Author Archive

• By Rich

  Tags

  forum

  Posted in

  HTML5

  3 comments

  HTML5 Game Developers Forum is open

  15th Feb 2013

  3

  We’re pleased to announce that our new HTML5 Game Developers Forum is now open.

  The forum replaces the old ‘news’ focused site we had. The news will instead be posted to the forum allowing for easier contribution from others and discussion on it.

  We’ve split the forum into what we feel are a logical set of boards, without being too overwhelming. There is plenty of room to expand and create new boards in the future.

  It’s still early days of course, but we would greatly appreciate you joining and taking part; and helping to spread the word.

  You can join at http://www.html5gamedevs.com

   

• By Rich

  Tags

  1GAM, wargame

  Posted in

  Games

  2 comments

  Trashie Rampage – Our January 1GAM entry

  1st Feb 2013

  2

  

  Trashie Rampage is our first entry into the 1 Game a Month challenge. I expect you’re probably already looking for the link to click to play it? Sorry but not this time. Trashie Rampage is a turn-based open-plan ‘war’ game for 2 players (ideally one of them aged around 6).

  I created the game one extremely wet and windy Saturday with my son. Like most 6 year old’s he is in to collecting all kinds of things. From Gormittis to Lego Minifigs to Moshi Monsters. Parents with similar age children will no doubt understand what I mean. Often sold in blind-packed bags you never quite know which character you’re going to get inside. Recently he had been saving his pocket money to buy Trashies. These are squidgy little creatures that live on a rubbish dump and have charming names like ‘Spew Getti’ and ‘Yucko Taco’.

  Anyway the point is he’s got about 20 of these little things now. Which as any old-school Warhammer player will know is plenty enough for a skirmish battle on your carpet 🙂

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• By Rich

  Tags

  christmas, html5, platformer

  Posted in

  Clients

  2 comments

  Yeti Dash HTML5 Mobile Browser Game

  29th Jan 2013

  2

  

  Back before Christmas (you remember Christmas don’t you? it seems so long ago now) we finished an HTML5 mobile browser game for the agency BiteCp as part of a Christmas campaign.

  In Yeti Dash you choose from 3 characters: a Viking, a penguin or a snow leopard and control them across a horizontally scrolling snow bound level all the while being chased by a Yeti. The level is full of ice to speed you up, fish for you to throw at the yeti to slow him down and various things to avoid. And should the yeti catch you.. well, you have to endure some yeti smooching (yes, for real).

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• By Rich

  Tags

  BBC, CBeebies, html5

  Posted in

  Clients

  0 comments

  Old Jack’s Boat HTML5 game released for CBeebies

  23rd Jan 2013

  0

  

  We are pleased to announce that our 4th HTML5 mobile browser game for the BBC pre-school channel CBeebies is now out. Based on the brand new show Old Jack’s Boat, staring Bernard Cribbins, Helen Lederer and Freema Agyeman, it allows little adventurers to peer into the depths of the sea and uncover the colourful characters living down below.

  

  “Old Jack’s Boat is a brand new show on CBeebies and features Children’s TV legend Bernard Cribbins as ‘Old Jack’,  a retired fisherman who lives in a little village on the North Yorkshire Coast.  Helped along by a cast of colourful characters, ‘Old Jack’ tells tall stories from inside his old fishing boat. The series is a mix of live action and animation which allows Old Jack to wander along the seabed, visit tropical islands and fly high in the air on balloons always accompanied by his faithful dog, Salty.”

  

  As with all CBeebies projects we have to take a very different approach to the design and implementation due to the age ranges involved. For example buttons use iconography, not text, and the game needs to cater for ‘inaccurate’ touch events and other random elements that 3 year old’s can inflict upon your mobile device.

  Point your mobile browser at http://bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/ to find the fish.

   

• By Rich

  Tags

  Happy New Year

  Posted in

  Business

  9 comments

  Where did the time go?

  8th Jan 2013

  9

  

  2013 is certainly well under way now. Christmas and New Years are all but a distant memory and I suspect all of us are now deep back in to our work. Although we enjoyed a brief spell away from the office it’s full steam ahead here right now.

  I intended to write a summary of what 2012 meant for Photon Storm, but if I had to sum it up in one single word it would be: independence. 2012 was the year we went from being busy, hard working, full-time employees to being mentally busy, hard working, full-time-and-then-some but working for ourselves. And what a roller coaster of a ride it has been.

  We took the concious decision to break away from Flash entirely and focus 100% on HTML5 games, specifically running in the mobile web browser. It was always meant to be a mixture of making our own games / IP, doing client work and collaborating on Kiwi, the HTML5 game framework we’re deeply invested in. In an ideal world those three elements would balance out quite evenly. Of course the reality is that client work sucked up a huge majority of our time – this is in no way a bad thing of course, given the current economic climate we are in no way complaining about having lots of work on the books, but it did present challenges to a company so small that we hadn’t anticipated tackling quite so soon.

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