Hi there!

I'm happy to show you, for the first time, the game I've worked on for the last two months, Sealers, a project from Studio Drowtales.

Sealers is a Tower-Defense game set in the DrowTales universe.

I'm working on it as a contractor for DrowTales Studio.

Here's some screenshots:

Click to show larger images

And here's an overview of the game team:

Click to enlarge

The game will be available at the end of October.

Also, if you're not too far from Norwalk, CT, make sure to visit Webcomiccon. A playable demo of the game will be on display with a 42″ screen to show Sealers in its full resolution. Two levels only for the demo.

If you’re in Quebec and Connecticut is too far for you, the demo will be playable also at Cape and Kimono this week end.

Bye!

Currently, I feel like there's a diffuse lack of interesting games in the Android Market. I feel like I want to spend money on it, but I can't. This is more a consumer opinion than a developer one, though.

While the iPhone App Store releases games like Dead Space, Death Smiles or EspGaluda, Android Market still propose the same games from months. Developers still see the Android Market as a minor opportunity, opposed to the App Store which currently is one of the best showcases for your games.

Surely, there's a lot of cool games, like The impossible Game (and its DLC), Game Dev Story and the Zenonia series, but it's not enough. Also, they're all available on the iPhone too.

Kairosoft released a lot of interesting Sim games, like Grand Prix Story and Hot Springs Story, but in my opinions they all lack that feeling Game Dev Story had.

Yoyo Games made Game Maker capable of deploying games to Android, and released on the store some of their major hits, like Karoshi and They need to be fed.

Also Unity is capable of deploying to Android, another good point for future growth.

There's also some interesting casual games, like Abduction, UNO, and of course Angry Birds, along with all its other versions like Rio and Seasons. If you like Poker, Zynga Poker seems to be good, with connectivity with the Facebook version and tournaments. Also, they give you a bonus credit when you first play it, but of course it can hardly deal with online competitors like PartyPoker, with a huge number of users. In the genre of Card Games you can also find UNO, with multiplayer wi-fi mode.

I really enjoyed Turbo Fly 3D, a wipeout-like game, with constant updates including new races and features.

EA made Need for Speed Shift for Android, then they dropped and published the other chapter of the series only for iPhone. It's not a very good sign, indeed.

I haven't had the opportunity to try it yet, but Symphony of Eternity seems a very good JRPG. Not that I like JRPG very much, in reality I hate them, but it's produced by Kemco, so it is a good sign of the Market growth.

Now that the Android user base has increased dramatically, I hope more developers will be interested on porting their game on it.

Let's Type is the first game I've ever published. I developed it using Adobe Flash CS4, in ActionScript 3.0.

It's a simple and funny typing game. In Let's Type, you have to press on the keyboard the right key that appears on the screen before time runs out.

You start with 3 lives. As you keep playing, difficulty will grow up, giving you less and less time. Also, you have to avoid red letters, or you will lose a life.

Let's Type implements a combo system. Every right letter gives you a combo point, which make you earn more points, but your combo points counter will return to 0 either if you press the wrong letter or if you press on a red letter, so be careful.

Let's Type is now available for non-exclusive site-locked licenses in the Game Shop area of FlashGameLicense. Also, if you're interested in sponsoring the game and do not have an account on FGL, you can send me an email.

Yesterday I've attended NOTGames Fest at Cologne, Germany. It has been wonderful!

I would really like to say thank you to the curators of the event, CologneGameLab and Tale of Tales, for bringing such an inspiring expo, and of course to all the exhibitors:

• Dear Esther, by The chinese room
• Dinner Date, by Jeroen D. Stout
• Strange Rain, by Erik Loyer
• Trauma, by Krystian Majewski
• The Lake, by Patrick Juchli
• Kairo, by Richard Perrin
• Ceremony of Innocence, by Alex Mayhew
• Flight of the Fireflies, by Jonathan Hise Kaldma
• Window Cleaner, by Wesley Wilson
• Amnesia, by Frictional Games
• The Endless Forest, by Tale of Tales
• The Path, by Tale of Tales
• The Graveyard, by Tale of Tales

In addition, I can't say how happy I am to have met the Frictional Team, the creators of Amnesia The Dark Descent, probably my favourite game ever!

I will post some photos from GDC and Gamescom 2011 soon! Bye!

I've probably passed the worst month of my life, in terms of bad luck.

In less than thirty days I've got broken, with apparently no reason:

• My laptop's battery
• My laptop's audio card
• My PC's hard disk
• My secondary PC's motherboard
• My PS3 (not related, but damn)

Fortunately, I've not lost any important game file. By the way, I'll take the chance to give you some advices, and warn you about how to prevent your project from being lost forever. You surely do not want to lose all your files and start over (or, more realistically, drop everything).

Just be machine-independent. When developing games, don't look at your PC as your personal space where you can store all your files, but only as a tool to develop content.

You never know when bad luck will come and ruin your hard disk containing your precious new game.

Here's a brief list of useful advices:

- Save back-up daily: Everyday, before switching off your PC, just remember to back-up your project folder.

Store them wisely, and do not delete older ones. It may happen that you need to check a modification you made some days ago to track down an annoying bug you discovered later.

Also, it's cool to see how your game grows as months passes, and it can help you to have a realistic overview of your progresses.

- Use external discs: In my current configuration, I have two external 3,5" 1TB hard disks and a 2,5" 1TB one.

Usually 2,5" costs a little more, but they are worth it, since they are USB-powered and do not need additional power plug.

Using external discs prevent you from losing all your projects files when your PC will stop working for absolutely no reason.

Just store all your back-ups in external discs daily. 

DropBox: An entry-level solution for online storage.

Dropbox is really useful when used for working with other people around the world, since it lets you share folders with other Dropbox users.

Also, it lets you access your files through their website, using your Dropbox account.

It comes with a 2GB free plan, along with other more performing non-free plans.

Version Control System: A version control system essentially is a repository of files with monitored access.

You can use them to compare current files with their older version, or to coordinate your team, for example preventing your two programmers to modify the same source file at once.

It's a must-use for bigger projects. I usually use and recommend TortoiseSVN.

- Burn discs: This is more a paranoic thing, since your back-ups are already safe in external discs, but you never know what may happen, and surely I feel better knowing that I have an additional way to recover my project. I usually do it for major builds.

If you have other useful advices, leave a comment!