Yoyo games have released Game Maker Studio- a 2D game engine for noobs and professionals alike that can build games for any platform(PC, iOS, android, social, HTML5, etc) from a single code base. Now no worries about porting a game build on one platform to the others! Now you can create a game on any platform and build it for all the other platforms (except for consoles though).  What is even better that it is priced at only $99!

I had been waiting for a looooooooong time for something like this. While Unity 3D is a powerful game engine for making multi-platform games, it is primarily best for 3D game development. Making 2D games on Unity can become a big pain in the backside. Most 2D game engines do not support multiple platforms or are limited to a few. Also they are not noob friendly. They require some knowledge on programming, which means a developer with non-programming background cannot make games on his own on them.

I have worked on Game Maker (Windows) and the user interface is very simple and easy to learn. You can make a game without any programming skills. And their community is very helpful for newbies. If you wish to further customize your game, you can use Game Maker Language  (GML) scripting in it which is very easy to pick up. If you have basic logic  of how a program works via just ‘if’ and ‘else’ statements, you can make a more complicated game.

Yoyo games have been around 13 years in business but not very well known to most developers. Some of popular games created in this engine is Legend of Fae and Super Crate box (Serious Same games developers) and also published on Steam. It’s not that it does not have any limitations. But considering the limitation of not being able to make a multi-platform games on other 2D engines, Game Maker’s short comings can be solved in a round about way. Think of it as generating more revenues from different platforms. I thought of sharing this so that those who aren’t aware of this nice little piece of gem, they should definitely give it a try.

My post might seem outright advertisement for Game Maker Studio lol . If you know of any other 2D game engine which is capable of making games for multiple platforms, please post it in the comments.

Over Cloud 9 website is still running and will continue to run and I am very happy that players are stilling visiting my website. It’s been 2-3 weeks that I am working at my new company and for the first time designing games for iOS. We are basically developing 2D iPhone/iPad/iPod games on Coco (X-Code). And while this is happening, I was wondering about learning either one of the other 2D game engines like Moai SDK, Sparrow Framework, iSGL 3D, GameMaker and even Unity. I need to do some research before I pick any of them.

I had done some basic scripting and coding before, so exercising my programming habits might be of some help if I consider growth in the gaming industry. Now when I summarize my experience as an indie, I realize how much I have learnt in the past 2.5 years and how much I am yet to learn. I did game designing, development, marketing, sound and video editing and sometimes even art while making a game. Honestly speaking, all students who are thinking of taking up a career in gaming should develop and commercially market their own game during their final year as a internship project (obviously after seeking permission of their principal). This is because the exposure and the experience one gains by actually being on the market with other competitors is priceless!

Even though I am not making any games now, I still continue to grow and learn. I wanted to learn the scope of the iOS market and a general idea of development in it.  I think there is a lot that I can do if I can pick up a bit of programming. It is been long that I actually flex my engineering skills. Anyway, I shall post links of the game I had designed for my new company once they go up on the Apple app store.

I joined a job last week as a Senior Game designer at Pune (India). I know this has disappointed some fellow developers, but I seriously needed a change. Financially my business was doing fair enough (33% increase in revenue every year) , but I did not want to work alone any more. I cannot make bigger and complicated games by myself, but I can do that with a team of professionals at a work place. I want to go out of my comfort zone and challenge myself to try something I haven’t done before.

Joining a job means I will not be able to make commercial games unless I leave it, but I can still make free games and put up games from other developers. The website will be still there, with newer games and walkthroughs from other developers being updated frequently like before.

So stay by my side friends. I am on a new path and I want to see where it leads me to.

Just before I start my monologue, I would like to thank Charlotte from Gamercast for publishing my interview on their website. It’s been long that I updated my blog. After “A Sirius Game’, my temptation to go back to 2D game development has been back. Now when I compare the time, cost and energy spent making 2D game to a 3D game, the former is much better from an indie’s perspective. And with the release of RPGMaker Vx Ace, there is some hope of reviving a bit of freshness in the old school RPG world.

This time I thought of dabbling a bit in Photoshop by myself so that I can cut the cost of art in development. More than cost, I would say time and quality. When all of your artwork is outsourced, it is difficult to keep track of submission deadlines by artists and the quality suffers a lot. Since I am not a pro artist or anything, I chose simple anime style art which is easy to create and cute to look at. So far, here is an example sprite I made two weeks back-

Compared to last year, this year I am more at peace of mind and in keeping with my objectives. But in spite of everything, I am introspecting a lot for the last 2-3 months. So far I have developed both 2D and 3D games for PC only, not for any other platform. My knowledge has become stagnant, a by-product of working alone most of the time. I want to learn development on newer platforms and newer engines, get newer challenges. My niche genre of old school rpgs are a safe bet for business purpose, but I want to grow out of my comfort zone. Honestly, I am bored.

My social life has become nil and self-teaching ever evolving new technologies in gaming seems tiring and boring. The problem with learning  a new game engine is during that time I cannot make newer games, which means business is slow. For a self sustaining indie, this is not a feasible option. I can still keep making RPGmaker games as I already have a website dedicated for it, but it is not satisfying me intellectually anymore. It is been long that I stood up to a challenge or pushed my creativity to an extreme. I need a change desperately. I had been playing around with Game Maker and Unity 3D for sometime now and GameMaker seems to be a good alternative for simple 2D games. I don’t know what I should be doing now. Should I carry on making RPG maker game and it will sustain my business easily? Or should I leave my safe zone of RPGmaker games and do a different genre of 2D game this time? Or should I focus more on learning Unity 3D so that I can explore android and iOS market? Or should I take up a day job so that I can learn and earn at the same time? I am procrastinating, unable to make up my mind…

A Sirius Game has been released on 18th of January. I was busy doing marketing stuff, so could not update my blog. My testers had done a great job and I would thank all of them again

The sad thing is, I didn’t know that 18th was a blackout day of the internet due to SOPA and PIPA protests. The press releases didn’t see the light of the day in most websites.

So I will be sending out the promotional stuff again this week. Let’s see how it works out.

Aaaaaaaaand we are almost there! No siriusly! We thought that our game will be complete by November end, but the smaller tweaks and fixing is eating up a lot of time. I have been so busy that I could not even send newsletters this month. Hopefully by this week we shall be able to complete it and then start the beta testing. Beta testers who are interested can keep checking the newsletter, twitter or facebook where I will announce when the testing starts.

I am apprehending a small delay in between because I will be going home for a few days as my mom is not well. Overall, by December I am hoping to release my first 3D game- A Sirius Game. Here are a few in-game screenshots I thought of sharing. I would be happy to hear your feedback!

Click to enlarge-

I would also like to thank the artists who have let me use their beautiful artwork for the character backgrounds- thd777, Gurgur and pk87.

I have been thinking of releasing this game on Steam, though it is a difficult feat to accomplish. And I have a strategy for that- As per Steam’s FAQ, there are two ways to get accepted by Steam. And I am opting for the second one which is much safer and probable. Though I am not that big on game reviews, I need to get some really good reviews for my game from players and other eminent game websites and some decent sales to make them even consider my game. For that, it will take us a wait period of 3-6 months depending on how fast we get reviews. So lets see how things go, I shall keep my fingers crossed.

Seriously…we found a name for our game. Ship adventures game is now A Sirius Game, where Sirius is the name of the protagonist. And no, it has nothing to do with Sirius Black.

By middle of November we plan to start the beta testing, which we shall mail to our newsletter subscriber and announce in our forums for tester sign up. Here’s a peek at the title image of the game -

And the loading screen of the game turned out really nice. The models, land, trees, etc in the image below are from the game. So I thought of putting it up too!

That’s it for now. Once we have completed the game, we shall be putting up the screenshots of it when we launch testing. Feel free to leave your feedback, we would be happy to hear from you.

Sitting in one place working whole day and no exercise has only made me fatter. Just thought of sharing the pictures of our current team members (includes Phantasm Games studios’s developer just beside me and his two awesome interns one on each side )-

Nothing much to share this month except that our game development is going on in the background and that newer obstacles are popping their heads out to delay our project. I am too tired of ranting *sigh*

Just to share some smiles-

We got some character art done for the ship game-

Read the rest of this entry »

Now that I am back to Bangalore to complete the ship game, here are some updates of our progress (click to see full image)-

The Trophy screen (when all trophies are obtained).

The Weapon screen (not all the prices are given) Read the rest of this entry »