April 21, 2012

Status report, stat!

Since we don't have anything too specific to report this week, we thought we might as well shed some light on several projects we are working on and their statuses, so here goes:

Break MORE Aliens! is nearly finished and will go through some testing and analyzing by Kajak students in a few days.We're pretty exited to hear their thoughts on it!

Spiritual is not under active development, but we have plans for the additional content, which will most likely be published during summer.

Interplanetary is going through a slower phase in development at the moment. This is because we prefer it to have our full attention once we can get cracking again.

Dr. Globdor is coming along nicely. We mentioned last week the possibility of a PC release, and that's actually become our main focus. We will not release a finished game right away, but instead give players the essentials and a chance to give us input on which features they'd like to see in the finished game. Because we're indie developers and not a major publisher, this is actually a valid strategy and not an excuse to cut development time. ;)

Besides those we are of course working on subcontracting projects all the time. And finally, here's a little sneak peek to a whole new game project we will be working on this summer:




April 15, 2012

Dr. Globdor on rampage!


We were going to write about something else for a change this week, but Dr. Globdor has us completely ensnared! A new major feature we have been working on this week is level editor, which seems to be something that should help the game stand out on WP7. If all goes well, users will be able to share the levels they have made, too! We are also considering the possibility of publishing the game for PC, which would make it our first official PC release by the way.

In other news, the major update on Break MORE Aliens! is coming along nicely, and we are actully plotting on having some Kajak students test the game for us this week. ;)

The early version of Break MORE Aliens! was already published for a Nokia game competition (3rd place!) earlier and has thus gone through the crucial peak of release downloads. We are thinking about covering some of those losses by making a new, simple game with similar theme and a direct link to Break MORE Aliens!, once the major update is released. We will cover both in more depth later, stay tuned!

April 6, 2012

Dr. Globdor


Last week I promised there would be more on Dr. Globdor, our crazy little project made for teaching Windows Phone development at Kouvola.

At this point the project is pretty much finished if we look at the original specs; we added a simple particle engine and a couple more enemies and such even after Kouvola, and will upload them for our students to see shortly.

However, as it so often goes with these projects, we have some ambitions to develop the game further and make it an actual release. Working with Globdor is very enjoyable. Much like with Break the Aliens! and Break MORE Aliens!, we are aiming to make an enjoyable game with retro feel, but top it off with some modern elements like pretty pretty particles. We have also been planning the possibility to release the game on some other platforms besides WP7, and adding cool features like, say, a level editor?

And that's not all, at this point it's fairly safe to say that you can expect a 4-6 part tutorial on how the original, Kouvola version of game was made.  Plus the source code, spritesheets, music and all that jazz. We will strongly encourage anyone who's interested in game development to make their own game with the help of those, it's a ton of fun, and even more so if you can build a little team to work on it! :D

And by the way, happy Easter to everyone celebratign it, and equally as good weekend to the others! See you next week, TJR out.