Release 2007-02-16

Howdy pardners! We've been a bit quiet since the start of the New Year because we've been hard at work on fun fancy new features for y'all to enjoy. We shuffled up the schedule a bit and we're happy to report that we've released Bounties today.

What are bounties, ya might be wonderin'. Well, bounties are a single player campaign mode where an intrepid Deputy (that's you) is pitted against an Outlaw (and sometimes their henchmen) in a series of games. Except that in bounty games the goal isn't always to come in first place. Games can define additional criteria like finishin' the game without losing more than five units or gunnin' down more than ten of the opponent's units in the process.

When the Outlaw is finally brung in, the Deputy gets the bounty reward. That's a healthy helpin' o' scrip and for especially tough outlaws, it might include special Badges or even fancy Duds that can't be bought by regular folks in the General Store.

We've also released full-length versions of our in-game music, written and produced by them crazy cowpokes over at SomaTone Interactive Audio. If ya reckon ya like the music in Bang! Howdy then yer in luck because now you can get full length versions of the tracks fer listenin' to on yer iPod or other fancy portable music playin' device. No need to go to your local record store, you can download it directly from the General Store in the game.

There are of course a small raft of minor tweaks, bug fixes and other little twiddlin's that we are constantly doin' as a matter of course. For the detail oriented among ye, we'll enumerate those more specifically:

• Removed Saloon chat and added "social parlors" where folks can hang out and chat. We also sort the list of parlors based on how many people are in 'em to make it easy to find the popular spots.
• We redid the tutorial interface and created a helpful display to get new folks right into the fun.
• Fixed a problem where units were gettin' pushed through fences. Ouch!
• Redid the in-game interfaces to make player colors clearer. You'll notice that some of the Outlaws in bounties are teamed up against ya. Could it be that we might be adding team play some time soon?
• Taught the AI how to be fooled by Fool's Gold.
• Various other little bug fixes and small adjustments.

Astute pardners will also notice the Hideout perched upon the hill there in Frontier Town. We've been making good progress on Gangs and it won't be long before those will be makin' their way out of the nest and into the wide world as well.

On top of that, we've got Boom Town development going in full swing and we're dreamin' up all sorts of crazy steam-powered robot antics and beaverin' away to make them a reality. It's going to be a fair while before Boom Town is ready for public consumption but we promise to keep ya entertained between now and then with all sorts of good stuff.

In the meanwhile, good luck bringin' in them Outlaws and we'll see ya 'round the Sheriff's Office,

- Sheriff Mike