Getting a Rash on the Streets

So with 2013 coming ever-closer to its end, I've looked back on what I've done this year. I hadn't been so proactive with game design and development since before I got this job (seven years ago as of last week!). In addition to Battle High 2 (see the previous entry from back in March), I worked with Lab Zero Games to get a character in the background of their game Skullgirls (which should happen within this next month or so, hopefully), and also released a few games, most of which were modified versions of stuff I did back in 2005/2006:

• Stone Smash for browser play
• Shady's Poopong for browser play and Android
• Shady's Stone Smash for Android

In addition, I'm nearing completion of Shady's Poopong: 20th Anniversary Edition, which should be released before the end of the year. However, I'm actually starting to get pretty sick of making games about gorilla poop. So, for the upcoming year, I want to try something different.

One thing I'm working on, is re-releasing my 2006 maze game, Chomperman, on Android. However, one of the major projects is a fighting game for the Atari 2600, called Street Rash. I've started basic development a little early, though, because working on the 2600 is tougher than probably all of my other programming endeavors combined.

So why make a game for a system that's been obsolete for probably longer than anyone that's reading this has been alive? There's a few reasons, actually. The first, being that the concept was originally made for the console back in the early 1990's. My brother-from-another-father-and-mother Carson made a bulk of the design choices for the game back when we were kids, including the name (which I assume was a play on words of the title of popular motorcycle combat-racer "Road Rash") and a majority of the characters and their attacks. A couple of months ago, I had found the original design documents that we were going to mail to Atari. Some of our ideas were dumb as hell (remember this was at like age 6-8 or so), but I was pretty sure I could make it fly in some regard.

A very early look at Street Rash.

I initially figured I'd make it just 2600-style for PC or something, but I've always had a fondness for homebrew games and have wanted to develop one forever. Making something on such a low-end console is also a good way to cut down on extraneous production, such as voice acting and sprites that don't look like butt (although I've hired the lovely Kelsey Jencks as the concept artist). It's kind of a lazy way out, I suppose, but I've got tons that I want to do next year and I want to keep it simple, even if the actual programming is going to be painful, thus saving my real focus for the bigger projects. Yes, Chomperman and Street Rash are far from the only things I have in store for 2014... they're just the only ones I'm ready to talk about at this point.

That's all for now. Nothing really else planned for next year other than surviving (although I'd like to attempt to be cast in another voice acting project. Matt DeLucas is working on an update for Battle High 2 for next year but I don't believe I'll be recording anything new for that). Maybe this seems under-ambitious to most of you, but believe me, despite all of the low points 2013 had, working on game design and development has made it the first year in a long time that I've actually felt good, even during the frustrating parts of it.