Evolution of Slamjet Stadium - In Pictures

I put up this video last night. Actually, it was really fun to do, although it took a while! As I've been developing Slamjet Stadium (from August 2012 to February 2012), I've taken about 350 screenshots - some to use as publicity material, some because of bugs that looked particularly funny - but mostly just to remind me later on of how it had developed.

Then I strung them together, one-by-one into a 70-second montage. The result is below

Below are some of the screenshots from development with a little explanation, to give a taste of how it's evolved.

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.

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!

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!

Indies - don't risk getting lost in the blend, says Alistair Aitcheson 

(PocketGamer.biz, 1st Feb 2013)

Press for Slamjet Stadium

I wanted to collect together the press Slamjet Stadium has got so far. The game is almost ready to submit to the App Store - I'm super-excited!

Interviews

Alistair Aitcheson talks Slamjet Stadium - your next local multiplayer addiction on iPad
PocketGamer, 28 January 2013

ConsoleNinjas Podcast Episode 18
18 February 2013 (begins 01:35)

Previews

Greedy Bankers dev bringing futuristic footy-esque sports title Slamjet Stadium to iPad
PocketGamer, 17 January 2013

Preview with Trailer and Screenshots
ArcadeSushi, 17 January 2013

IndieEye: Introducing Slamjet Stadium
Final Boss Fight, 30 December 2013

Below are a couple of from the early stages of development. I think they're pretty fun to look back at now!

Crossfire for the 21st Century

Hookshot Inc, 8 November 2012

Galaxyball Early Preview

GameZebo, Oct 10 2012

Let's Get Physical (on iPad!)

Back in Summer 2011 I was busy designing Greedy Bankers vs The World's multiplayer mode - an iPad-only variation where two players compete to make their fortune the fastest. I realised that rather than creating a separate game grid for each player, it would be easier just to build one giant grid with one side assigned to each player.

What came out of that turned out to be one of the most interesting and exciting parts of the game. Players weren't limited to using the gems on their grid. They could just reach over the board and steal anything they needed from their opponent! Players could get in each other's space, and that was great fun. To incentivise it, I added a bonus multiplier to every gem stolen, and the game took on a whole new lease of life.

Gems can be stolen in Greedy Bankers by taking them from your opponent's side

The game was for two players, but required both of them to use the whole screen as if it was their own. Players' approaches ranged from the desperately greedy to the polite and civilised, and some even descended into wrestling matches!

Noting that this was something very special, I wanted to explore this deeper in my next games. As such, it's why I ended up working on Slamjet Stadium - my upcoming multiplayer physics/sport mashup for iPad.

The tablet as a physical space

One of the great things about the tablet is it is a great big interactive canvas. You can do large gestural movements on it, you can play with objects without them being fiddly, and you can easily fit more than one hand on it at once. So it's the perfect device for physically-demanding touchscreen games, and there's plenty of room for multiplayer.

Slamjet Stadium: Get Ready!

Slamjet Stadium is nearing completion! I'm about to send out build 0.80 to testers, marking the point where it is "content-complete" with only tweaking and testing outstanding before it's ready to launch.

This is a very exciting stage to be at! I've put a lot into this project, including working over Christmas and staying up late coding to pretty weird music (it helps me concentrate!), so seeing it all taking shape is a wonderful feeling.

For those not yet familiar with the game, Slamjet Stadium is a local multiplayer iPad game. It's physics-based variation on football set in the distant future, where players are free to cheat and play dirty, using traps and power-ups to mess up their opponents, or simply stealing players from the other team. This youtube video shows the game in action!

So what's new in the final version?

Single-player is now complete, and I just want to balance the level of difficulty, which means plenty of testing and tweaking! There's three difficulty settings, each one affecting the level of speed, accuracy and behaviour of the AI opponents.

A final three teams were added to the roster, making a grand total of six, plus one secret boss team. Below are the new non-secret teams: the Precinct 9 Police Bots, and the Fanboys.

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.