Speaking at Develop Liverpool, 24th November

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

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!

Tap! Magazine App of the Week!

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!

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

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!

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!

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!

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).

Interview for PocketGamer

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

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.