What is Gamma?

Gamma is a game party/show that features about 5-7 different games each year. The theme is different every time. Last year’s was games that use stereoscopic 3D, which gave birth to Paper Moon. The year before that was games that use a resolution of 256×256 or lower, which gave birth to Célu.

This year’s theme is 1-button games, but you can have up to 4 players.

Tons of people are entering this year – it’ll be interesting to see what comes out of it.

UPDATE: There are 154 entries this year!

In other news, our very own Ian Holowka has been working on music for H+V. But so has our very own Christopher Lobay. Recently Chris and Ian collaborated on the same track. For your development-blog-following enjoyment, I’ve included both versions so you can get a sense of how the track… changed.

MP3 Download → Ninja Attack (Ian)

MP3 Download → Ninja Attack (Chris)

In sad news, we’ve exceeded the iPhone’s feeble memory barrier with all our wonderful sounds that we recorded last weekend. The result of our efforts are random crashing and rampant frustration. The solution: remove and compress?

City Edict #151.B
Under the “Infinite Expansion Act” of 2023, property may be demolished and reconstructed at any time for efficiency purposes. When you hear the construction bell, please evacuate the area promptly and without commotion – worker bots will be entering to rezone the surrounding area within 15 minutes.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Keep it Clean!

Also – here’s some new background art from Adam, featuring a more futuristic part of The City:

The main reason there wasn’t animation? Because we just hadn’t made it yet! :]

Today, Clemens started to break into animation and managed to get through a bunch of really nice looking WIPs done.

Clemens also busted out some concept art for more innocent civilians:
(some inspired by blog comments)

How many of these will make it to the game? That’s totally unknown at this point.

Meanwhile, Adam conjured up some more background graphics for the city. Later today we decided that we want to take the city’s look in a more futuristic direction, so the final look will likely be a sexy combination of old and new. (as if the new technology was built on top of older infrastructure) This’ll be a really cool way to give the city some implied backstory.

Disclaimer: Keep in mind this is still an early version of the game. A lot of the art is temporary, and everything in the game is going to be tuned up by the time we release it.

The levels and core gameplay were designed by Ian. (my bro!)

We haven’t been afraid to show H+V with its “pants down”, so to speak. Its interesting to see how a game goes through different stages during its development – things tend to change very quickly. To whit, here is a screen cap with the graphics test level textured a step further:

As always, let us know what you think in the comments.

The game runs really well on the iPhone hardware. Here’s a shot of the current build running on my iPod Touch:

Clemens is tackling characters and animation, Adam is doing up the 3D backgrounds, Ian is developing levels, Chris is creating UI visuals and I’m programming whatever’s needed to support all of that. Chris, Ian and I are also starting to work on some sweet beats.

In other news, we bought plane tickets for GDC! We’re going to be part of a booth called “Game On Manitoba”. If you’re heading down to GDC, be sure to stop by. We’ll be demoing Paper Moon and Heroes and Villains – and we’ll be handing out some cool swag. We always love meeting and chatting with folks about what we do.

Life has been pretty hectic lately. Chris and I signed the Infinite Ammo incorporation papers amid some drama. Fortunately, I’m scheduled to do a talk at the Independent Game Summit about game development frustrations and hurdles. (with my good friend Tommy Refenes, no less) I have some good data to share that will help out other aspiring indie developers.

My game development past before creating Aquaria was not a smooth ride. I worked hard for a lot of projects that didn’t end up going anywhere. For some reason I kept trying, and managed to release something that was ours and that some people love. Based on those combined experiences, and as a build up to the epic IGS talk with Tommy, I’m starting a new blog series called “Bittter Game Developer Hints”. I love game development, but sometimes it can be a total bitch – and these hints should serve as helpful warnings to idealists striving to get into the field. Imagine me: scraggly facial hair, eyepatch, cursing, with Canadian whisky in hand – while you enjoy these tasty nuggets of hard-earned wisdom.

Bitter Game Developer Hint #1:
Vet potential collaborators extensively before you grant them big responsibility:
Intent doesn’t herald results.

Let’s follow that up with…

Bitter Game Developer Hint #2:
Failure is about growing. Take the lessons you can and move on to greener pastures.

While we’re on a roll…

Bitter Game Developer Hint #3:
Painful change is a catalyst for beautiful art.

Heroes and Villains’ deadline is GDC, so we’re going to be crunching on that for the next while. Our Alpha Milestone deadline is Monday, and its going to be awesome.

Wish us luck!

Clemens Scott’ Site
Adam Saltsman’s Site

The art style and game design continue to evolve as we port our prototype to the iPhone hardware. Katie’s been redesigning the art so it’ll look great on the small resolution and Ian has been redesigning the gameplay so that it will play well on the limited hardware and make full use of the ‘Phone’s unique input methods. Here’s a screenshot of a basic test running my ol’ iPod Touch:

Will the final game actually look anything like this? That’s a very good question, and we won’t know the answer to that for a while!

Chris and I teamed up to put this together. I did some quick ‘n dirty 3d modelling, and Chris setup the scene with me and made some textures and particles. It was intense, because we were trying to finish for a deadline while I was busy with a bunch of Aquaria work! This probably doesn’t represent the final game’s style exactly, but it was still fun to put it together as a milestone.

Meanwhile, Ian was working on gameplay and our first prototype level. Things are progressing pretty quickly, even though we’re all insanely busy.

A big thanks goes out to Adam Saltsman who helped us plan out the best shot we could make based on the very limited assets that we had available. (Katie is lost at sea again)

P.S. There was a new video blog, but it ended up on the bit-blot site. You can check it out here.

As always, your feedback and critique is welcome and appreciated.