News

Okay folks .. it’s been a while. We spent the earlier part of this year moving to a new house and getting settled in, and somewhere in there I had this crazy idea “haha wouldn’t it be funny if I made a version of Galcon with chickens in it cause everyone plays all those poultry oriented games, haha, I’ll make it in a week.” Yeah, well, SIX MONTHS later, it’s finally here!

Chickon is a free-to-play romp of total silliness in the land of Chickontopia! Check out the totally sweet trailer – it’s worth seeing even if you don’t have an iOS device:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTgPI2PK8RE

And then get the free app for your iPod touch, iPhone, or iPad.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/chickon/id472764637?ls=1&mt=8

Hope you get a good laugh out of it! Be sure to tell your friends and poultry loving acquaintances.

-Phil

Phil Hassey from Galcon-land here. A game I developed with five teens for charity just went live on the App Store! The game is an effort to help raise the $200,000 needed to get the down payment to buy a building for a local community outreach center in Rye, CO.

The game is called “The Exterminator” and it’s about a motorcyclist defending the earth from mega-sized mutant bugs. It’s an endless runner-type game with a totally rocking original electric guitar soundtrack. The gameplay is super addictive and feels a bit like a 1942 + Canabalt mashup. If you get going over 75 MPH it goes into “guitar-solo” mode where all points double. Combos (sequential shots without misses) gain you increasingly more points. For fun I added in GameCenter leader boards so you can compete with your friends. It’s only $0.99 and all the money we get goes towards the building fund. (Apple’s take is 30%.)

Developing the game with the teens was a really great experience. The project started out with us discussing what charity the teens wanted to raise funds for. The group was unanimous that they wanted to help raise money for the local community center because it would give future teens a great place to hang out. Rye, CO is a small rural town and there aren’t any actual hangouts outside of school activities.

After that we decided on a game theme. Wes really wanted to do a motorcycle oriented game and Shamoa was interested in some kind of game where we’d destroy mutant bugs. By combining those ideas we came up with “The Exterminator.” From there we spent two days developing the artwork, music, sound effects, and the actual game. Matt put together the electric guitar soundtrack using GarageBand. Wes, Shamoa, Shadrack, and Cameron all worked on the artwork. Most everyone did some sound effects. We also spent a lot of time eating food and generally goofing off. We wrapped up the project with some solid play-testing and tweaking and we were all really happy with how it came out. As a game developer I totally enjoyed the experience of working with teens and developing a game idea that I would have never come up with on my own!

Here’s a page that includes an overview of the community center plans and includes a PDF with a more detailed description.

Charity aside, it’s totally fun, so be sure to check it out!

Have fun!
-Phil

P.S. I’m “philhassey” on GameCenter, just try and beat my score!

Press pack with screenshots, icons, etc

The Steam Summer Camp sale is on and Galcon Fusion has a new achievement to celebrate!

“Pool Party” – Win 5 Rounds of Multi-player Billiards! I’ve just tripled the number of Billiards servers to accomodate the mad rush

If you haven’t purchased Galcon Fusion on Steam yet, it has SteamPlay (Mac & PC) support and is on sale at 66% off today for only $3.40 .

Have fun playing!
-Phil

P.S. in other crazy news, I’ve been doing an indie game dev video blog with some other cool folks! Look through the videos, I talk about Galcon and discuss what I think about varios aspects of being an indie dev. Other devs include Mike Hommel who created “Robot Wants Kitty” which was one of my favorite games last year, as well as Andy Moore who created Steambirds and is involved in re-tooling Galcon Flash. Check it out and subscribe if you find it interesting.

Available FREE on iPhone / iPad / PC / OS X / Linux.

Have fun!
-Phil

Hey, so a friend of mine made this awesome flash game called Robot Wants Kitty .. and then that game got ported to the iPhone / iPod touch. And the port is even BETTER than the original!

I’m going to say right here right now that you should buy this iPhone game immediately! It’s $0.99, so it won’t break the bank. It’s a killer fun side-scroller which has gotten all 5-star reviews (except from people who have iOS 3.x on their device). If you want a second opinion, touchArcade really liked it too. So, yeah, support the awesome independent developer, hamumu.com (who I might mention appears in the credits of every single Galcon game as “Mike Hommel.”)

Anyway, again, you can get it HERE.

Cheers!
-Phil

P.S. There’s a Galcon Fusion tournament on April 1st!
P.S.S. If you like Galcon Flash, you might want to keep an eye on this blog.

Hey,

Galcon Fusion is available now on the Mac App Store at the amazing launch price of 99c – that’s 90% off the regular desktop price!

I’m also doing a Mega-Sale across many of the other versions of Galcon! Be part of the “Galcon Community Rejuvenation Project” and help get the word out about this Mega-Sale:

Galcon Fusion for the Mac – 99c – Regularly $9.99

Galcon Fusion for the iPad – 99c – Regularly $4.99

Galcon for the iPhone – 99c – Regularly $2.99

Galcon Labs for the iPhone – 99c – Regularly $2.99

Galcon for Android – 99c – Regularly $2.99

Have fun playing!
-Phil

Hey,

Thanks for all the responses to my survey a few weeks ago! That is going to be a huge help in figuring out what I’m going to be doing this year.

The Galcon update I put out a few weeks ago with retina and multitasking support could use some reviews on the App Store It’d be swell if you could write something up:

Galcon | Galcon Labs | Galcon Fusion

Also, I’m going to GDC in San Francisco from Feb 28-March 4. If anyone is interested, it would be fun to get together for a Galcon meetup. I’ve put together a little survey to get a feel for who wants in on the fun!

The Galcon in SF Meetup survey

Thanks!
-Phil

Take the Galcon Survey, it should only take about 3 minutes and you’ll be helping me decide what will be best for Galcon in 2011!

Thanks!
-Phil

P.S. I added a few questions since last night, so if you already filled it out, you may want to edit your response.

I’ve updated Galcon, Galcon Labs, and Galcon Lite for the iPhone / iPod touch with retina display support and multi-tasking support. I’ve also updated Galcon Fusion on the iPad with multitasking support. Now you can play more than one game of Galcon at a time! I’ve also updated the desktop version of Galcon Fusion with a number of bug fixes. For those of you who don’t know the difference between non-retina and retina displays, this image will help you understand:

Enjoy the update!
-Phil

P.S. Okay, that “before” image is a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the idea

Many people were confused by my announcement 10 days ago. So I’m going to try and explain it a bit better!

Stealth Target is not a finished game. If you look at the screenshots and video I’ve posted, almost none of the graphics you see are final, they are all free graphics or stuff I hobbled together quickly so as to get the game basically working. What you’re looking at is not what I will be selling to the general public when the game is finished.

I am a solo indie game developer. That means there’s just me doing the bulk of this project. My wife Nan helps with the testing and some of the ideas. And I contract out the art and music since I’m only so-so at those things myself. I don’t have a team of 50 Q&A guys in my basement who test my game for me non-stop. That’s what the beta is for, it’s a way for me to get feedback from the users who are interested in helping me out!

I did, however, make a notable mistake in my beta release! I priced it at $9.99 (my planned full-price.) This was a goof-up on my part, since I really want to thank people who are taking a chance and trying out my games before they are done. I’ve changed this to $4.99 so people who pre-order get the special price. (The few brave users who went and paid the full $9.99 for the game last week I gave full refunds to, so they got the game for free!) And, yes, whoever buys the game at this pre-order price will receive the full desktop game when it is finished. (I’m also planning on releasing it for the iPad. A pre-order will not count towards that.)

Anyway, I want to give a huge thanks to the people who have played the game already and given me feedback. I’ve just posted a new build of the game with a bunch of new features and fixes based on their feedback. You can check my blog to see what all changes I’ve made and how the development has proceeded.

To the people who wondered “Where is the demo??!” Don’t worry, I haven’t built it yet, but I think I’ll be making one available sometime soon. I’ll send out a mailing when I do so don’t feel like you have to rush and buy the game right now if you’d rather try the demo first

So, all that said, if you’re feeling brave, go ahead and pre-order Stealth Target for 50% off the full-price, today! For the less brave, feel free to wait it out until I have a demo ready.

Thanks!
-Phil