Mazonaut
Today is the official launch of Mazonaut by iBright Studios! I developed Mazonaut for iBright and it is a really great original game! Here is the description from iTunes: "The object is simple - Using the accelerometer, swiftly move through the maze keeping ahead of the destructive forces the black hole imposes on the maze segments. The maze is pulled apart faster and faster according to how far you get, so you must get the Mazonaut through before he too is pulled into the black hole! Anticipation and forward-thinking are a must, otherwise the Mazonaut will become a causality just as the maze does! "
This is a really great game and a lot of value for the money! Mazonaut is $0.99 and is a universal application, so it will run on both the iPhone/iPod touch and iPad with graphics that are appropriate for all of the devices. Please pass along this news to all of your friends and let iBright know what you would like to see in future updates.
Indie Appolis
I am excited to announce the launch of my new site Indie Appolis! Here is the information from our about page.
We know how difficult it can be to gain visibility as an indie iPhone developer and we want to help! Advertising is very expensive on the main iPhone review sites and they are so swamped that your little unknown indie game might never be reviewed. That is where Indie Appolis comes into the picture. We want to help give your app the visibility that it deserves and also focus 100% on the core of what we think has made the iPhone an incredible gaming platform, the indie developer!
I was able to interview some incredible developers for the launch of the site and have others in the works. Check out these great interviews.
Trenches: Developer Interview | Game Review
MiniSquadron: Developer Interview | Game Review
Compression: Developer Interview | Game Review
I also wrote a custom ad tracking/management application that is in use on the site currently. I will be packaging it up and then offering it as a product of daGrind called AdMan.
Albany – Magenic Silverlight Game Programming Contest
Magenic held an internal Silverlight game programming contest in August. The rules were that an individual or team would create a game using Silverlight 1.1 and the game should be fun and easy enough for an eight year old to play. I did not have much free time in August so I ended up starting and finishing the development of my entry, Albany, the last week of August. My brother-in-law, Phil, helped with the graphics and created some of the levels. It was a fun project and Albany actually won 2nd place! You can play Albany and the other contest entries here.
Silverlight is a very interesting technology that will be interesting to watch evolve. I have a background in creating games using DirectX, but this is just plain simple. The deployment model is also very slick. Hopefully I will find some time to blog more technical/tutorial type posts on my adventures with Silverlight and now XNA.
