Fledgling Videogame Developer

We have been creating Christmas themed game for last couple years. For 2014 it was "Turbomole Xmas run" (flash), and for 2015 "Rocket Santa" (android). This year WestSloth Games proudly presents: "Rocket Santa 2016" (android, removed from Play Store). The story in the game is simple: mischievous aliens have stolen gift boxes from Santa, and he is trying to get back as many as he can. Santa can fly by using mysterious gas powered butt rocket. The amount of "rocket fuel" is limited and it can be gathered up more by catching ginger breads or gift boxes. So you have to help Santa to collect stuff and at the same time dodge nasty aliens! For this game we took base mechanics from "Flying Dachshund" Android-game, where player controlled little sausage dog by tapping the screen. Dachshund graphics were replaced with the graphics from original Rocket Santa. Also, some new graphics was introduced. So in priciple this game is kind of a

After long period of hesitating I started to work on my first Unity3D app. To get things going, I selected very small and simple concept to work with.   Basically, Task Timer is a simple tool to track time used for different tasks. Main features: 3 independent timers that will run also on background and when display is turned off Minimal design: no bells and whistles included. Just the necessary functions! Fully-customizable task names (no limitations) Possibility to export timer data to email template (in csv format) Measurement accuracy: 1 second You can use Littlest Helper: Task Timer for your everyday time tracking tasks. And it is fully up to you how to use the data generated by the tool: Exported csv data can be taken directly e.g. to Excel (or equivalent) and processed as you wish. Get Task Timer from Google Play! I think this app would be a good tool for everyone who is should measure time used for different tasks (project workers, consultants, etc.)

Update 17.8.2021: Replaced obsolete Monodevelop with Visual Studio where applicable.  I have gradually started to use Unity3D for game development. So far I have been doing very small and simple test codes just to learn how certain things should be done with Unity. But now I have an example that might be of interest for other wannabe-Unity3D users, at least those who are struggling with converting seconds to HH:MM:SS format. :) So lets begin with this example. First of all, start Unity3D and create new project. This example uses the console only for outputting result, so project can be either 2D or 3D. Whichever you prefer. Create empty object to your scene ( ctrl+shift+N ), or use pulldown menu ( GameObject->Create Empty ). Select empty object and rename it e.g. to " Timer ". Add new C# script component to empty object and name it as " TimerActions " ( Add Component->New Script->write name and select Csharp as script type ): Open TimerAction

It's been a long time since I was inspired to write a tutorial. But now I am able to provide you one more idea for Construct2 use. There are probably several ways to implement top-down 2D starfield effect in Construct2, but I think this is one of the easiest ones. By using this method, you will need only two particle objects to implement very simple starfield in no time! From events point of view you will need only " on start of layout " event, like this: This example was build for window size of 480x640 pixels, but the layout itself is twice as high (480x1280px). The reason for this is that particle object generates particles from single point only. User can define the size and direction of the cone, but it is not possible to change the width of the creation point. So all generated stars are not moving exactly to the same direction (motion is not parallel). You can get rough idea of layout view from the figure below. To make stars moving as paralle

Do you find dachshunds (sausage dogs, wiener dogs) adorable? If so, then this game is for you ( removed from Google Play Store because of outdated API ): Dogs Games: Flying Dachshund is a simple and funny game for kids. Make dachshund puppy to fly by tapping screen and try to catch as many sausages you can. Your dachshund gets flying energy by eating sausages. Golden sausage fills the energy meter, and flying consumes energy. And if this sounds too easy, bear in mind that evil cats and flying turkeys are trying to stop you. So be careful out there when playing Dogs Games: Flying Dachshund! Features: - Easy to play game mechanics - Energy meter - Give flying dachshund any name you want - Google Play Leaderboard Game was developed using Construct2, and Android conversion was done with Intel XDK (Crosswalk). Game background music is Spazzmatica Polka by Kevin MacLeod ( incompetech.com ). Happy flying with Dogs Games: Flying Dachshund! -Jussi PS. All graphics are dr

"Shapecalypse: Cosmic Impact" is a fast-paced space battle game with unique twist. Attention and quick reflexes are required to be successful in this galactic war. Features: - Google Play leaderboard - Local highscore will be saved too - Geometrical aliens have 4 different attack styles (will be mixed) - Compelling background music - Easy to learn but hard to master Facitious story: Mankind decided to set up a colony on distant asteroid zone. Unfortunately, that part of the space was already inhabited by geometric alien race. So serious consequences will be expected! (what a surprise) Your task: Your mission is to defend the surface of distant astral body as long as possible. Geometric aliens will send geometrically shaped meteorites to crush the base, and you are the only one between them and rest of the colony. How? Geometrical alien shapes are coming from the sky in different formations. The only way to stop each wave is to catch one of the shapes with

After releasing Battlecards Android game, we started working on a game concept that was invented couple of years ago. At that times, I created quick&dirty prototype for testing basic game mechanics. Also, main characters were also drawn then. But for some reason we did not continue to work on it. The working title of this game has been "Fly Attack". But after some not-so-careful thinking we decived to rename it to "Fly Assault!". At least there are not too many games with same name in Google Play. :) Game itself is very simple and easy to play: There are flies coming from top of the screen and player tries to catch them before flies get in touch to muffins in the bottom of the screen. There are couple of special "weapons" available to boost killing the files: Fly poison and Frog. Please watch attached video clip from Youtube to get understanding of this game: Fly Assault! will be available at Google Play Store in July 2016. -Jussi

Last week I ran into situation where I noticed that my Android Keystore file used for signing e.g. Battlecards game was somehow corrupted. Obviously, I had  not done any backups of my keystore file, so there was no way to fix it. So I decided to generate new keystore and compile my app again with cocoon.io. But that was not so easy: After cocoon.io compilation was finished, I was not able to load new .apk to my testing device. Tablet complained that previous version of app has been signed using different key and refused to install new version. So I removed old version of Battlecards from tablet, and realized that I had to do same for all my test accounts that were created to that tablet. Only then I was able to install new version (signed with new key). After some struggling I was able to install new version generated with new keystore file and started the app. But then I noticed that all Google Play Game Services, including leaderboards, achievements, etc. were not working at all

We decided to try an alternative promotion video for Battlecards Android game. Target was to create not-so-serious gameplay video using the properties we already had in place. So, best idea we got was to record short live gameplay of "War" (that is the model for Battlecards). Video was recorded using mobile phone, and both "actors" are amateurs. So, here is the result: Not perfect and probably not exactly what we planned, but at least we got it done. :) -Jussi

Hello Friends! Now it is time to present you the latest Android game from WestSloth Games . Game is called "Battlecards", and it is a digital version of ancient card game "War". There are several variations of this game, and our version is probably one of the simplest ones. Gameplay is as simple as it can get: The deck is shuffled and divided evenly among the players. On each round both players reveal the top card of their deck, and the player with the higher card takes both of the cards played and moves them to the bottom of his stack. Aces are high, and suits are ignored. If the two cards played are of equal value, then there is a "battle". Both players place the next card of their pile to the table. If topmost cards are still equal, battle continues with another set of cards. Battle will continue as long as either player has higher topmost card than the other one (or player runs out of cards on his/her deck). Winner gets all the cards that were on

I have been playing for couple of days with a voxel editor called MagicaVoxel. Based on my trials I have found it quite interesting and easy-to-use tool for creating some kind of a 3D pixel art. Naturally, there are plenty of other voxel editors available, but so far this is enough for me.  Today I drafted a new avatar for WestSloth Games , the marketing label for the games I have published: We have now updated WestSloth Games social media profiles with this picture, so I really hope this looks like a sloth... :)  If you are interested so see more voxel art from me, please visit WestSloth Youtube channel . I have created there few videos showing how to draw e.g. Minecraft style pig , or Crossy Road style car   in very quick and easy way.  I have also exported object files from MagicaVoxel to Unity3D just to see that I have full flow up and running. Now I just need to draft a good game idea to make use of voxel art... -Jussi

Edit 14.3.2019: gamaan.com website will be discontinued in Autumn 2019, so links pointine there are removed from this article.  Very small percentage of our game ideas are completed and published. Most of projects are suspended (or even killed) during the early phases of game development, and only few are really published in form or another. But what happens to the ones which are not completed? In the past we have just left them to the corner of a hard disk, but now we decided to give them a second change. So we decided to create a site called gamaan.com  that is filled with unpublished game prototypes by   WestSloth Games . We wanted to give wide audience an opportunity to play and test these immature pieces of digital art and provide feedback about them. The maturity level of games varies a lot: some prototypes are in quite finished condition, but some of them can be very rough mechanics trials. We are collecting feedback on some parameters of game. If you like something,