I’m so pleased to announce here first that I am well into the development to recreate a game I made back in 2009 called Archangel: Fate of the Galactic Commonwealth, based on a project I created even further back in 2005 called Battlestar for Windows Mobile devices.
The original iPhone game, made with GarageGames’ iTorque 2D, put you in the captain’s chair of a prototype battlecruiser to defeat an armada of alien warships.
From a developer standpoint, making the game in 54 days with then-very-beta release of iTorque 2D was an absolute nightmare. Just trying to get the app not to crash and dealing with so many flags and settings before and during Xcode, it barely made it to the App Store. But when it arrived, it was well received, though people wanted more. I implemented updates to the original app, but couldn’t even get the new version to compile, leaving me stranded with a version 1.0 product.
When I switched to an early beta of GameSalad in 2010, I knew I was very limited in what I could do, so I simplified the game into a 10-stage, fixed scenario shooter called Archangel: Vengeance of the Makuzi Ascendancy, and it would only work on the iPad, since they didn’t offer Universal support then. The game turned out to be less than worthy than its predecessor and by the time GameSalad offered a rudimentary file save system, it was too late to wait.
Now that Corona SDK has become my engine of choice, I decided to remake Archangel: FGC as a bonafide 2.0 update for existing customers, while relaunching it with a whole new look and feel to the game. It already offers Universal, Retina and Widescreen support, and will feature In-App purchases for ship upgrades, social network integration, and more.
And, because Corona SDK is so powerful, I am able to implement a technique I call audioQ that allows the code to create dynamic voiceover phrases with 3D positional audio for a more interactive game experience. Archangel: FGC 2.0 already features a whopping 150 voiceover phrases, and I plan to get professional voiceover actors from places like Voices123.com or even accept amateur submissions to be implemented in the game! Not only that, I’m looking for voiceovers in many other languages, which I think everyone should consider when developing an app to reach as many markets as possible.
As soon as I complete Archangel: FGC 2.0 before this summer, I will post the function in Code Exchange, because I think people do enjoy hearing good voiceovers in a game (Ever play an Xbox/PS3/Wii game and have to read all the dialog in bubbles? And they’ve got gigabytes of available storage!), as it is also fun for the developer to implement and feature.
If you’re really interested in trying out an early alpha version of the game and can offer constructive criticism and ideas, please sign up at this Testflight link. Unfortunately, I can only accept a small group of individuals, so I can properly keep track of who’s got what and how they perceive and desire the gameplay to be.
Thanks, and stay tuned for more info!