Development Blog #4

Hello out there!

Greetings from th' fore of game development - We here at Headcase Games are powering away tirelessly (well, okay, getting a little bit tired when 5am rolls around) to bring you the best in electronic entertainment. "So what is all new then?"

In attempting to keep up with the spirit of a weekly development blog - give or take a day or two - I am dropping in to say what's up and what's new from a developmental end of things, so let's get right into it.

1st things 1st, our debut iPhone app iFist has been available on the iTunes App Store for getting on a month now. In hindsight the project was quite successful, I'd love to see it move some more units (if you are reading this, don't be shy to go over and plunk down a buck - and if you've done so already, recommend our game to your buddies). Yeah, I know. It gets a little tired when people try to sell me their stuff too.. Well too bad! In all seriousness, we did succeed with a lot of what we wished to accomplish with the launch and follow-up of the app. A further update should appear shortly.

We are well into development of the next game, in fact our programmer got an initial proof-of-concept prototype running this past week. Very bare-bones, to say the least (early graphics, minimal animation, if that - no sounds or effects or anything). We just wanted to see how it translated from existing conceptually in our heads, to a very rough playable version with the basic logic present. Well, all things considered, it's been a remarkable success. I can sit in front of that game for HOURS (I have!) I realize any dev who wants to promote his game is gonna start self-shilling so of course I don't expect anyone to take what I say in here with more than a grain of salt - but this is exactly the game I want to make. It is fun, it is derivative of some of my favorite videogames of all-time, but it is also fresh enough with a new mechanic all it's own that it doesn't feel like a knock-off. THIS is why I AM excited to be doing iPhone development. You have certain restrictive parameters which force you to keep your scope small, but you also have this whole new untouched-world of interface philosophy that really makes it a whole new ball game. It's really the dawn of a new age and I finally feel that little devs like us have a chance to step up to the plate and take advantage of it, to hang with the big-boys..

The game will hopefully be released inside of a month, in the best-case-scenario. Already a lot of the basic assets have been built and refined, and we have the luxury of having created a complete, cohesive framework from our last project - we have been able to just jump right in and start tweaking the basics and getting elements functional. This is not to suggest that our new game will be anything like the first, it's just generic 2D engine with a basic rule-set. Just the same, after this project wraps I'd love to build off of what we've done and do another one in the same fashion, again with the intention of doing something completely different from what we've already released - ultimately, culminating in a nice base of a variety of software, to suit different tastes.

So that's what is happening, in a nutshell - lots of excitement around here, I look forward to getting further into our process as we concentrate less on building this game from scratch and work more on balance and refinement (the meat of any good game) - that is what will make the difference between a game being novel and interesting, to classic and enduring (and fiendishly addictive). Eyes on the prize!

Thanks for reading, and thanks for your support!

-Ron
HeadcaseGames.com