Antair Games An independent game developer blog

Our new server has been occupying and exciting Andrey in roughly equal quantities. (Scientifically based on the way WordPress is responding to me this morning, it rocks).

I’ve been drafted in to the Asteroid Jane iPhone version team, it’s always an experience revisiting code or a project when a little time has passed.

Revision 4 of Sneezies iPhone is starting to look a little more like we intended. Craig is hard at work on the art. The other ideas are still rolling around the office.

After weeks of disappointment, I finally got a game from my rental service that I really like, Civilisation Revolution. Enjoying this was the final confirmation that I’m completely out of touch with the kind of games I’m really into. I guess I’m in a difficult age related transition period. If not for that, and for Portal’s XBLA release next week, I’d almost certainly have bought Age of Booty, it’s great fun.

It’s that time of year when most British console gamers have to decide whether they’re FIFA or PES. It’s never been a tough choice for me, PES all the way, but last year’s version was disappointing. FIFA08 was the first one I’ve played that I didn’t hate, and this year looks like a difficult choice. If I base it on the demos, the FIFA 09 demo blew up in my face after about 20 seconds each time I tried it, whereas PES looks much prettier this time around, but the engine felt very similar. No clear winner there.

— ELSEWHERE —

I was looking forward to seeing how the new Xbox dashboard looks, but now I’m really looking forward to seeing how the community games thing works out (video embedded below).

Keith Alperin did an awesome job spreading the word and getting press coverage of his Mercury Mover application, and he’s shared his secrets here: Hacking the Press.

Apparently Multiwinia hasn’t been doing so well with the exposure, but has really good conversion rates. Check out this look at this plea from the developers: Save Multiwinia.

When it’s not going well, Productive Flourishing has some great tributes to failure to keep the positivity flowing :).

I found the Fustian Future blog last week, and I particularly enjoyed reading his motivation to go indie. Almost 10 years ago I threw myself into the indie life with similar reckless abandon, so it’s somehow comforting to read about others doing the same even during harsh economic times. No job, no contract, no product, no working on your business on the side for a couple of years… etc. It’s crazy, but that doesn’t make it any less awesome. You can only do it when you’re young, as time goes by it gets harder and harder, responsibilities pile up, and then your window is gone. I may have made a few mistakes along the way, but I’m glad I started when and how I did, and I hope it goes well for Yac.

Puppy games adopted Gravitron 2, and it looks very cool, I’ll definitely try it out next time I fire up Windows. I love the gravity based motion thing, could never get enough of it.