Heat Shield - iPhone game

Conor

Heat Shield is my first iPhone game. I developed it using the Torque 2D engine from Garage Games.

Features:

• A unique combination of tilt and touch based gameplay not possible on any other platform.
• 10 Missions on different planets and moons in our solar system.
• 6 real spacecraft, each with unique handling.
• Tutorial mission teaches you how to control your craft and complete mission objectives.
• Online leaderboard.

Trailer on YouTube:

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWzPlZVYMho[/ame]

Screenshots:



Website:

http://blackmarketgames.com/heatshield

Click here to get Heat Shield on iTunes ($1.99)

Emil Mujanovic

DUDE! You're a maniac!
The game looks fun, I'll be sure to check it out when I finally get my hands on an iPhone.

Steve Schulze

Black Market Games rides again. By Gar it's been a while. Looks like it came up pretty well, Conor.

For those who have the hardware, I can vouch that it's a fun little game if a tad stressful.

MoP

Looks very cool. Does this work on the iPod Touch?

Conor

Caseyjones - yeah I'm a game-makin' maniac! Try and stop me!

Jackablade - bet you didn't think you'd see another Blackmarket Games title so soon!

MoP - yes, it works on iPhone or iPod touch. That video is me playing it on my iPod touch 2nd gen. It's a little slower on the 1st generation iPod touch, but still playable.

nkoste

Really cool game. -congrats!

StJoris

Very Nice! Might I ask how long the development of said game took?

Conor

StJoris - it took longer than I expected!

I worked on it 3 days a week. Started in October last year when Garage Games announced their Torque engine for iPhone. I spent the first 3 months just learning how to get stuff running on the iPhone and getting to grips with the Torque engine. I was trying to make a shoot-em-up but it was just running too slowly, so in January I scrapped the shoot-em-up idea and came up with a new game design, which turned into Heat Shield. I was working on Heat Shield specifically in January and February, and submitted the finished game to Apple at the end of Feb. So total development time was 5 months, working 3 days a week.

ru4it

if i had an iphone or itouch i would buy this game!

Zcorpion

ru4it wrote: »

if i had an iphone or itouch i would buy this game!

me too. Looks great and fun:)

vladino

Conor wrote: »

StJoris - it took longer than I expected!

I worked on it 3 days a week. Started in October last year when Garage Games announced their Torque engine for iPhone. I spent the first 3 months just learning how to get stuff running on the iPhone and getting to grips with the Torque engine. I was trying to make a shoot-em-up but it was just running too slowly, so in January I scrapped the shoot-em-up idea and came up with a new game design, which turned into Heat Shield. I was working on Heat Shield specifically in January and February, and submitted the finished game to Apple at the end of Feb. So total development time was 5 months, working 3 days a week.

I can just second this Started developing my game almost for iPhone half year ago thinking it will be done in 2-3 months. Today, still a lot of work left, but slowly coming all together

dolemite

I DLed and played it. Thought it was really good. The tilt controls were very smooth and responsive.

Generalvivi

Fantastic!

pior

Bought!
Congrats!

Harry

*insert tasteless/inappropriate columbia joke*

I'd buy it if i had one of those phones.

Conor

Harry - you get to fly the Atlantis and Discovery shuttles in the game, I decided to leave out Challenger and Columbia, but don't let that stop you ;-)

Harry

I always wanted to fail to record a saxophone solo in space
oh shit I just realised youre a melbournite
Fuckin' represent.

kwakkie

Good job! Downloading this tonight :P!

How are the sales going thusfar? Im curious because Im currently developing an iPhone game with a friend myself We seem to be having the same problems(development taking longer than expected )

rooster

brilliant idea

Conor

kwakkie wrote: »

Good job! Downloading this tonight :P!

How are the sales going thusfar? Im curious because Im currently developing an iPhone game with a friend myself We seem to be having the same problems(development taking longer than expected )

I can't give you exact figures but let's just say that it's not going to cover the cost of development. Unless you're prepared to spend some money on marketing your game, don't expect to make a profit.

Michael Knubben

Hey Conor, nice to see a new game from you so soon already. I'd check this out, but I don't have an iPhone. Maybe I'll ask around and see if any of my colleagues are interested.

StJoris

Conor wrote: »

I can't give you exact figures but let's just say that it's not going to cover the cost of development. Unless you're prepared to spend some money on marketing your game, don't expect to make a profit.

Wait, what?! I was actually under the impression that it would be profitable relatively easy. Starting to work on an iPhone game myself but hearing this stirs things up a bit.

Conor

StJoris - start promoting your game now. Spam screenshots EVERYWHERE. I recommend you spend about 50% of your time on marketing if you want to make money.

kwakkie

thanks for the info Conor Yeah, I definately think sending out screenshots and making a simple webpage could help quite a bit... There are quite a lot of small Iphone/mobile game review sites and they are very willing to showcase work from new developers! Our plan is: make a website>announce our projects>contact a lot of iphone/mobile game sites were not doing it for the money either but it would be nice to have some effort payed off

@stjoris, I think thats only the case if you were there at the start of the 'goldrush', the market is oversaturated right now and you definately need to do something extra to get noticed in the app store!