So a lot has been happening in my life recently: I launched Mr Runner 2, I moved from Australia to San Francisco, I scored a job working for Zynga and now I’m being kicked out of the country while my visa is being sorted out. Things have been pretty exciting.
But somehow, amidst all this chaos, I have two months of complete freedom. I’m going to use this two months to start work on a new game. But this time, I’m going to do things a little differently.
Here is what will be new:
A New Game: Tiny Defense
Announcing Tiny Defense! Tiny Defense is a tower defense game for the iPhone that happens in real time. You’ll be fighting off monsters for days at a time, wherever you go. As you check back each day you’ll level up and unlock new towers to fight more and more bad ass monsters. You’ll even face off against epic boss monsters!
A New Artist
I’m bring Lee Lee on the team to help me churn this baby out. She’s a cool girl – she’s been working on a web comic for the escapist, Name Game. Now she’s making bad ass games with me.
A New Platform
For the first time I’m developing on the iOS. I’m using the library cocos2d. It has a shitty logo, but its a great product! The API is actually very similar to flash’s display structure. I’ve also got a great friend Joey (he made Cave Dweller) helping me out learning XCode and Objective-C.
A New Development Style
I’m going to be doing Video Dev Logs every few days to show off what I’ve done. I’ll be using Screen Flow, which is a great (but expensive) piece of screen recording software.
I’m also going to be doing a Time Lapse of some of my coding sessions, so you can see the development of the game in action – from start to finish. I’ve found a great piece of software for time lapses – check out Screen Ninja.
Lets do this!
To kick things off, I’m doing a Game jam this weekend with Joey, Sam and Jeremy. Jeremy’s rocking HTML 5, Joey’s working on some IOS stuff, Sam’s drunk right now and playing mine craft. Scratch that, he’s now using an exercise ball amusingly incorrectly.
Looking forward to the dev logs and coding sessions. I’ve always enjoyed keeping up with the posts here. Everything from bitbatallion is excellent quality. Is the move to iOS a permanent thing?
Now i’m really wishing i hadn’t lost my phone….
Looking really good!
Sounds like fun, I vote for a second Jam session in Vancouver!
Thanks Guys!
Tatham – I’m holding you to that! I’m crashing there for three weeks after I get kicked out of the states. There will be so much jamming and beer I can’t wait!
And Trent, thanks man! It’s good to hear. I’m not entirely sure if I’ll stay on iOS, this is mostly an experiment. If all goes well I’ll keep it up!
Haha, drunk people doing things in unique ways is always fun. Sounds like an interesting game concept. I’ve been exploring the whole “time base” games market lately with the Sims Social, and another game called “MiniTroppers”. They’ve definitely got they’re own feel, and bank on being addicting as hell. I’m eager to see what you come out with in your time off, and hope getting back into the country isn’t too much of an issue.
Haha yup, I wanted to upload a photo but sober sam got the grumps.
The game is exactly that – I’m trying to make a game which is time based but doesn’t suffer from being addictive without being fun. I had a fantastic time playing tiny tower – for the first 10 levels. The next 30 levels were just painful. If all goes well Tiny Defense will be fun until level 100.
The country thing shouldn’t be a problem, Zynga is doing all the hard work for me. I just have to make sure I’m not doing anything illegal!
Hey Sash,
Thanks for the shoutout! Also I am looking for to seeing this game come about. Sounds cool and I am a bit jealous I didn’t come up with it. I do have a game idea that is for a time-based game that I want to bounce off of you though.
P.S. You will be missed when you leave for a month.