This morning I officially declared Gratuitous Space Battles released, which means there is finally a demo, the price is up a little bit, and people can review it or try it without worrying that the current version is not representative. This game has been about a year in the making, and taken a huge amount of effort. It’s also cost more to make than any other game I’ve made, and was original IP, in a genre that I’m not especially known for, aimed at the hardcore(ish) PC gamer during a recession. In short, everything about this project has screamed “Don’t do it!”.
However, I’ve always made the games I really wanted to make. GSB was originally called ‘Dictator’ and was a sort of spiritual successor to Democracy. Things didn’t turn out that way, and I think I’ve made the right choices. It started life looking like this (once the idea of spaceship battles took over)
And ended up looking like this:
Which I prefer :D
I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who emailed me, posted on my forums, and here on this blog who gave me good ideas and good feedback, and encouragement to make the game as good as it could be. I should also point out that this is far from the end of development on GSB. If the game sells, I can keep working on it, and hopefully it will continue to evolve and get bigger and better for a while yet. More on that later.
In typical crap planning, the release of my most ambitious game ever has coincided with my birthday, and with me moving house (any day now). So I’m sat in the only room in the hosue not full of boxes, and with not much but the PC and this chair not scheduled for imminent boxing. (I’m moving on Monday). I am also very tired.
Please be understanding if the website is unresponsive today or the demo has a bug in it. I’ll fix both if they need fixing, as soon as I can. (AFAIK both are fine).
And go buy it now :D
Cheers