I just got back from the excellent MassTLC PAX East “Made in MA” Party 2011. There was a nice iOS presence which will hopefully carry over to PAX East as well. I met several iOS developers doing some really cool stuff with Brass Monkey SDK, which amongst other things, allows you to play a game on your PC or Mac and use the iPhone as the controller, utilizing the Touch Screen, accelerometer and more.
Owlchemy Labs’ “Chief Scientific Advisor”, Yilmaz Kiymaz gave me a hands-on demonstration of their upcoming game Smuggle Truck. The game will be coming to the iOS platforms as well as the PC and Mac. The game, who’s subject matter was met with a little controversy, involves you attempting to navigate a truck loaded with “illegals” along a bumpy and hilly road, trying not to lose your stowaways along the way. I was able to try the PC version of the game, controlling the the action on the screen from an iPhone. While not perfect, it was definitely a fun experience. The graphics in the game were quite nice, and I think this will be a fun little mindless time waster when it hits the iPhone soon.
I also had a chance to meet Dave Walls the president of funkitron, the company behind Slingo Supreme. They game me a sneak peak at a couple of games they were working on. First was an iPad version of their unique matching game, Trinklit Supreme. The other title that they were currently working on is going to be both an iPad and PC release called Solitaire Kingdom Supreme and it was a really cool take on traditional Freecell Solitaire, where you actually earned power ups that allowed you to do special things like place a card anywhere, or flip less cards, etc.. I believe that there is a plan to bring both of these titles to the iPhone as well, but the initial focus is on the iPad releases. (I apologize for the quality of the picture.)
Finally, the highlight of the night for me was actually meeting Neil Rennison and Ben Britten of Tin Man Games. They actually flew all the way from Australia to attend PAX East (Ben by way of last week’s GDC) and they were a great couple of guys to talk to. Both wer e obviouslyreally excited about the recent launch of the fifth title in their popular Gamebook Adventures series, Gamebook Adventures 5: Catacombs of the Undercity. If you haven’t checked out the great work these guys are doing with this series, I highly recommend that you do.
In fact I have a scoop for you loyal AppAddict.net readers. At this weekend’s PAX East conference in Boston, MA, Neil and Ben want to reward their fans by offering anyone who shows them proof that they’ve purchased Gamebook Adventures 5, a free promo code for any of the other Gamebook Adventures titles. That means you are getting two games for the price of one! So why not walk over to their booth in Indie Alley (I-11) and purchase Gamebook Adventures 5 right in front of them and they’ll show their appreciation by giving you a free game (while supplies last) and possibly a hug. I also have it on good authority that they have some really nice looking postcards as well.
That’s not all…Tin Man Games will also be revealing the name of the person who will be authoring the Seventh book in the Gamebook Series and apparently it is a big one! If you cannot attend PAX East, then check out this really nice PDF brochure that the guys at Tin Man Games put together.
