Slamjet Stadium Trailer!

Here it is! The trailer for my upcoming game, Slamjet Stadium for iPad.

Feel free to read more about the game here on the blog, or contact me via twitter or email (games [at] alistairaitcheson [dot] com) if you have any queries!

Slamjet Stadium is the upcoming iPad game from indie developer Alistair Aitcheson, creator of the Greedy Bankers games for iOS. Challenge your friends to crazy futuristic matches! Charge your hoverbike and slam the ball into the goal! Steal your friends' players and fling them into traps!

The rules of the game are simple, and the rules of social conduct are there to be broken. You can grab your opponent's players as well as your own, push them out of the way, or grab a teammate and play two-against-one. Wormholes, moving goals, ridiculous powerups and deadly traps give you more incentive to play dirty!

Also featured is a single-player mode, where you can take on a gauntlet of A.I. challengers to prove yourself as the galaxy's mightiest player!

Many thanks to the hugeley talented Tom Parfitt, who composed the music for the trailer and is creating music and audio for the game.

Slamjet Stadium will be available for iPad in the new year.

Welcome to Slamjet Stadium!

Galaxyball 2113 has a new title - it's now Slamjet Stadium and I'm so excited about how it's going!

The video below gives a brief rundown of how the game's played, so hopefully you can get a feel for what it's like in action.

Guess who's been making A.I.! 

Since my last post I've been putting a lot of work into the AI and then user interface. I've had a lot of fun doing the AI in particular - there's something oddly delightful of coding a game and watching it play by itself. I coded AI for Greedy Bankers vs The World, and it's fascinating how different the two implementations are.

What's new in Galaxyball?

I've been working pretty full-on with Galaxyball 2113 so far, and it's really taking shape. GameCity Nottingham proved to be a fantastic opportunity to test out the game with the general public. What's great about demoing at this kind of event is that the audience really runs the gamut of player-types: from children to grandparents, gamers and non-gamers alike.

 I managed to work in two new teams before the festival: the burly aggressive Astro Marines, and the Cortex Crusaders, who aren't just brains in jars… they're brains in rocket jars!

Functionally, the Astro Marines are heavier and bulkier than the other teams, while the Cortex Crusaders are smaller and floatier. One thing I did learn from GameCity is just how physical the game can be, I'll be making these kinds of differences bolder and broader so they have a clear effect on play. I was never a fan of subtlety anyway, so I'm going to experiment with other, more obvious abilities - the brains could psychically repel opponents, for example, or the marines could be protected against stage hazards.

I've also been putting a lot of effort into the look-and-feel of scenery, as I really want the player to feel like they're part of some brutal sports tournament. I've been working on scenery such as vents, pipes and fans to make arenas feel more industrial, and the flashing lights respond to the state of play and upcoming hazards, making it feel more alive.

There's also an extra two arenas added in now: one with wormholes, for an extra jolt of unpredictability, and another where the goals regularly change position.

Thomas Was Alone developer Mike Bithell tries out Galaxyball at GameCity

The really exciting take-home from GameCity was just how physical people get over the game. As soon as they score their first goal, players tend to get very competitive - which is exactly what I want. Just like Greedy Bankers' iPad multiplayer, I want players to get in each others' way, steal each other's characters, and mess each other up within the game world and in the space around the screen. In fact, that whole feel works even better here than it did in Bankers.

Both players need to use the whole space to play, which means they both get to use the whole of that lovely big iPad screen. And because players don't always need to be in the exact same place at the same time, it's more of a scramble for a good position than a fight over the exact same spot. It's hard to explain, but it makes the whole game feel fluid - a clash of hands never creates a stalemate - and that's incredibly encouraging.

It's certainly an exciting time for the game and I can't wait to show off some more as it expands!

For the sake of perspective, here's how the very first prototype looked. Great oaks from little acorns eh? It was fantastic fun even at that rough-and-ready stage, which is exactly what you want a prototype to be, and why I was so excited to pursue this project in the first place.

Galaxyball Coming to GameCity Nottingham 25-26 October

If you're heading to GameCity Nottingham this month (which you should be, as it's amazing) please do have a peek at the Old Market Square on Thursday 25th and Friday 26th, where I'll be exhibiting Galaxyball 2113 in its first public showing!

With the game still in development this will be a fantastic opportunity to test it out with the general public, so if you're there I'll be very excited to get your feedback. I'm particularly excited to see how different people find the multiplayer experience, so I can get a feel for which aspects of the game really buzz with players.

Greedy Bankers being played at GameCity 6 last year

I demoed Greedy Bankers vs The World at the event last year, and the multiplayer was fantastically popular. Lots of people visit GameCity with friends and family, so it's a perfect opportunity to test out player-vs-player party games like Galaxyball.

Introducing Galaxyball 2113!

Good morning everyone! I'm very excited to announce my latest game in the works. I've been building it for the past month or so, and hope to have it ready to launch in the new year.

Broadcast across the galaxy in the year 2113, Galaxyball is the number one deathsport of the 22nd Century. Teams from all four sectors compete for the grand title - including mutants, rocketeers, aliens, space marines and more - and for the first season ever, you will be able to take part too. Your iPad is a window to the future, and your finger powers the players! 

Galaxyball is a multiplayer iPad game, building on the stealing and cheating that were so popular in Greedy Bankers vs The World. This time we're jetting off to a physics-based future to play football on hoverbikes, and grabbing your opponents to fling them into traps is fair game!

Game Design Fundamentals - Meaningful Decisions

As someone who's been making games for over ten years, initially as a hobby and now as a full-time career, I've picked up a lot of wisdom and experience that I probably take for granted. While much of it has been collected from my own experiences developing games, most if it has come from other developers who I've met at jams and events, or read about online.

I want to share some of these in my blog so others can learn from what I've learned. Hopefully there'll be plenty of ideas here that will be useful and will be helpful for you in your own game development!

I'll start out by looking at meaningful decisions. When I design and work on my games I try to make every decision as meaningful as possible. Let's have a look at what that means.

Advice for developing iOS games - Edge Online

I was interviewed, alongside Ben Murch of Hunters 2 developer Rodeo Games, by Edge Online. They asked for tips for people wanting to develop iOS games, and so we gave them some! If you're interested in developing for the platform I hope it's useful.

Have a look at the article here, and feel free to ask me if you have any questions about iOS development, on this blog or on twitter!

Making iOS Games: App Store advice from Rodeo Games’ Ben Murch and Greedy Bankers dev Alistair Aitcheson

Steam Greenlight and the Discoverability Challenge

Update: Since writing this post, Steam has introduced a $100 entry fee for Greenlight. I've added my thoughts at the end of this piece.

Last week saw the launch of Steam's new Greenlight programme. For the uninitiated, Greenlight is an initiative by the aforementioned desktop games portal to get its user community deciding what indie games should be published on the service. New game proposals, with demos and screenshots, can be shown in the portal, much like an App Store, and users can upvote games they like, share comments, and help promote the games they are most interested in for selection by Steam.

When I heard about the scheme after its announcement in July, I was apprehensive. While taking game selection out of the hands of a black box of executives was promising, I was concerned that any community-rated games ecosystem would suffer the same issues as the App Store and Google Play do - that is, the games receiving most attention (sales in App Stores, upvotes here) would receive the best promotion, creating a virtuous cycle for those at the top, but a wall for exposure for newcomers. Fortunately, as Mike Rose intelligently explained in his recent Gamasutra article, Greenlight has found a way around this issue…

… by not including a ranking system at all.

10 Gamedev Articles You Must Read (or Watch)

I spend a lot of time catching up with my favourite games blogs and websites, and over the past couple of years have come across a mountain of useful and inspiring articles and videos that have helped me in my work. I've had a trawl through my bookmarks, Readability archive and my old tweets to find some favourites that I hope you will benefit from too!

Pocket Gamer Guest Post - Indie Marketing Begins With Your Game Design

I wrote an article for PocketGamer.biz which went up today. In it, I argue that the most important part of marketing your indie game is the design of your game itself. It's about designing your game to be marketable, and that for a game to be marketable it needs to be remarkable. Your game should encourage discussion, and it's up to you to create a dialogue around your game as early as possible.

Have a look, and I hope you find it useful!

Pocket Gamer: Greedy Bankers' Alistair Aitcheson on why indie marketing starts with game design