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supericonblog · 4 years ago

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Is Online Gaming Good For Relaxation?

Online gaming is a growing trend, and it's not surprising given the many benefits that it offers. The Internet allows anyone to play games from anywhere, so you can play with friends and family from around the world. The game mechanics are similar to traditional video games, with the added benefit of instant feedback. What's more, online games are also highly customizable so that you can play with other people from all over the world. You can create your online gaming community if you like.

Free Games

Online gaming has become extremely popular in recent years, with many games being free to download and play. These free games are usually funded by microtransactions, where players can buy items or buy additional items to level up their character. These purchases, however, can add up to a high cost over time, so parents should make sure that their children are supervised while playing. This type of gaming also tends to have more microtransactions, and as such, can be expensive. Free online gaming is coming on in leaps and bounds and is accessible to nearly everyone. The enjoyment of playing them is tremendous. I love games inspired by Classics, like Tetris and Pacman.

The World Health Organization believes that online gaming fosters positive social and psychological benefits. It is no secret that many social and psychological benefits have been attributed to this popular activity. In addition to fostering relationships, these games can also help children develop their communication and community skills. The benefits of playing online games are numerous, and parents should consider these aspects of the culture before making any decisions about their children's online activities. Just like in real life, online gaming can help kids develop essential skills and develop new relationships.

Relationships

Although many online gaming sites have safety settings to protect children, this does not apply to every game. Even if a child is safe with strangers, they should still be cautious when chatting with others. It is also essential to talk to children about handling inappropriate behaviour and not giving out personal information. In addition to being careful of the content and language of the games, parents should encourage them to follow their privacy and respect other people's identities.

Another benefit of playing online games is that they are more enjoyable than any other type of game. 86% of boys report that they are more relaxed and happy after playing a game. In addition to improving their mood and concentration, online games can help them improve their mental health. People you meet in online gaming, these relationships can help them build trust and relationships with other gamers. This can make them more receptive to you.

Benefits

There are many benefits to online gaming. While it is not as social as face-to-face contact, it is possible to connect with other players through shared interests. In addition to enhancing your social life, online gaming proves to be a valuable part of many online communities. For instance, you can meet people from all over the world through online forums. Depending on the game, it can even be a great place to meet new friends.

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supericonblog · 6 years ago

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Super Icon - The Long Slow Death of an Indie Studio

Our History So Far…

I began developing games back in the late nineties; Xtreme Racing on Amiga was my first game, and ever since then I have only ever worked at my own development studios.

Starting with Graphic State; initially a sub-contract artwork studio, later moving into handheld game development on the Gameboy systems. This then evolved into Icon Games; focusing on small-ish console games on PlayStation and Wii.

You can view a full list of all the ‘Icon Games’ releases here:

· IconGames_Catalogue

And ‘Graphic State’ releases here:

· GraphicState_Catalogue

I founded Super Icon in 2012; an ‘evolution’ of Icon Games; like the transition from NES to SuperNES! At Super Icon the focus was on creating the games that we wanted to make, rather than trying to ride the coattails of current popular games or casual games. The focus was always trying to make great games, as good as we possibly could – games that people enjoy playing.

Our first proper release was Life of Pixel on PlayStation Mobile. We released a second PSM title around that time too, called MegaBlast.

Back in 2016, after the release of Life of Pixel on Steam and our Battlezone type shooter Vektor Wars, we decided that it would probably be best to partner with a publisher going forward. Our sales numbers were low, and we failed quite badly at building any sort of interest in the games. They didn’t completely tank, but the numbers were poor, and not enough to sustain a business.

At the time we lived in London, and during that period (we were there for about 4-years), we had tough times. I say this as possibly the world’s greatest understatement!

I attempted to document that period a couple of times in the past couple of years, and in the interest of completion I have finally released an account of our time there, which you can read here:

· RHW_MentalHealth

In addition to the financial difficulties, it covers mental health issues and was very difficult to write.

Following the above period, we moved to Cornwall – which is where we are today. Just after the move we ran a Kickstarter for another game; Best Buds vs Bad Guys. It was successful, and we managed to get funds to help complete the development. During the Kickstarter I started chatting to a great bunch of guys at a studio called Whitemoon Dreams.

The upshot was I explained we were not having much success at selling/promoting our games, and they agreed to act as a publisher on Life of Pixel and Best Buds going forward, to take them over onto PlayStation and Switch.

We worked together with them, releasing Super Life of Pixel onto PlayStation 4 and Vita in December 2018. Also, during the development phase, we pitched another title we were making, called Platform Maker. After a fair few rejections, we finally found a publisher in pQube. We renamed the game to PLATAGO, and it was released onto Steam Early Access in 2018, with a full Steam and Switch release in June 2019.

Current Development Phase – 2017 to 2019

Unfortunately, despite most players seeming to enjoy Super Life of Pixel, the sales have been poor. So bad, in fact, that Whitemoon decided they were unable to continue publishing for the time-being. As such, in the first quarter of 2019, we saw our income pretty much completely grind to a halt.

I haven’t been given any PLATAGO figures, but I suspect they are poor – it probably didn’t help that we released a couple of weeks before Super Mario Maker 2 on Switch!

We also developed Vektor Wars for Switch and PS4. Switch is out, but sales were low – since July just under 300 units. PS4 is complete and in Sony QA.

Again, my family and I faced a spell of homelessness this summer, our landlord decided to sell – and we were given 8-weeks to move out. We came closer than ever to not having a home this time, as it coincided with us also earning no revenue at Super Icon. We got lucky in the end and found a small place that we have for one year (the owners are selling early 2020), but it was scary. Added to that we have no savings or fall-back money; it was a tough time. I’m 46 this year, with three great kids who are now that much older, and it is tough for them. I think being a penniless indie develop is a younger person’s game!

Speculative development

I did have a plan though, and it seemed a good one…

In addition to the games we released above, I developed a game called They Came from Beyond (TCFB), which off and on took about 18-months (it is pre-Alpha currently). I pitched to a few publishers, and while there was interest, I didn’t manage to secure a deal. I worked on this while Steve handled code on our other projects.

Hand-on-heart, I thought it was a strong concept, and the best game we have created so far. I was certain I would secure a publishing deal to fund the completion and release, and perhaps finally have a popular game out there. The plan seemed solid – ongoing releases generating income, with a new deal secured in the later stages for our biggest project so far.

I still f#&king love TCFB too, I really do. I KNOW there are bits I need to revisit, and it needs plenty more love and content before it is ready to release, but it appears my faith was entirely misplaced.

You can read an overview document of TCFB here:

· TheyCamefromBeyond_Overview

I pitched TCFB to a lot of publishers, several of whom replied that they really liked the game and the concept, but it wasn’t a good fit for them. I would say the most common comment was that many of the publishers told me that they are shifting away from smaller indie releases like TCFB to larger scale, bigger budget projects – those with budgets up to about half a million dollars. More ‘AA’ than indie really.

So, the lower than expected sales, in combination with failing to secure a deal on TCFB has really proved to be a terminal blow.

I have also developed another title over the last 6-months, called Gates of Hell; which is a sort of follow-up FPS to Vektor Wars. Arcade action, short bursts of high score chasing.

You can read a brief overview here:

· GatesofHell_Summary

Even now, I am still developing; working on a new 2D game. A NES plus visual style shooter; with several game types in there – top down, zoomed out top down, platform run and gun. I had planned to call it ‘The Lost Carts’, but everyone I asked says that name is a bit shit!

The concept is as follows:

Some experimental NES carts have been found, which were created using a custom ‘SuperPowerFX’ chip – which allowed a 1000% increase in enemies, effects, bullets and mayhem. Unfortunately, because of the sheer numbers of enemies and arcade action these games put out, the chips used to overheat, and production had to be cancelled. Only now have the carts been unearthed, and machines are now just powerful enough to handle the gameplay without melting! I had a small series of a few games in mind.

And… one failed concept

Not long after we moved to Cornwall, I also spent about a year (off and on) on another speculative game, called ‘The Tower’.

I pitched to various publishers, and it was a no. I stopped work on The Tower, as without funding it was just too ambitious. There is a blog for it (updated until I stopped working on the project):

https://thetower-game.tumblr.com/

And you can read the pitch doc here:

· TheTower_PitchDoc

Studio Limitations

One of our key strengths as a studio is a proven track record of creating and completing games, often with very minimal budgets. In an ideal world, we would love to expand our resources so we could fully realise the vision we have for our games.

Personally speaking, I love creating games. I love the whole process; from the initial research and prototyping phase, through to making the various ideas a reality, adding little touches and cool ideas, putting it all together and trying to make it all as good as I can.

Continual restriction on resources limits what we can achieve. The result is that we make good games, but not quite great games, and unless you are very lucky, a game needs to be great to really stand out.

It also means that certain elements take longer than I would like, such as graphics and level design. These are typically the bulk of project time, and I create most of them myself, which has several drawbacks:

Quality – I am good at some things, less good at others, and I know I can find others out there who can produce far better-quality graphics than I can alone. When I do commission art, I usually have to request the minimum amount of animation and number of enemy designs. Reviewers and game players notice this instinctively they notice the quality dips, the sometimes overly generic art and lack of animation.

Limiting Factors – often our games are good fun to play, but lack that something to make them stand-out. Throughout development, there are so many ideas for cool visual & gameplay elements – bosses, new enemies, set-piece background art, cut-scenes and story artwork – that we don’t do because we can’t afford to commission artwork.

Level Design – I also handle the level design for every game we do; 2D and 3D. This way of working is probably the single most limiting factor, as you are getting ideas from just one person, and when you play the game, it shows. Most games are the product of a combination of ideas, usually from a range of different people with different tastes and experiences. Without that combination of thoughts and suggestions, a game can lack that special something to make it stand out.

Why did we not try and expand?

Both Steve and I have gone without income at times, to fund development, and when we do take income it is minimal to allow us to fund development as far as we can.

I didn’t believe we had a strong enough track record to secure financing to expand, so I didn’t pursue that option. As a studio we have developed and released more games than most; they haven’t really been successful enough financially. Also, I am on the Autistic spectrum, and this does play quite a pivotal role; I have amazing drive and focus, determination and resilience but saying I lack people skills is an understatement! I mention this because it has been the cause of without doubt the studio’s single biggest downfall; promotion.

I seem to have a complete inability to successfully promote our games, to create compelling game presentations/store pages/social media posts. I have tried many times, and never seem to get anywhere with it. Additionally, when I pitch proposals to third parties, I don’t do justice to the game and vision. As a person, I am very honest, down-to-earth, quiet and reserved – almost the opposite of someone who achieves great things through self-promotion and building a strong network of contacts.

In the past, I have sought advice from several people in the industry, showed them our proposals, asked for feedback – I have tried to improve this aspect. Most recently, when I pitched, They Came from Beyond, I managed to confuse many of the publishers who had no idea what the game was about from the proposal! I revised and adapted based on their feedback, but usually, you only get that initial chance to show the game, publishers don’t tend to revisit once they have said no.

That said, I have pitched quite a few games over the years, and secured several publishing deals – but usually for smaller amounts that are just about enough to get a game completed.

The End of an Era

From day-one, Super Icon has been a rough ride.

As covered above, our biggest issue was always been getting our games noticed and finding an audience. The actual development process is always smooth, and our game reviews are usually reasonably good. In general, everything works quite well, especially given the lack of resources we’ve always battled with.

However, we are not making money, and it has now got to the point where we need to make an urgent decision about our future.

I considered quietly closing the studio down, but I thought I’d see if there was any possibility I could sell or perhaps find a partner/investor. We don’t have much debt, a few hundred, and everything is in good order. We have accounts for each year since incorporation, prepared by our accountants EXCEED based in Surrey.

I spent the last few days reaching out to some contacts of LinkedIn; some amazing, talented and successful people – kind of a last attempt to salvage the studio as it is.

I put together a couple of docs which covered the various aspects of Super Icon, the way the studio has worked, the whole development process. You can read them here:

a. Studio profile doc: LINK

b. Overview of our development process: LINK

This morning though, I have reached the conclusion that we are done. The feedback has been that our games/studio is essentially pretty much worthless. I expected this, but there is always a small glimmer of hope – perhaps that has always been my biggest failing?

Years of fighting tooth and nail just to survive, just to live. Messing up my family’s stability and security, mentally breaking down, and so often treated like shit by landlords, accountants, etc.

I have tried so very hard to make it work, and I always had that hope I could one day do it. Unfortunately, I am now middle-aged with zero pension, no savings or home and a very uncertain future. Time has a way of creeping up on you, one day you think – I still have a long time to turn things around - then suddenly you think, shit, I’m nearly fifty now; an Autistic games industry fuck up with terrible people skills, crippling self-hate and an on-going mental health battle.

I have made A LOT of games that aren’t worth shit, I have an impressive inability to self-promote and perhaps I am now rather out of touch with the industry as a whole?

The main practicality though is that we just can’t afford to continue. Super Icon can’t afford to get the accounts done or pay the monthly studio bills. I don’t really earn much beyond a few hundred here and there, and every week we are running out of money to even buy groceries and essentials for the home.

We just notified the company accountant that we were unable to do the accounts, and this was their typically hugely helpful response:

“My colleague will issue the P45 for Richard and will close off the payroll. As the accounts will not be submitted, there will be some penalties and we also believe Companies House will strike off the company at some point (you may apply for strike off but not sure whether they will allow you to do so and also depends on possible buyer you are looking for). In the given situation, unfortunately we have to terminate our services till this has been resolved.

If you manage to find a suitable buyer and manage to pay the debts, we will be more than happy to reinstate our services.”

So, whatever the future holds, I think Super Icon has run its course. I feel a lot of different emotions, but ultimately, there isn’t much more I can do.

A huge thanks to everyone who bought and/or played our games over the years, and to the other indie developers and indie peeps who have helped us over the years.

Special big thanks to: Jay Koottarappallil, Christian Phillips, Matt Spencer, Rusty Buchert, Jack Littlejohn, Harry Holmwood, Jools Watsham, Garry Williams and probably several others that my currently frazzled brain has forgotten!

Richard Hill-Whittall

Email: [email protected]

September 14th, 2019.

END

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supericonblog · 6 years ago

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SUPER ICON NEEDS YOUR HELP

Our History So Far…

I began developing games back in the late nineties – Xtreme Racing on Amiga was my first game, and ever since then I have only ever worked at my own development studios.

Starting with Graphic State, which initially was a sub-contract artwork studio, later moving into handheld game development on the Gameboy systems. This then evolved into Icon Games, focusing on small-ish console games on Playstation and Wii.

I then founded Super Icon in 2012, with a focus on creating the games that I wanted to make, rather than trying to ride the coat-tails of current popular games or casual games. The focus was always trying to make great games, as good as we possibly can – games that people enjoy playing. Like many other small indie developers, we’ve had ups and downs, but I think the games we’ve made are the best of my career so far. Our first proper release was Life of Pixel on Playstation Mobile.

At the time we had just finished a Kickstarter for another game, Best Buds vs Bad Guys, and managed to get a little income in to complete the development. During the Kickstarter I started chatting to a great bunch of guys at a studio called Whitemoon Dreams, in particular its CEO Jay.

We worked together with them, releasing Super Life of Pixel onto Playstation 4 and Vita in December 2018. Also, during the development phase, we pitched another title we were making, called Platform Maker. After a fair few rejections, we finally found a publisher, pQube. We renamed the game to PLATAGO, and it was released onto Steam Early Access in 2018.

Fast forward to 2019…

The Current State of Play

So, here we are. Unfortunately, despite most players seeming to enjoy Super Life of Pixel, the sales on Playstation have been DIRE. So bad, in fact, that Whitemoon have decided they are unable to continue publishing for the time-being. As such, in the first quarter of 2019, we have seen our income pretty much completely grind to a halt.

Our income wasn’t much before, and we have had several very tough times since the later Icon Games period onwards, where we’ve had little or no income for months at a time. This time though, it is all a little different, I’m kind of burnt out. I’m also getting on a bit, I’m 46 this year, with a family, including three great kids who are now that much older, and it is tough for them.

I think being a penniless indie develop is a younger person’s game! Certainly not conducive to maintaining a stable family life and keeping the wolves from the door.

A Tough Decision

So, I have come to the decision that, unless this year things improve and we break this cycle, I don’t think I am able to continue making games.

I love making games, but there comes a time when you think if no-one wants to play your games, and you can’t support your family – perhaps it is time to re-evaluate.

Another thing I have done over the last couple of years is develop and pitch other games – the first a horror game called The Tower, the other an Action RPG called They Came from Beyond. The plan was to make sure we continued to maintain revenue once we completed the on-going projects.

I pitched both to various publishers, and they were both rejected. I stopped work on The Tower, as without funding it was just too ambitious. There is a blog for it (updated until I stopped working on the project):

https://thetower-game.tumblr.com/

I continued with They Came from Beyond, for the following reasons:

I love the game and believe in it

I have enjoyed every second of developing it

Although larger in scope than our other titles, it was still a realistic scope

It is my last chance, perhaps, to continue making games

You can download the in-development build for free from itch.io:

https://supericon.itch.io/they-came-from-beyond

Alas, I can’t get any interest in it at all, which kind of breaks my heart. I’ve also been working on it now for 15 months, completely un-funded, so there is a big personal commitment there.

So, there we are, but I do have a request…

If You Like Our Games, Support Us

We need your help!!

If you like any of our games – Life of Pixel, Vektor Wars, PLATAGO or like the look of They Came from Beyond – can you help us spread the word?

Without more support and a much larger community of followers, it will be impossible for us to continue making games. We just can’t continue without income – and I’ll be honest, it is a constant gut punch to try and continue developing when everything you do fails.

So, if you can - spread the word – help get us a little more known. Join our community on Discord or elsewhere, tell other gamers, sites or anywhere you think might be interested in our games. Without more followers, and more people buying our games, we’re done.

This was a tough post to write, and I hope it doesn’t come across in the wrong way – I just don’t know where else to turn. If anyone out there plays and enjoys our games, and wants us to continue making games – well, we can’t do it without you now.

Richard Hill-Whittall, March 26

Links

You can follow us in the following ways:

Website: http://www.supericon.co.uk/

Blog: https://supericonblog.tumblr.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/SuperIconLtd

Discord: https://discord.gg/vPBTFtf

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/supericonltd/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SuperIconLtd/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/SuperIconLtd

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supericonblog · 6 years ago

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They Came from Beyond gameplay

The first in a series of posts linking to our gameplay videos over on YouTube...

Download the game from itch.io:

https://supericon.itch.io/they-came-from-beyond

MISSION ONE!

youtube

EXPLORING THE TOWN

youtube

FINDING A VIDEO...

youtube

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supericonblog · 6 years ago

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They Came from Beyond

Download the game from itch.io:

https://supericon.itch.io/they-came-from-beyond

How it Started

I really enjoy playing 2D RPGs, well – up to a certain point. Back when the SNES Mini came out I played through quite a few of the classics; Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, Secret of Mana, Illusion of Gaia, Terranigma, and tried a fair few others.

I loved the atmosphere in the games, the often quirky humour, the beautiful pixel art, the huge variety of environments, and many other things. They are rightly revered as classics of the genre.

What I didn’t enjoy though was the grinding – the same battles over-and-over again, trying to build up stats and powers. It felt like false gameplay – a mechanism to force extra hours of play into each game. I just don’t have the time to really battle through; stuff like work, family, exercise, and so on leave a limited number of hours a week to play.

Also, and I am slightly scared to say it out loud, but I also don’t really like endless bouts of dungeon crawling. After a while they seem to get very samey and repetitive.

Now this is of course a personal opinion, and I respect those who love their dungeons and grinding, but I thought to myself – I’d love to make a 2D RPG, but just one with a slightly different spin…

What’s it all About?

As I’ve said, I wanted to try a different approach – a combination of a big open world where you can meet and talk with an eclectic bunch of different characters, perform tasks and quests, solve puzzles and find ‘stuff’ along with a series of sub-levels which replace the typical RPG dungeon quests.

The sub-game levels started out quite heavily influenced by Zombies Ate My Neighbours, fun and fast-paced monster battling, hunting out and finding level items, rescuing prisoners and experimenting with lots of cool weapons, all presented in the top-down 2D engine.

I did a few of these, and then thought – hold on, I can expand the concept here and really go mad – so I did; adding a 3D retro first-person engine, which allowed for 3D survival horror, FPS Doom style shooting, Battlezone type levels of robot blasting. I then added a platform engine, so I could do platformer levels and run and guns.

Along the way I also decided to tie these all into the story via portals which are opened by the player after collecting and using certain items. As I was setting it in a vague 80s style time-line (I know, everyone is doing it, but heck, I grew up during the 80s so I just have a strong affinity for that period), I decided to make these items specific to that era…

Opening-up the Other Worlds

Video-tapes, old computers and arcade machines! What could be more typical of my 80s childhood than those! The concept is – the local kids have been kidnapped by Aliens (bit of an Earthbound thing there), and zapped into scary videos, games and arcade games. Find the tapes and games where the kids are trapped, use them in a suitable video player, computer or arcade cab and get fighting and exploring!

If you have ever played any of our other recent games, you’ll know I am more than a little bit obsessed with putting in references and homages to classic games and movies. In fact, Life of Pixel was a game ALL about that!

But what They Came from Beyond offered was the freedom to explore so many more things, to just go all out and add in bits of everything I loved growing up! So, I now present my current list of influences, each of which have been featured in one way or another in this game:

Earthbound, Zombies Ate My Neighbours, Wolfenstein, Doom, H.E.R.O, Gauntlet, Rambo, Commando, Smash TV, Aliens, Alien Syndrome, Splatterhouse, Rastan, Robocop, The Fog, The Shining, Mummy horror movies, Silent Hill, Resident Evil, Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Knight Lore, Fairlight, 3D Ant Attack, Zombie Zombie, The A-Team, Arnie, Stallone, Battlezone, Escape from New York, They Came from the Desert, Tremors, The Terminator, Friday 13th, Killer Klowns from Outer Space, The Thing, H P Lovecraft, plus a few more I have probably forgotten!

And the cool bit is that those are the bits already done – so I still get chance to add in lots more good stuff from many more horror films, games and pop culture that I loved (and still love).

No Dungeons!

And yep – no dungeons, well… hardly any; one of the sub-games is called Deep Dungeons, and offers a spin on Gauntlet.

And, more importantly (to me anyway), no grinding!

So here is a screen from each of the sub-games implemented so far. I may be biased, but I think it beats endless dungeons!

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