AJS, and a Christmas miracle happened: the Chrome underpinnings used in Overgrowth are now Mac OS X compatible!

I hope you guys are happy. This MacBook Air was given to me for doing some work at a web startup and it was awesome!

We also have PPC support, courtesy of the god-like Ryan Gordon. If there ever was a time to be an old school Mac user and Wolfire fan, it's now! The PPC build is untested right now except in emulators, so let us know how it works in the secret preorder forum.

Also new this week are more map editor improvements (blog post on this coming soon), dynamic shadows (so objects can have shadows cast on them, not just terrain), and some other hot stuff.

Here's a screenshot of dynamic shadows:

As always, see you guys in IRC and the forums.