I was first directed to Blazin’ Aces a few weeks ago by none other than the game’s creator, Duncan Bell. Duncan is regular MyGaming forumite, so I was naturally curious to see what sort of game he had come up with.
As it turns out, Blazin’ Aces is a neat little browser game in which players pilot a small aircraft around the screen, fight off enemy aircraft and try not to die.
The controls and interface are nice and solid, and while simple, the game is enjoyable enough to provide a welcome distraction from office work. [A-ha! That explains a lot – Ed]
You can play Blazin’ Aces in your browser, or download a stand-alone version for Windows or Mac – which comes with 3 more stages, multiplayer and different levels of difficulty.
The game is completely free to download and play. Get it here.
I recently caught up with Duncan to find out more about how and why he embarked on the project.
Look who's talking: Duncan Bell
When did you start working on Blazin Aces?
I started working on it in January 2011, with the first functioning prototype and demo ready in the middle of February. With my limited understanding of programming, the greatest challenge was getting the AI right.
Did you do everything yourself?
All work that lead up to the demo version was created by myself. I contracted another programmer to fix up the AI, as well as getting the multiplayer working. I also found a guy in the UK who shares a passion for video games, and obliged to do the music for free.
The rest of the time was spent getting the various levels ready and working, from designing different play styles and adjusting for the difficulty. The game itself spent a long time with various playtesters helping find bugs.
Do you know how many people have played the game?
Thanks to various channels of social media, I managed to get my game across to a big enough audience that I was happy with. So far, I have had over 700 people download the game, of which 300 downloads came from the first 3 days of launching the game.
Got any new projects in the pipeline?
I have 2 other projects in the pipeline, unfortunately having a full time job supresses the amount of time you get to work on them. They are still being drawn up so I don’t have anything to show as of yet, but I will share as soon as I can. I am hoping to release them in June and November.
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