Ikaroids (Xbox 360) has been entered into the Shmup (Shoot-em-up) forever contest at XBLA360.fr. Starting on September 1st the competition will run throughout September. There will be over 40 game codes given away to voters, so it’s definitely worth heading over to place your vote when the contest starts. More information to come when the competition opens for voting.
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Ikaroids HD is accepting Beta Applicants
We’ve been beavering away at our next release here at Iron Star Media Ltd and we’re happy to announce that our iPad port of Ikaroids (Ikaroids HD) is now nearing Beta Testing. We’d like to invite anyone that is interested in helping us to bring our latest creation to the market to apply to be a member of our beta testing team. It should be a lot of fun and won’t require too much of your time. If you’re interested;
Fancy Bitmap Font Generator – Development Preview
There have been some enquiries about the status of the latest version of the Fancy Bitmap Font Generator, so I wanted to post a screenshot and let you all know how it’s coming along. First of all, it’s easiest to explain how the next version of the software will work with a quick screenshot;
Preview of the Fancy Bitmap Font Generator 2 (Click to Enlarge)
In order to accommodate for all types of fonts and outputs, and even for the inclusion of the ability to make a sprite-sheet out of separate images (and apply an effect to each sprite for instance), I’ve developed a modular plugin system. It won’t allow for absolutely anything, but I think it’s a compromise between everything you would probably want to be able to do and not making it so complicated that it almost becomes a scripting environment.
So, how will it work? The process of generating a (bitmap font) sprite sheet is made up of a series of steps. First you generate the individual tiles into one large list of small tiles – these can be generated from a system font or loaded from files. Next up, you have the ability to apply FX to each individual tile in turn. The next step is to turn the large list of small icons into a small list of layers for your final image. Typically, you will just have a background layer, and then a layer that sticks all of your tiles together. We’ll include a couple of basic plugins for ‘fixed spacing’ or ’smallest spritesheet’ etc. Next up, you can apply an effect to each of the completed layers which will apply to the layer as a whole. Finally, you can tell the software when / where / how to save the files (these will also be like the other plugin lists in the final version).
As each of the 5 stages loads a list of modules from external DLL files, this means that there is, theoretically, no end to what you can achieve in each of the stages.
If you have any requirements that I might not be aware of for the next version of the software so that it suits your project, I’d love to hear them. It’s best to hear them now while I’m compiling plug-ins than in a month’s time when it’s all wrapped up!
Thanks for checking in.
Free Game Assets 12; User Interface Themes
We’ve been a little overworked as of late with the horror that is real life, but we’ve found some time to put together a few more assets for XNA / iPhone / Flash Game Developers. We’re thinking of starting to have ‘themed months’ for our giveaways, as we’ve come to realise that we’re just kind of firing assets out like the randomly generated guns from Borderlands.
So, what do we have this week?
We’ve been trying to put together some more interface graphics to help make your user interfaces more friendly and shiny. We’ve tried to keep them reasonably generic, so that you can brand them up with your game’s logo and your own font, but the goal is to give you the chance to get to your first prototype as quickly as possible. The obligatory screenshots follow;
Free High Definition Grunge Theme for your XNA Game (Click to Enlarge)
High Definition Victorian Theme for your XNA Game (Click to Enlarge)
These themes come with a background image (the Victorian Theme has 3 colour variations for the background image), a full screen overlay panel and a half screen overlay panel (for two player games, etc). The panels can easily be scaled down to the desired size if they are too big for what you need them for. Imagery is provided at full 1920×1080p and the full screen overlay should allow for overscan (although, you might want to shrink it an extra 10-15% for the Xbox 360).
Download the themes from our online asset library; Iron Star Media’s Grunge Theme, Iron Star Media’s Victorian Theme
I’d like to finish with a quick shameless plug… If you’ve not already heard the news, our Xbox 360 Shooter Ikaroids has recently been reduced to only 80 Microsoft Points, give it a look!
The free game assets on this site are released under the Creative Commons Attribution Licence. This basically means that you can download them, use them in your game(s) and modify them as you like. If you use them in your games, we’d appreciate a small mention somewhere in the credits / on the website (and a free copy of the game would be cool!). Basically, the only thing we don’t want you to do with our assets is sell them as assets to other developers, either individually, or as part of a collection.
Ikaroids – Now only 80 Microsoft Points
With our next XNA title well underway, we’re excited to announce that Ikaroids has been reduced in price to only 80 Microsoft Points. That’s right, for only a dollar you can get your hands on an action packed dual stick shooter with over 20 campaign levels and 9 survival stages.
Ikaroids - Action Packed Arcade Shooter for only 80MSP
Plans have begun for a sequel to Ikaroids that will bring the space shooter genre into the 21 century. Because of this, we’d love to hear what you think about the first one. Let us know of things that you like and don’t like about the game by leaving us comments around this blog or by getting in touch with us directly.
Read more about Ikaroids or head over to the XBox Live Marketplace now and buy Ikaroids for only 80MSP!
Free Game Assets 11; Synth Based Game Music
With all of the announcements about the iPad and the iPhone 4.0 OS, this is probably going to pale a little in comparison… However, we have just finished work on a small selection of new game music tracks that you’re free to use in a prototype / finished version of any XNA or Flash projects that you’re working on.
My funky new headphones for audio editing!
I’m hoping to spend a bit of my spare time in the upcoming couple of months properly learning how to sequence some good game music using Garageband and I’m even hoping to start producing my own loops at some point using my MIDI Keyboard. This giveaway marks the beginning of what I’m dubbing of my Musical Scrapbook, with a track in there too from Jackson Matthews.
Without further ado, you can download the tracks directly with these links from our new asset library.
Wordsworth 001 – Happy Synth.mp3
Wordsworth 002 – Space Synth.mp3
It’s hard to categorise this sort of music, so at the moment – we’re just lumping it all together in one big folder. Hopefully as we start to make more, we’ll start to put them into more useful categories and sections. Anyway – I hope that you enjoy!
The free game assets on this site are released under the Creative Commons Attribution Licence. This basically means that you can download them, use them in your game(s) and modify them as you like. If you use them in your games, we’d appreciate a small mention somewhere in the credits / on the website (and a free copy of the game would be cool!). Basically, the only thing we don’t want you to do with our assets is sell them as assets to other developers, either individually, or as part of a collection.
Free Game Assets 10; Photo Quality Textures
Hello everyone, something for you here – a selection of hi-res photo-quality textures, some of which tile and some that are standalone. In all there are 7 tiling textures, and 5 that do not. We’ve placed them on our newly added assets area for your enjoyment – you can find the textures, along with our other free assets, here.
Included, among others are:
- Concrete
- Brick wall
- Cork board
- Manhole cover
Enjoy!
Sentinel Teaser
We’ve been working hard on our future Xbox projects and wanted to post a small teaser image from our latest Xbox Live Independent Game, ‘Sentinel’. We’re not going to tell you too much more about it yet, but we’re trying to revamp some old classic game ideas and bring them into the 21st century…
A Teaser Image from the upcoming Xbox Game Sentinel
Sorry everyone, hang in there!
Apologies to all, unfortunately there won’t be any free assets this week, as we’re pretty snowed under. However, don’t lose heart, as we plan to make it up to you next week with something a little bit special. See you then, and again, sorry for the wait!
Free Game Assets 09; Generic Platform Game Tiles
First of all, sorry this is a couple of days late, but hopefully you’ll find some use for it regardless. This week, up for download is a set of generic platform game tiles, although if you can find another use for them, feel free! Also included for kicks are sprites for a key item and a coin item. Below is a sample screen showing an example of the tiles in action:
Example screen showing how the tiles fit together.
Free Game Assets 08; Playing Card Pack
Our next free game asset pack is a little bit more specialised than our previous assets packs, so may or may not be relevant to your project. We have designed and developed a set of poker card images for use in your game project(s). You can download these card images and use them in your project(s) as you wish.
The compulsory sample image for your perusal;
- Playing Cards Sample Showing the 3 Pack Variants (Click to Enlarge)
Free Game Dev Utility; Fancy Bitmap Font Generator
We are happy to announce the initial testing release of our Fancy Bitmap Font Generator utility for Game Developers. While specifically designed for XNA developers to quickly add nice sprite fonts to their games, I’m sure you could use this in a large variety of environments without too much pain.
Fancy Bitmap Font Generator Screenshot (Click to Enlarge)
To read more about this free utility, please head over to the Iron Star Media Fancy Bitmap Font Generator page.
Free Game Assets 07; Game Icon Pack
A day later than originally planned thanks to the genius idea of writing a sprite-font generator for scratch instead of just putting together in Photoshop, we present to you… The Iron Star Media Free Game Assets Pack 07 – Game Icons 01. This pack provides you with; Network game lobby icons (5 icons in 5 different colour sets), a pack of generic icons and media icons (in 3 colour sets), some alternative xbox controller button icons and some Sprite Fonts generated from our upcoming software the ‘Fancy Bitmap Font Generator’.
Win your copy of Ikaroids (3 chances to win)
Ikaroids is a fast-paced dual-stick shooter for the Xbox 360 that is available now on the Xbox Live Marketplace. With over 23 campaign stages and a challenging survival mode, Ikaroids combines the classic arcade-style shooter with modern-day physics and effects.
Screenshot from Ikaroids (Xbox 360)
This week, we’re giving away 3 copies of Ikaroids. For your chance to win a free copy of Ikaroids, simply tweet what your favourite ship is. Do you like the time-stopping Leander, the hard-hitting Kohlaraja, the defensive Pioneer or the technologically advanced Santus Rho?
Download the trial version to find out what your favourite ship is now!
In order to enter this competition, simply post a tweet in a similar format to the following from any twitter account and put the name of your favourite ship in the tweet! Deadline for entries is 1pm (GMT) on Friday 15th January 2010. Good luck!
“I’ve been playing #Ikaroids and my favourite ship is [Insert Ship Name]. Ikaroids – http://bit.ly/6Vv0fC”
For your entry to be valid, it must include the hashtag #Ikaroids (so we can find it), a valid name of a ship from Ikaroids and a link to the Ikaroids webpage. The winning entrant will be chosen at random on Friday 15th January and the winners will be announced on this website. Winning entrants will be contacted by Monday 18th January by direct message on Twitter.
Free Game Assets 06; 55+ Basic Sound Effects
First off, a much needed happy new year to one and all. We hope that you had a fantastic break over the Christmas period and that you’re settling back into your real lives again as we speak. We’ve still got a bit of the Christmas cheer here at Iron Star Media and we’re happy to announce this week’s free game asset giveaway.
This week’s giveaway is a pack of basic sound effects built by our own fair hands. Sound effects in this pack range from blips and beeps for your user interfaces to a fairly random assortment of sounds such as squishes, clunks and scrapes. A full list of the files in this pack is available below.
- Iron Star Media Games
