Gnomic Studios Detail The New Patch For Their Xbox Live Indie Game Square Off

Gnomic Studios have announced that their Xbox Live Indie Game, Sqaure Off, has received its first patch. Lead developer Aranda Morrison says the need for the patch was because "...there were a number of niggling issues with the initial release we wanted to address," but it also opened up the opportunity for Gnomic to add more to the game.

The update brings 2 new Deathmatch levels to the game, as well as tweaks to the Deathmatch mode. a new level has been added to the Single Player and Co-Op mode, whilst the difficulty has been adjusted to make it easier to get into. All the levels now have their own global and friends list score boards. There are now statistics for each level, improved sound effects and new music tracks.

Gnomic Studios have also announced that they recently reduced the price of the game to just 80 MS Points in an experiment to see if price cuts would effect sales of the game and the money they made from it.



Press Release

PERTH, Western Australia - July 19 - Gnomic Studios are proud to announce the first major update of their critically acclaimed Xbox 360 game Square Off, available as of July 19th 2010 via Xbox Live for free.

Lead developer Aranda Morrison explained why we felt Square Off was in need of a major patch. “We decided to work on a free update because there were a number of niggling issues with the initial release we wanted to address," he said. "This turned out to be the perfect opportunity to throw in some bonus content.”

The update includes 2 new Deathmatch levels and a whole multitude of little tweaks to make Deathmatch play substantially more awesome than it was before. For single player and co-operative play, another level has been added, and the difficulty adjusted so the game is both noob friendly and a challenge to veterans.

Every level now has scoreboards for your friend list and your local players in addition to the existing global scoreboard, so now you can know whether you are the toughest square in your crew. Player profile statistics and per level statistics have been included, so no more arguing over who was the weakest link in your team. The sound effects have been improved and new music tracks have been added that we feel suit the game more than some of the original music.

Gnomic recently dropped the price for the game down to a measly $1(80 Ms Points), making it 66% cheaper than the original retail price. According to Lead Tester Joshua Stewart, this was done as an experiment to see the how the price cut affects conversion rates and sales figures. "We plan to make the results of this experiment public sometime soon," he said. "This way the Indie game development community can use this data to help guide their own pricing decisions.”

Additions to the game include a total of 3 new levels, updated AI, local and friend list scoreboards, player statistics, audio improvements and a whole raft of minor tweaks, all for the rather generous price of nothing.