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