Capturing the Essence of the Arcade Experience

On a recent visit to the Four Quarters Arcade Bar in Elephant & Castle, London, I was fortunate enough to spend a considerable amount of time playing the incredible Outrun Deluxe hydraulic cabinet. I’m a huge fan of Outrun and owned the home conversion for my humble Commodore 64 when I was a kid.

Why I Chose Portrait Orientation

Before I officially started work on Dungeons of Doom, or even knew what kind of mobile game I was actually going to make, I wanted to think very carefully about what orientation it should use: landscape or portrait?

Good UI is Hard

When making a game there are many challenges along the way. But one of the biggest and often overlooked is the effort required to create a compelling user interface. Not only does it need to look good, the experience of actually using it needs to be intuitive too. That might sound easy, but the reality […]

Why I switched to Substance Painter

During the production of my previous game – Dare the Monkey – I leaned heavily on ZBrush for rendering my game assets. The reason for this was the simplicity and quality of ZBrush’s MatCap materials. The MatCaps really helped my characters and objects to pop out of the screen.

Say Hello to our Hero

I thought it was about time I introduced you guys to the hero of Dungeons of Doom. He doesn’t actually have a name yet but I do know that he’s extremely brave, has a spring in his step, and is also adept at climbing ladders.

Starting With A Sketch #10

I always loved the shuttle loop from Sonic the Hedgehog. It’s such an iconic thing and I have vivid memories as a teenager encountering the loop for the first time in the Green Hill Zone. I might never come up with an idea as strong as that, but I thought I’d at least try and […]

Starting With A Sketch #9

I thought I’d share a quick doodle I made when coming up with ideas for one of Dare the Monkey’s ice levels. Yeah I know, ice worlds are such a cliché but in my defence, I am making a game that pays homage to classic 8- and 16-bit platform games, so I think it’s allowed.

Jambo – the monkey god

I thought I’d take some time today to introduce you guys to Jambo – the monkey god of ancient times.

Finding The Best Solution For Each Problem

Dare the Monkey is a huge undertaking and sometimes I need to find different solutions to problems depending on how much time I have available for a particular task.

Starting with a Sketch #8

Throughout the development of Dare the Monkey I’ve had a pretty clear picture of what I wanted from each of the game’s levels. However, I will confess that I was a little short of ideas for the last three levels, which I wanted to take place in a sort of futuristic Aztec world. I’ll be […]