The Kickstarter thing!

By Masakari : : Published: 19.04.2012                                                0 Old School Comments

I’ve been watching the Kickstarter phenomenon with great interest. Unfortunately, after 4 years it’s still US only, but with the site having hit “the big time” recently, I’m hopeful that will change soon!

Since not everything is roses, one of the big questions on everyone’s mind right now is “how will these projects turn out”?

Because most, if not all, haven’t been released. And more importantly, all the recent big projects (Double Fine Adventure, Wasteland 2, Takedown, Shadowrun Returns) will be in development for quite some time. They are all very ambitious, complicated projects.

Good planning of the project, and since we’re talking about money, good budgetary planning is essential. The Star Command guys recently updated their Kickstarter page with an interesting overview of their successful KS, and where all the money went. Definitely useful stuff for all indies out there – really put some time and planning into the budget and the KS drive, otherwise even if you are successful, you might fall short of the funds you really need.

Posted in Indie Watch, Miscellaneous

Indie Watch: MolyJam 2012 games!

By Masakari : : Published: 03.04.2012                                                0 Old School Comments

So the What Would Molydeux? Game Jam is finished, and the games are online now. It’s a pretty massive list, sitting at 272 so far.

Just started going through them, this will take awhile. Check them out here, and read some more about it at Kotaku.

Posted in Indie Watch

Unity Asset Store Madness!

By Masakari : : Published: 31.03.2012                                                0 Old School Comments

Heads up, Unity users! The Asset Store is running some great discounts on plugins. The promotion started back on March 5th, and will conclude on April 8, so head over to the promotion page and check out if some of the stuff interests you.

Highlights include ex2D for $15 (57% off), PlayMaker (50% off), and RageSpline (66% off).

Posted in Miscellaneous

Indie Watch: ZiGGURAT

By Masakari : : Published: 31.03.2012                                                0 Old School Comments

Here’s an interesting one. Tim Rodgers, gaming scholar / rambler from some articles on Kotaku and the totally excellent Action Button Dot Net, has made a game.

The game, called ZiGGURAT (spelled like that), is a bit like Angry Birds, in that the touch feedback works in a similar way, making it familiar to play. However, we play a lone heroine that can’t move, placed at the top of a ziggurat (it’s a step pyramid thingy), and beset by murderous alien scum on all sides.

The simple objective is to survive, by charging and shooting our cannon at the cyclopic aliens. It becomes an interesting exercise in multitasking and decision making, as the enemies climb slowly atop the structure – I’ve died plenty of times from making the wrong decisions as to which aliens to kill first, and not exactly my skill in shooting and touching. Skill in touching… that sounds wrong.

And speaking of sounds… it has a very catchy tune.

ZiGGURAT is available now on the iOS App Store for 0.79 euro.

Posted in Indie Watch

Indie Watch: Bit of War

By Masakari : : Published: 23.03.2012                                                0 Old School Comments

Here’s a fun little project that’s doing the rounds – an 8-bit, demake version of the God of War games, called Bit of War. It’s very faithful to old school sensibilities, featuring NES-style graphics.

If you’re a GoW fan, check out the trailer here, and you can download it at the official page. You can even use a gamepad to play it.

Posted in Indie Watch

Stop SOPA, PIPA, and ACTA!

By Masakari : : Published: 18.01.2012                                                0 Old School Comments

In the day the internet fights the US SOPA and PIPA bills, I want to remind all europeans that the EU Parliament has a similar bill being studied, called ACTA. It is equally draconian, unconstitutional, and anti-democratic. Google it, Facebook it, Twitt it, fight it, spread the word.

This is a good resource: http://edri.org/ACTA_Week

And this as well: http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/Against_ACTA

Down with SOPA, PIPA, and ACTA. Preserve your rights and a free, uncensored internet.

Posted in Inspiration

Going slow, but going along

By Masakari : : Published: 17.01.2012                                                0 Old School Comments

Work on Geo Breaker is coming along. Really slow, because my daughter was born last month, and as such I’m up to my head in diapers and feeding bottles! :D

Still, been having some ideas for future projects. For now, trying to get Geo Breaker done as soon as possible!

Posted in Devblog, Geo Breaker

Indie Watch: A Science Fiction Saga

By Masakari : : Published: 14.01.2012                                                0 Old School Comments

I’m gonna start spreading the indie love. Too many great games popping around the net, from talented artists and developers.

I ran across a really interesting project by artist David Ostman – an old school point & click adventure called A Science Fiction Saga.

Inspired both by the vintage adventures of the past, and recent indie hit Gemini Rue, ASFS (for short) tells the story of a regular guy who finds himself millenia in the future, in a world he doesn’t understand. What follows is crazy adventure across various solar systems!

Check out the original progress thread at the AGS Forums, including screenshots – it’s looking great!

Posted in Indie Watch

Color tools for the needed!

By Masakari : : Published: 10.01.2012                                                0 Old School Comments

Here are two excellent tools for everyone designing color schemes, from textures to web. Select and preview colors, save your custom schemes, and even browse popular schemes made by other users!

+ Kuler by Adobe

+ Color Scheme Designer by Petr Stanicek

Posted in Art, Inspiration

Geo Breaker is now Beta!

By Masakari : : Published: 21.09.2011                                                0 Old School Comments

The time has come to reveal what we’ve been working on for the past few months. Geo Breaker is a block breaking game with 3 different game modes. The gameplay is a mixture of Breakout with air hockey and pinball, where the player actively controls the ball doing mouse swings in the direction he chooses, breaking blocks and growing his score.

As outlined, the game has 3 modes. These are:

+ Challenge: play over 150 pre-built levels, across 5 Worlds of increasing difficulty with special blocks with specific abilities. Unlock the next level, increase your score, and progress through the end. For the purpose of this Beta, we have 12 maps.

+ Survival: on a randomly generated map, destroy the most blocks you can in the least amount of time. Every 30 seconds or so, the map will reshuffle and new blocks will be added. The more time you last, the bigger your score multiplier!

+ Match-5: here, you play on a randomly generated map, and try to match 5 blocks according to different combinations, increasing the level and its difficulty.

We want your feedback on the game! Right now, you can head over to the forum thread (you need to register first) and download the Beta. Installation instructions are included in that thread.

Play it and please give us feedback on what you think of the game, problems you find, potential improvements to the gameplay, and pretty much whatever you want to say. Here are some screenshots of the game, bearing in mind everything is a work in progress.

Main Menu Profile screen Level select
Game screen Game screen Game screen
Level cleared Match-5 Mode Survival Mode
Posted in Devblog, Geo Breaker