Psychic Software

Factsheet

Developer:
Psychic Software
Based in Galway, Ireland

Founding date:
1995

Website:
psychicsoftware.com

Press / Business contact:
sam@psychicsoftware.com

Social:
twitter.com/psychicsoftware
discord.gg/HxFWPYj

Releases:
The Necromancers Tale
Musclecar Online

Address:
Salthill
Galway
Ireland

Phone:
+353 (86) 806 1235

Description

Psychic Software is Sam Redfern and various collaborators, and has been making indie games since the mid-1990s, ranging from a turn-based postapocalyptic MMO of vehicular combat (which has been running online since Jan 2006) to Amiga wargames, to casual iPhone games, and lots of other things in between! As a university academic (with a PhD in computer science), Sam has also published some interesting articles on games A.I. for combat and racing games.

History

Yep.. 1980s. I started making games on an Apple II and later a BBC Micro, from the age of 11. My first publication 'Space Trader' was a game code listing in Personal Computer World Magazine in 1984 (that's how indie games were distributed in those days). That was the same year that Elite was released on the BBC, and it had the exact same theme as my game! I spent much of the 1990s in academic career development mode (I'm a university lecturer by day, mild-mannered game developer by night). One notable release was 'Critical Hit' - an Amiga wargame which was distributed via FTP sites and bulletin boards: the WWW as we know it did not yet exist.

In about 2003 I rebooted my game development, in part as some kind of masterplan to converge my game-making and academic research; but pretty soon it was purely for the love of making games. My largest project was 'Darkwind: War on Wheels' which is a turn-based MMO of car combat (think Mad Max meets Car Wars boardgame meets X-Com) and this kept me busy from 2005 until about 2011. I switched at that time to mobile games (probably too late for the goldrush.. huh) and Psychic Software has released 9 titles for iOS, Android and BlackBerry - the most notable is 'Let's Break Stuff!' which has had more than 5 million downloads; it's a casual slingshot game where you smash crockery, teapots and glasses.. it's a very satisfying way to pass a few minutes, and for some reason was a major viral hit in Italy.

The main focus has recently moved back to PCs and 'real' gamers. Darkwind was released on Steam in 2014, and Musclecar Online in 2015. I also released a 2D story-based pixel-platformer 'Goblins & Grottos' in 2016 and a fast-paced 3D retro-shooter 'Demon Pit' in 2019. A casual (but very competitive) online websockets-based multiplayer game 'Orbs.it' was also released in 2017.

Projects

• The Necromancers Tale
• Musclecar Online

Team & Repeating Collaborator

Contact

Inquiries
sam@psychicsoftware.com

Twitter
twitter.com/psychicsoftware

Discord
discord.gg/HxFWPYj

Web
psychicsoftware.com