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
Tuesday, 28 February 2012
Monday, 27 February 2012
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:
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
Wednesday, 22 February 2012
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
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
Wednesday, 15 February 2012
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
Sunday, 29 January 2012
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
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
Tuesday, 27 December 2011
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
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
Sunday, 25 December 2011
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
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
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