Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Alien Avian Attack! - Buy It!

Want some dazzling super fast twitch action? Want to play a game that will push your senses to the limit? Then play Alien Avian Attack, available now, on the Android Market!

A 'triple A' title if ever there was one...

Monday, April 25, 2011

Hot Damn - It Lives!

One of the many things that keeps me busy (too busy to write posts for this blog half as often as I should, in fact) is an entity called Chili Burn Adventures Corporation. 

This company brings together veterans from the video game industry and Weta (they've done the odd special effect or two for small art house films like The Lord Of The Rings trilogy and Avatar). 

Go on, have a gander at the website...

And now the CBAC website is live upon the information superhighway (wow, it feels retro using that phrase) for your delectation and delight!

For those who have been patiently following my posts the answer is: Yes, Alien Avian Attack is the official name of the project that I've been calling The Shooter With No Name.

Friday, April 15, 2011

Rocket Jump

At the moment it's cheaper than it has ever been to get a game to market. There was a time when it was just as cheap to make a game - one guy could thrash out a game in a few months on the good old Spectrum - but to get the thing in the mitts of the mighty public you had to get tapes or discs duplicated, and you had to send them out, plus all kinds of other cost and faff.

Nowadays the download infrastructures of the iPhone and Android platforms take a huge amount of risk out of the venture. Even if no one likes your latest masterverk, at least you're not sat on 500 copies of Horrace Sells Badly. Even better, you can patch it and hopefully save it from the indignity of forever residing in the long tail.

It's this effortless distribution that means so many of us can be independent developers at the moment. It's a great time to be making games, in fact, it might actually be the golden age of making games. I've certainly never had it so good.

I feel sorry for the larger studios, for they might be independent but they still have a lot of hoops to jump through when working with publishers. And these hoops often amount to about as much fun as emphysema for the developers shouldering the burden. There was a time when these talented folk had little choice but to continue with their impressions of Atlas (I think I might be overcooking this a little) and stay within the fold. 

But now the power lies with the person with the talent.

The latest of my former colleagues to enter the sea of independence is Antony Blackett (you may know him from such great games as Shatter and Flick Kick), with his newly incorporated company Rocket Jump.

I have no idea what he's planning to make. In fact, it would appear from his website that neither does he. But it will be awesome, I can assure you. 

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Sorry, I've Been Busy

This blog (and all my others in fact) have been suffering a decided paucity of posts over the past few weeks. The reason is simple - it's crunch time at Tiger Towers. Yes, I've been slaving away over levels, although the results of all my effort is only just starting to make it into the Shooter With No Name, which scared the willies out of the rest of the team. Perhaps I would have been better off just wading in and thrashing out levels in the editor, but I wanted to plan and plot them a lot on paper first, which amounted to a fairly opaque design approach. I sincerely apologise to my cohorts for the potential cardiac trauma I have caused them.

Oh yeah, did I mention that the Shooter With No Name isn't really a shooter? Thought I'd tease you with that.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Presentation Zen

After my last post, about speaking at GDC Europe, I realised that I never found out what my audience feedback scores were. So I emailed the supremely efficient Evelyn Donis over at GDCE headquarters (I presume there is no such physical location in this day and age) and she set her assistant, Linda Ho, on the case of getting them to me. 

I was pleased with the results, especially considering I didn't expect what I was saying to be popular. I ranked well over the average for my ability to communicate, which is always nice, although, perhaps if I'd communicated less effectively I'd have gotten higher ratings in some of the other areas... maybe it's not so good to communicate well if folk probably won't like what you're saying.

However, it was my slides that really got the gold star. The average for the whole conference was 2.61 (out of 5) and mine rated at 3.8. But I can't take all the credit, some of it must got to Garr Reynolds

Mr Reynolds is, amongst other things, a master of presentations. I was lucky enough to attend one of his half day workshops when he visited Wellington a couple of years ago. He inspired me to loosen up in my presentation style and put even more work into my slides. 

I wouldn't say his impact was immediately beneficial, I had to stumble through a few presentations that were, quite frankly, a bit cock. But after the initial teething troubles it all came together quite nicely and, apparently, my slides are way better than most. 

If you ever have to give presentations then you should be reading Presentation Zen, and you should make your boss send you to a PZ workshop, if ever Garr is in your neck of the woods.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Achtung!

That's a great word isn't, so much better than "attention".

I also use it with total justification as I have just realised that the deadline is looming for session submissions for GDC Europe, which takes place in Cologne. I spoke there last year on the subject of keeping control schemes simple and intuitive, which is a topic close to my heart, because I'm terrible at remembering button mappings, and I don't think I'm alone.

Now, what will get the folks on the panel desperate to hear me speak again. Should I go controversial with something like "Why Nobody That Makes Games Has A Clue"; or futuristic with "3D Will Change Everything". Perhaps do both controversial and futuristic - "Unless You Like Social Games Then Your Favourite Genre Will Be Dead In 10 Years Time".

I'd just like to point out that I don't necessarily believe any of those statements, but I do need to come up with something sharp if I'm going to get selected. Thinking cap on...

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Never before have I...

Right at the moment I am plotting out a set of level designs for the Shooter With No Name. As part of this process I am writing notes on the mood that I want each level to have - important even in an attack wave based shooter.

This is both good fun and highly practical, and for the first time ever I have used Medusa's snaking hair as the inspiration for an attack pattern. 



It'll be interesting to see how much of this comes across to the player.