Alistair Aitcheson: February 2013

Thursday, 28 February 2013

Slamjet Stories: The Referee

The following is a fiction piece written by Leon Osborne. Leon is a good friend of mine, one of the testers behind Slamjet Stadium and a very funny guy! He's written this piece about the game and I thoroughly enjoyed it, so I hope you do too.

It wasn’t easy being a referee. You were always going to upset somebody with a decision. The problem with Slamjet of course was that the people you upset tended to outwardly express their upset in a graphically violent manner. Gerry Glass had been a chief referee for two years now and had only been shot the once.

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Monday, 25 February 2013

Slamjet Stadium Arrives March 14th!

A mysterious game from the distant future and is coming to your iPad. What could it be? Why, it's Slamjet Stadium of course! I've submitted it to the App Store and will be going live on March 14th.

For those not yet familiar with the game, Slamjet Stadium is a multiplayer iPad game I've been working on since the summer. Based on an ancient 20th Century sport known as "football" the Slamjet tournament is the hottest event of the galactic calendar. Arenas are filled with deadly saws, mysterious wormholes and ridiculous power-ups, and only the fastest and toughest can win!

Players control a team of characters riding on the titular Slamjet-class hoverbikes. Grabbing a player with your finger and dragging back charges their engines, and releasing launches them across the screen, to bash the ball into your opponent's goal.

Played on a shared iPad, players are free to get in each other's way, steal each other's characters or set off traps to mess their opponent up. It's fast, it's chaotic and breaking the rules is encouraged!

Slamjet Stadium also features a single-player mode where you can take on a gauntlet of increasingly-tough computer opponents in an attempt to become the ultimate champion.

More screenshots and details are on the Slamjet Stadium website

**Why make Slamjet Stadium?**

Local multiplayer iPad games have fascinated me for a long time, ever since developing the multiplayer mode for Greedy Bankers vs The World. Watching people get competitive over the board, encouraging them to get in each other's way and play dirty, and seeing the joy this kind of experience created, made me want to explore it further.

One of the great opportunities that the touchscreen offers is the ability to share the whole canvas of play between two players. In the old days, you'd have your gamepad and I'd have mine, and we'd be controlling two separate avatars. But when we have a device where two players can have free roam over the whole space, why split the game into your side and mine?

Slamjet Stadium is about using the whole touchscreen, and getting players to use the whole screen as one big playspace. Instead of worrying about players getting in each other's way, Slamjet encourages them to do so. Why can't my hand be an in-game obstacle? Why shouldn't you be allowed to grab my arms?

Where on consoles shared-screen multiplayer has increasingly given way to online, local multiplayer designers are pushing their medium to show why sharing play is still important. Playing with your friends is a joyous experience. Let's make the most of what this medium has to offer!

Thursday, 21 February 2013

The Power of Indie - Guest Post for PocketGamer.biz

I wrote a guest post for PocketGamer.biz recently, which I thought some of you might be interested in.

As indie developers we need to make the most of what we can do that large companies cannot. In an increasingly mechanised games market it is imperative for us to focus on creating unique and radical content - rather than settling for "reliable" designs and tried-and-tested business strategies.

We need to appeal to hearts and minds, we need to make risky design decisions, and if we don't we risk sinking into the blend. And the blend is an area that large companies can game much better than us individuals.

Of course, we indies are best equipped of all to do this - we're agile, we're aspirational and we can take risks fearlessly. If you're interested, please follow the link below. I hope you enjoy reading it!