There will be 3 game modes:
(1) endless driving (how far and fast can you get without crashing),
(2) endless driving with guns (and armed enemies),
(3) story mode – you’re trying to catch spies in supercars while being attacked by armed cops – complete with end of level bosses in armed trucks, and radio-style narration by Robert ‘Task’ Smith.
Just today I caught up with Task and got him on board. I think the voiceover will be a really cool feature of the game: it will warn you of approaching enemies, let you know when you’re catching up with (or losing) the end-of-level boss that is your main target to complete each level. Task was one of the two voice talents in Darkwind, providing really slick and stylish TV-commentary-style comments during deathraces and arena combats.
Tarantino-style music by Pierre Langer of Shockwavesound.
]]>I’m very pleased with the visual style (kudos to Andrew!) and especially like the little stickmen. As usual I have focused on sound effects and once again the endless bounty that is freesound.org turned up some rather brilliant yells and screams which the little guys emit as you blow them 40 feet in the air 
I did a little pitch shifting on them, which turns it from “slightly disconcerting bloodcurdling yell” to “comedy effect yell”.
The stickmen run towards the nearest building, and build it from the ground up to 4 floors. At this point a gun appears on the top and starts shooting at you. Tanks also appear if you’re taking too long on a level.
Here’s a quick look at the Doodle Bomber game’s use of 2D sprites in a 3D world; it’s a nice way to get parallax effects. In actual gameplay, the camera scrolls along beside the airplane, and as the various pieces of scenery disappear off the left of the screen they are transported forwards to the right, to give the impression on an endless (looping) game world:
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I wanted to do a small collaborative project with an artist friend of mine (Liam Krewer) and I also felt that the sound effects in Let’s Break Stuff! were just too good to not be used one more time.
So yeah, it’s a ninja swiping game, along the lines of a few thousand other games you might have seen before. There’s a nice combo/power-up system to give it a bit of a twist. And of course the sound effects destroy the opposition with their awesomeness! The theme tune by Art Munson of Shockwave Sound is really nice also 
Available for Android on Google Play: Asteroid Storm Android -Free-
Available for iPhone/iPad on iOS store: Asteroid Storm iOS -Free-
There were some compatibility issues with the Play Book Simulator, so like other Shiva developers I ended up ‘flying blind’ and submitting Mars Defender without ever actually knowing how well it would run. But apart from a couple of small tweaks, it worked straight up. Figuring out the process of signing the app. was the most time consuming step.
About 10 days later I received my Play Book. Not only had RIM paid the shipping cost, they actually made sure to pay the Irish import tax too (liable since it was coming from outside the EU, probably about €60) – this was a nice surprise that I wasn’t expecting.
It’s a really nice device – I love the size, coming in at halfway between an iPad and a smartphone. So it’s not small and fiddly nor is it too unwieldly to carry around for everyday use. Nice bright screen, punchy front-facing speakers. Touch sensitive strips above and below the visible display provide OS-level controls in a similar way to the hardware keys on Android devices (this is something that’s seriously lacking on iOS devices).
I have been testing out Afterburn 2150, one of my in-development games on it, and it’s giving between 100 and 150 frames per second – versus my laptop which gives between 40 and 65! Now admittedly my laptop (soon to be replaced) isn’t exactly the sharpest tool in the shed, but still I expected it to outstrip a tablet device with ease.
The lack of Play Book apps on the App World store is a bit surprising – there are literally only about 30 games in the ‘Space’ section, for example. And the store is somewhat swamped currently by low-quality games like tic-tac-toe, presumably written by people looking for a quick way to a free Play Book.
The downloads of Mars Defender are relatively good, currently over 40 in less than a month (which is about the same as what it gets on the Android market), but I wonder how much room there is for serious success on the current install base? Probably not much, but then again the device itself is good so there’s every chance things could change in the future or with a Play Book 2.
Mars Defender Lite is now available on the App World, if you’re interested in trying it out for free
There’s also the issue of scope creep, and of the difficulties of developing in a distributed team. I just remembered why Darkwind was always planned as a one man show..
So yeah, I probably don’t know Shiva as well as I should. I need to start working on smaller projects, just like I did with Torque in 2004/2005, before ramping up to something more substantial like Deathracer.
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