A bit late on the post here! I’ve been a bit busy with various things… but anyways the last few weeks have been good.
Team RAD (consisting of Myself (Ryan Alcock), Adam Taubert and David Summerville) completed a game for the 2013 GGJ!
You can play it now in the browser:
We also got a sweet little mention over here: indiegames.com
We may even play around with it a bit and see where it goes.
-Ryan
2012 is done and it was an interesting year!
The first official year of existance for Blunt Instrument Studios… and the release of our first game! It’s been a great experience so far. Especially all the Sydney IGDA related events and people. Read More
I’ve been considering it for a while and finally decided to participate in the onegameamonth event.
It’s going to be a challenge to keep the games rolling out whilst trying to do my regular gamedev stuff…. but well worth it. My goal is to create a game from a different genre and style every month. It will give me an excuse to expand my experience into uncharted territories.
I plan to make the games complete and release-able. This might make it a bit tougher for myself but I don’t feel any sense of accomplishment unless I follow through a game to release. (even if it’s just a free app) I haven’t decided if publishing it on somewhere like Kongregate is part of my rules yet. I’ll see how desperate I am at the pointy end(s) of the month(s).
I’m not going to restrict myself to developing the games in full during each calendar month. I’ve got a couple of titles that need to be completed and it will give me a bit of a boost to finish them off. I also plan to do more game jams this year, starting with the GGJ in January. This would let the whole month be free for other things with the jams only taking a couple of days.
Now’s to brainstorm and plan the next few games I’ll be making……. whilst consuming too much holiday related tasty beverages!
-Ryan
So with much joy I can finally call myself a game developer!
Shit yeah! But now what?? As good as it feels, there’s also another strange feeling I can’t figure out yet. It’s a much darker feeling… I really can’t explain it.
I plan on just jumping into a new project instead of having a break. Every time I take a break for any period of time I come back frustrated and depressed about my lack of productivity. Perhaps I’m all fucked up and need to keep proving to myself I can do this shit…. or perhaps I really just love doing it and nothing else makes me happy!?
Who knows! One thing I do know is marketing a game is interesting! It’s so new to me there’s so much to learn. I have no idea what I’m doing but just doing it helps so much! This is mainly as an experiment for what works for me and what doesn’t.
So what is next? Well first I’ll start adding some more content to Missile Control. Namely multiplayer and map/missile variants. But at the same time I’ve got another small project I’ll be working on which should have a really fast turn around time. I’d say it will be released before the end of December! Crazy short timeline but I think I can do it.
Rock on!
-Ryan
So the development of Missile Control is coming to the finish soon. We will be submitting a binary to the App Store in a couple of days. Wooo!
This final phase has been a bit rough. There are still so many things I would have liked to add to the game. The toughest part is resisting the urge to re-do things or add non-trival new features. I’ve had several crysis days recently when looking at parts of the game. It’s so easy to feel down about a missing feature or something that didn’t quite turn out as desired. Stepping back and re-reading the original design goal document really helps here. The game is pretty much where it is meant to be according to the original goals.
I’ve found it really hard to keep updating any blog / social media whilst trying to finalise the game. I tend to be all-consumed by the development process when I’m trying to meet a deadline. I can’t justify popping my head up and losing precious time!
So it’s exciting to submit our first game to the App Store. I honestly don’t know what to expect. The game isn’t being made for the money but it would be nice to cover the development costs incurred. It’s more about a step is the right direction. This is the beginning of our snowball. I hope to keep on rolling and growing from here.
-Ryan
p.s. Here’s a compilation of a few of the new missile sprite variations that will be in the final game…
First I’d like to mention that I’m actually a really really positive person. I’m pretty much always happy and I love my life and wouldn’t change anything…… however……. indie game dev is depressing.
So here I am, blabbing at a screen late at night after struggling for motivation to actually write something down.
Welcome!
Stop me if I start to ramble…..