Castle Software Ltd

Level Up

Having been very busy writing books for the last 8 years (and specifically the last three) I’ve not been able to dedicate as much time to making indie games as I would have liked. So the plan this year is to not write any new books but to concentrate as much free time on making Apps for iTunes and possibly the Google stores.

This is a bit of a shame because I enjoy writing game creation books, but its very time consuming, which doesn’t help when trying to make indie games, but sacrifices need to be made if I intend to actually make any apps this year, unlike last year where I only was able to make one Hd app of something I had already made before.

So with this in mind, over the last few weeks I have been working on a few different project designs and starting the process of design documentation and prototyping. These designs are different to the previous games and apps that I have made over the last few years. I would class them as “Next Level Up” from the previous games. This means that though these aren’t the games I would ultimately like to make they are in terms of depth and gameplay much deeper than before.

Making apps that are more complicated has its own drawbacks in two particular areas: Graphics and Programming. Graphics are my biggest issue, being that I cannot draw I always need to outsource game graphics, with any thoughts or ideas about bigger games are then usually put on hold due to costs and time. Programming more complicated projects means that I need to start looking at making games that support various systems such as : inApp payments, and Game Centre leader boards. So while the first Next Level game is being drawn I will be releasing a more simple game which includes both inApp purchasing and leader boards so that I can figure out the programming in advance of having to make a more complicated game. This way I can plug this code straight into the next game without too much worry.

So it's a two pronged attack on app making this year, release one or two simple apps to prove my code that will be used later on, and complete writing designs for more complicated apps so they can be drawn. I don’t want to underestimate the design documentation, because without that and getting the prototypes to an artist I won’t be in any position to begin any major coding and any closer to releasing an app.
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Castle Software Ltd
Making one game at a time!