I founded Blue Isle nearly two years ago. In that time I've had the real pleasure of working on something that is a huge passion of mine; RTS games. I've also met and worked with some amazing and truly talented individuals. I want to start by giving a genuine thank you to the entire team at Blue Isle.
A few months ago I was forced to make a very tough decision; putting our first game, Subsistence, on hold. What does this mean? Well, we ceased all production on the game as we re-evaluated the company.
It was becoming increasingly tough to continually fund the development of a game with no end in sight. The Art Tools which we badly needed from Blizzard were nowhere to be found, and the Marketplace is being delayed indefinitely. The original plan was to spend 1.5 years developing a game, upon which time we hoped the Marketplace would be up and running.
I knew from the beginning this was a huge risk to take. Spend time, money, and resources developing a game for a platform we weren't even sure existed. Some risks pay off, this one didn't.
Subsistence is on hold, but it is not cancelled. If we can come back to this game at some point in the future - we absolutely, positively, will.
Moving forward, I want to tell you guys about our new plans. We have a new game in the works that we are really excited about. The game universe, story, art, and gameplay we have created for Subsistence is not going to waste.
Mobile touch-screen devices are becoming an increasingly viable platform for gaming. We spent the past three months designing a new game concept. It's an RTS, but we spent a ton of time thinking about how to tailor this type of game to a touch-screen device.
Touch controls allow us to do some really cool things that wouldn't normally be possible in an RTS.
As such, we are designing this from the ground up specifically for iPhones, iPads, and all Android mobile devices.
We are in the early prototyping stages and as soon as we can show you guys some content and screenshots, we will post them here.
Finally, I want to give one last thank you to all of you who have supported us thus far. Your feedback (both positive and negative) helps us as game developers to improve our work and keep going forward. I will let you all know as soon as we have a new game to announce.
Cheers guys,
Alex
Sad that your going IOS route as many other "gold diggers". We serious gamers dont really care about those thing but still, i wish best of luck to you!
Unfortunately these days, there's not many other routes for a small design house like ours to take in order to survive. The big companies don't exactly welcome competition from small guys like us, so we all get pushed around a fair bit.
Not a complaint, that's just how the business world works. As soon as we can get back to PC developing, we will.
I get that, because you wont get much "starting support" from big corporations like blizzard. You need to take it to your own hands, like in whole new level, where you can create it all by yourself.
Just like FE. Unknown Worlds, and Overgrowth (dont remember studios name) are doing as we speak. That takes just a whole lot more dedication and could be SO BIG RISK, so i can clearly see that its not up for everybody to take.
So create everything that you feel its best for you and your team, but remember as long as you start following the BIG mainstream trends, you become just one of them. Good luck!
it doesnt have to be just iOS, hell the Ipad is **** compared to the Acer Iconia a500 Nvida tegra dual core tablet, both more affordable and able to run more detailed games faster.
oh btw its Android Honeycomb, personaly i love playing Galaxy on Fire 2 and Vendetta online, I think these guys can make something a lot better, the RTS games on tablets right now suck so bad.
Why do you need the Art Tools so badly to finish the project?
Agreed. What's so special about those tools that nothing else will do - especially since it's obvious from the screenshots that you've gotten art assets into the Starcraft II engine?
Hey guys I'll try to answer your questions in a bit of detail here.
We were using a 3rd party exporter to take our models from 3ds max into the SC2 game engine. While it sortof worked, it was not an officially supported tool from Blizzard. Getting models into the game was a very tricky process, and one that only worked some of the time. We actually have a lot more content that we simply were not able to get in-game. That's why you'll notice in every screenshot, it's the same textures, units, and environments over and over. Things like custom animations and particle effects were all but impossible to implement as well.
Ah, there's nothing wrong with a cash grab or selling out.
Go for it.
Person who down voted this does not understand business.
Well I just got a Kindle Fire (which has a decent little dual-core in it) and I do agree there are things you can do with touch, so I'm still interested to see where you guys are going.
It's a shame both in that you're not aiming for PCs and that Blizzard didn't work out for you (exactly why I still haven't bought Starcraft II).
However what with outlets like Steam and Desura, I'd have to disagree that mobile devices are your only outlet.
Your absolutely right, Steam and Desura (also things like XBLA) offer more great opportunities for small developers. When I said mobile was our only move, I was referring to our group specifically. We have a very limited development budget now, and developing mobile first allows us to finish a game more quickly. We just had to take a long, honest look at our progress thus far, and this seemed like the best choice for right now.
Well i do hope you will not cancel this and dont forget us loyal followers from whence you began and i want you to do a helluva job making bunches of money until the marketplace opens and we can get this out! :D
While bunches of money is nice, our studio would only see a small percentage of revenues (most of it goes to a publisher and investors). All we need is enough to break even and keep building games!
I knew this mod was too good to be true.