Quick progress update: Localisation has been performed for French, German, Spanish, and Russian. I’m currently integrating the translated text into the game. As of this writing, all four languages are basically functional, thanks to some localisation-related bug fixes and a quick font swap to enable Cyrillic support. However, there’s still a lot of work to do in sanding off the rough edges (overlapping text, for example).

Onwards!

Hey there, Mayhem Intergalactic fans!

As you may have noticed, things have been a little quiet lately at Mayhem HQ. The sirens only sound every hour or so, and it’s been days since we had a decent alien invasion to contend with. Well, all that is about to change…

First up, Mayhem Intergalactic v1.3 will be out sometime soon. While the list of changes isn’t finalised yet, I can confirm that v1.3 will contain some UI conveniences, a smattering of audio improvements, and miscellaneous bug fixes. More importantly, this will be the first version to support languages other than English.

I’ll announce the supported languages closer to release. Let me know if you’re keen to see a particular language in the list.

Secondly, in keeping with these times of cheap games, I’ve adjusted the price downwards to $9.99. It’s pretty clear that gamers want more value for money than they used to, which is fair enough. The new price is live here and at Desura right now. Steam and Impulse will be following suit any day now.

Three! Do you like Mayhem Intergalactic? Are you on Facebook? Have you ever wondered how to combine these facts into a delicious fact smoothie, possibly winning a FREE COPY of your favourite Mayhem Intergalactic game in the process? Click here and all your questions will be answered, on Mayhem Intergalactic’s shiny new Facebook page.

Once the page has 100 likes, one lucky Facebook fan will get a free copy of the game. Keep it, give it away, your choice.

Finally, I know there are some of you running Mac OS X or Linux who’ve been hanging out for a port to your platform. I’m pleased to announce that porting the game to other platforms is my next priority after releasing v1.3. If you’re interested in participating in a Mac or Linux beta test, drop me a line.

That’s all for now – stay tuned! Same Mayhem time, same Mayhem channel.

FYI, I’ll be attending Freeplay 2009 down in Melbourne this year. I’m not planning at the moment to have an expo booth or a speaking engagement or anything of the kind; I’m just going to meet people and have interesting conversations.

If you’re in the area and interested in independent games development, I hope to see you there!

This just in: Mayhem Intergalactic’s bushfire appeal has been mentioned on this week’s episode of Good Game, Australia’s best (and only) gaming TV show. The segment can be viewed on the Good Game website; click on the Gamer News entry on the right-hand side of the video player.*

Thanks, Good Game!

* At least, you’ll be able to do that once they fix the video player. In the meantime, the episode can be freely downloaded in full via the ABC’s vodcasting site, in either WMV format or MP4 format (~100 MB in each case). And you don’t even have to visit dodgy websites and infringe copyright to do it. Isn’t public broadcasting awesome?