Slamjet Stadium Lite Version Arrives Tomorrow!

UPDATE: Slamjet Free is now available! You can download it from this link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/slamjet-free/id626161502?ls=1&mt=8

Like any good developer, once the game's out that doesn't mean I've finished with it! Recently I've been working on Slamjet Free, a trial version of Slamjet Stadium to allow people to try out the game for free before buying the fully-featured complete version.

Slamjet Free contains two teams from the full game - Jetpack City and the Space Hogs - and one arena to play in multiplayer. By upgrading to the full version you can access the single player mode, the full roster of characters and all the arenas.

Slamjet Stadium's continuing to capture people's interest, which is great! Padvance recently selected it as one of their Top 5 Same-Room Multiplayer Games for iPad, and also gave it a perfect score in their review.

Slamjet Free will hit the App Store worldwide on Thursday 18th April 2013, and will be available from this link

Designing for Chaos

Slamjet Stadium's been out for almost a month now, and has received some great responses from the games press. One comment I was particularly excited about was in PocketGamer's Top 10 Games of March 2013 article.

"own goals are inevitable, power-ups are over-powered, and stealing your opponent's players is practically encouraged… It's chaotic, fast paced, unpredictable, and insane. As long as neither player expects a fair fight, you'll have a blast."

I was really happy with this statement. Something that I'd made a big deal of in Slamjet Stadium had clicked with players. It's meant to be chaotic, it's meant to be unpredictable, and cheating isn't just okay - it's encouraged!


In that respect, one of the exciting freedoms of creating Slamjet Stadium was that I could make it intentionally unfair, and powerups could be intentionally overpowered.

What would be an issue in any other kind of game actually improves the player-vs-player experience, and I find that particularly fascinating.

Starting with Systems

In many ways this is a big departure from how I used to think about game design. When I was making Greedy Bankers I was fascinated by systems - by the way game mechanics interact with other game mechanics to create a complex web to explore. With that came the belief that no mechanic should be overpowered, lest it render the other mechanics redundant and a single optimal strategy emerge.

New & Noteworthy around the world!

The excitement continues for Slamjet Stadium! This Thursday I got the exciting news that the game was in the New & Noteworthy Games section in the following countries:

Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, El Salvador, Spain, Finland, France, Greece, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Hungary, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Korea, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Netherlands, Mexico, New Zealand, Panama, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Switzerland, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, Venezuela, Vietnam, Dominican Republic, Paraguay, Nicaragua, Malta, Macau, Lithuania, Latvia, Ecuador, Estonia, Honduras, Bulgaria, Bolivia, Brunei, Cyprus, Cambodia, Laos...

... and the UK!

That's 60 countries! It's also been New & Noteworthy in the USA on launch, and was selected for What's Hot in Japan and Canada.

Hopefully this means lots of people are getting a taste of the game!

The game was also selected by The Guardian as one of their five recommended indie games for the Easter weekend.

And it made its way into PocketGamer's Top 5 shared-iPad mutiplayer games. Always exciting to see people getting excited over the game!

Slamjet Stadium is available on the App Store for £1.99/$2.99/€2.79

More information, trailers and screenshots are on the website