So what have I been up to since my return to the UK in August 2012 and what is coming next?

Holiday Bonus GOLD

In December 2012 I released Holiday Bonus GOLD on PC/Mac/iPad/Android. I added 55 new levels and made some technical tweaks and released as a new game on some portals and as an update on others.

Sturdy Games also updated the iOS/Android version that they ported to mobile for me last year and we released Holiday Bonus GOLD as a new iPad/Android game.

Overall it did pretty well and has got me thinking about doing a GOLD version of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Titan Attacks Mobile

In November 2012 I agreed to port Titan Attacks, by Puppy Games, to mobile. I’ve been working on this off and on due to other projects.

I’m using the Monkey coding language for the project and this means writing a whole new framework to support mobile games. The framework is basically done now though and I’ve had a basic test version of the game on mobile devices for a couple of months, which went down well when I showed it to people at the Game Developer Conference in March.

This is my main project and I’m working on it every day at the moment so expect to see another Developer Diary soon. I aim to release it in the early summer.

Artwork

I used to draw a lot in my youth but that fell to the wayside for many years. This year I decided to practice doing some digital art and I made a few quick “paintings”, first with a mouse, and then with a graphics tablet. You can see them here.

I’ve never done digital art like this and I was quite surprised and encouraged by the results. Since I made these paintings I’ve become a bit busy with other things but hope to get back to it soon!

One Game a Month

I signed up to the One Game a Month thing that lots of indie developers are doing. The aim is to release one game a month in 2013. You don’t have to spend a whole month on each game, just release a game a month.

My January game is an online remake of a math game I made back in 2010. You can play it here. Try to beat level 10!

My February game is called Cyber Citadel, but I cheated a bit and uploaded a shell game that I’ve since done a bit more work on. I’ll finish it and put it online soon.

My March game is a relaunch of Spring Bonus on mobile (more on this below). I’d have preferred to make a brand new game for my March game, but I just didn’t have time, especially as the Game Developer Conference consumed a week in March.

I haven’t started my April game yet and time is rapidly running out! However, I plan to make it during the Ludum Dare competition at the end of April.

In truth I’m finding it quite hard to do this alongside my main projects which pay the bills, and many of my indie developer friends question why I’m doing it instead of just focusing on some cool larger indie game, or more casual games. They do have a good point, but I feel a deep need to create a bunch of small games like I used to play and program as kid and I’m determined to complete this challenge.

Spring Bonus mobile re-release

Last year Sturdy Games ported Spring Bonus to mobile for me and Hothead Games published it on iPhone/iPad/Android/Kindle. It did OK but not great and they gave us back the rights to self-publish it this year.

This time I had to set up the In App Purchase items myself so that players could buy level packs, which I’d never done before. However, after a bit of wrangling we got it to work properly. Sturdy Games also fixed a couple of bugs and improved the image quality on some screens.

Then we worked with Appy Nation to get it promoted. They also asked us to add Chartboost to the game so that players of the free version see adverts in between levels, and that has worked out pretty well revenue-wise.

The game even got featured in “New and Noteworthy” in Europe which boosted it into the top 10 in the iPad Board Games category in many countries. Ultimately though, it’s not a big earner, which is a shame. Still it’s good to have it out there again and players seem to love it which is why it has so many 5 star reviews.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz mobile

Lemon Moose Games have ported this game to mobile for me and it’s already been released for Blackberry.

I tried to get Big Fish Games to publish it but they only seem interested in Hidden Object Adventure games on mobile, which is a shame. However I’m in talks with a publisher at the moment about releasing it for iOS and Android, and it will also be coming to Windows Phone and Windows 8 soon too.

Techno Zombies

Techno Zombies was going to be my January “One Game a Month” but I got carried away making it and it was also pretty complex. So I decided to stop work on it whilst I get some other things out the way first, then after Titan Attacks mobile has shipped I’ll probably turn it into a Flash game that is more like a demo. Then I’ll put it on Kongregate and see what kind of reactions it gets and decide if it’s worth turning into a larger “indie game”.

I’ve put a few videos online such as this one that show early gameplay footage. People seem to really love the atmosphere even though I haven’t gotten round to adding techno zombies (think “cyborgs gone wrong”) yet!

Also I took it to GDC on my iPad and it went down well. It was good to see how people tried to play it on iPad and has given me several ideas for how to revise the controls.

I definitely think there’s a hardcore market of Dungeon Master fans out there who would play it if I finished it. However some developer friends have suggested that I should make better graphics for it instead of using my minimalist placeholder art so that it appeals to wider audience such as people who liked Legend of Grimrock, and this could be wise.

Anyway watch this space!

What’s Next in 2013?

First up I must finish Titan Attacks mobile, and ship Oz on mobile. Then I can decide what to do next.

If Titan Attacks mobile does well and generates enough money for me to keep going for a few more months, then I’ll either work on Techno Zombies or a new “indie” game for about 6 months and then release it on my site and also try to get it on Steam via my various contacts.

If Titan Attacks doesn’t generate enough money for me to keep going then I’ll make another casual game. I already have designs for at least two match-3s ready to roll. I know how to make these pretty well know and know they will make me money. This will then free me up to work on an “indie” game which is a bit more risky.

I’m also helping a casual game developer friend with the design of a new game which hopefully will come out before the end of 2013. I’m quite excited about the design of this game and I think it could do pretty well in the casual game space.

Naturally I’ll keep trying to bang out One Game a Month and it’ll be interesting to see what I’ve produced at the end of the year.

I’d also like to finish off my Dying To Live platformer at some point so that I can have a reusable platform game engine in my Monkey code framework.

Well it’s been a busy time since I’ve returned to the UK (I’ve counted 8 different projects in this post!) and it certainly looks busy ahead too.

Good luck with your own projects and wish me luck with mine! Thanks

Last year I shipped 39 SKUs – so I’ve not been as prolific this year, but that’s partly due to the fact I spent 7 months helping with Eets Munchies and also didn’t do any localisations of existing games (which bulked out my SKU count last year).

I also purposely reduced the amount of mobile SKUs for some new titles as I found shipping 9 different SKUs for Holiday Bonus on mobile/internet last year was a bit much.

Furthermore I moved back to the UK from Vancouver, Canada which put a dent in my output capabilities. Still it’s been an interesting year and I think that Holiday Bonus GOLD will be my most successful Grey Alien Games project of the year, and that only took me two weeks to do in Nov/Dec!

Here’s the full list of SKUs

- Spring Bonus shipped on iOS. This was a single build for iPhone/iPad that had IAP for level packs. It could have easily been 4 separate builds; SD and HD and Lite versions of each, which is how I shipped Holiday Bonus in Dec 2011.

- Spring Bonus shipped on Android as a Lite and Full version that automatically detected if the devices was SD or HD and used the corresponding level pack.

- Spring Bonus shipped on Nook and Kindle.

- I made a special build of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz for Zylom who localised it into some more languages, so I’m only counting that as 1 SKU as they generated the different SKUs.

- At the Full Indie Game Jam in the summer I made Dying To Live which I then enhanced a bit more after the jam. I’ll be adding more to this game in 2013.

- This December I had a brainwave to update my Holiday Bonus game with a ton of new levels and some other tweaks and released it as Holiday Bonus GOLD on iPad, Android, PC and Mac + Mac App Store. There are no lite/demo versions and no IAP, just full paid versions. I didn’t bother with a phone version because it’s quite a lot of hassle and only 10% of my mobile sales are from phones anyway. Also I didn’t put up an Internet version. We nearly shipped a Kindle version but sadly it had a critical bug which meant I couldn’t release it.

Previous Years

I also decided to chart how many SKUs I shipped in previous years since I went indie in 2005. I split the titles into free and commercial and here are the results:

2005: In my first year I made 4 free games to practice and released my first game, Xmas Bonus. I highly recommend new indies make complete free projects and release them to gain skills.

2006: I released 3 commercial games that are still selling today, so it was a pretty successful year!

2007: I worked on Fairway Solitaire for a whole year and it shipped at the end.

2008: Fairway Solitaire was localised to DE/FR/SP and also released on Mac, plus I released Oz and Holiday Bonus on Mac. Most of the year was spent programming Unwell Mel.

2009: Unwell Mel was released for PC/Mac and localised to 4 languages including Japanese, which was not easy! I spent 6 months working on a game that BFG cancelled due to wanting my team to join the My Tribe Facebook game team.

2010: My Tribe Facebook game went live and I made 3 mini-games which I really enjoyed making.

2011: Spring Bonus really bulked up the SKU count due to being released and localised. Also Oz and Holiday Bonus were localised which added a ton more SKUs. Plus Holiday Bonus came out for mobile which was yet more SKUS. I also made 4 free games of which Always Alone is my favourite. I also spent some time helping out with Eets Munchies. Quite a productive year!

2012: Another good year for SKUs due to mobile releases. See the post above for details

Strangely of all the games I’ve made, the ones I currently feel most excited about are the free game jam ones. In 2013 I am planning to make at least 12 games via the #onegameamonth thing. Post coming soon about that.

So how did you all do in 2012? Did you ship many games, or even one?

Make it your mission to ship something even if it’s free. It’s rare that people who spend years on something meet with success, more often than not it’s a bad move but you only seem to read about the successes in the press.

So ship something soon! Good luck

Yay! Holiday Bonus GOLD is out today!

You can play it on PC, Mac, iPad and Android. Please click this link to find out more.

Holiday Bonus GOLD is an enhanced version of the original classic Holiday Bonus game. It has twice as many levels as the original – bringing the total to 110! Also the PC/Mac versions have the ability to toggle Widescreen mode (to turn off stretching on some monitors) and to hide the custom mouse cursor, plus other technical improvements have been made. The iPad and Android versions have got sharper graphics along with all the new levels.

This game is super-popular this time of year so please check it out and tell your friends and family. It’s even possible to buy it as a gift if you buy the PC/Mac version from my site.

I hope you enjoy this game, I know I had great fun making it!

Thanks