Over the past three years I've spent my free time releasing and maintaining three unique games for the mobile platforms (Hamster Chase, Hyperspace Pinball, Tiltz) and three games on the PC platform (Cycles3D, Hyperspace Pinball, Paper Cowboys) doing all the programming on my own. Along the way I've accumulated a fair bit of general game development knowledge that I can use in future projects; most recently, how to develop a network game in Unity.
Despite the past successes, I still feel unaccomplished. I'm therefore setting my sights on my next goal:
Help develop and release a game that is distributed over Steam.
Having a game on Steam, Desura and Indievania for professional game developers may be par for the course; but to me, having helped develop just one game that made its way to Steam would be my personal super bowl ring.
Could it be Dominoze? Maybe. As impressed as people have been with the latest concept art, there's not a solid design behind it. I don't think it will get there unless I find a talented designer and other help.
Could it be a successor to Paper Cowboys? It's possible. I was also tinkering with a tower defense game called "Lone Star Zombies" which imitates mechanics from the success Starcraft 2 mod "Mineralz" and a custom Killing Floor server I like to play on. Like with Dominoze, I seem to not have any inspiration for design. I can make a cookie cutter platformer or tower defense game, but there's a certain signature, personality, and quality of detail to a PC game that I just don't factor into my designs.
If there's one thing I've learned in the past 20 years, it's that I can program almost anything I put my mind to. I can be a helpful asset to a game development team who would have a part-time programmer like me. I may not quit my full time job developing medical software and put 40 hours into a week writing games, but my projects speak for what I can do in 48 hours, and what I can release in a year.
If you're on a team and need a programmer thoroughly familiar with Unity, or you're an individual who just feels like collaborating on a game, feel free to drop me a line.
In the meantime, I'll be working on the next major update for Hamster Chase: Boosters and hats!
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