What a long strange trip it's been. I remember when I was starting to work on this project several months ago, how it formed in my head as a different game entirely, and how everything has come together to make Internet Defense a reality. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The game is for the iPhone. Having recently been laid off from my job as a programmer for contract apps (SciFi Wire, DVice, Citysearch, etc.), I decided to strike out on my own and try programming games for a living. The result of two months work has been Internet Defense, which is almost ready for submission to the app store. You can see some screenshots of it here: [link]
and here: [link]

Originally, the idea was for a tower defense game, where you were a wizard with upgradeable spells to rain down on undead hordes that were attacking. I like the idea of defense games, but I wanted to make one based on active input, rather than just an upgrade-and-watch style of play. The idea was that to cast spells, you would actually need to trigger them.

"All your games are about wizards and magic and stuff." My girlfriend Lynda complained. She's right though, it was time for a change of pace. About this time, I was thinking of how I would draw all this stuff, because I really suck at spriting. Well, it happens that I met a rather talented friend, :ScreamingGerbil:, when working on a previous project that kind of balked. Remembering the kind of sprite art that he did, I realized that a game involving such fun, comic style would be much more appealing than what I had before envisioned. Since emoticons are the kind of art that I knew I could get, and they kind of represent the Internet as an idea to me, Internet Defense was born. The rest kind of spiraled out from there.

Still, I wasn't convinced that just a simple arcade style game would work out. It needed replay value, and some kind of challenge mode. I've always been a fan of the old Megaman games, so I played off of that, and created a set of villains that appear to challenge the player. Each villain has his own style of playing, and some unique boss creeps to aid in his attack. I hope that the villains will be challenging enough to make even the twitchiest players cringe in frustration--as all good arcade-style challenges should.

It's been a tough trip. Working at home during the days is a constant battle between sleep, MMO's, and getting actual work done . However, in the end, I've managed to overcome my own inhibitions and produce a game that is actually quite a bit of fun. Even during playtests, I get so involved in the thrill of squishing little emoticons that I forget that I'm actually working. It's a pretty good feeling, and I know that the game is becoming the fun final product I've envisioned.

There's still a little to do, and while the app is in the app store, I'm going to have to go everywhere and do everything I can for publicity. That means making banner ads, holding dA contests, submitting my app to all the different review sites, and maybe even buying some publicity on google. The budget is slim, but hopefully once I make a few sales, things will start looking up.

I really want to do games like this professionally, but it's all going to depend on how this turns out. Can I make it alone as an app programmer, or is it back to the daily grind of programming for The Man? I hope you'll all lend me some support and keep checking back on my progress. Any ideas for publicity or advertising would be great, as it's not really my forte.

Anyhoo, take care, and hope to hear from you all soon!

-Brad