Alistair Aitcheson Games

Greedy Bankers to face prison!?

2012-01-08T17:27:00.016Z

This turned up on the front page of the Mail on Sunday, and I couldn't resist posting a photo - does this make me a wanted man? I'd always thought addictive puzzle-strategy games would be celebrated by the British public, but it looks like chancellor George Osbourne begs to differ

My feelings on this? Absolutely terrified. If anyone could put me in touch with the Mail I would gladly plead the case for the game. Greedy Bankers is really fun and has been receiving fantastic reviews since its launch.

Greedy Bankers (the game) is out for iPhone at 69p, while its iPad countepart, Greedy Bankers vs The World is available for just £1.99

Interviewed for Forbes.com!

2011-12-23T13:32:00.002Z

Mover and shaker that I am, I was interviewed by Daniel Nye Griffiths for Forbes.com about running my one-man studio.

I talk about:

the challenges facing small indie developers
the benefits of the minimum viable product approach
redesigning Greedy Bankers for the iPad market
the advantages of the micro-studio in today's games industry

Read the interview here!

Alistair Aitcheson is a recent graduate, who has so far released two games: ‘Greedy Bankers‘ and ‘Greedy Bankers vs the World‘. His first game was a colour-matching puzzler. It was a minimum viable product, developed and released quickly to create awareness and some revenue, and to test the market’s eagerness for this kind of game.

His second iteration – ‘Greedy Bankers vs The World‘ brought in simultaneous multiplayer and – in line with the kleptocratic theme of the franchise – allowed players to steal gems from their opponent’s side of the iPad screen. This creates an experience somewhere between Bejewelled and ice hockey.

Aitcheson not only codes his games, but also produces the art and every other asset he can, keeping costs to an absolute minimum. That burn management makes it possible to learn on the job, without the high stakes of major game development. I asked Aitcheson about life as a microstudio.

Read the full interview on on Forbes.com

Ludum Dare 22: "Alone"

2011-12-22T13:50:00.007Z

This weekend I took part in the Ludum Dare 48-hour competition. The competition takes place three times a year, and tasks developers with the challenge of building a game, from scratch, on their own, in 48 hours. This year over 700 people entered, all developing games based on the selected theme: "Alone"

I took part, and made a game which is part match-em-up, and part strategy/RPG, which I called Omega Men. I also made a video diary of my experience, showing how the ideas and game evolved during the time period.

The game itself is playable here: Play OMEGA MEN
Feel free to leave your feedback here on the blog or on my Ludum Dare competition page!

I really enjoyed doing this, and it was a great way to try out some new ideas. This is something I plan to do a lot more of in the new year - it's a good way to generate fresh material after a year spent mostly on Greedy Bankers!

Develop Magazine's 30 Under 30

2011-12-21T16:36:00.004Z

Exciting news! I was selected for Develop Magazine's 30 Under 30 feature of young up-and-coming games industry figures. A very lovely surprise, and a nice way to round off a year that's been full of excitement: two released games, trade show appearances, conference talks and snazzy Greedy Bankers T-shirts!

Here's what they said about me:

Alistair Aitcheson
Independent Developer

23-year-old Aitcheson has been running his own one-man studio since graduating from University of Warwick with a first class Master's in Mathematics, and has been programming games for over ten years. He handles all the programming, artwork and animation for his games, such as Greedy Bankers, and has already become a regular event speaker. One of 2011’s youngest 30 Under 30 members, he capably rivals the careers of those many years his senior.

Thanks very much, Develop Magazine! It's also a lovely surprise to see so many people I've met at events since starting the studio. There's some really exciting talent out there, and I'm very flattered to find myself listed alongside such ambitious individuals. Congratualtions to all the others on the list, and I hope to meet the rest of you at future industry events!

Finally, I would recommend following Develop Online to anyone in or interested in the industry, as it's a very informative source of news and information. I'd also highly recommend downloading the magazine, which is completely free, and has very valuable games business and development-related articles.

My Favourite Game: Kongai

2011-12-16T14:33:00.004Z

I contributed to the My Favourite Game blog to talk about my favourite video game of all time: Kongregate's collectible card game Kongai.

A multiplayer strategy game that takes all the best bits from fighting and card games, and a mind-bending twist on JRPG battles, Kongai is my best example of a video game that can make you smarter.

Have a read of my thoughts on the game, and why not contribute to the My Favourite Game blog yourself?

Interview for Play Tribune: Running a One-Man Studio and the Evolution of Greedy Bankers

2011-12-06T19:08:00.009Z

I did an interview for Play Tribune this weekend, which I hope you all enjoy! We talk about the challenges of running a one-man studio, re-developing Greedy Bankers for the iPad, the motivations behind creating the game, a discussion of propaganda in games, and some of my indie recommendations!

YOUTUBE LINK

Speaking at Develop Liverpool, 24th November

2011-11-07T14:29:00.002Z

Just a small announcement to say I'll be speaking at Develop Conference Liverpool this month. My talk, Building on Greedy Bankers - Applying App Store Experience will be part of the Indie Dev Day, where I will explain how I built upon the foundations set by Greedy Bankers on iPhone to come up with Greedy Bankers vs The World.

Indie iOS developer Alistair Aitcheson recounts the ongoing tale of Greedy Bankers, his App Store debut, and its semi-sequel on iPad. Despite the original game’s sales slipping below expectations, Alistair chose to expand the franchise, with a bolder USP and fresh marketing strategy. The result, Greedy Bankers vs The World, was selected as a finalist in the Eurogamer Expo Indie Game Arcade.

Was the expanded game more desirable? Were the changes in marketing strategy effective? Did fresh exposure bring the game success? This is the post-mortem with a difference, about using lessons from one project to directly inform the next.

Tickets to the conference can be purchased here, and the Indie Dev Day track can be attended at a reduced rate.

Greedy Bankers at GameCity Nottingham

2011-11-03T15:27:00.020Z

October 26th to 29th saw Nottingham invaded by games and gamers, for one of the most varied and quirky games events in the UK calendar. There were talks from industry veterans including Naughty Dog's Richard Lemarchand (also a kickass DJ, but more on that later), 100-player laser-pen projector games, stirring breakfast discussions hosted by the Guardian's Keith Stuart, and, of course, a smorgasbord of indie games to try out on the show floor.

And the Greedy Bankers were there to join in!

Greedy Bankers vs the City of Nottingham

I have to say, demoing the game at Eurogamer Expo has really given me a thirst for more public events. The game does really seem to suit it, and battling a friend over a shared iPad can be a memorable shared experience.

The audience was much different to what I was used to from previous demo sessions, as there were a lot of families there, which made a nice change. One kid (pictured) was particularly good at the game and kept on coming back. He wanted to challenge everyone, and usually won! He even gave me a run for my money - I beat him after two very close rounds and only $500 in it in the end. Normally I'd go easy on a new player, but my pride was at stake!

There was also a pretty epic match which went on for 15 minutes and descended into a wrestling match. Seriously, they were literally rolling on the floor wrestling! Annoyingly my camera wasn't ready, so I didn't get a photo of it in action - hopefully next time!

Another highlight was meeting the Occupy Nottingham protesters, who were camped near the venue. I don't know how they'd respond to the proud "We are the 1%" that I'd chalked onto the wall, but they thought it was really funny. I got a photo with them at the camp, which I'm still waiting to get emailed to me, but I think they have more pressing concerns!

A tale of two GameCities

Of course, demoing wasn't the only fun part of the event. GameCity is party central for developers, and I also got to try out some very exciting experimental games. Due to demoing commitments I missed out on a lot of talks, but the Guardian Breakfast panels, on horror games on Friday and games industry awards on the Saturday, were thought provoking, and had a wide selection of voices from the industry. I also particularly enjoyed the Sheridans Indie Panel on Thursday afternoon, where a selection of indie developers talked about what they'd learnt from their indie successes and how that's affected their follow-ups.

Thursday evening played host to WallFour's live 100-player laser-pen game Renga. A mixture of enemy-zapping and crowd-driven spaceship-piloting, players had to cooperate to bring down abstract alien ships and move the "harvester" ships to collect valuable debris. Aliens were groups of circles, and to destroy them players needed to put a laser dot in each circle, while the harvester was controlled by having pointers hover over directional arrows on the moving ship.

What fascinated me most about this game was how, as a cooperative game, players act as a hive mind rather than a coordinated team. The lack of communication and limited actions of an individual forced everyone to respond to the game around them and try to cooperate based on what they thought their team would like them to do. It reminded me of Loren Carpenter's 5000-player pong experiment where two teams played a perfect game of pong by "voting" in real time whether to go up or down.

The Wild Rumpus

The Wild Rumpus on Friday night was fantastic fun, and just as crazy as the name implies! The event showcased innovative multiplayer indie games, with a focus on real-world interaction. I played B.U.T.T.O.N. for the first time, and also had a go at Johann Sebastian Joust, which I was terrible at, but was tremendous fun. There's something I love about these real-world party games, and the infinite range of real-world strategies they afford players. It's definitely something I've always wanted to be present in Greedy Bankers vs The World.

At the same event, we had game karaoke (classic songs re-fitted with hilarious game-related lyrics) hosted by One Life Left, and the most incredible DJ set performed by Naughty Dog's Richard Lemarchand, and Polytron's Phil Fish. Seriously, where do all these awesome developers get their hidden talents? I think I use all of mine in my job already! Number Theory may be the closest thing to hidden talent I have, and I can't think of a use for it.

What surprised me most, however, was just how much games industry people are party animals! There was a fantastic showing of developers, students and journalists, and I met so many great people. You're all so cool and I can't wait to see you again.

On the subject of that, anyone going to Develop Liverpool this month?

What I learned

Of course, I didn't just have good fun and make a bunch of new friends. I also learned some things. Particularly about the game, and improvements I want to make. These should hopefully find their way into the next update.

One issue is that it's not clear enough how much money you have left to get. I've been mulling over this one for ages, and it was Honeyslug's Ricky Haggett who suggested a solution. Instead of having the value of a gem pop out when you cash it in (which you already know because it appears when you're building it) have the amount remaining pop out. The player's already going to be looking there and so it should be much more obvious. I've implemented that now, and it clearly works a lot better.

I also noticed that the game is easily spammed. This is the big reason I'm happy so many kids played, because kids aren't afraid to spam each other. If you keep on dragging stuff onto your side and tapping it, you can stop your opponent from doing anything and it gets really annoying. It may not be a dominant strategy, but it's annoying enough that it may as well be. I'm implementing an optional "barrier" to come up whenever to steal something, so you won't be able to steal again for the next second. Hopefully that should fix that.

I've also implemented a few little visual aids to let you know who's in the lead, which should help make it clearer what's going on.

Actually, regarding the game I have a few extra mode ideas that I'm quite keen to work in. I'll keep you posted on those as they develop.

And a big thanks!

Finally, big thank-you to everyone involved in the festival. The event organisers, the stewards, and the tech crew, for making it all happen, and the speakers and developers for showing off their wares and sharing their thoughts. I had a great time, I learnt a lot, and I'm very grateful for all the work the GameCity team put in!

I look forward to coming back next year!!

(final image courtesy of GameCity, from their Flickr page - more awesome photos there)

Tap! Magazine App of the Week!

2011-10-26T11:45:00.004+01:00

The wonderful Tap! Magazine selected Greedy Bankers vs The World as their App of the Week.

It's my birthday today, so this is quite a nice present! I've included a screenshot below to preserve this lovely surprise.

“An excellent update to what was already a fine match game — recommended even if you own the original,” said Tap! Magazine, and gave it 4 stars.

"[The multiplayer mode] propels Greedy Bankers to the top of the iPad match-game heap. Let’s hope the dev doesn’t blow the cash on subprime credit."

I'll try not to!

Thanks very much, Tap! Incidentally, Tap! Magazine is well worth a read. There's an iPad-specific version which makes intelligent use of the interface, and it's full of well-written recommendations of apps, games and peripherals. Check it out!

Coming to GameCity and Qantm College!

2011-10-20T13:59:00.008+01:00

I'm going to be heading up to the GameCity Festival in Nottingham next week, where I'll be demoing Greedy Bankers vs The World.

You'll be able to come and play from 11:30am to 5:00pm on Friday 28th October, and I'd love to see you there!

Do come and say hi if you're going to the festival! And if you're not, why not? It sounds awesome, with all kinds of games-related activities going on. A full schedule is here.

I'll also be giving a guest lecture to students of Qantm College London about running a one-man indie studio, which I'm really looking forward to. It'll be great to meet budding young talent and hopefully get them fired up and excited about indie game development!

Version 1.1 out now, adds Colour-blind Support

2011-10-18T14:01:00.005+01:00

I recently submitted the first update for Greedy Bankers vs The World, which became available in the App Store this morning. The new update adds:

Colourblind support - an alternative viewing mode can be toggled on in the pause menu to add symbols to the gems so that colourblind players can enjoy the game.
"Crisis" difficulty level, which is unlockable after beating Story Mode on "Hard"
Tutorial video - a quick how-to-play video to introduce the core mechanics, also viewable on Youtube here

As always, let me know your feedback! I'm particularly interested to hear how successful the colourblind support is, and if you have any suggestions on how to improve it do let me know.

How to play Greedy Bankers vs The World!

2011-10-13T19:36:00.003+01:00

One thing that I wanted to improve with v1.1 of Greedy Bankers vs The World was the tutorials, which are admittedly a little brief. I wanted to do something a bit more fun and visual than a set of instructions, and decided that a video would be the most exciting way to do this.

So without further ado, here is the video!

Please note it's slightly different in the game, and you can flick between the different "chapters" in case you miss an important bit of advice. The voice was great fun to do, but took a bit of effort, as my voice isn't naturally very deep! It's quite hard to keep this voice consistent over two minutes. To avoid drifting back into a more comfortable pitch I put a picture of Deholm from the IT Crowd on the screen while I recorded.

I hope to get the v1.1 build submitted in the next few days. The update includes colourblind support (which I hope to improve as I go based on people's suggestions), and an extra difficulty mode in Story Mode, dubbed "Crisis" level!

More reviews and interviews!

2011-10-12T10:06:00.003+01:00

It's been so exciting seeing the reviews, interviews and articles for Greedy Bankers vs The World popping up in the past few weeks. So here's a few more!

Bits 'n' Bytes Gaming said the game "will have you screaming at the top of your voice with gleeful frustration." They also selected it for their "Recommended" section - thanks!

A very positive review from Square-Go called it "a great achievement on the iPad... uses that large screen size to its advantage," and also awarded the game a wonderful 4 stars.

I was interviewed for the MediaPulp podcast, episode 21, which was tremendous fun. I talk from about 27 minutes in, for a good 15-minute segment. Check it out!

And finally, here's a great interview from Arhn.eu - hope you enjoy seeing the game in action!

Improving Greedy Bankers for Colour Blind Players - Help Needed!

2011-10-08T16:07:00.007+01:00

Hi everyone. One of the issues that came up at Eurogamer Expo that I really wanted to fix was the fact that the game was very difficult for colour blind players. This is something I really wanted to fix, because I don't want to lock anyone out of playing the game over something that's easy to fix.

For example, here's a screenshot from the four-colour version of the game...

... and the same screenshot as viewed by someone with red-green protanopia (as far as I know, the most common form of colour blindness). I used the Vischeck web tool to simulate the view (which seems to have stopped working today, unfortunately).

The problem is fairly obvious! The easiest, and hopefully most effective way to do this, was to add symbols to the gems to make them easier to distinguish. These can be toggled on and off by the player. My question is, for any colour blind gamers out there, does this make any difference? Is there anything I can do to improve the effect?

Here's the game board without symbols...

... and here it is with symbols...

Any pointers and words of advice?

Interview for PocketGamer

2011-10-06T10:43:00.000+01:00

Hi everyone! I did this interview with PocketGamer.co.uk about redesinging Greedy Bankers for iPad, updates and plans for porting to other devices.

Total bankers: Alistair Aitcheson talks Eurogamer Indie Arcade, content updates, and new projects

I hope you enjoy reading! This interview was also linked by the IndieGames.com weblog.

Greedy Bankers at the Eurogamer Indie Arcade

2011-10-04T12:56:00.015+01:00

This year I was fortunate enough to be selected as a finalist in the Eurogamer Expo's Indie Games Arcade. From Thursday 22nd to Sunday 25th September I headed to Earls Court, London, to demo the game to Eurogamer attendees.

There were 16 finalists in the competition, including five iOS entries: my own Greedy Bankers, online card game Cabals, action-packed tower-defence Earth Under Siege, augmented-reality physics puzzler Reflow, and snake-on-steroids Hard Lines. Meeting all the other developers were amazing, with teams flying over from Germany, Finland, Italy and Brazil, as well as Cambridge and humble Coventry.

With the game submitted to the App Store a mere ten days before the event, I had spent the previous week preparing promotional materials: business cards, posters and T-shirts, all of which came in handy during the event. I also brought with me an awesome team of assistants, each helping me out on different days. A big thank-you to Jamie, Simon (pictured below) and Rowan for their help, and their ability to talk with detail and enthusiasm about the game when my voice had practically given up!

The game had a fantastic response from players, with my favourite word of the weekend being "rematch!" It also brought a big smile to my face when players came back to the game having played it earlier in the day, or brought friends to show it off to. Everyone loved stealing gems from each other, and the sneaky looks on players' faces when they first realised they could nick their friends' jewels were priceless! Stealing was definitely a big selling point for the game, and something I'm going to try and push further with future updates.

I also took some time to entertain the waiting crowds outside the venue, before the Expo floor opened up at 10am. Lucky queuers would be approached by me and my team to play the game while they waited, which everyone seemed to enjoy! Some players did get very absorbed into it and were practically wrestling each other over the game. It was at those points I had to hold onto the iPad for dear life to make sure it didn't fall crashing onto the concrete!

But at least it shows it's immersive. One of the key features I wanted to push with the iPad version is that the gameplay extends out of the screen and into the real world, and that was definitely apparent at the Expo. Some people commented that it reminded them of Copenhagen Game Collective games such as B.U.T.T.O.N. (high praise indeed!), mixed with a strong strategic component - something they hadn't experienced before, which is very encouraging.

I also had a great time at Friday's Rock Paper Shotgun drinks event. Despite a free bar, I managed to control myself and just had a couple of pints, but some of the other indies were a little worse for wear apparently! This was evident the next morning when my team were the only indies there setting up early. I think that may have been a good tactical decision, as Saturday turned out to be completely packed-out and my voice was practically gone by that point. It would have been nice to stay for longer at the pub though, as I met some great people there: developers, gamers and writers alike!

During the weekend I also got the opportunity to do some interviews for games sites, video reviewers and blogs, which I loved doing. I met some really interesting people, aspiring developers, musicians and artists, and even a giant cardboard robot (who proved unable to play the game due to his big cardboard arms). We were set up right next to Just Dance 3, which meant having to listen to the same music over and over again every day (particularly "Pump It" by the Black Eyed Peas), but I did get a chance to take on one of the Rimelands developers in a Beyonce vs. Chirstina Aguilera dance-off. I'm not sure who was which one, but the important thing is I won. What can I say? UK indies are clearly better dancers!

The indie games on show were brilliant too. I teamed up with fellow Warwick Game Design oldboy Alan Hazelden (These Robotic Hearts of Mine, which is excellent btw), to beat Terry Cavanagh's two-player abstract puzzle At A Distance, although apparently there were some bits we missed! I was situated between the visually outstanding first-person run-and-jump Fotonica, and the fascinating card game Cabals. Unfortunately I only got to have a brief go at most of the games, due to being so busy at my own stand, but the quality on show was fantastic, and the range of games on show was bigger than the rest of the Expo itself. Try them all out, because they're brilliant! Everyone I met said that the Indie Game Arcade was the best part of the show, but then again I do have a selective memory…

Heading home on Sunday night I was absolutely shattered, but it really was an awesome time, and I'd love to do it again. Next year perhaps? I'll definitely be entering, that's for sure! And, indies, I recommend you do the same.

A massive thank you to everyone who helped out. To the Reflow guys for lending me an iPad-to-VGA connector, to David Hayward for his tireless work organising and running the arcade, and to Jamie (he's a published author btw, buy his book!), Simon and Rowan for their invaluable help. Actually, Richard Lemarchand (Lead Designer, Naughty Dog) congratulated them on their sales pitch, so they were evidently great salespeople and a pleasure to have on board! Also to Sega and Rock Paper Shotgun for sponsoring the event.

A really awesome time, and I look forward to next year's Arcade. I also hope to see the awesome developers at future events - I'll keep an eye out for you all! But for now, onwards you Greedy Bankers!

The first reviews are in! 4.5 Stars from GameZebo!

2011-10-03T13:40:00.006+01:00

Once the game's launched it's always very exciting when the first reviews start to appear. I was really happy with this review from GameZebo who, having been impressed with the iPhone original, really took a shine to the iPad sequel.

Read the review here!

"Greedy Bankers vs. The World is an excellent follow-up to an already-great game. It's incredibly fun and goofy, the new gameplay modes add a lot of extra enjoyment, and things are even more stylish than before."

Thanks very much for the kind words guys! Much appreciated!

As always, Greedy Bankers vs The World can be purchased from the App Store here

Bankers take on Eurogamer!

2011-09-28T11:57:00.003+01:00

Hi everyone! Eurogamer Expo was amazing. For those of you not already in the know, Greedy Bankers vs The World was selected as a finalist in the Indie Game Arcade, and so I got to demo the game to visitors at Earl's Court from Thursday until Sunday. It was exhausting, but so much fun!

I'll be doing a proper write-up of the event soon but, suffice it to say, Greedy Bankers was really well received. Everyone seemed to love playing, especially once they started stealing from their friends!

Here's a selection of video interviews I did during the event - I'll let you know when more appear!

The awesome guys from Bit Socket popped by the indie arcade and interviewed me and some of the other finalists

The SweetFFA team interviewed me as my team took to the queues to entertain the waiting crowds!

Eurogamer TV interviewed some of the indies to find out just how indie we really were. Did my credibility remain intact? Find out here!

Podcast: Greedy Bankers vs The World on Against All Expectations

2011-09-20T20:07:00.003+01:00

I recorded a podcast with Leo Loikkanen from Against All Expectations about the launch and development of Greedy Bankers vs The World, and its upcoming exhibition in the Eurogamer Indie Game Arcade.

Take a listen here! Follow the podcast for other fascinating indie developmer interviews!

Download the podcast direct from here

Greedy Bankers vs The World launches tonight!

2011-09-19T19:20:00.005+01:00

Update: Out now worldwide!

Here it is! Greedy Bankers vs The World has been approved by the App Store and is now ready to launch midnight tonight!

But there's more! The game has been selected for the Eurogamer Indie Game Arcade 2011, and will be on display from Thursday to Sunday this week in Earl's Court, London. I will be there to show you the game and talk to you about its development, so please do come along!

From midnight tonight (whatever time zone you're in), Greedy Bankers vs The World can be bought from this link

I can't wait to hear your thoughts, and I look forward to meeting some of you at the Expo!

Price drop! Greedy Bankers for iPhone now £0.69/$0.99/€0.79!

2011-09-16T11:10:00.003+01:00

Hi everyone! In the run-up to the Greedy Bankers vs The World launch for iPad, I've decided to drop the price of the original iPhone game. Please do check it out if you've not done so! I'm so excited to launch the new game next week!

Buy now on iTunes: £0.69/$0.99/€0.79

Reviews for Greedy Bankers (iPhone)
"I expect to keep returning to Greedy Bankers... I love that one-more-go appeal!" - iPhone Freak

"Simple to describe but complex to master... Greedy Bankers delivers in short, healthy doses" - DIYGamer

"Guaranteed to keep you coming back for more (and more and more!)" - iFanzine

Greedy Bankers vs The World: Submitted to the App Store!

2011-09-14T17:30:00.003+01:00

This is a very exciting time indeed. Greedy Bankers vs The World is now submitted to the App Store, and is awaiting review. I hope to have the game available for download next week, which will coincide with something very exciting. But I'll wait for the official announcement to tell you what exactly that is!

In the meantime, I would like to say a big thank-you to the beta testers, who were essential in getting the game finished and polished ready for release. Feedback from the testing team has been comprehensive and very promising, and I really appreciate their hard work and input.

The final couple of weeks of development were pretty hectic, with me trying to get the game ready for this event. I guess you'd call it "indie crunch", and having set myself the deadline of Monday 12th to submit the build, the last weekend was tiring indeed!

I'll keep you up with more information as things are announced. In the meantime, I've uploaded a press pack to the Greedy Bankers site, which pulls together screenshots, announcements and the game description for easy use by press and bloggers. Feel free to take a look.

Interview for Smartphone App Review

2011-09-05T10:13:00.003+01:00

I was interviewed by the Smartphone App Review about expanding Greedy Bankers for iPad, working with iOS, and my plans as a developer. Take a look!

Interview: Alistair Aitcheson talks Greedy Bankers 2, life as an iOS developer and much more

This interview was featuted on 7th September 2011 as an Indie Game Link on Indiegames.com

Calling beta testers!

2011-09-01T14:30:00.002+01:00

Hey all! Greedy Bankers vs The World is now ready to go out to beta testers, so please do comment or email me (aitchesongames[at]gmail.com) if you'd like to get involved.

The latest video shows the current build of the game, which is getting very close to completion, with just a few loose ends to wrap up and some balancing work to do. Which is, of course, where beta testers come in handy! If you'd like to try out the game with your friends and family, and are happy to give me your thoughts and feedback, please do get in touch.

Hope you enjoy watching and I look forward to hearing from you!

Newsflash! Greedy Bankers vs The World Trailer

2011-08-14T12:11:00.005+01:00

I put up a trailer for Greedy Bankers vs The World last night. Have a look, and tell me what you think!

Out of all the videos I've produced around my work, this was definitely the most fun to do. The idea of a newsflash-style video has been rattling around in my head for ages, and I decided that this would be a perfect way to put it into action. The most visually-interesting part of the game is the multiplayer matchups, which lent themselves well to a BBC News-inspired report, where they could have been recorded from a cheap digital camera (which they were!).

The video was put together in Camtasia for Mac. I recorded the audio first in Audacity, reading over the top of some stock music to get the pacing and feel right. The original track was 50 seconds long, so I had to edit it to make it longer, but luckily you can't hear the joins. I made a big effort to ham up the dialogue - I don't have expensive recording equipment, or a mature and authoritative voice, so I made sure to ham it up! Then I added footage on top to match the dialogue.

The trailer contains some of the footage of TIGJam attendees that I used in my playtest video, so many thanks to Phill, Eugene, Alan, Ashley, Paul and Dave for letting me record their matches!

Other scraps of footage were filmed by myself during production, and the dodgy dossier that appears for a split-second is actually my brother's manuscript (for his novel, which has now been published!).

I'll be entering this game into Fantastic Arcade and the Eurogamer Indie Arcade, so hopefully this trailer should attract attention from the judges. If there's any other games festivals or competitions you think I should join, please let me know!

Competitive Banking! Test sessions at TIGJam UK 5

2011-07-26T15:09:00.011+01:00

As documented in my earlier post, I attended TIGJam UK 5 earlier in the month, and took with the latest Greedy Bankers vs the World to try out on the unsuspecting developers! I filmed some of the matches for the video below. Take a look at the video below to see how it went down!

Competitive Banking in Practice

The testing session was great fun and some of the participants got very competitive, which is exactly what I was hoping to see! The matches were fast and furious and, while I was hoping to capture whoops and cheers from excited players most had expressions of deep concentration. Perhaps not as photogenic but definitely a sign of solid competitive design!

There were a few things that came up that needed ironing out, though. Some players felt that the rubble drops were too agressive. They're fine at an expert level, but new players often find it difficult to deal with clearing rubble. So I'm going to add in an optional rule that stops 2x2 gems dropping rubble on your opponent.

While Dave (bluescrn) made good use of his opportunities to steal from his opponent, they didn't prove as advantageous as I'd hoped. Because stealing is meant to be a core feature of the new game, I'm planning on making some tweaks to the rules to make this a more worthwhile strategy. I hope to play around with gems gaining value from being stolen, a mode where certain colours are only valuable on one side of the board, and dropping power-ups near the middle so players have to scramble for them!

I plan to make all the rules and settings tweakable so players can come up with their own favourite rule-sets, which I can feature as selectable presets in later updates.

During the event I was able to make plenty of notes, as evidenced in the photo (right) so I've got plenty of useful material to work from! I tend to take a notebook with me everywhere, and over the past year I've managed to fill quite a few of them, mostly with ideas for developing Bankers and other games: plans for strategies, characters, features, and also promotional content.

What's next?

The beta version of the game is nearly ready and I hope to be sending out test versions in the next couple of weeks. It's an exciting process, but there's always plenty to do! Drawing backgrounds has become my top priority, alongside setting up the story mode. As with the iPhone version, the final leg of development is often the hardest, but you have to push on, not lose confidence, and take the bigger challenges head-on. Wish me luck!

TIGJam UK 5: We came, we jammed, we conquered!

2011-07-18T14:40:00.037+01:00

This article was featured as an Indie Game Link by the IndieGames.com weblog and in Rock Paper Shotgun's Sunday Papers feature

This weekend the CB2 Bistro in Cambridge UK was overrun with indie developers working on small mini-projects, socialising and generally having an awesome gamedev experience! 35 indies dropped in on the Bistro, home of the CB2 Indies meet-ups, from all around the world. Some developers had come in from Cambridge and London, others (including myself) from UK counties further afield. Some even flew in from Germany, or joined as part of their round-the-world travels.

Friendships were formed, awesome games were made, coffee and beer were consumed! Altogether a fantastic experience and highly recommended. And I was there, camera in hand, pestering people to be photographed - the results are below:

Just a Simple Game We Play

Every few hours, Stephen (also known as increpare) would come round with three jam themes, randomly selected from our own suggestions. We'd have three hours to make a game based around these themes. A lot of us ended up focusing on just a couple of themes, and extending them beyond the three hours if we liked them enough - there were no rules, so the atmosphere was relaxed and sociable, and everyone got on well, sharing ideas and working together.

I was particularly intrigued by Paul McG's game, 128 Boxes per Minute - a rhythm-action maze game, were tiles on the map would become dangerous in time with the music. A very simple game that clearly had potential to be expanded, and which I look forward to seeing more of in the future!

I was also very impressed by Adam Vian and Rauri O'Sullivan's magnetic fishing game. The art and animation looked gorgeous, as did the rope physics on the fishing line. The player has to catch the evil robot fish to feed to his pet tiger, and would need to identify the good fish from the bad before they rammed into his fishing boat. I can't wait to have a go at this once the win/lose conditions are in place!

Alan "Draknek" Hazelden and Ashley Gwinnell collaborated on Needy Bankers, a twist on my own Greedy Bankers series. The gem-merging mechanics were in place when I left on Sunday evening, Alan promises he'll have some playable puzzles very soon, and the gleaming gem animations are very attractive!

There was even an iOS game in the works! Joe Bain teamed up with artist Catherine Unger on a pogo-stick stunt game. Yet more lovely animation work on this one, with graphics and physics implemented through Cocos2D. I wonder if this'll develop into a full iPhone release? I sure hope so!

Around the world in 35 indies

As I mentioned, people had travelled from far and wide to come to the event, including Thomas Trocha and Johannes Stein, who had come all the way from Germany. I had a fascinating chat with Jordan Magnusson and his wife Marissa, for whom the jam was part of their round-the-world tour! Jordan makes games about his travels, the people he meets and the situations he encounters, which he uploads to his website, Game Trekking. Take a look, it's very interesting.

I also had a good time meeting up with some old friends from previous events. Hayden "Docky" Scott-Baron and I had our seemingly-obligatory discussion of Sonic the Hedgehog. I enjoyed hearing about Jasper "Superflat" Byrne's current projects, and discussing the extent to which financial pressure effects our approaches to indie game development. I enjoy finding out about other indies' perspectives, especially when I can compare their own experiences to mine.

Dave "Bluescrn" Reed showed me his current iOS project, Hurry Home Mr Squirrel, and gave me an opportunity to test out Greedy Bankers vs The World on an iPad 2. Dave has a pretty extensive arsenal of home-made tools for creating his games, which are very impressive indeed! Having worked in the industry for 10 years, he's clearly built up an excellent practical programming talent, and is now working as a full-time indie on iOS. Despite being a programmer by trade, his hair-driven artwork on Mr Fluff was very stylish.

Phill Webster showed off his shader for visualising music with julia sets. This awoke the mathematician in me, although he insisted it was simpler than it looked. I detect too much modesty amongst programmers!

Beyond Coderdome

Of course, the event didn't just take place with coding in the bistro! On Saturday I set off with Ed Key, George Buckenham and Alan Hazelden, to play real-world games in Parker's Piece, a large green not too far from the event (or Subway - I was hungry!). We played Lemon Jousting and Ninja, with numerous variations. I was crap at all of them, but had a lot of fun. Ninja was my particular favourite, a turn-based game where you have to hit the backs of your opponents' hands and are only allowed limited movements to attack and dodge. Something about merging the turn-based play with the fluid physical real world appeals to me a lot.

George also created an interesting card game, "Fight or Flee" for one of the jams, which I will definitely remember for future. It started off simple enough, but as we played it turned out to be a game of mind-reading and deception. Great stuff!

I also had a good chance to test out Greedy Bankers vs the World, and to take some footage of the game in action. I managed to fill a good set of notebook pages with people's suggestions, and got a clear idea of how to improve my game. The key message I took was that I needed some way to encourage more stealing, as that's my favourite mechanic but is currently a sub-optimal strategy in most cases. Luckily, I got some good suggestions for how to fix this too. I got some great advice on how to make the gem-grabbing more tactile, which is important on a shared board with two players jostling for action.

And, of course, the pub!

As a full-time indie living in a quite isolated part of the country I found myself more drawn towards the social aspects of the event than the programming. So the pub ended up being a natural environment for me this weekend! I also like a good ale.

Many important topics were discussed. GDC, and the experiences of those who have been before, looking like an idiot while testing Kinect games, good games that reviewed badly, bad game controllers, how removing a sock made me more indie, and infinite monkeys. Our theorising went beyond the typing out of Shakespeare, and onto more important issues. How much would it cost to feed these monkeys? How could we monetise the monkeys? Is there a way for each monkey to eat other monkeys in a way that there would be finite monkeys remaining in finite time? Answers on a postcard...

A big thanks

I had such a great time at TIGJam UK 5, and I can't wait for the next one! I met a lot of awesome people and saw some really cool projects in the works. A big thank-you to everyone who helped organise the event, including Stephen "increpare" Lavelle and Terry Cavanagh, and also to Alan "Draknek" Hazelden who took on the unenviable task of organising accommodation for us! You guys are awesome!

Finally, of course, a thank-you to the staff at the CB2 Bistro, for providing the delicious wraps, spicy chips and milkshakes that provided us with the energy we needed for a weekend's coding!

I'm going to be at Develop this Thursday with Greedy Bankers vs the World, so let me know if you're there. Happy gamedev, readers, and I hope to see you at a future jam!

A new challenger bursts in! Latest drawings of the new bankers!

2011-07-12T19:53:00.015+01:00

With Greedy Bankers vs The World for iPad, I've been keen to extend the cast of bankers and add a bunch of new characters. Much like in arcade classics Puyo Puyo and Dr Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, these new characters will act as a gauntlet of opponents, right up to a final boss fight!

The characters will also be unlockable and selectable as player-characters in Versus Mode. So without further ado, let's take a look at some of the latest images!

I had quite a clear idea in my head of what a female banker in the Greedy Bankers establishment would look like. I wanted her to come off as a real ice lady who has too many important calls to make to waste time playing silly iPad games with you. I still have to work on the face in some of the frames, as it's sometimes a little inconsistent.

The next character I knew I wanted to draw was a robot banker. This guy went through various iterations before I settled on making him an ATM with arms. He's my favourite character to draw at the moment!

Each character has a range of static poses to use in different situations: winning a game, losing, forcing a countdown on you, being threatened, and a couple of poses for the introductory story sections. You get a bit of a picture of it in my recent AI demo video, although I plan to make it a bit more pronounced when you're playing in Story Mode.

I've also come up with a few new pieces of artwork for the original two bankers. Neither of them had a suitable pose for losing a game, and so I had to work that one out from scratch. I haven't drawn these guys for a while, so it's quite strange going back to it and trying to keep them on-model!

And finally, a sneaky peak at the big baddie? Who's really behind the financial crisis? I can't say that yet, for risk of ruining the ending! Nevertheless, a silhouette will suffice for now.

It's great to have so much new artwork to show, but as always there's plenty left to do. I have a lot of work to do on the menus and user-interface at the moment, which is horribly fiddly, and I also have a load of backgrounds to do, which I tend to find more of a challenge than characters. Nevertheless, onwards and upwards! Can't wait to show off more!

Video: Greedy Bankers iPad AI Demo

2011-07-03T12:17:00.002+01:00

Hey everyone! Just a small update with some video footage of me taking on the AI opponent. Story Mode will be a key feature, expanding on the multiplayer gameplay, and while there's still plenty to be implemented, the computer is already proving a tough adversary!

I also explain some of the new features in the game, as well as how I plan to expand it from here.

Announcement: Greedy Bankers vs. The World for iPad

2011-06-16T10:00:00.017+01:00

Following the success of Greedy Bankers for iPhone, I am now developing a version of the game for the iPad. The new game is due out this summer, and I hope to have it ready for submission to the App Store by the end of July.

Multiplayer is a key feature of the new game, pitting aspiring financiers head-to-head in a battle to secure market dominance! Stealing, cheating and underhand tactics are the order of the day as, after all, Greedy Bankers is quite literally the name of the game!

Greedy Bankers vs The World retains the simplicity and accessibility of its iPhone predecessor, with the added enjoyment of tricking your friends, and them tricking you right back!

Meanwhile, fans of competitive puzzlers such as Puyo Puyo and Puzzle Fighter will find a strong strategic core in a competitive puzzler designed solely for iPad.

How do I play Greedy Bankers multiplayer?

Two players share the iPad screen, with the game board split into two sides. Cash in gems on your side to add to your total, and drop rubble on your opponents. But watch out - some rubble contains power-ups, so you need to take advantage of your lead before your opponent bounces back!

Players are free to steal gems from across the board and cash them in on their own side, and there is no penalty for stealing. You can even set traps for your friends, turning their hard-earned gems into rubble, or blowing them up with bombs. Whether or not you play fair is entirely up to you!

You can choose to play at opposite sides of the board, or side by side, and stealing across the board can be disabled, if you're in the mood for a more civilised game. In fact, many of the game rules will be customisable, to make sure the game rules suit you and your friends the best.

What stage of development are you in?

I'm currently working on balancing the game, finding the optimum feature-set for the game, and optimising the display to make it as clear and punchy as possible. I also have some other big features which are being implemented, the details of which I will announce in the coming weeks. Suffice to say, once you've beaten all your friends, you'll still have a legion of opponents ready to battle you.

When can I play Greedy Bankers vs. The World?

I'm taking the game on tour during development, to build feedback and watch players interact with the game. This weekend, I will be at University of Warwick for the Warwick Game Design 48 Hour Competition. In July, I'll be taking the game to TIGJam UK 5 in Cambridge, and the Develop Conference. Perhaps I will see you there!

If you're interested in beta testing, comment below and I'll get in touch. I expect to have a beta ready for testing in July, and it would be awesome to have you on board!

Podcast: Interview for Against All Expectations

2011-06-03T14:25:00.007+01:00

Leo Loikannen of the Against All Expectations podcast interviewed me today, and the podcast is up now!

Download the mp3 podcast from here, and view the Flattr page for the podcast here.

I talk about the upcoming iPad game, the state of the market for indie developers (on which I am generally optimistic!), developing for Objective-C, and my recommendations for gamers and developers alike.

This podcast was featured on the IndieGames.com Weblog! How cool is that?

New episodes of Leo's show can be found on the Against All Expectations Blog

Video: iPad Bankers AI demo

2011-06-02T19:58:00.003+01:00

I've been working on the AI algorithm for Greedy Bankers iPad over the past week, and this is how it's looking so far. It's very early stages, but I've very pleased with how it's taking shape! The iPad version of the game will include local multiplayer, and a story mode against computer opponents. I'll be keeping you posted with more details as the game develops!

Interview with Players' Co-op and v1.3 release

2011-05-11T14:12:00.007+01:00

I was interviewed recently by Players' Co-op, a neat little gaming-interest site which started up fairly recently and looks set to be full of interesting articles! Titled Indie Developer's One-Man Show I talk about the challenges and benefits of working as a one man studio, the development process, and my advice for aspiring developers. Check it out, and I hope you enjoy reading it!

--Read the full article--

v1.3.0 Released, with French translation

The latest update for Greedy Bankers is now available from iTunes. I've translated the in-game text into French, which was a fun excuse for me to brush up my old language skills, and also should open up the game to some new players. Thanks very much to Mathieu, Sacha and Klaim for their help with this update!

iPad Bankers underway!

The iPad version took a little while longer to get off the ground than I had anticipated, but the big-screen version is now well underway and the two player mode is really coming along! I'll be sure to post pictures and videos in the near future.

Greedy Bankers: Reviews Roundup

2011-04-22T11:53:00.003+01:00

A roundup of some of the reviews that Greedy Bankers has had so far:

‎"Guaranteed to keep you coming back for more (and more and more!)"
iFanzine, 19 April 2011

"Great gameplay with an addictive core" 87%
The Smartphone App Review, 13 March 2011

"Immensely enjoyable and fast-paced fun"
Gamezebo.com, 28 Feb 2011

"Simple to describe but complex to master... Greedy Bankers delivers in short, healthy doses"
DIYGamer.com, 24 Feb 2011

If you're a game or app reviewer and would like to review the game, feel free to comment below, or contact me at aitchesongames@gmail.com for a free promo code

Video: Story of a Game Engine

2011-04-20T18:03:00.004+01:00

The second instalment of my video series, Indie Developer Notebook is now available to watch online. It looks back on a platformer engine I developed at various stages from 2002 to 2010, how it developed, and why I ultimately put the project on the shelf.

The video also looks at platformer physics, and how breaking the accepted rules of physics can lead to exciting gameplay.

The first in the video series, Designing Greedy Bankers (Complexity from Simplicity) is also available to watch online.

Only the Beginning: Lessons from Greedy Bankers

2011-04-14T15:08:00.010+01:00

This article was written as a guest post for GamesBrief.com. It looks back on my experiences up to, and in the first weeks following the launch of the game. The article was also featured on the IndieGames.com Weblog

Greedy Bankers, my arcade puzzle game for iPhone, is now available in the App Store. This is a perfect time to look back and see what I’ve learned from the development experience.

I am a one-man team, dealing with all aspects of development, artwork, business and marketing. Greedy Bankers is my first commercially available game since starting out as a full-time indie developer.

The demands of a commercial product

Having spent just two weeks to develop the prototype for the Experimental Gameplay Project, I expected the iPhone version to take about a month. The actual development time was in fact over three months, from early November to mid-February.

While freeware gamers will praise you for the bits that seem polished, paying customers will feel ripped-off if the game feels incomplete. The user interface had to be clear and complete, and the visual experience had to be impressive, all of which required considerable time spent coding, testing and tweaking.

Greedy Bankers was always intended to be simple and lightweight, so to me three months is a baseline development time for an iPhone game. I would struggle to do it any faster.

Artwork takes time and energy

Using my own artwork was a conscious decision, as I knew my art style would make my work identifiable. Based on my experience of previous projects, I expected drawing new artwork for the game to take a matter of days. This took over three weeks. As I needed the artwork before I could build the title and menu screens, I ended up with a significant bottleneck.

The banker designs required extensive concept drawings and feedback to make sure they were identifiable as greedy bankers. Animating the robbers to look like they were sneaking, rather than running, was particularly challenging.

I am now well aware of how time- and energy-consuming artwork can be. This means that in future projects I will try to minimise the number of characters and objects I need to draw, and look for ways to simplify the animation process without compromising the quality.

Knowing when the product is ready

Towards the end of development I was very worried that players wouldn’t engage with the strategic side to the game. I was concerned that it needed extra features to encourage them to explore strategies, and that there was more that I could do to make playing more intuitive.

Obviously, had I not drawn the line, this could have been an endless process. The reality was that no amount of features and tweaks would change whether or not people liked the core gameplay, and that getting the product to market was far more important.

My advice here is to always look for perspective. Get new people to play it, and judge from their reactions whether it’s achieved its goals. It’s great to get advice and suggestions, but be sure to take a step back and ask yourself: “Would people notice if I didn’t do that?” Or similarly: “Does this need to be in the first release, or can I save it for an update?”

Being a one man band is hard work

Working alone to develop and market a game can be an arduous and solitary process, although I have no regrets about my decision to go it alone.

The hardest bit is dealing with the demanding requirements on all aspects of your work simultaneously. For example, I needed the artwork to be full of character, the code needed to be bug free, I needed to keep my Facebook and Twitter feeds interesting, and my websites needed to be clean and professional.

Juggling so many tasks can be draining, so it may make sense work in a team with at least one other person, to spread the load. Perhaps I could find a new way to organise my time - for example: marketing in the morning and code in the afternoon – to keep things fresh and varied. As yet I don’t know the solution, but I hope I will by the next project.

So what next?

This is only the beginning, I always tell myself. I still have a lot to learn about the marketing side of things, and which strategies work best. It’s far too early to tell what the best ways to attract players to Greedy Bankers are, so right now I’m sowing seeds in as many places as possible.

The other key question is whether or not the App Store is a viable marketplace for my work. It has a huge user-base, and no upper limit to revenue, but there are a lot of games vying for user attention. My challenge now is to make Greedy Bankers rise above the competition. Only time will tell whether I can make that happen!

Video: Designing Greedy Bankers - Complexity from Simplicity

2011-03-18T10:47:00.003Z

I just posted up a video about how I designed Greedy Bankers to foster complex strategies from simple mechanics.

I plan to make a series of these videos, so if there's anything you'd like me to discuss, expand on, or experiences you'd like me to share, please let me know!

Update: Greedy Bankers Now Available! 33%-Off Launch Sale!

2011-02-23T13:41:00.007Z

Greedy Bankers is now available from the App Store!

Follow this link to find it on the App Store: http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/greedy-bankers/id417814882?mt=8

More information about the game is on the Greedy Bankers website.

As an indie developer this is very exciting for me, as it's the first time I've brought a game to market. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it goes down well, and working very hard to spread the world. So if you know anyone who may enjoy the game, or be interested in reviewing it, feel free to pass on the message - I appreciate it!

Frequent updates are on the Greedy Bankers Twitter feed: @greedy_bankers and also on my personal twitter feed: @agaitcheson

Greedy Bankers for iOS: Designing Accessibility and Complexity

2011-02-21T15:48:00.021Z

When I first came up with Greedy Bankers in June 2010, my intention was to create something simple to pick up, but with a depth that keeps you playing and trying to discover new strategies. I had been exploring real-world strategy games in the months previous to producing the first prototype, and desired to create a game where the player could explore deep strategies from a simple set of building blocks.
Beginning work on the iPhone version of the game, I knew I wanted to maintain the drive for complex gameplay, but realised I had new opportunities to make it even more accessible. The touch screen offered the potential for an even more intuitive interface for new players, and I hope to build up a community and a gentle sense of competition between players trying to maximise their scores.

Designing for Accessibility and Simplicity

The sliding-tile control system had been successful in my earlier Shifty Trains, which had proven popular with new gamers, so for the Windows prototype it made perfect sense to build on that. Using only the mouse, and avoiding the use of buttons, reduced the need to learn a control system. Translating this to a touch screen made it even easier for players to get to grips with, as players could use a single finger to play the entire game, and it resembled physical sliding-tile puzzles even more. Testing out the iPhone beta on new players was an exciting experience, as it was obvious how easy to pick up and explore the game was.

he basic rules of the game were fairly simple, with few mechanics to learn. Like-coloured gems merge together and become more valuable, rubble blocks your board and must be destroyed with a large gem, and the robbers steal anything they come across. The very first design was based around a stock-market system, where different coloured gems would change in value as the game went on. But when I added the rubble into the prototype, I realised that was all I needed to build up a layer of complexity. Merging gems and clearing space was actually quite therapeutic.

Designing for Complexity

Complexity, as I mentioned above, first started to appear once the rubble was added in, adding a layer of space-management to the game. This created a clear need for the players to compromise. Gems need to be cashed in early to get rid of the rubble, but also need to be made as big as possible to for any significant return. Players need to balance their need for different kinds of gems, investing in clearing rubble quickly and investing in building up the funds demanded to clear the stage.

The higher targets force players to concentrate on larger gems, raising the pressure. The early stages are actually very easy to beat. New players shouldn't be intimidated by the early targets, but experienced players should get through them fairly quickly. An interesting strategy emerged from players of the PC prototype, some who used the early stages to build massive gems due to the low risk, and others who would build gems specifically sized to maximise the clearing of rubble.

When players started developing these kinds of long-term strategies it was clear that I had created something special. But I wanted to add in something extra to expand on the risk factor and bump up the pressure. That is where the robbers came in.

The robbers move around the board and will steal any gems they come across. If you have an already big gem, do you cash it in now to avoid it being stolen, or do you build it bigger and face the risk of losing it? This kind mechanic keeps players on their toes and forces them to make snap decisions.

Simplex: Complexity Emerging from Simplicity

Complexity emerging from simplicity has become a great focus of my game designs, and I tend to refer to it as simplex for short. This is something I sought to achieve in Greedy Bankers, and hope to push even further with my future projects.

To see this kind of design, look to Puyo Pop Fever, Kongai, or Super Smash Bros., all learnable in a few minutes, but all exhibiting competitive scenes striving to maximise players' performance and uncover new strategies. Real-world games like Go and Poker are borne from simplexity, as are sports such as Squash and Football (minus the offside rule, of course).

So where to next? I still have plans to expand Greedy Bankers. Game Center score tables will be added in the first update, to encourage a sense of competitive play that will encourage new play-styels. The above examples are all multiplayer games, and Greedy Bankers is set to join them. The HD iPad version will contain local multiplayer on a shared device, and I hope to introduce Game Center online multiplayer, as a free update, later in the year - watch this space!

More on Greedy Bankers on the Greedy Bankers Website

Greedy Bankers - out this month!

2011-02-19T17:38:00.009Z

I did it! It's been quite an adventure, and as I always say to myself, this is only the beginning! Greedy Bankers has just been submitted to the App Store and is awaiting approval. I expect to release the game before 28th Feb.

So how does it look? Well, Greedy Bankers has changed a lot since last time you saw it, and is far more feature-rich than it was before. I fully designed the Banker characters, and am very happy with how they turned out in the end. To the left is a screenshot of the game in action, and more can be seen from the Greedy Bankers website.

I am very excited to see how the game does. Though I have been an indie developer for many years now, this is my first commercial release, which makes it a big landmark for me. But there is more to come! I have just started work on the iPad version, which will have even more game modes to make full use of the large tablet screen, including local multiplayer. The adventure has only just begun!

In the coming week I will post some more details on the game, how it has evolved, and the challenges I have faced re-developing the game for a new platform. Watch this space!

Creating Simple Animations for Games

2011-01-06T12:30:00.023Z

Participating in game jams, 48 hour competitions, and small amateur game productions, I've noticed that a lot of people have trouble creating simple animations. Often programmers feel they do not possess the art skills, or skilled artists don't know where to begin with game animations. Creating simple game animations isn't as difficult as it seems, and most people just need a prod in the right direction.

Thus, here is my introductory directed prod. If you have any tips to add or disagree with anything I say, feel free to comment me here or on twitter, and I'll gladly include your tips in the article - the more we can teach and learn the better!

Running Animations

Often for small-scale operations, a simple 4-frame running animation is sufficient. Here's a little template skeleton for a running animation:

I've highlighted below the arm and leg closest to the screen, so you can see how the two sets of limbs move during a run.

You can draw over this with your character design. Notice that the limb positions are exaggerated. The legs are far forward and far back. When one limb is fully extanded on the ground, it forms a straight line from the back. In the first and third frames the runner is not touching the ground.

Above is a running animation I created for Mindbender a few years ago. This is done with 8 frames of animation. I did the first four first, and then added the in-between poses later.

The red stripe on the leg is a trick I came up with that means that the front and back legs are easily distinguishable. The eye clearly sees the moving red line and sees it as the movement of one leg. Before I added that, it looked more like the image was blinking between two states, as frames 1 and 3 looked very similar. See if you can do this on your own animations - make the front leg clearly distinguishable from the back. The animation should demonstrate that even with only 4 frames of animation the motion is clear.

I always look to Sonic for a good, bold running animation. Sonic's a nice example because he has nice long limbs, and because running is kinda his schtick. Above you can see all 12 frames of his run animation (from Sonic 2 Beta, ripped by Rankles). You can pick out the four key frames that define his animation cycle - they are the boldest, and the poses are pretty exaggerated.

Exaggerate!

A trap a lot of beginners get stuck into is not wanting to exaggerate movements, but the reality is that the way humans move is actually pretty exaggerated. Legs and arms are fully extended at a lot of times, we leap off the ground, and our limbs stick out far from our bodies. Subtle movements are special versions of exaggerated movements, not the other way round.

Jumping Animations

Your next most likely animation you'll want to do is a jumping animation. This is fairly simple, and is just about posing the character correctly. I usually do two poses for a character: going up and coming down.

Above is an skeleton drawing of the jumping animation for my Sonic Forever prototype. Below is the character drawing based on the animation.

There's not much for me to say on this front, other than these two poses always seem to work.

Think big, scale down

Don't fall into the trap of starting drawing in the scale you will use in your game. What if that's the wrong size, and you decide to make the game objects a different size in later versions? What if you want to do fun camera effects, like I did in Sonic Forever?

To scale an image automatically to the correct size, use something like image.scale = intended_height/image.raw_height in your code.

Computers these days can deal with some pretty big image files, so don't worry about taking up space or memory. There's far more processor/memory-intensive activities your computer has to do. Bigger is (in my opinion) better.

Constructing a sprite sheet

Less of a how-to, more of a bunch of tips here. Choose a point to be the centre of your sprite and try to keep that consistent. Usually I choose the belly, as that tends to stay fairly consistent heighwise when you're running.

I like to work with big square frames of animation. The Mindbender sprites above were done in eight 1000x1000 pixel frames. Round numbers are easy to work with. Don't worry about having a lot of whitespace around your sprites. This means that if you draw another animation where the character is particularly tall or wide the programmer won't need to accommodate a different size of frame.

Talk to your programmer about what it is they want. I've had a lot of times where I've failed to properly explain what I've needed from an artist, and had to construct the sprite sheet myself, working around what they'd done wrong. Some programmers may prefer to work differently to me, or they may already have code that requires sprite sheets to take a particular form. Ask for clear specifications from your programmers!

Anything else?

If there's any other tips you'd like to add, or things you disagree with, please let me know!

Otherwise, good luck and happy animating!

A Year in Video Games: My Top 5 for 2010

2010-12-24T12:44:00.037Z

2010 has been a great year for me in both gaming and game development. Being, as I am, perpetually late to any party, rather than list the best things that have been released or developed this year, I'm going to list the top 5 best things I've discovered.

Merry Christmas, a happy new year, and I hope you all discover something cool too!

5. Consolevania/VideoGaiden

I always have a "thing I'm watching when I should be going to sleep," and in January and February of this year, it was low-budget game review show Consolevania (and its BBC counterpart VideoGaiden). I love games criticism and it's creators, Glaswegians Ryan MacLeod and Rab Florence, are great fun to watch. It's got a very edgy sense of humour, so it's not for the easily offended, but these guys really know what they're talking about.

It goes back to 2004, and fizzled out around 2008, but if you enjoy looking back at cool stuff you might have missed when you were following the hype, this might pick up a few surprises.

Rab and Ryan are also pretty knowledgeable about their subject, as this opinion piece on violence in games shows, bucking the traditional gamers' view on the subject.

4. FlashPunk

When I started out exploring my options as a career-indie, I first looked into flash games. Compatibility is a big issue for me, and what is more universal a platform than a web browser? Making games using Flash and ActionScript on their own is pretty frustrating, and getting efficiency into your graphics can be a real chore, so discovering FlashPunk was fantastic.

It offers much of the 2D functionality of a games library such as XNA, and is wonderfully simple to use. The documentation is excellent, and it has a very active community (which, while I've not participated in, I have learnt a great deal from the discussion boards). If you want to make flash games, or indeed want to have a punt at learning game programming, this is highly recommended.

3. VVVVVV

The first game on the list is a fantastic indie platformer I bought on Steam this autumn, brainchild of Terry Cavanagh. It's a lo-fi gravity-flipping platformer, with much of the audio-visual style of a Spectrum of C64 game... taken TO THE MAX.

What really works about this game is how it takes a very simple concept (instead of jumping, you flip gravity), and works it to its full conclusion, working out all kinds of level designs based around this simple basis. This is simplex platformer design at it's best, with each screen based around a simple premise, but challenging you in a new way.

Challenging both physically and mentally, stages are phenominally hard, but the forgiving checkpoint system allows you to keep trying with barely a setback. Because there's very little sense of punishment, the player rarely feels frustrated, but still gets that wonderful sense of accomplishment when they reach the end of the level.

The pumping sountrack really gets you going and has you playing the game in your head even when you have the game turned off. It's a beautiful use of Spectrum-style graphics, and its level design is the best I have seen in a platformer.

2. iPhone/iPad

Well, it's what I'm developing for, isn't it? Let's forget my business decisions for a while, and look at it as an exciting set of devices. So the Wii didn't quite revolutionise game controls, but perhaps the iPhone and iPad will, opening up the game market to all kinds of non-joypad games that anyone can control.

Tilt-sensitivity, multi-touch, and (in the case of the iPad), a big canvas to work with, are accurate and intuitive, and give lots of room for developers to play with. It's also got a very healthy independent development scene, and allows small-time developers a great opportunity to get their games onto what is, essentially, a console.

There is so much yet to be explored by developers, but there's so much room for it to grow as a console, and I can't wait to see what the future holds. In fact, it annoys me when home-console-styled games such as Rage HD come out, and people call it a sign of the device maturing - I feel that's completely missing the point. iPhone games are a sign of game development maturing, away from unnecessary stagnant home-console design standards, and into a richer more diverse world.

1. Kongai

I'm a professional, aren't I? Surely my number one should be some kind of tool or news channel, maybe revolutionary games writer or community? Oh sod it, when a game becomes one of my favourite games of all time, that means something, as I'm a very picky player and it's a very exclusive club.

Kongai is one of Kongregate's flagship titles. It couldn't be simpler: a strategy game where you have three cards (each representing a character) and battle them online. Each character has four moves, and each round consists of some very simple decisions. There's a bit of rock-paper-scissors involved, which adds a bit of reading your opponent into the mix, weighing out your different available strategies alongside your predictions of your opponent's moves.

There are very few options to choose from, but the different combinations of strategies make this into a very intense and intelligent game. It's also ridiculously simple to pick up. It really has to be played to be believed. Kongai is simplex in its purest form.

The game was designed to be a pure game of strategy and opponent-reading, and is very successful in that respect. As a result, every hour I have spent on this game has been an hour spent in deep concentration, which is a wonderful relief, and has expanded my mind. I used this game to exercise my mind during my university finals, but had to quit because I got too invested in it. It's incredibly addictive, because as you get good at it, you invest so much of yourself in the game and your strategies, all because you're judging your own abilities. Sure, it can take over your life if your not careful, but every minute spent playing Kongai expands your mind... which is part of what makes it so addictive! You could possibly say that this game is too good. I would even go so far to call this game perfect.

High praise for its designer, David Sirlin. Sirlin himself has an excellent blog where he writes about competitive game design, much of which can be applied to single-player games. He's also written a book, Playing to Win, on the subject which I also recommend.

I hope you enjoy discovering this stuff too, and I wish you all happy holidays and a prosperous and exciting 2011!

Designing the Bankers: Part 3

2010-12-24T12:27:00.009Z

See also: Part 1, Part 2

The final set of banker concept drawings are below. Please let me know what you think!

I worked on a new design, based on a "greedy banker" stock image a TIGSource user found. I made him fatter, and gave him a monocle, and a waistcoat, which allowed me to add in a bit of colour. The green/yellow light glow has a kind of money feel about it. This guy looks a bit more like a "fat cat," so to speak.

This next one was good fun to draw. I wanted to play with the "fat cat" design in a different pose. Of course, in the real game he won't really be kicking the monopoly guy, but giving the players or the robber the boot may be a nice visual motif.

In this next one, I wanted to incorporate the robbers into the design. A commenter suggested having banknotes bursting from the banker's clothes, and I really like this design.

This last one involves two banker designs and one robber. I'm very happy with the running banker, and think I may involve three different banker designs in the game: the opportunist (with cash bulging from his pockets), the fat cat CEO, and the up-and-coming young go-getter (the skinny guy from the first drawings).

I hope you've enjoyed looking at these and I really look forward to hearing your comments!

Designing the Bankers: Part 2

2010-12-20T15:43:00.012Z

Designing the Bankers: Part 1

2010-12-20T13:15:00.010Z

Part 1: Introduction and my design intentions

Part 2: First banker design

Part 3: Two more banker designs

Greedy Bankers for iPhone is making fantastic progress, with the gameplay elements really coming together. It's still a little rough around the edges, and I've not balanced the drop rates yet, but it's already proving fun to play. It's become clear that the artwork and animation is a big job which I need to get on with before the game can progress further.

With that in mind, I decided to spend the past week entirely on artwork, and trying to pin down a clear design for the "Greedy Bankers" of the title. These characters had always been in my head, as part of the setting the game takes place in. I'd always imagined the player as part of a big Greedy Banking corporation, working away in a secret vault.

The setting isn't clear at all in the prototype, which has led some players to question the connection between the title and the game, so a big change I want to make for the commercial release is to make the banking setting obvious. I want to inject some more personality into the game, and invent some recognisable characters.

In the upcoming blog posts I will show you what I've come up with so far. My intention was simple: to come up with characters that were recognisable as bankers and also recognisable as greedy. I also wanted to make them fun to watch, the kind of characters the players should love to hate.

It's a continuous process, so I'll be continuing to play with designs and come up with new ideas before putting them in the game. Any feedback you can offer would be really helpful!

It's that time again! Warwick 48 Hour Competition!

2010-12-02T12:45:00.005Z

This weekend I hopped up to Warwick University to take part in the Warwick Game Design 48 Hour competition. This term's competition had possibly the oddest theme yet, which I am proud to be partially responsible for: Evil Ventriloquist's Dummy.

I joined forces with Tim Monks and Jess Nickson to create Satan's Toyshop, a spooky run-and-gun where you have to fend off hoards of possessed dummies an teddy bears, while protecting the innocent toys.

Play the game on my website here

There was a grand total of six teams in this term's competition, with three to four members on each, making it the biggest competition the society has seen. Warwick Game Design seems to be going from strength to strength, attracting more and more members and industry speakers - hats off to the new exec for their hard work!

PIXELearning, a Coventry-based serious games developer, will be judging the entries. I will post up the other competition entries, along with the results, as soon as I can.

Developing for iPhone - One Month On

2010-11-23T14:41:00.010Z

I've been working with iPhone/iPad development for about a month now, and am now well into the swing of Greedy Bankers for iPhone. This post is really a little update on what I've been doing so far, with some tips for people who are also considering game development for iDevices.

Developing for iPhone

Learning Objective-C was not massively difficult, but it is a more complex (or perhaps complicated) language than C# or ActionScript, being a lot more similar to C++. A lot of iPhone development tutorials seem to focus on using XCode's Interface Builder, and avoiding programming. As a game developer, you really do need to code hands-on. So after beginning a few iPhone tutorials to get my head around the syntax, I moved on to using Cocos2D.

Cocos2D is an open-source game framework, which gives you all the things you need to be able to deal with graphics, layered scenes, and other game-specific code in an easy way. Using frameworks is something I've learnt to embrace recently, as it saves a lot of time and hassle, and often helps your game run faster (as they will be developed with efficiency in mind).

The only downside with Cocos2D is that tutorials are pretty thin on the ground. Ray Wenderlich does some good ones that will get you off the ground, and I would definitely recommend using the Cocos2D forums, as there are tons of people there ready to answer your questions.

While the Cocos2D libraries aren't massively well commented (making it hard to pick them a part if you're a beginner), there is a full code reference here - it took me a while to find, but it's incredibly useful.

So far there haven't been many significant gotchas, other than getting the hang of its memory management. Coming from a background in mostly memory-managed languages, this took a while to get used to, but I think I've got it under my belt now.

Greedy Bankers

The Halloween version of Greedy Bankers had a great response from its players, and I had a lot of fun making the special version. Watch this space, as there may be more themed versions in the future...

The iPhone version is going from strength to strength. The current version has

the gem control well in place, and is even smoother than the PC version. I'm working on the user interface at the moment, and remembering just how much time I spent on this aspect on the original version!

The iPhone version has a smaller playing field, as I anticipated, so that the gems can fit on the small screen without being too fiddly. I plan to make the iPad version allow for a larger playing field, which will use the extra space. Luckily, the smaller space does not negatively affect the gameplay, making it a little more frantic to compensate for it being harder to plan ahead. I'm looking forward to getting test version of the game into people's hands to watch how they approach it.

Attached is a screenshot of the game in progress as it is. Keep an eye out on my twitter page for more screenshots as the game develops.

Press for Spooky Bankers!

From promoting Spooky Bankers over Halloween I had some really positive responses from bloggers and game websites, which I'm very happy about.

Square-Go.com gave the game 4 stars out of 5, praising the fast-paced thinking and planning involved behind the simple concept, and calling it "highly recommended fun"

Knights of Indie also enjoyed the prototype, recording a demo video of their experience.

Redwave featured the game on their site as did Indie Game News and Captain-D's PC Gaming Blog

It's always great to hear people's responses to the game, so I really enjoy getting feedback from people. Thanks to all those who've featured the game on their sites so far!

Independent Games Festival 2011

Greedy Bankers has now been entered into the IGF's Student Showcase competition. Wish me luck! There's been some fantastic entries to this year's competition. Be sure to take a look!

Greedy Bankers Levels Up!

2010-10-19T11:46:00.008+01:00

It's finally here! I've been working on the updates to Greedy Bankers for a while, and can finally announce the release of the Halloween version of the game: Spooky Bankers!

Spooky Bankers is version 0.3 of Greedy Bankers, with some nice Halloween effects added in. Why? Because October is cool, my friend. All those autumn leaves and the chilling sense of forboding around the 31st... :)

Download Spooky Bankers (Greedy Bankers 0.3) from here

Coming soon to iPhone and iPad!

I have decided to produce and iPhone/iPad version of the game, which will make use of the touch-screen interface. It seems like a fairly obvious direction for the game, so I'll be getting on with it as soon as possible!

Greedy Bankers has its own website!

I've also started up a website for Greedy Bankers, which will feature more updates, special content, and downloads. At the moment it's had a nice spooky facelift to coincide with the new version.

You can also follow Greedy Bankers on Twitter: @greedy_bankers

Finally, I've produced a new trailer for the game, which you can view here.

Updates in the new version

The new version also includes a lot of updates - some minor and some major. I've been testing the game out on people for the past couple of months and have made some changes accordingly. I'll list them below:

New soundtrack - The old version had a placeholder soundtrack that I have now replaced with some neat Creative Commons music. I want to add my own music, but am a little out-of-practice at the moment!
Magic orb - One of the problems with the old version is often a game would end because the screen was too full of rubble and there was no space to make large gems. The magic orb transforms rubble to gems, and gives the player a chance to turn the tables.
Improved display - To some players it wasn't obvious how close they were to the goal at a given point in time. I tried to make the display easier to glance at, and added in the growing-stack-of-moneybags graphic to help.
Balancing improvements - The player needs to always feel that they have a chance to cling on when time's running out. In the earlier versions it was easy to reach a point where there were obviously not enough gems on-screen to make the target. The drop-rates now change depending on how many gems are on-screen to combat this, and give a player a better chance to bounce back.
Pause screen - This is a pretty obvious addition, which for some reason I hadn't thought to put in before.
In-game hints - Another big problem was that many players got confused at first, and the instructions could not be read while playing the game. Hints now appear when you start the game, and can be switched off if you don't like them.
High-score saving - Again, another one that I'm not sure why I hadn't added earlier, even though it seemed like an obvious addition. The game now records your best score and level.
Mouse clipping - Some players didn't like the way that the mouse sometimes became detatched from the gem, but you were still technically holding it. Now the cursor should stay with the gem that it is holding.

Please let me know what you think! You can comment below, or on my portfolio site. I really appreciate your thoughts!

Monster Mash and Much More...

2010-10-03T15:46:00.010+01:00

It’s been a while since I made my last blog post, but I’ve been busying away on a number of games and projects. I’ve been working full time on game development since I graduated in July, so an update on what I’ve been doing is in order!

Competitions

I took part in Ludum Dare 18 in August, where I made Mind Control Monster Mash. It wasn’t a massive success as a game, mostly due to poor controls, but it was enough to show me the premise worked. As a result, I’ve started the project again from scratch and have big plans for it!

Greedy Bankers

In July I released version 2 of Greedy Bankers, and then took a bit of a break from the game. I’m working on version 3 now, fixing some of the small bugs, tightening the mechanics and addressing some of the issues that players pointed out.

The new version should be a bit faster and I’m adding a few power-ups to spice up the gameplay. I want the player to be able to do something to fight off the robbers who some players found frustrating. I also want to make it easier to fight tooth-and-nail to stay in the game, to increase the tension. So far adding these power-ups has highlighted a couple of bugs which I need to sort out, but they’ll be on their way out soon.

I’ll point out all the changes when I publicly release the new version later this month.

Version 3 has another special surprise coming up, but I will keep my lips sealed on that for now. It should be fun!

Mind Control Monster Mash

Following my Ludum Dare entry, I began working on a new version using FlashPunk in early September.

Your city is attacked by giant Godzilla-esque monsters, and you must use your team of monsters to fight them off. You can hypnotise a certain number of enemy monsters and take them under your control. Different monsters are good at fighting off different other monsters, so you need to think strategically in order to win. At its heart it’s a strategy game, which will be simple to pick up but allow players to develop their own complex tactics.

The game is in the early stages at the moment, but is developing nicely. There’s a lot of animation for me to do, as I want the artwork to be fairly detailed. Animating the monsters is harder work than I’d anticipated, but I’m very happy with how it’s progressing.

The Website Has Landed

2010-07-23T12:52:00.004+01:00

I finally have my very own website! You can download some of my games and read about others from here:

www.alistairaitcheson.com

Let me know what you think of the website. I'll be expanding it and adding new things as I go on. Next up - learning ActionScript 3.0 and making Dam Busters for the Action 52 Owns project. Watch this space!

Greedy Bankers v0.01 is here!

2010-07-13T12:30:00.014+01:00

Update (1 March 2011): Greedy Bankers for iPhone is now complete, and is available from the App Store now! Visit www.greedy-bankers.com for more details

Please note that this blog post is for a very early prototype of Greedy Bankers. For up-to-date information on the game, please visit www.greedy-bankers.com

It's been a while, but I'm finally making a new blog post. And not only that, it's a blog post with a fresh new game for you to play!

Greedy Bankers was developed for the Experimental Gameplay Project June/July theme, Casual Addiction.

After toying with various ideas I eventually settled on a neat and simple puzzle game with neat presentation and lots of rewarding effects. The mouse-driven sliding tile mechanic was inspired by my earlier Shifty Trains, which had already proven fairly addictive, and the controls were smooth and intuitive.

UPDATE: Downloads removed because they are out-of-date. The released version of the game is available from the App Store, while the most recent version of the Prototype (November 2010) is available from my portfolio site.

Greedy Bankers was developed using XNA 3.1. To run the game you will need to have XNA Framework 3.1 installed. This is really quick and simple to do, and is only a 7MB download. Download XNA Framework 3.1 from here.

You may also need to have the .NET Framework version 3.5 installed. You can download this from here.

Please let me know what you think, and tell me about any bugs and issues you come across. I'd love to hear your comments!

I want YOU to Fight the Evil Steampunk Numbers

2010-03-19T01:39:00.007Z

My most recent 48-hour competition game, Abraham Lincoln versus the Steampunk Numbers is now available to download and play! Yippee!!

I just finished adding some finishing touches to this version, just to make it a bit more accessible (in-game hints etc.), and am ready to show it off to the world, even if it is unfinished.

The theme of the competition was Education, and my team decided to make an RPG where the battles were based on Countdown-style arithmetic. Hopefully it's fairly self-explanatory.

I really want to hear your thoughts on it so I know what to improve! I've had some suggestions pointed out to me that I plan to put into action in a later version, so just tell me what you think of the whole thing - any and all comments welcome!

Download the game from here

The game was made in XNA 3.1, so to play the game you will need to download the XNA 3.1 redistributable from here. It's only 7MB and is very easy to download.

If it does not work you may need to download the .NET framework Version 3.5 from here

Thanks very much for having a go and I can't wait to hear what you all think!

How Storytelling in Games Misses the Point

2010-03-09T15:28:00.005Z

So I’ve just finished developing a 48-hour game for Warwick Game Design’s thrice-yearly competition. To be precise, my team and I just finished developing an RPG for said competition. Trying to create an entire RPG in 48 hours is, I’m sure you’ll agree, a stupid idea, and the game turned out to be one of the best stupid ideas we’ve ever had.

Creating an RPG is hard work. There’s a lot of assets involved - characters, scenery, music, dialogue - and they all have to gel together seamlessly. I’ve heard many accounts of why not to make RPG’s, not just for time-constrained competitions, but as an indie developer in general, for these very reasons. It’s all part of the storytelling, you see. The most important part of an RPG, apparently, is the storytelling.

Why I just don’t get Final Fantasy

Perhaps I don’t see what other games players see in the RPG genre. I like RPG’s, at least in principle, and there’s definitely one of them in my personal Top 5. I like them because of the blend of short-term and long-term strategy. There’s the battles: which attack to use on which enemy, when to use that behemoth spell or that last healing potion. And there’s the long-term development. Which characters do you choose, who do you train, which path do you take, and for what aim?

I played the first half of Final Fantasy IV, and got bored. Then I played the first disc of Final Fantasy VII and also got bored. The games seem to focus on the storyline as the most important element, and the battles seemed to exist only to pad out the space between the reams of dialogue. I could beat nearly every fight by repeatedly selecting the “Attack” command. The others I beat by repeatedly selecting the “Attack” command, then sometimes using healing and resurrection spells.

I had spent twenty hours doing this before I gave up entirely. To me, it was a hugely tedious experience, and I probably wouldn’t have stuck with it so long if it wasn’t so regularly cited as The Greatest Game of All Time. And I can understand why it has this great reputation. It’s because of the storyline. Yet personally I found it a chore.

Look, on the other hand, at Pokémon, and the excellent Shining Force III. The former has very strategic battles,with its paper-scissors-rock mechanic (is it worth giving up a turn to gain the type-advantage?), and its long-term strategies (which of my four moves is it worth giving up for this new one?). Shining Force III is more like chess for the 21^st century, with a complex but thrilling battle system where your characters’ position in the landscape is of huge importance. Both are excellent games that I have replayed several times, and both of them have very limited storylines.

The fact of the matter is that there is no reason why the story should be the defining factor of an RPG, yet for some reason it has become the be-all and end-all in the eyes of both players and developers. Unfortunately, it appears the RPG isn’t the only genre that has become a slave to the narrative.

Move over Hollywood

When mainstream cultural media picks up on the rise of games as a medium, the second “interesting fact” they tend to cite (after the one that the games industry now outgrosses the film industry) is that game developers now employ professional writers to write the stories. The Guardian’s G2 supplement (11/12/09) had as its cover a screenshot from Assassin’s Creed II, and the title “Move over Hollywood”. When I first saw Batman: Arkham Asylum and Uncharted 2 on the PS3, my first response was “It looks just like a movie”. Every major title now contains voice acting and FMV sequences. Games are, apparently, the new cinema.

The idea that games are a new way to tell stories is everywhere. And I don’t have a problem with the concept. I agree that games are a new and exciting narrative medium, but I disagree with growing trend that every game has to follow this suit, because I worry that placing disproportionate worth on the storyline will become standard. I also see that the majority of story-centric games seem to focus more on emulating other media such as film and literature, rather than creating their own brand new vocabulary.

The potential of stories in games

From my own point of view, the storyline is an aesthetic element. Just like graphics, music and sound effects, it can add a lot of value to the game, but is by no means the defining factor. In Sonic Adventure 2, the surprisingly engaging story acted as the icing on what to me was a very tasty yet misunderstood cake. Its characters weren’t open books, it pondered some interesting themes such as the value of identity, and most surprisingly, ended ambiguously, with the player left to make up their own mind about who the character Shadow really was. Playing a section of the game and then being treated to a skippable bit of story was a nice treat that gave you a charming break, but it wasn’t forced down your throat if you didn’t want it.

Storylines also offer an extra layer of detail to the setting, which further immerses the player into the audio-visual experience. In Killer 7, the backstory is dark and surreal, adding to the tension and sense of insanity brought on by the stark block colouring and shrieking laughter of the enemies.

But to me, much more memorable is the story of Ikaruga. It’s a story without words. Five stages each with a different emotional hook. An orchestral score that moves through themes as the stage moves through areas. Waves of enemy ships that follow a choreography. It’s a story in the same way as a good symphony is a story (and if you don’t think that’s a good story then listen to Mahler’s Symphony No. 2). It has an emotional progression that moves through different ideas, before moving to an impressive and memorable climax, followed by a beautiful silence.

What Ikaruga does that most other games don’t is that it uses its own vocabulary to tell a story. It uses a vocabulary unique to games. No dialogue, no characters, but a blend of audio-visual elements and kinetic input from the player.

In search of a new vocabulary

What Final Fantasy VII, Uncharted 2 and their compatriots seem to do is emulate novels and films, then add a layer of interactivity. But games are a new medium, an expanding medium, and there is no reason that they should be like literature any more than music should be. They have their own vocabulary, and to shoe-horn them into an existing medium is a waste of potential.

It seems to be the indie gaming world, with its limited budgets and resources, that has taken on the challenge of finding gaming’s unique voice. World of Goo, the outstanding indie smash from developers 2D Boy, has a completely linear storyline, with no way to change the events. Yet every event is caused by the player himself, which makes the story incredibly immersive. Even though you cannot progress through the game without doing so, the fact that you’re the one who physically pulls the switch, presses the big red button, and builds the hot-air balloon, makes you feel actively involved in where it the tale is headed.

There’s also the fact that immersion in a game is much easier than in other media because the player has direct control over a particular avatar. It’s much easier to connect with someone who is an extension of yourself, rather than in a film or novel, where description is relied on to coax the player into a sense of immersion. Game designers aren’t just offered a free ticket to absorbing stories, but also an entirely new way to conceive characters.

Finally, and perhaps most significantly, is the physicality of the games medium. I can’t think of another form of media which is active rather than passive. Beyond a sense of involvement as mentioned above, there is a very deep and primal cause-and-effect mechanic in games. You move something, it does something. This is something that no other medium does, and there is so much more that can be done using this. About ten years ago, choices seemed to be the mot du jour in games: the user’s ability to change the story as they see fit, something still apparent in games such as Heavy Rain. But the simple physicality of the medium offers an infinite, rather than finite, number of possibilities for what can be done with a given game, and this aspect of the medium is where I feel it holds its true potential.

So what now?

Stories are massive. Everyone loves stories, and has done for as long as humanity can remember. And by all means, the storytelling potential of games should be experimented with and expanded on. But by no means is storytelling the be-all and end-all of games. They are just one aspect of the medium, not the main one. And there are most definitely excellent games that do not have stories at all.

Yet in the mainstream market, story-heavy games have become the norm, and I feel it is disappointing that the great potential of this new medium, still in its infancy, is being wasted. Games are not an extension of film, they are not an extension of books. They are brand new, they have their own vocabulary, and it’s up to us to find it.

Abraham Lincoln vs. the Steampunk Numbers

2010-03-08T19:28:00.001Z

The 48 hour competition ended last night, and while I wait to iron out the bugs before sticking up a build, I thought I would just make a quick note to say that the game went really well. My team made a math-based RPG called Abraham Lincoln vs. the Steampunk Numbers, which turned out to be a big success.

It was a real surprise, as for most of the competition the battle system (which was my main task) just didn't work, but by about 6am on Sunday it was working albeit incomprehensible. In the last few hours of the competition all the graphics and the user interface took shape and I'm really proud with how it went. Possibly my best 48 hour entry yet!

Still, there was some great competition, particularly from Sarah, John and Nathaniel, who created an arithmetic-based shooter which is a really elegantly-designed game of strategy. Download links to come soon!

Picture credits to go to myself for the Abraham Lincoln running animation, and Carina Kuhstaeller and Wee-Hoe Tan for the "Number Salad" monster.

Let the (48 hour) Games Begin!

2010-03-05T15:23:00.001Z

Tonight sees the beginning of the Spring Term's 48-hour competition run by Warwick Game Design, running from 6pm tonight to 6pm on Sunday. This term's theme is Education, and I've teamed up with two other members of the society to make an awesome game.

WGD runs three of these competitions a year, one each academic term, and I've been taking part since way back in my first term at uni in 2006! Back two years ago I helped make the legendary Shifty Trains (legendary in that up until we got the Wii it was the only game my mum would play), and in Summer 2007 I did the 2D graphics for XNA game Kraken, both pictured here.

Each new competition is an exciting challenge and it typically brings out the most innovative (i.e. crazy) games from WGD members. I look forward to posting what my team comes up with, and keeping you posted on the progress of the competition!

Experimental Gameplay Update

2010-02-23T21:45:00.001Z

As I mentioned in my previous post, I've been working on a game for this month's Experimental Gameplay Project. I decided in the end to leave the game unfinished and move on to new things, as it wasn't really turning out to be as fun as I'd hoped!

However, so as not to let the work go to waste I thought I'd make a little video to show off where it got to. Have a look below and see what you think.

I learnt a lot from the project, so I don't regret doing it. I'm definitely looking forward to March's challenge!

Experimental Gameplay!

2010-02-19T17:02:00.001Z

Over the past month I've been working on a small project for the Experimental Gameplay Project, which is a monthly experiment where participants have to make a game in seven days or less to a given theme. Games such as Canabalt and the prototype for the excellent World of Goo all spawned from this website. The theme for the month is Rejection, and I've been cracking away with my entry!

My game is a little point-and-click adventure called Brain Dead, about a guy who's brain has been rejected by his body and he needs to find another one. You can get him to put different items in his head and that allows him to do different things. For example, a dictionary will allow him to read, a radio will allow him to speak, and so operate a phone.

Unfortunately, during development it turned out that it wasn't actually very fun! I worked on it for about three days and then, due to a combination of a lack of faith in the idea and a large amount of classwork to do, I put it on haitus.

This week I'm planning to finish it off, in time for the end of the month, and submit it to the website. I'm going to take the game in a slightly different direction and make it more AI-oriented. So the player will be able to put items in the guy's head, but he'll act of his own accord, depending on what he wants (determined by the current situation) and what he can do (i.e. what's in his head). I can imagine this being a lot more fun.

Some of the other members of Warwick Game Design are taking part too, so I'll be putting up links to our entries as soon as they're ready!

A little about myself...

2010-01-31T19:29:00.001Z

I suppose I should begin my first blog post with something dramatic and exciting, but I really can't think of anything so this will have to do!

So who is this evidently intriguing person whose thoughts you are reading? My name is Alistair, or Ali for short, I'm from the UK and I make video games. I also draw my own comics, and I'm in my final year of a Mathematics degree.

I decided to start up this blog to chronicle my game development goings-on, and my thoughts on the games medium as a whole. After I graduate my plan is to make my career in the games industry, so I'm working towards having a portfolio of great games to show off to developers... when I'm not studying, of course! I also enjoy sharing my progress on my projects with other people.

My current main project is a platformer engine programmed in XNA. At the moment it's called Sonic Forever, as it was originally intended for a Sonic the Hedgehog-style game, although what I'll eventually develop with it I'm still undecided on. I'm also heavily involved with the Warwick Game Design society at my university. We're working on a C++ project called Zombie Nation at the moment, and we also do 48-hour coding competitions each term. I'm very proud of a game called Shifty Trains which I developed with Bryan Gale, who now works for Playfish, so give that a go and see what you think.

I look forward to posting more and letting you know how my various projects develop!

All the best,
Ali