Sep082009

Armada

So I finally decided to be “done” with this little shooting game I’ve been working on for a while. It’s called “Armada.” The goal is to destroy 1,000 enemies. Whenever you kill one, another one jumps on the screen to take its place. However, the more enemies you kill, the faster your ship moves and shoots. Check it out on Kongregate.

One thing I’ve learned about myself during its development is that I can get really bogged down working on more than one thing at a time. My personal programming time is so limited that having two active projects slows things down considerably. Plus, if a project takes too long, I lose motivation pretty quickly. When waking up early in the morning, one has to be excited about what one is doing (an aside: tips for waking up early).

No comments · Written by Nathan at 11:51 am · Tags , , ,

Apr032008

Penny Arcade’s “Greenhouse”
distribution service

I kinda quit reading Penny Arcade regularly a while ago… the comics were just too hit or miss for a while; I really didn’t like the fact that I had to read a blog entry to understand what was, in essence, a gaming industry “political” cartoon. I think that their level of influence over their audience is also a bit disproportionate, but that’s just my own bitterness speaking.

Regardless, a while ago they teamed up with a development studio called Hothead Games (an aside: they’re doing some interesting stuff… you’ll no doubt hear more about them in the future) to produce their own episode-based game series. I hear good things about the first entry, which is encouraging. However, what’s really interesting is the digital distribution service that is going to make the game available. In essence, they’re rolling their own online game store. That, in itself, is not interesting. But the fact that they will help distribute indie-developed games is. Being featured on this service seems like a sure-fire way to (at least initial) financial success as an indie. The qualifier being that only “Tycho and Gabe approved” games will make it.

Read the Interview by Wired’s Chris Kohler

No comments · Written by Nathan at 11:20 am · Tags , ,