Freelancing, prototyping and beginning production (Update on the latest)

Been a little quiet lately on Part Time Monkey's behalf, so here's an update on the past few months.

An awesome unannounced Best Fiend title is in development at Seriously, which is in need of a Senior 3D Game Artist. I was fulfilling that hole for a while, and can recommend the project, team and work environment to any experienced game devs!

Even though the above pros, I still felt the urge to come back and focus on my own projects for the full 100% I have in me.

Video: https://youtu.be/aj1mFCFL_sE

During my time in Seriously and a little after that, I developed a Pod Racing prototype (working title "123 Go!", above picture).

The idea was to make a basic racer-type game with higher-than-normal production values using ghost player data to simulate real-time multiplayer tournaments. While the racing and competing felt good, the "meta-design" of it just didn't feel right. Either it was going to be overly complicated or just plain boring after playing for a day or two. Also the way the levels needed to be created took too much time and after Monkeyrama I swore that I wouldn't do a game that required too much on the level production.

So I buried (or at least froze) "123 Go!" after two or three weeks of development.

Video: https://youtu.be/3xP5UQl6J8Q

Next up, I wanted to try make something similar to Hill Climb Racing but with, again, higher production values and a little something added (working title "OffRoad", above picture). 

The meta-design was supposed to be close-to ripped off from HCR with added features, such as being able to fine-tune your car's values and slot-machine type-of retention features. The racing feels pretty good and the car behavior varies quite much with its "bad", "medium" or "good" settings but, for some reason again, it's just missing that something. Also, whoever played the game felt that it's just "Hill Climb Racing with pimped up graphics."

So I scrapped (or at least froze) "OffRoad" after a bit more than a week of development.

Video: https://youtu.be/zGqzlNGyhp0

Currently I'm developing a space shooter game (working title "Space Shooter", above picture).

This one more or less follows HCR's meta-design as well. Long levels that can't be completed fully on the first try, upgradeable and changeable weapons and pod, etc. The levels are pseudo-randomly generated, i.e. they follow predefined curve-based rules for object type and probability, but some of their properties are random such as position and scale. This way creating levels is fast, and they feel the same with minor changes every time you play them.

The game's been in development for a bit more than a week now. I'm aiming to publish it in March/April but you never know, of course.

"Space Shooter" will be free with IAPs and incentivized ads. After the previous premium-test with Monkeyrama, it seems like the only way to go - at least for now.

Speaking of Monkeyrama...

Video: https://youtu.be/ISBcx-l38dM

While developing the prototypes, I also switched to a free model on Monkeyrama and developed it for Android (it needed more than one push of a button in Unity! At least three.) I also integrated my "game portal" in it, which updates its content online so I can cross-promo my other stuff more easily.

The first chapter is fully free to play, and the rest of the content (3 episodes with 84 levels each, 4 Challenges) can be purchased with $0.99. 

It'll be out as free on iOS and Google Play on the 14th of January. Unless I f*ck something up.