In preparation for the soon-to-be release we printed some stickers to hand out. The business cards we've had for quite a while but I believe we haven't shared them yet. If you have a game-making-related business card yourself, share it!

Meanwhile, we're solving problems that prevent Nikki and the Robots from running on various computers. If you would like to help us make sure that Nikki 0.5 will run on the operating system of your choice, feel free to drop us an email.

We added a neon pixel heart design to our shirt store. It is based on one of the first game objects that you will see when playing Episode 1 of the story mode:

One of us was at the Global Game Jam in Berlin as an organizer.

The theme was a snake biting its own tail and we made a tiny level referencing it. Too late for submission though. ;)

video: Nikki and the Snake - GGJ 2012 Themed Level

The video also shows the recently added game over screen menu (no more abrupt returning to the level selection) and a new, simple background for the editor.

The levels we received so far made us want to give a little more in return, so we'll throw in two more shirts for the best level designers.

So submit cool levels before July 7th is over and win one of three shirts and one of ten pre-order copies of Nikki and the Robots. :) Check out the previous entries here and here.

For rules, check out this announcement.

We only have two shirt styles, so if anybody has ideas for new stuff to print, let us know.

We're starting our first level design competition! Fire up the editor and create something amazing!

We will pick 10 winning level designs (possibly even more), whose creators will each receive a free copy of Nikki and the Robots (the full game), and they will be included in the game's credits.

One Three of the level builders will also win a fancy Nikki and the Robots t-shirt!

Our level editor is easy to use and we have made a short tutorial [links: GDocs | Readability | IndieDB] and an instructional video [links: Vimeo | YouTube | IndieDB].

You can send us your levels via email, upload them to a hosting site and send us the links, or you can post them to the forum. For hosting files we recommend box.net, dropbox.com or mediafire.com.

• Name (for attribution/credits)
• Email address (for contact)
• The phrase "These levels are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Unported 3.0" (CC BY)

The winning levels will be included in updates of Nikki and the Robots. We will also create retouched versions with additional graphics and content and then include these levels in the story mode of the full Nikki game.

Authors will be given notable attribution both in the game and on our website.

No Clones Allowed!

Everybody is welcome to submit as many original levels as they like. Allow other games to inspire you - we all do - but no clones, please. :)

This competiton ends on July 7th 2011.