As we’ve had a couple of hold ups on the game’s release, I just wanted to make you all a nice desktop wallpaper to brighten up your day :)  We’ve been adding some extra polish to the game recently and subsequently came across a couple of development time increases, but we’re aiming to get this ‘submission ready’ for mid/late January…we’re nearly there!

So, grab yourself a free wallpaper right here…and don’t forget to pass on the link to your friends, as lets face it, who needs Playboy Bunnies, Ferrari’s and epic scenery on their desktop when they can have a flying pig ;)

Here they are:

• 1024 x 768
• 1280 x 1024
• 1440 x 900
• 1680 x 1024

Quite a few of you have been mailing and tweeting to ask for more info about the game…now even though we are being sketchy about the game (not just to keep you interested but also to make sure no one else goes and makes the game before us ;) what I can say is that its an endurance game!  Its sent to test your gaming skills!  Also in addition to this, we can now confirm that Open Feint is the global scoring mechanism.

The new site and AWESOME teaser trailer will be finalised over the Christmas break…mince pie in one hand, Wacom pen in the other :)

Thanks, I hope you all enjoy the wallpapers!

Mike.

Hello everyone.

I thought it would be nice to throw a couple of little freebies out in the shape of some spiffing new iPhone wallpapers!  There is one of our Porky hero and one of his arch enemy Butcher Bill.  These simply need to be downloaded and set as your wallpaper.  I hope you like them :)

Enjoy.

Hey Everyone,

I posted an entry recently about a collaboration I was part of with the guys over at www.thundergameworks.com, and this weekend they officially announced the game!

Its called Trenches and as you would expect is based during WW1 and features trench warfare…and that’s all I’m saying ;)  There is a lot of chatter around the web about the genre of this game, and the guys at TGW are keeping shtum for now, so I’ll keep up the secrecy and say no more here.

This project has been one of my all time faves, its been BRILLIANT from start to finish, and hopefully you’ll all see the amount of time and love that’s gone into it.  Take a peek at the two peices of preview art below and rest assured, this isnt just flashy promo art, the in game art is of the same ilk…only smaller :)

You can follow Thunder Game Works updates on Twitter here as much more will be revealed over the coming weeks leading up to launch.

Hey everyone,

I finally managed to get Super Turbo Action Pigs arch nemesis, Butcher Bill, fully rendered last night, so take a look and see what you think.

He looks pretty mean huh!

There is going to be a brief story at the beginning (very brief as not to get in the way of play) featuring this sausage loving bad guy, so you can expect to see him in a verbal joust with our porky hero.

More updates soon.

I was going to wait (as I usually do) until this guy was finished, but as so many people email in and ask to see my sketch work, I decided that this maybe the perfect time to show some.  So say hello to Butcher Bill and his massive meat cleaver!  This guy isn’t actually that nasty in the eye’s of us humans, but to Super Turbo Action Pig, he is the devil himself!  Butcher Bill has a fetish for sausage making, and with our Pink hero having such a fine physique, Bill will stop at nothing to turn him into his finest Cumberland sausages!

I’ll be posting the final artwork for Bill later this week/early next week.

Thanks.

Mike.

Ha, I thought the title might catch your eye ;)

I’ve been a tad quiet recently as I’ve been somewhat overwhelmed with work, but needless to say, at the end of the day on Friday, I’ve made some time to show off some new Super Turbo Action Pig artwork!

This is the final artwork for two of Super Turbo Action Pig’s main poses in the game, free falling and thrusting!  As you can see, he is deep in concentration while his thruster is blasting, so you can only imagine what he is having to do be concentrating this hard!

We’ve been hard at work recently trying to find ways of optimizing the frame rate (as we wanted, and have managed, a full 60fps on the 3GS and a steady 45-50 on the 3G), well, I say we, its involved little on my part and a bucket load of time on Chris’s.  Well done Chris, your a coding trooper!

Ok, well, I hope you enjoyed this tiny update and hopefully the next one will be announcing that its ready for submission :)

Enjoy.

Mike.

Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls, say hello to The Joystick Generals!  After many months of tweeting and babbling about my new venture into the world of video games, it is my pleasure, along with Chris Wilson from Abitofcode, to welcome you to our new company, The Joystick Generals!

Yes the name is rather mad, somewhat retro and just a little bit camp…We love it ;)

It’s been a lifelong dream of both Chris’s and mine, to own and run a small games company, and now after many years we’ve gone and done it!  It’s all thanks to the wonder that is the iPhone!  This magnificent little platform has become the perfect springboard for aspiring games makers like ourselves to step forward and make a mark.   We’re both passionate about retro 2D gaming and knew that if ever we ventured into this market, that we would be going old school, so you’re not going to see any overly deep, 3D, insanely complex, modern games from us, oh no, just good old, 2D pick up and play, gaming goodness!

So you can expect to see a high level of polish in our games due to my obsessive creative eye, coupled with some rather spiffing and solid coding from Mr.Wilson.  In our fields combined, we have over 25 years experience!  Nice.

Our first game is comically entitled Super Turbo Action Pig!  Yes its mental, just like the name of the company…just how we like it :)  So as you’ll see from the teaser image above (and the link to the holding page) the game is based around the escapades of our rather dashing pig.  He’s no ordinary pig though, oh no, he is Super Turbo Action Pig, a pig that laughs in the face of the old saying ‘pigs might fly’ and screams ‘check out my thrusters baby! ’.  We’re not going to give too much away regarding the aim of the game (as some cheeky blighter will most likely steal it and make a nasty version before we push live ;), as we are going to release more info leading up to the launch.  But what we will say is, it’s going to be a great game!  And yes, it’s going sit in the $0.99/£0.59p bracket.  Bargain!

We’re going to get our official Twittering up to speed to, so you can follow us at www.twitter.com/joystickgeneral

(And if you haven’t already, you can pick up my personal twittering at www.twitter.com/michaelheald and Chris’s at www.twitter.com/abitofcode)

More updates coming soon!

Mike.

Hey everyone, I know I’ve been babbling on a lot recently about my under the radar activity with some new games (as well as my own little games company, official announcement on that next week), well I just wanted to announce an exciting new collaboration I’m involved with, with the guys over at Thunder Game Works.  T.G.W. are a new and VERY exciting iPhone developer whose sole goal is to create seriously awesome games, were not talking fly by night iPhone cheap thrills here, were talking quality, on every level!

Well, I was lucky enough to be chosen as their artist for their first title Trenches, so for the past couple of months I’ve been a busy fella, illustrating, designing and animating like an over excited crazed maniac, and I can only say that this is going to be something bloody fantastic! I am sooooo proud to be involved in this and I can honestly say that there is nothing like this out there right now!

There are a number of breathtaking unlockables in this game too, some of which are LITERALLY bigger than most $0.99 games! It’s nothing short of epic!

So, watch this space, there will be much more to come very soon!

Mike.