Game Programming and Design Blog » Iron Star Media News

Ikaroids In-Game Avatars Complete!

Jackson Matthews — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 14:00:45 +0000

As we’re unable to use the XBox Live automatically generated 3d avatars we had in place for the XBox 360 version of Ikaroids, it was a good excuse to crank out a bunch of anime-esque static avatars that will be appearing in our upcoming iPad/iPhone version of Ikaroids HD. To mark the upcoming beta version, here they are below for your viewing pleasure!

Ikaroids Entered into XBLA360 Shmup Forever Contest!

John Wordsworth — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 18:28:46 +0000

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.

Ikaroids HD is accepting Beta Applicants

John Wordsworth — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 08:06:07 +0000

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;

Apply to be a member of the Ikaroids HD Beta Testing Team

Fancy Bitmap Font Generator – Development Preview

John Wordsworth — Sun, 16 May 2010 00:35:03 +0000

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.

Ikaroids – Now only 80 Microsoft Points

John Wordsworth — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 09:47:15 +0000

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.

Free Game Assets 10; Photo Quality Textures

Jackson Matthews — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 09:33:48 +0000

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!

Sorry everyone, hang in there!

Jackson Matthews — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 10:52:46 +0000

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

Jackson Matthews — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 12:03:54 +0000

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.

Included in the pack are:

Bricks (tiles in all directions)
Grass (tiles horizontally)
Grass with rocks (horizontal)
Soil (multidirectional)
Soil with rocks (multidirectional)
Snow top (horizontal)
Snow (multidirectional)
Brown stone top (horizontal)
Brown stone (multidirectional)
Grey stone top (horizontal)
Grey stone (multidirectional)
Key sprite
Coin sprite

Which just about covers it! All sprites are in PNG-24 format and are 256 x 256 each. For the full pack, click here: ism-assets-09-platform-game-tiles.zip

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.

Free Game Dev Utility; Fancy Bitmap Font Generator

John Wordsworth — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 14:27:36 +0000

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.

Apologies about the delayed assets

John Wordsworth — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 01:03:42 +0000

I just wanted to post a quick apology that this Tuesday’s game assets didn’t go out as planned. Rest assured that they are coming – but for one week only we will be delivering on a Wednesday instead. Consider it like ‘late mail’ because of all of the snow!

The reason it’s taken a bit longer than planned, was that part of our giveaway was to include some shiny bitmap fonts with glossy effects. Then I thought – instead of doing each letter in Photoshop, why not write a program to do it for me!? Here is an example image produced by our, soon-to-be-released (possible not with the assets tomorrow, but soon) software for turning your boring flat fonts into something a bit more shiny, just by tweaking a few parameters…

Sample From the Miramonte Font (Click for Full Size)

Sample of a fancy bitmap font from Pericles (click to enlarge)

Win your copy of Ikaroids (3 chances to win)

John Wordsworth — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 11:27:17 +0000

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.

Ikaroids Patch 1.07 Released

John Wordsworth — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 20:01:59 +0000

We are happy to announce that the first official patch for Ikaroids is now available on the Xbox Live Marketplace. Patch 1.07 (excuse the strange numbering system) addresses a few issues that were affecting some players with regards to the logic of the survival stages. We have also added persistent options to the game so that you can set the sound effect volume and the music volume independently. Hopefully now the explosion sound effects will balance nicely with the background music on your uber hi-fis! Last, but not least, you can now brag about your hi-scores to a friend directly from the console.

If you already have your copy of Ikaroids, your Xbox should automatically download the latest version. If you’ve not yet bought Ikaroids – then what are you waiting for? Head over to the Xbox Live Marketplace to download it now.

Screenshot from Ikaroids - Arcade Shooter for the Xbox 360

If you’re still in doubt, here are what some of the Peer Reviewers said;

“Very polished and very cool. Nice lighting on the Avatars as well.”

“Very polished game you have. I enjoyed playing it, it looked and played great.”

“It didn’t take long to realise that this is a really well polished game, really enjoyed it.“