Well, it’s that time of year again. IGF has rolled around. And with it, a new game announcement! From me! So while I’m sure in the coming days we’ll see an incredible deluge of amazing games by talented people on the IGF site, I figure I’ll take a moment and talk about my own humble contribution to the festival. A little something I like to call “The Elements of Magic”.
It’s true. I’ve been working on a new game, and while it’s not done yet, it is at least far enough along that I don’t feel quite so embarrassed showing it. In what should be no real surprise to anyone who has followed my games, it is another SHMUP. And it doesn’t even have the strange mechanics of Negative SpaceCraft, or the weird role reversal from Boss Rush! So what DOES it have? Well, a few neat things. Read on to find out more!
So this is a game I started writing a bit over half a year ago, in response to a very specific problem: I like SHMUPS. And I know a few other people who also like SHMUPS. But I have an awful lot of friends who like to watch SHMUPS in action, but who don’t really feel comfortable playing them. They look too hard. They die too fast, and even if I try to play co-op with them, they end up dying a lot, stealing all of my continues, and then feeling bad about it later.
This is a game for them.
This is a game for everyone who has a friend who is good at SHMUPS, who wants to participate, without feeling like they are dragging the person down. This is a game for everyone who likes the pretty patterns, but is too intimidated to try playing themselves. This is a game with a stated design goal of “I want a SHMUP I can play with my Mom.”
I’ll save the details of how I’m trying to go about this for another post. But meanwhile, here is a teaser video of the game in action! (Which, sadly, shows off none of the multiplayer fun, since it was made on the day of the IGF deadline, when no one was around to help me multiplay it. So it goes!)