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Ikaroids

Win your copy of Ikaroids (3 chances to win)

11:27 am on January 8, 2010 by John Wordsworth

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.

Ikaroids Screenshot

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.

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Ikaroids Patch 1.07 Released

8:01 pm on December 31, 2009 by John Wordsworth

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

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.“

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Ikaroids; Now Available on the Xbox Live Marketplace!

10:28 am on December 6, 2009 by John Wordsworth

Our first Xbox Live Indie Games title ‘Ikaroids’ is now available on the Xbox Live Marketplace! Ikaroids is an action packed twin-stick arcade style shooter wtih a unique physics and game engine that encourages you to use parts of the scenary in a defensive manner while avoiding devastating collisions with the asteroids. The main campaign features 23 varied missions with a massive variety of bad-guys, bosses and story-twists. When you’ve mastered all three difficulty levels of the main campaign there are 9 addictive survival stages for you to challenge. If that were not enough, you can play through the game alone or in co-op mode and you can submit your high scores to an online scoreboard using your PC.

You can download Ikaroids from your Xbox by browsing to Game Marketplace -> Indie Games. There you can list games by title and find Ikaroids for your gaming fun. Alternatively, you can buy Ikaroids from your PC, so that it’ll simply download and install the next time you turn on your Xbox. Download Ikarois now from the Xbox Live Marketplace.

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Ikaroids – Game Level Design

12:42 pm on November 3, 2009 by Jackson Matthews

It’s worth remembering that while graphics can look pretty, it’s important not to let them dominate at the expense of other crucial elements. In this post I’m going to talk about the process of level design in the context of Ikaroids, including topics such as pacing, spacing of elements, and general look, feel and theme.

(more…)

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Development starts on second Xna title

12:22 am on October 12, 2009 by John Wordsworth

Iron Star Media have started work on their second XNA title while Ikaroids goes through it’s second bout of playtesting.

We’ll be posting a development diary as we work through every decision and step in our game ‘Sentinel’. This will hopefully help budding developers see the steps that we go through and learn from our successes and failures!

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