Summer Update Number A

Hello out there in Sexy Videogameland!

It's been a long time since I have posted in here. How far I have fallen from the period I used to dedicate daily updates of some manner or other (to be fair, they were usually retro-reviews). Google says I am still getting lots of pageviews however (for that mentioned reason?) although to be honest I don't know how those things work. Spiders, bots? Beats me, anyway it's given me impetus to put out alittle update.


Here's the deal - things are still going onward & upward, Headcase Games is busy as ever as far as development is concerned. The really big change, which should come as a surprise to nobody, is that I have completely shored up any and all activities related to growing (or even maintaining) the brand for any activities not immediately & directly related to development. I'll always argue that all of the peripheral stuff is extremely necessary, but honestly I am just too small and too busy to even try to keep up with any of that anymore. It's a shame, because it's one of the parts of the job that I really enjoy, but to be honest it just doesn't really "do"anything to help move things forward (I'll never really get substantial sales or support for it) and for the most part, people just do not care about that personal touch. I don't mean to make that sound in a butthurt fashion, I am just a realist and either one has a vibrant and active scene flourishing around them, or it's a very quiet place. The bigger point is, I can't really expect any kind of an active atmosphere if I am still leaning on games released years ago at this point.


With that all said, I've been extremely busy pushing forward with my developments. There's been a lot of the expected drama as can go on in such a situation, but overall I have a lot of great, steady progress to show for the efforts of our teams.  This, more than anything, is extremely gratifying and really drives me to keep moving forward. I can't wait to get to the point, yet again, where release is imminent and we can finally unleash this stuff out into the world. It's slow, but it is coming, and everything looks great.


GunHead on PC is the star of the show right now.  This came from behind to really be the big cheese, this is how things go sometimes! We'll very likely release to Xbox Live Indie Games or Arcade as well, depending on what happens. Wherever it can get the most bang! Anyway it's a blast putting this game together, we are deep into boss design and implementation. There's some really special and crazy stuff packed into this game. Android and iOS development are coming along as well - slow but steady. It's interesting to see how things have branched, PC is looking like it will be more for "core"gamers while the mobile versions will certainly be more casual focused. That doesn't mean it's going to be soft, don't worry!


Trapdoor is still on the way for mobile devices as well. I've said it before, it's pretty much my fault that the game hasn't released for months now. It's super fun, it looks great, and its a no-brainer for release on the platform. Sadly it's just taken a back seat to other things in my life, and I never want to rush something through development "just to get it out there." But at this point, I am a little frustrated to realize that there is money waiting on the table and I simply need to roll up my sleeves and get it wrapped. I still can't say with assurance when it will happen (there's a few hoops to jump through) but I'd like to see it at least on the far end of development by one month from now. We'll see what happens.


Hop Cop is on ice, sadly. This would have been a fun little game, but bureaucracy seems to have claimed a victim in this game. Disappointing as some work had been done on it, and I think it would be a great little title  to bring to market. It's certainly not dead, but it won't be mentioned anymore for awhile.

Skater (tentative title) is the newcomer to the fold. There's lots I'd like to talk about this one, as it's just very early into development I'll keep a tight lip for now. The name probably gives a very good clue as to the theme however! Like any app, there's a very interesting backstory to this game's development and I am very eager to get moving with it. It's purposefully being designed as "small and simple" since those games tend to be easy pickins' on the app store. Watch and see.

What else is going on - I am actually working very hard on my portfolio right now. In spite of how things are going with development, it's taken way too long to get to release/things are very backed up and so I am trying to seek a steady day job.This is of course counter to "the true indie spirit" but I think "true indies"must not mind living in a cardboard box or something then, because the majority of us have a hard time making a stable living! This isn't a bad thing, I really enjoy what I do (day job). The bummer is that it's very obviously impacted the amount of day-to-day development work I can do, and believe me there is a tonnnnn of things demanding my attention to get that list of things above to a completed state. If I found myself suddenly with a wallet full of $10 grand or so, personally, I could very likely justify shelving everything else and just concentrating on speeding all of my current apps toward release. That'd be a super nice thing. I am not going to hold my breath on a mysterious benefactor, and I think I am probably too busy to start with the time and energy for a Kickstarter campaign, so I must concentrate on what I can do and seek a job. Doing so requires a tremendous amount of work and.. well, there's only so many hours in the day! Anyway, I am doing a hefty amount of render testing this evening, so it gives me a good excuse to get a bit of blogging in.

That's about it for now - I have a lot more to say, but long posts = annoyed readers, I have found, so I am going to head back into the darkness for a little while. I'll make a deal with you however - give me some comments below and I will be more prolific with these posts once again. I have no problem writing in here, I quite enjoy it for my own satisfaction at least - but I do sorta consider it a bit of a time-sink if it's just for my own edification. If I can get upwards of at least 10 (non-spammy) unique comments here (or retweets, likes, etc) than it is very likely I will be much more frequent to post updates. And the quality will improve to saucier stuff (screens, vids, etc). If not, then that's cool too :) Thanks for reading-