Update: Star Relic was also featured on Rock Paper Shotgun this week! Take a look.

Star Relic has been published by now only on a few sites but is already quite successful. With 120k players so far, a NewGrounds’ Daily 5th prize, and an awesome 4.3/5.0 review in JayIsGame I cannot complain. And that is not all! I already have fans! I never had fans! Players wanting to create RPGs based on the lore of the game,  a few more non-exclusive licenses sold to sponsors, and… take a look at this:

“Just wanted to drop you a line to say thanks for such a great flash game, developers like yourselves keep the gaming community fresh and fun.”

(Holy.)

I decided the best approach to handle this is to start building a small community around Indigon. I always believed communities are the core of small/indie games. It’s time I shall nurture one. There is nothing like a small group of loyal fans who track every update about your future projects and try to document the small text of the Klosian Nebula star systems… Thus, the AMAZING INDIGON’S FLASH STUDIO FORUMS were formed. Currently they look like a shoe-box, but in the future they will be fully integrated into the blog.

Now that they are set up and I told you a little about the success of Star Relic, some plans for the upcoming two weeks: I am planning to continue the distribution of Star Relic to the many-many Flash portals across the web, hopefully getting more than one million views by the end of June. Work on my new mega-secret game currently called Unannounced Project (creative) has begun, but now consists only of writing a design document (I am not going to repeat the mistake of Star Relic again…).

The factions of Star Relic in their full glory

Soon in a table-top RPG? O_o

To conclude, I decided to share some early Star Relic graphics, from the time I had a completely different idea in mind. If you don’t know, Star Relic was originally an arcade/simulation game, where the player controlled a fully upgraded star ship in the Klosian Nebula, fighting Sodinar scum and warping to various adventures. While I adore this concept, I didn’t feel ready enough to develop something in that scale back then. And now? Who knows what the future holds for Indigon Flash Studio ?

Enjoy, and don’t forget to visit the forums!

Warp Gate Online!

Star Relic is now out to the public! You can play it on the sponsor’s website here. The game will be distributed to more websites in the upcoming weeks.

What a relief. After a year in development (and a few vacations in between), it’s finally out. Now… Now it is time to start working on another game.

Enjoy the game!

Play Star Relic

Finally.

I accepted a bid on Star Relic after a month it was on FlashGameLicense.com (FGL). The game will be sponsored by FlashRelax and will be online next week.

The fact is I am a bit disappointed, since I am about to receive a small amount of payment for it compared to the time it was under development. As I claimed in previous posts – development without a definite idea in mind is a disaster. Star Relic was modified and patched with ideas and mechanics throughout the development. While people who play it are enjoying the orbit mechanics, many others claim the game is too difficult to understand.

Doh. This is true. But when I look back, this is not actually a problem for me. I have started developing games not only because of the potential profit, but because I enjoy playing games, thinking of new ideas, implementing them, and sharing them to the world.

Oh well. There is still much to learn and improve.

On the other hand, Star Relic was not in vain. After showing the game shortly on a monthly meeting of Israeli game developers, I was recruited for a new studio called Imba Games. Obviously, I cannot speak of the nature of the games I am developing there at the moment.

I released the Star Relic beta for a few testers today. The game mechanics are fully operational (besides a few minor bugs), and now the focus goes to the campaigns and character customization. So far, it seems I’ll manage to finish the game completely by the end of the deadline (end of January).

My second project using the Packed engine was released today:

MagickA

It’s another tower defense game made in a week of work, under the contract with Packed. All the graphics and level design were made independently by myself. Though the Packed engine has many limitations (well, it is still in beta), I’m actually enjoying making these little games. The next games, though, will be released on a longer interval.

Well you see, five courses, one seminar and two jobs (Star Relic is a JOB!) are very demanding. Once everything gets settled again, I’ll start working on a new Tower Defense game (hopefully with a newer version of the engine with supports campaigns) and push towards a Star Relic beta (oh my).

Talking about Star Relic…

I got the habit of finishing one Star Relic task a day. “I got three projects to hand in by tomorrow? I don’t care, I have to finish this!”. Without putting some pressure I’d end up finishing the beta by 2012 instead of in a month. The game looks great so far, and I wish I could show what the game looks like and how it sounds, but it is early to do so. The work consists mostly of a few, yet major, programming tasks, since all the graphics, sounds and voices are already done (weeks ago).

I assure you that by the next update, Star Relic will be very close to its beta. I aim to December the 15, but you can never be sure with all these university assignments following you in each move.