I can moan all year long about how modern games have five uses for every button and require a Masters to understand, or I can do something about it. So, although most of what I want to tell you is very much under NDA, I can tell you I’m working on a game that will hopefully go some way to show that you don’t need to overcomplicate things and that sometimes the simplest ideas are the best.
The game, which had a title and now doesn’t for various reasons, will use a very basic control method, have a single, focused game mechanic but will be utterly fab and hugely addictive. There’s also a good chance it’s going to sport some spiffing visuals and a soundtrack even the likes of Tuffcub could appreciate. And, via the magical medium of Sony’s wonderful Minis service, will be playable – when it hits the Store – on both PS3 and PSP.
I’m not a coder, though – the last ‘game’ I made was on the Amiga and it wasn’t particularly well received – but luckily for this project (and hopefully some more afterwards) I don’t need to be because I’m entrusted major portions of the development to a third party who very much sympathise with my love of keeping things simple. But, yes, the project got the ‘green light’ and is already in a playable, prototype stage with tweaking being done on the gameplay.
Naturally I want to tell you more about this, but it’s not quite time yet. There’s still lots of work to be done in all aspects of the game but rest assured that as soon as I can reveal more I will do – and I hope that you’ll treat my future posts on the subject as objective and considered rather than crass and cheap. Obviously I’d like everyone to buy the game so I can retire and play on my Spectrum all day, but I won’t be doing the hard sell on the site.
So, yeah, hopefully this is the start of a few posts on the development process of a Minis title, we’re certainly doing something a bit different with this one (more on that later) and trying a few things that are new but most importantly the game will show our readers what I’ve been trying to get across over the years in my many ranting (and probably rather boring) blogs: a tight, straightforward focused idea is often the foundations of a great game.