Launching FIST OF AWESOME

In the early hours of Wednesday 16th October 2013, slightly drunk in a hotel room in Dundee, I released FIST OF AWESOME on iOS, Android and Ouya. The events surrounding that moment included some of the most incredible, overwhelmingly hectic times of my life. They've been punctuated with moments of drama, terror, extreme fatigue, panic and more than a little celebration.

Warning: This a rambling monster of a post. If you just want some pretty graphs and numbers, skip to the bottom!

FIST OF AWESOME is not my first game, but it is the first I Fight Bears game, and is by far the biggest game I've made as a mostly-solo developer. It's a time-travelling-lumberjack-em-up (a crowded genre I know) and my homage to classic game likes Streets of Rage, Double Dragon & Final Fight.

It began life at many points in my life, as a heady teenage ambition, as a concept for a one man band in Dundee, and, finally, as a last minute Valentines Day gift for the love of my life. More than any game I've worked on FIST OF AWESOME is a game which represents my personality, my humour, my passion and my eccentricities. That probably sounds a bit Jonathan Blow-ish but it's true, I wanted to make a game that nobody else could make.

The success of the Kickstarter last year gave me huge momentum and incentive to complete the game and create something that could satisfy the expectations of the 951 glorious FIST backers. It also gave me the headache of distributing the game on iOS and Android to all those people. Android was solved by distributing .apk files and asking people to "sideload" the game onto their devices. iOS on the other hand...

Distributing iOS Kickstarter Copies

Delivering promotional copies of a paid iOS app to 100s of people is, as far as I'm aware, still an unsolved problem.

Some relevant info:

• Apple give you 50 promo codes per game update, with no mechanism for requesting, or purchasing, more.
• Apple work with BAFTA to generate 100s of extra codes to distribute to BAFTA voters, but this is the only exception I'm aware of.
• Apps can only be gifted (purchased via your account to give to a friend) via iTunes to devices in the same territory as the account doing the gifting.
• You must have a credit card registered in a territory to create an account capable of gifting.
• Money from gift cards can't be used to gift apps.
• Subverting the App Store with unlocks in "free" apps (as the Zombies Run! folks did) is no longer allowed, and attempts to do so may result in your developer account being revoked.

All of this left me with, as far as I could see, 2 real options:

1. Recruit and coordinate a team of worldwide helpers to gift apps based on the many different backer locations.
2. Make the game free for a few days and tell backers to grab it then.

Option 1 was certainly possible. I'd spoken to at least one other Kickstarted team who'd done just that. However it would be very time consuming, and I'd much rather spend time finishing the game than handling a worldwide logistics nightmare. Taking this into account I chose option 2.

The plan I concocted was simple, but not without issues. I'd release the game on iOS, for free, on Tuesday 15th October 2013, 2 days in advance of the "official" launch on 17th October. I'd let Kickstarter backers and journalist contacts aware so they could pick up the game for free. I'd ride out the wave of App Store monitoring robots chattering about it and allow for a few eagle-eyed consumers grabbing it for free by accident.

After a particularly stressful 8 days spent waiting for the release candidate build to work its way through the App Store approval process FIST OF AWESOME finally switched to "Ready for sale" at lunchtime on Monday 14th October.

The iOS Free / Surprise Launch Debacle

I was booked to fly from London to Dundee that night in advance speaking at Abertay university on Tuesday, and the Moving Targets conference on Wednesday morning. My plan was to do my talks, find a nice cafe with WiFi and spend a leisurely afternoon finishing off the various bits and pieces left in advance of release. I was really looking forward to that afternoon.

Everything pretty much went according to plan until Tuesday afternoon. The game was secretly released on iOS, for free, early Tuesday morning. My Kickstarter backers, or at least the ones who still bothered reading my rambling updates, got an email informing them to grab the game, and journalists were informed of the situation so they didn't write about it till Thursday, and also so they could grab a review copy themselves.

I did my talk at Abertay, which was jolly good fun, and afterwards was surprised to see FIST OF AWESOME was top of the "Hot Games" section of Touch Arcade. Alongside was a news story touting FIST OF AWESOME as a great new free(!) game. I left a comment clarifying the game isn't really free but I was glad people were enjoying it. At this point I still aimed to hold out till the 17th to switch to paid, hoping not too many people would notice the Touch Arcade stuff.

In the evening I sat down for a meal with other speakers at the Moving Targets conference and was informed that the game was now on the front page of IGN as a "free App Store game".

My nerve started to slip at this point. To compensate I drank lots of complimentary wine. Friends started tweeting and emailing me to let me know how popular the game was. I drank more wine. When Savy Gamer joined in with promoting the "free" game I decided things had probably gone far enough.

And so I found myself back at my Dundee hotel, drunk, going through my "leisurely afternoon" schedule at breakneck speed and clicking lots of big green "Publish" buttons. By around 1:30AM the game was published on iOS (now as a paid app), Google Play and Ouya. The launch trailer was unveiled and journalists were informed of the last minute release date change.

SURPRISE EVERYBODY! #FISTOFAWESOME is out NOW on iOS - https://t.co/A7zXLfhVVK
— Nicoll Hunt (@nicollhunt) October 15, 2013

Considering how frantic (and not sober) I was at the time, the FIST OF AWESOME launch went surprisingly smoothly. Part of that is because I had planned all that needed to be in done in advance, aware that I'd probably be far too excited to think straight when the moment came.

I have absolutely no hard feelings towards any of the websites who advertised the game as "free", it was pretty much inevitable that people would find it, and all I really cared about was that the vast majority of my Kickstarter backers would be able to grab the game. I even received a really nice email from Touch Arcade apologising for what happened, in what I think is the first time a major gaming site has apologised for promoting an indie game :)

In total the game was downloaded 8653 times on iOS for free, and I like to think that number is partly responsible for what happened next.

What happened next...

The game was featured by Apple on the App Store on Thursday 17th and helped push the first week sales way beyond anything I could have expected.

Here's a pretty graph and some numbers:

Total Sales over 2 week since launch: 6939

Platform breakdown:

iOS: 5588
Google Play: 974
Ouya: 307
Amazon: 70

"£2.49 is Too Expensive for a Mobile Game!"

One thing that grates on me is when people pass off opinion as fact. It's a fact that "freemium" games are the top grossing games on mobile platforms, but that does not mean it's the only option.

My personal opinion is that if everyone else is going in one direction, then the best approach is often to go in a completely different one. Doing the same thing as everyone else is unlikely to help you stand out in a crowd. With the resources available to me I don't think I can compete with the big "freemium" games out there, but then again I've no desire to do so.

By making FIST OF AWESOME a "premium" £2.49 / $4 game I'm doing a number of things:

• Suggesting it offers value for money
• Showing it differs to the "freemium" norm
• Aligning it to other outlier indie games like Radical Fishing or Frozen Synapse
• Implying the game has been balanced by gameplay considerations and not to encourage micro transactions
• Being contrary because I've read articles like this

My financial aspirations for FIST OF AWESOME begin and end with the hope that it will allow me to make more games in the future. Making games has become a way of life for me, and all I want is for that to continue. I'd much rather be Jeff Minter than King.com.

That all said, my approach has been far more successful than I could have ever hoped for. In two weeks FIST OF AWESOME has made roughly the same as my last game, Hard Lines, did in two years. As I'm self-publishing this time I also get a far greater share of the revenue, and own all the IP.

Note: The following figures are after Apple, Google, Ouya and Amazon have taken their share. 

Total Revenue over 2 weeks since launch: £11,714.07

10% revenue share for Brandan Ratliff aka Echolevel: £1,171.41

Platform breakdown:

iOS: £9,340.08
Google Play: £1,611.04
Ouya: £644.70
Amazon: £118.25

After Brendan gets his well-deserved 10% for providing the fantastic soundtrack I'm left with £10,542.66.

Sales are still strong, and there's hope Google Play and Amazon will feature the game soon, giving more substantial spikes. When the upcoming PC & Mac versions are added into the mix there's every chance I'll be able to go full-time indie in the new year.

All in all, I consider it one heck of a successful launch for a small indie game about a time-travelling lumberjack who punches bears in the face to save humanity :)

Hope all this rambling and stat-sharing has been useful to other developers out there!

Lots of love,

Nicoll x

My life as an almost-full-time Indie

I've about a million things I need to do right now, but since someone asked nicely on Twitter I thought I'd take a small time-out and give you an insight into my life right now.

It's now been 3 months since I sort-of quit my day job. I say sort-of because I still work 2 days a week on a freelance basis, which covers my rent and not a great deal more.

In those 3 months FIST OF AWESOME has come on in leaps and bounds, and I'm closer than ever to taming the monster it's become. Counterintuitively I'm busier than ever now, having more time available during the day doesn't take the pressure off. The level of work expands to fill the time, and then some. I recently read this great post by Greg Wohlwend:

http://aeiowu.tumblr.com/post/53234753408/dont-quit-your-day-job-a-letter-to-the-hobbyist-on

It's a sobering read, and one that I can see a lot of similarities of my own situation in.

Running a business, even one as tiny as I Fight Bears takes time. To be as efficient as I can be with a minuscule budget means running as many expenses as I can through the company, and all that adds a paperwork overhead. I have little or no idea what I'm doing, so there's lots of making stuff up as I go along and worrying that I'm doing everything wrong.

Getting up in the morning and motivating yourself to be productive isn't easy when you're your own boss. I've developed a routine which helps a bit, doing exercise first thing in the morning 3 times a week with one my housemates. It forces me to get out of bed early, and kickstarts my body into being awake and ready to get started with the day. I still have to frequently ban myself from the Internet, it's terrifying how much time you can lose if you're not careful.

My social life has taken a beating, both because I can't afford to do very much, and also because I find it hard to justify taking the time out when there's so much that needs to be done for the game. That's a very unhealthy way to live though, so I'm slowly getting better at calling friends and actually leaving the house for more than paid work.

Thankfully my wonderful fiancee is standing by me while I push on with this crazy dream. Even when I know I'm being a rubbish partner and locking myself in the office/spare room for 12 hours at a time, she's my biggest supporter and helps me keep my eye on the goal. Having that kind of support is priceless, without her there simply wouldn't be a FIST OF AWESOME.

So that's the bad-to-middling of what I've been going through. However, there are so many incredible things that have happened/are happening/will soon be happening that it's hard for me to feel sorry for myself. It'll be interesting to read this in a few months after the launch of the game, because right now it feels like I'm building this massive rocket, and the fuse is already lit, and I'm frantically slapping panels onto the rocket so it doesn't explode when the flame reaches the payload.

The OUYA launch has been incredible for FIST OF AWESOME coverage, with massive publications like:

Time
http://techland.time.com/2013/06/17/best-of-e3-2013-15-games-to-look-forward-to/slide/most-surprisingly-awesome-fist-of-awesome/

Wired
http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2013/06/ouya-launch-games/

BBC (15 seconds in)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23044701

and loads of others all mentioning A BIT OF FIST OF AWESOME as a launch highlight, despite it only being a 2-level demo. My email inbox has exploded over last few weeks and months with increasingly big players getting in touch, hoping to help FIST OF AWESOME on its way. I've never experienced anything like this before, it feels like something special is happening, like there's this massive movement forming behind what I thought would be a tiny, niche game.

So many people have got in touch to say love the demo and can't wait for the full game, and it's those little gestures that make it worthwhile. Things like people setting up a projector and playing the game on the side of their houses:

A Bit Of A Fist Of Awesome projected onto the side of my house? Sure, why not! #ouya #outdoorgaming #summertime pic.twitter.com/NC8WXvmFQc
— Tim Burke (@_TimBurke) June 30, 2013

I've spoken at Google, been live-streamed on the Guardian webpage at the wonderful EToo event, met some of my heroes, and next week I'll be speaking at Develop in Brighton with the hugely talented Byron Atkinson-Jones. I never thought things could get this big, especially before the game is even launched. It's like a dream.

I've got some great people helping me finish aspects the game, helping with animations, writing and producing theme songs, chasing up marketing opportunities, etc. People who have gone over and above and asked for nothing in return. People I really hope I can repay when this is all over.

The latest revision to the launch timescale for FIST OF AWESOME is August. It would be sooner but I'm going on holiday in the middle of July, and although I originally hoped the game would be finished before I headed away, I think it'll be good for me to come back fully refreshed. I can then fire through the last few bits and bobs before releasing FOA into the world and seeing if the sacrifices of the past 18 months were worth it. In a way though, they already are. The release is just the cherry on the cake.

Lots of love,

Nicoll x

I'm Alive!

Hi everybody,

Sorry for not updating this blog in FOREVER. If you've been watching this blog exclusively and not heard what I've been up to from anywhere else then WOW there's a lot you've missed.

The biggest thing was I ran a Kickstarter campaign for the game in November.

It went pretty well. It's still well worth watching the pitch video if you didn't see it when the campaign was live. There's load of updates as well, lots of good stuff there.

It was my original plan to do a big blog update here with behind-the-scenes stuff about the video, and the campaign in general. Time got away from me though and I've been at full speed ever since.

The Kickstarter meant I could spend some money on a shiny new setup:

It's so pretty and FAAAAAAST!

The game is progressing nicely, and it's now confirmed for waaaay more platforms. iOS, Android and OUYA (if you squint you can see it in the photo above) launching hopefully around the start of May, followed by PC and Mac (and maybe Linux) later in Summer.

Thanks to the Kickstarter I'm also getting some help finishing off the animations for the game from Benjamin Donoghue. I think I've proved I can do all the different parts of making the game now, so now I'd just like it to be done faster!

I'm working incredibly hard just now to get the game done. I had January and February as a sabbatical from my day job which was totally ace and resulted in a huge amount of progress. I'm back at my day job 4 days a week now though, so FOA work is back to being a spare time project. I've never worked so hard in my life and I can only hope the hard work comes across when you play the finished game!

If you check the I Fight Bears website you'll see I've added the ability to buy some AWESOME t-shirts, as well as pre-order the game on PC & Mac. Please buy something because it means I might be able to take another sabbatical and get this game finished all the sooner.

There's are also some kick ass papercraft toys on the site provided by the lovely AG Papertoys.

Oh, yeah on a related note I've just announced this competition on Twitter:

#FISTOFAWESOME COMPETITION TIME! Best picture of an FOA papertoy (ifightbears.co.uk) wins a t-shirt! Tweet pics at me to enter. Pls RT!
— Nicoll Hunt (@nicollhunt) March 19, 2013

The t-shirts look like this:

It would be super-awesome if you could retweet it and/or enter a picture. Seeing people talk about FIST OF AWESOME gets me all hot and excited, encourages me to make the game even greater, and you might win a cool t-shirt! Everyone wins!

So to summarise: Kickstarter, game out May iOS, Android & OUYA, later in Summer PC & Mac (maybe Linux), papertoys, competition, Nicoll tired, happy, excited, terrified.

Once again, apologies for letting this blog become a barran wasteland, I'll make an effort to update it more, and once the game's FINALLY released there'll be all kinds of post-mortems, sales data, etc. here to get you all excited. It'll be SUPER!

Lots of love,

Nicky x

P.S. The gorgeous Cat, who inspired me to make the Valentines Day game that inspired me to make FIST OF AWESOME, agreed to marry me. HUZZAH!

WINNERS OF AWESOME!

A wee while ago I ran a Twitter-based competition to find a name for the star of FIST OF AWESOME. You'll probably remember being dragged along with the drama of it all, it was like a heavily pixelated X Factor.

The lucky winners were announced as:

@cartoonsbyRic - Tim Baaaa
@tghGaz - Tim Barr
@igrowbeards - Chet Beardly
@gshowitt - Beef Hardcastle
‏@tamoose - Woody Harasserson

The final name of Tim Burr was chosen by my good (non-twittering) friend Jon Mitchell. I totally forgot about Jon's contribution in the original announcement so to make up for it here's what he looks like in the FIST OF AWESOME universe:

SO CUTE!

I asked the other winners for portraits of themselves so I could put them in the game too. It was impressive to see how seriously they took this undertaking. Possibly too seriously in one particular case, the quote "My eyes! The goggles do nothing!" has never been more appropriate.

Converting such a manly set of photos into 8-and-a-bit style graphics was clearly going to be an undertaking. 100's of man-hours and liberal usage of eye beach later, this macho troop of characters was staring back at me:

Beautiful. Like a cool version of the A-Team.

The next step was to find somewhere to slot them into FIST OF AWESOME. I've been purposefully quiet about the plot for the game, but the following shot incorporating our heroes hints at the terrifying repercussions of the story's time-travel element.

And so ends another exciting voyage behind the scenes of FIST OF AWESOME!

Lots of love,

Nicoll x

Evolution of an Icon

First impressions are important, especially for iOS games. For a lot of people the first impression of your game will be the name and the icon. FIST OF AWESOME clearly has the name aspect in the bag, but until yesterday the icon did little to back that up.

Over the course of the afternoon I made a number of new icons, almost all terrible, but slowly they evolved into what is probably the single greatest icon of all time.

Let's follow that transformation in pictographic format:

First go: Tim, bear and fire. Simple, powerful. Needs "more".

Added Earth to the background. The game takes place on Earth so that kind of makes sense. Hmm, still needs "more".

Oooh, it looks all arty if I put a big version of Tim in the background. At this point I realised my "more is more" theory was backfiring badly.

Got rid of fire and Earth. Tried different sprites. Getting better, but should probably feature more FIST.

Switched in the deer instead of the bear to leave more room for FIST in the image. Feels a bit less impressive without the bear though.

Brightened up the backdrop and created a new action pose, leaving room for both FIST and bear. Feels a lot better but doesn't look like FIST made contact.

HOLY MOTHER OF BEAR FIGHTS I'VE CREATED THE GREATEST ICON OF ALL TIME.

Then I went to bed and had the best sleep ever.

Nicoll x

Free Stuff!

Hello Internet!

Because I love you here's a little present I've knocked up JUST FOR YOU!

I've lovingly crafted some I Fight Bears wallpaper for you to use as the lock & home screens of your shiny iPhone thing!

Lock Screen - Download

Home Screen - Download

I hope you like them.

Lots of love,

Nicoll x

P.S. Here's what the home screen one looks like in place, along with some of my favouritest games!

Competition Result Time!

It's been a long time coming but finally, and after much careful consideration, I've made a decision for the name of the protagonist of FIST OF AWESOME.

As you may remember the main character was originally going to be called Jack Lumber, but the upcoming game Jack Lumber from the lovely guys at Owlchemy Lab got there first. I turned to Twitter to have someone else do the work for me crowd-source a new name. What followed was a frankly terrifying amount of great suggestions.

Clearly a work as epoch-defining as FIST OF AWESOME needs a hero name that will stand the test of time. A name that describes both the essence of the character and his everyman status.

The deluge of so many quality entries that made this decision all the harder. But decide I did.

So, without further ado, the name of the bearded lumberjack protagonist of FIST OF AWESOME will be....

TIM BURR

Which technically is a name that nobody chose.

WAIT! DON'T HURT ME!

Here is how Tim Burr came to be:

@cartoonsbyRic came up with the quite lovely TIM BAAAA

@tghGaz then iterated on that with TIM BARR.

And I completed the cycle with TIM BURR.

The following entries comprise the top 5. All will receive a spot in the beta AND will be forever immortalised in pixel form as background characters in the game!

Tim Baaaa - @cartoonsbyRic
Tim Barr - @tghGaz
Chet Beardly - @igrowbeards
Beef Hardcastle - @gshowitt
‏Woody Harasserson - @tamoose

Hope you enjoyed the drama,

Lots of love,

Nicoll x

The FIST OF AWESOME Screenshot Revolution!

Hello Internet,

Get ready for a SEXY REVOLUTION in the heady world of screenshots! For too long screenshots have been static, frozen in time, trapped in their own single frame existence. As a champion of indie gaming you probably have to look at mountains of them on a daily basis. I feel your pain and, quite honestly, you deserve better.

GET READY FOR BETTER.

Behold the new ANIMATED screenshots from FIST OF AWESOME! These screenshots come from the Prehistoric-era section of the eagerly awaited time-travelling-lumberjack-em-up.

It's just like being there! I can feel the sweet lava as it burns my eyebrows!

Ah, the serene beauty of a waterfall. So calm and relaxing you can scarcely hear the savage battle cries.

There you have it. All screenshots of every game ever have been made redundant in one fell swoop. This is the beginning of a new era, an ANIMATED era. This must be how Walt Disney felt. Welcome to the future.

Take a few minutes to catch your breath, this sort of revolution doesn't happen everyday. Go make yourself a cup of tea, or pour a nice Scotch. You've earned it.

Lots of love,

Nicoll x

Introducing I FIGHT BEARS!

The world has a new company, and the name of that company is I FIGHT BEARS! It's the first "real" company I've ever started, and it's all a bit exciting.

The logo is a bit placeholder, but you get the idea.

Since I'm taking the games stuff pretty seriously now, I thought it would be cool to have my own company to publish the games. There are no better names than I FIGHT BEARS, so I went with that.

Look forward to future terror-filled blog and Twitter posts as I realise I know nothing about running a company.

Work on FIST OF AWESOME continues at breakneck speed, although I've still not decided a winner for the lumberdude competition. I'd say I'm building tension but I'm just really bad at making decisions.


N x

FIST OF AWESOME - Naming The Lumberdude

When I found out that the lovely chaps over at Owlchemy Labs are making a game called Jack Lumber, I was simultaneously happy and sad. Happy that the game looked ace and a lot of fun, but sad that it meant I had to change the name for the main character of FIST OF AWESOME, who I'd proudly been telling everyone would be called Jack Lumber.

Thus was born a Twitter competition to come up with a new name, the winner getting entry to the uber-elite beta team. It was a bit popular. Here are the entries so far:


@owlchemylabs
John Forest
Ax McMahon
Dave Forrester
Jim Splinter
John Flannel
Bear Woods

‏@PJDubyaM
Tom Braider

‏@tamoose
Woody Harasserson

‏@RhodriTucker
Quentin McHipster

‏@Joco182
Captain Wood
Woody L.N
Sam'n Maxe
Edge Cutting

‏@amoseem
Max Woodman
Chopper McChop
Choppy Choperson

‏@dedwood85
Hugh Jass
Norma Stitz
Hugh G. Rection
Biggus Dikkus

@Dayna_Dayna
Battle-axe Nelson
Billie the Bow
Bill the Dangler
Bill the Moocher
Black Dan
Blueberry Bob
Buckskin-pants
Bug-house   Lynch
Bull-cook Ole
Caribou Bill
Car-stake Smith
Charley the Logger
Clothespin Ole
Cordwood Johnson
Crosshaul Paddy
Cruel-face
Deacon
Dead-Eye Dick
Dick the Dancer
Dirty Bill
Dirty Dan
Double-breasted Corrigan
Dutch Bill
Eight-day Bill
Farmer Dan
Gabby
Gin-Pole Smith
Gypo Jack
Ham-bone Smith
Hungry Dan Shea
Jack the Ripper
Jessie James
Jimmie on the Trail
Larry the Kicker
Lousy Dan
Moonlight Bob
Moonlight Pike
Moonshine Jimmie
Old Hickory
Old Rampike
Pancake Billie
Pastime Petey
Poker Peter
Protestant Jack
Prune-Juice Doyle
Rattlesnake Pete
Runaway Shea
Smutty John
Squeaky George
Stuttering Ed
The Cleaver
The Hemlock Bull
The Pope
Three-fingered Ole
Tin-Can Murphy
Walking Daily
Whispering Bill
Wicked Dan
Winnipeg Blackie
(all from here)

‏@gshowitt
Geoff Punch
Edward "Dead" Wood
Axe McAllister
Beef Hardcastle
Slab O'Man
Crack Thunderhand
Biff Hardcheese

‏@Governmentyard
Keith. He's obviously called Keith.

@Ethnicmutt
Charles Norse
Paul Sansouci
Henri Bunyan
Chainsaw Joe
Carl Stomper.

‏@solkar
Chuck

‏@cartoonsbyRic
TIM BAAAA

‏@igrowbeards
Chet Beardly
Woody Chipper
Reggie Flannel
Nathaniel Light
Crazy ol' Jim Hatchet
Emmerson Axeworth III

‏@JackJones218
Bobby Valdez

‏@RobFRACTURES
Nuck Chorris III

‏@AGTutty
Clint Thompson

‏@ALGChapman
Sawyer Redwood
Bjorn Flanders

My mate Daniel <not on Twitter>
Hank Plank
Chip Cutter
Jim Redwood III

So yeah, quite a few entries. I've been promising for ages now to decide on a winner, but as you can see the standard is unrelentingly high and my brain keeps flip flopping around the list like some kind of dying fish. I promise I'll decide soon.

I've decided to make a top 3 as a way of building the tension, and as an excuse to give away more free stuff. Because I love you all so frikkin much.

Nx

GaME 12 @ Imperial College - Work, Sweat, Achieve

I was lucky enough to be asked to speak at the GaME 12 conference this year, alongside the likes of David Braben, Peter Molyneux and Demis Hassabis. I guess they asked me because they needed a big name to draw in the crowds.

I decided to call my talk "Work, Sweat, Achieve" after I ran out of time to think of a name and just picked the first motivational quote I saw on Pintrest. The talk itself is largely about how to get good at something if you're not blessed with infinite prodigious talent (which almost no one is, it's all about hard work and practice).

Here's the talk in all its glory, unedited, save for bumping up the sound levels and adding a laughter track.

Announcing FIST OF AWESOME

So, I decided today would be the day I'd announce FIST OF AWESOME to the world. Here's the executive summary:

FIST OF AWESOME (always displayed IN CAPS) is an iOS title which updates the mechanics of scrolling beat em ups such as Double Dragon, Streets of Rage and Final Fight for a modern audience, along with a healthy dose of humour, retro sensibilities and grandiose ambition.

It's a game that I've wanted to make for a long time, so long I'd actually completely forgotten about it. After the success of my little Valentines Day game though I was inspired to make something a bit "punchy" and FIST OF AWESOME came flying to the front of my mind.

I've been working on it since then, so what you see in these screenshots and the trailer is roughly 3 months work. There's more stuff that's not been released of course, stuff like storyline, level settings, and the stupidly catchy theme song my girlfriend has written, but you've got to hold something back right?

I knew I had to get a build ready for the 14th May because that's the deadline for the Indie Showcase at Develop 2012 in Brighton, so decided that would also be the date I'd announce it.

Thanks to that genius decision the last few weeks have been pretty frantic, especially when I realised the huge amount of bits and pieces I'd been putting off. Stuff like animation, sound effects, music playback, level layout, any kind of UI at all. Y'know the "filler" stuff. Or "absolutely essential" stuff as other people tend to refer to it.

It was all a bit hairy, but this morning I sent off a build then repurposed it in the afternoon to make the teaser trailer:

The feedback so far has been pretty phenomenal. I've always had a huge amount of faith in the project but it's such an amazing feeling when you see people complimenting something you've created.

There's also been nothing but unanimous praise for Brendan Ratliff (aka Syphus aka @echolevel)'s music in the trailer. I heard his work on a little iPhone game called Gun Runner and instantly knew this was the man to soundtrack FIST. He's an absolute star and the endless praise for his work is well deserved.

So after a reasonably rubbish start to the year from a game dev point of view, I feel absolutely renewed and reinvigorated. I've set a tentative release data for FIST OF AWESOME of "Winter 2012" and I've no idea if it'll even be done by then, like I say it's a bit ambitious. It's going to be a hell of a lot of fun trying though!

N x

Open Letter to Spilt Milk Studios

Hi Spilt Milk Studios!

It seems a lot of people want to see the Hard Lines situation resolved amicably and fairly. I'm one of those people. I think an agreeable set of next steps would be:

* Remove Hard Lines from the App Store, albiet temporarily
* Pay the money owed to me
* From there we can negotiate a deal for the future of the game

I trust this is an acceptable course of events, and can lead to a good natured conclusion. I would appreciate a response within 7 days.

Best regards,

Nicoll Hunt

Sharing the love

You'll probably remember that I made a game for my girlfriend on Valentines Day. By my own admission it wasn't the finest game ever made, but it was written in 4 hours and after all, it's the thought that counts.

Since I love you as well I'm giving the game to you, source and all. It's built using XCode and runs on every iOS device I've managed to get my hands on.

You'll need to get hold of a couple of 3rd party libraries to compile it though:

• cocos2d-x
• The really quite lovely open source C++ game library coordinated by the superbly named Walzer Wang
• Signals
• A splendid little library to help decoupling of classes by the conventionally named Patrick Hogan.

This source is provided under the MIT License, and I don't really mind what you do with it.

I've packaged it all up for you HERE. 

Drop the unzipped "cocos2x" and "Signals" folders in the "nickylovescat/libs/" folder.

It doesn't do much, but it does a few things well. Since it's based on an evolving version of my game framework it handles the resolution differences between iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 and iPad quite well. Or well enough for me at least. Take a look at the UI_POINT and GAME_POINT macros in PlatformDefines.h for a peek behind the scenes.

I render everything based on a virtual 320x480 screen, and add a extra few pixels border on iPad to handle the different aspect ratio. Scaled up source assets take advantage of the extra pixels on iPhone 4 and iPads. This game isn't the best example of high res assets though.

I hope you like my little present, it was built with a lot of love.

N x

It's not all bad

I've received a huge amount of support over the past few days, and it means an incredible amount to me. Having complete strangers stand up and argue against the abuse of your rights is one of those things you can't fully appreciate until you've experienced it.

Time will tell if making my cause public was the right thing to do, but right now I feel grateful to know that I am not alone in thinking exploitation of my skills and work is completely unacceptable.

I make games, it's one of the very few things I'm quite good at. Nothing will stop me making more, and this whole experience has only encouraged me to reach higher with my work. Hard Lines was, and still is, one of the finest games I've ever been involved with. I can do much better though.

To everyone who has sent me a message of support, posted a comment on an article, or even just followed me on Twitter : thank you. You are the reason I love being a part of this industry, and I'm making my next game just for you. You lovely lovely people.

N x

Valentines Day Fighting

I made my girlfriend a computer game for Valentines Day.

It's about fighting for the one you love.

"Hey! Why are all these awesomely drawn bears inbetween me and my girl?"

"Take that Jerk!"

"I AM WINNER!"

It's like a more awesome version of Kung Fu Master, or a much worse version of Double Dragon.

It's waiting for review on the App Store now, so you too will soon be able to experience all 10 seconds of amazing gameplay.

N x

My Working Week

One of the trickiest things in indie game development is finding enough time to do everything. This is especially true when you have a full time job.

When I wrote Hard Lines I was working 40 hours a week for Filmlight, and squeezing all my dev time into evenings and weekends. It's safe to say that it was one of the hardest projects I've ever worked on (especially after release, but more on that soon). Racing home from work, eating microwave meals, cutting out all TV, staying up too late and getting up too early became a way of life for me. Unfortunately I'm not blessed with limitless energy and I realised that if I wanted to do more games development, and ever see my girlfriend, then something had to give.

Other, braver, people in this position would quit their full time job, live on super noodles and cheap cider and make games with no regard to their personal circumstances. I'm not like that, I like shiny things, I like going out for meals, seeing bands, going to the cinema, and generally not worrying about paying the rent. Basically I'm totally spoiled and the idea of that changing terrified me.

Fortunately I happen to work for a bunch of lovely, lovely, people who understood that making silly games was, for some unfathomable reason, really important to me. My boss has let me cut my hours at work to 4 days a week, and so far at least, it's one of the greatest things I've ever done.

I now work for myself on Mondays. It's brilliant. Properly brilliant. Having one day set aside exclusively for games dev every week focusses me to make progress but doesn't take over my life. Right now it feels like a brilliant balance between "real" work and "fun" work, and fingers crossed will lead to me producing some great games without completely killing myself in the process.

Good times.

N x

Programming Post - Which engine?

I've seen a lot of people asking which engine they should use for their new shiny game project.  For me If I choose to make another mobile game I'll be using cocos2d-x http://www.cocos2d-x.org/ as a base.  It's a free, open source C++ engine with a thriving community, and currently runs on iOS, Android, Windows, Linux, Marmalade, Blackberry and Bada (whatever that is).

The Windows and Linux versions are more intended for tools development though, as opposed to building full games.  It doesn't have a Mac version.

So if I choose to make a PC/Mac/Linux desktop game things are bit less clear-cut.  I'm starting to lean towards Unity http://unity3d.com/ for it's much hyped cross-platform capabilities and "new" way of working, but the coder in me thinks that SDL http://www.libsdl.org/ might be a better bet.  Mainly because I still like poking around at a low-level, and more importantly, change scares me.

It still amazes me how many great tools are available to indie developers now, it's easier than ever to pick and choose from a whole banquet of high-quality products for free or as good as free.  You kids better appreciate how lucky you have it.

N x

Hello World!

Merry Everyone!  I've decided to start a blog to post about the ups and downs of games development, everything from programming all the way to branding, PR, all that jazz.  For reasons which will become all too evident in the near future I'll also be posting stuff about the legal side of games.

I made Hard Lines for iOS this year, and I can say in my completely non-biased opinion that it's properly ace.  As I type this it's available for free on the App Store, so go grab it if you've not already!

I'm away to stuff my face with more food, drink beer, watch TV and attempt to fix my new remote controlled helicopter which seems to be stuck in the "fly directly into the nearest wall" mode.

Happy holidays!

Xxx