So a little bit under three years ago I started working on a video game idea that I’d had for a little while. Inspired by games like Risk of Rain and my old favourites SmashTV, Contra and Bubble Bobble I decided I wanted to make a video game. I experimented with different game engines and programming frameworks and starting sketching stuff out and trying to figure out how to draw and program what was in my head.

My prototypes seemed pretty fun, the people I showed liked them, so I carried on working. All of this, like now, was largely done on free evenings and weekends. I’d say most of that time was spent struggling to draw things. Except for the badass inlay art and character select screen portraits, which were done by a badass artist called Calum Sutherland who you should check out.

Anyway, fast forward a couple of years, including about a ~10 month break, and the result of all that work is what you see on this page, Tiny Robot Justice Squad,, my stupid game, or at least an interation of it — it only has one playable level, the rest are in various stages of construction.

I’m pretty comfortable with that level right now, so for the last month or so I’ve been trying to find people to play my game and test it thoroughly so I can figure out what to change and fix and what breaks and what people think of something that’s a bit more polished than a prototype.

It was suggested to me on Twitter to try uploading my game to GameJolt. So I did. Then Gamejolt decided to feature it. Now it’s on the front page and hundreds of people have downloaded and played this stupid game I made on my own so I could have something to do on the weekends.

This is terrifying

I woke up to an inbox full of comments, bug reports, feedback and emails from people saying both good and bad things. Every time I see the little gamejolt notification thing pop up my heart skips a beat and I feel a little bit sick and terrified. I didn’t expect anyone to actually play this, and I certainly didn’t expect to go from no one caring to a few hundred downloads literally overnight.

Anyway, I just have to say thank you gamejolt and thank you gamejolt community most of all. I’ve already pushed a couple of new builds of the game to address bugs that have been bought to my attention. But if everyone just stops playing right now, and no one ever touches this game again, the feedback I’ve gotten so far has been invaluable and super helpful!

Well that’s about it. I just wanted to say hi and say thank you to gamejolt and all of the people who have followed the game and left comments and ratings no matter what they were. This is not it, there is lots of work to be done yet and there are many levels and enemies and bosses and guns and powerups and sidekicks yet to be finished, so it’ll be a while before my weekends and evenings are free again. So please stay tuned!

Thanks!!!