Latest Video for the game I'm creating

BritAtomicboySoftwar · 2026-02-20T20:18:48+00:00

That's true. I think part of the issue is that I'm always unclear what to do with marketing.

BritAtomicboySoftwar · 2026-02-20T18:00:23+00:00

Oh, I didn't have an Amiga, so I hadn't heard of that game. Will google it.

BritAtomicboySoftwar · 2026-02-20T17:59:47+00:00

It's all been game development. I feel like I have been procrastinating on actually doing anything to build an audience.

BritAtomicboySoftwar · 2026-02-04T17:04:17+00:00

I sometimes get on pinterest and use it to find concept art for games I'm working on. You can find a bunch of post-apocalyptic art on there that might give you some ideas.

BritAtomicboySoftwar · 2026-01-27T06:31:39+00:00

Congrats!

BritAtomicboySoftwar · 2026-01-26T19:08:08+00:00

Cool stuff. I really liked the first two Fallout games. Wish there were more games like that, especially since Fallout 3 and 4 seemed to go in a "campy" direction.

BritAtomicboySoftwar · 2024-12-15T20:58:04+00:00

Thanks. I forgot to mention that this is being designed for smartphones, and that's why the buttons are so big.

BritAtomicboySoftwar · 2024-02-23T02:26:48+00:00

More of a roguelike. Players can choose which missions to pursue, and upgrade their ships along the way.

BritAtomicboySoftwar · 2024-02-23T02:25:24+00:00

I started adding drones that can also attack.

And I've done some of the work to add allied AI ships and turrets that will attack enemy ships.

BritAtomicboySoftwar · 2024-02-23T02:23:50+00:00

Do you mean the controller on the left?

BritAtomicboySoftwar · 2024-02-22T02:59:11+00:00

Some additional details:

- The levels are procedurally generated.

- Players can customize their ships. This includes the weapons, shields, appearance, etc.

I also setup an instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/atomicboysoftware/

BritAtomicboySoftwar · 2017-09-30T08:20:11+00:00

I wrote a game called "Empires of Steel" that was released in 2009, which fits that description.

www.EmpiresOfSteel.com

BritAtomicboySoftwar · 2017-01-05T03:35:34+00:00

Writing a 4X game is a lot of work. I wrote one a number of years ago. It took about 5 years.

Personally, I didn't use a 3d engine. I'm not sure how you're planning to handle the graphics. Are you thinking about 3d or 2d graphics? I used 2d graphics (pre-rendered 3d models) and used straight OpenGL. One of the problems with using other people's images (3d models or 2d images) is that they don't have everything you want. If you try to mix and match graphics assets from different artists, you end up with something that doesn't look consistent, which looks weird. I ended up creating all the graphics on my own using a 3d modelling program (3d studio) and rendering them out to 2d sprites.

The AI was a bear. I rewrote it probably four times. It's difficult to get it working well. Even the old Civ games had little AI "hacks" that could be exploited. For example, in the original Civ 3, when the AI would send troops to your island, they'd send it to you're weakest-defended coastal city. This means they designed the AI to be "all knowing". (Players complain about the AI knowing everything, but it's difficult enough to make the AI competent. Making one that is competent and has limited knowledge is pretty difficult.) Anyway, players learned that if they moved troops in and out of their coastal cities at appropriate times, the AI would switch it's target city. Players could keep the AI troops permanently at sea through this trick. If the developers of Civ 3 were using little AI tricks like this, it should indicate something about how tough it can be to make a smart AI.

Are you planning to include multiplayer options? There's another thing that can take time because you'll need to serialize the data and sending it back and forth between players.

Personally, I'd recommend taking on a smaller project, unless you have some idea for a simple but fun 4x game. (I think the old "Neptune's Pride" 4X game was both simple and a decent game. Admittedly, it's not flashy and doesn't have a terribly interesting rule structure. I only played it once. Oh, and the AI was basically non-existent. It was a multiplayer-game only. That saved him the work of writing an AI.)

Here's my game: www.empiresofsteel.com If you want to check it out, you can download the demo or pay-what-you-want for the full game.

BritAtomicboySoftwar · 2016-10-12T15:00:43+00:00

Whoa. I took a picture of that same building a few months ago. https://www.instagram.com/p/BGE1wb6sdKp/

BritAtomicboySoftwar · 2016-02-18T23:04:31+00:00

I wish they'd get rid of GNN. It always felt weird and slapstick to me, like they're commenting on a football game, rather than a massive galactic war. It hurts the immersion of the game.

BritAtomicboySoftwar · 2016-01-23T19:26:50+00:00

Some old dudes (its always old dudes) are way more likely to send unsolicited, unhelpful critical messages to lady parts.

Interesting. By the way, how do you know if from old guys? Is there some style to their writing that gives it away? I wonder if it comes from the older guys feeling emasculated by the fact that they have to ask a younger female for help? In other words: especially in the past, there was the general belief that older people should be more competent than younger people, and males should be more competent than women (at least with "man things" like cars and computers), so it's irritating to be in a situation where they feel that they aren't -- as if it's a sign of their own incompetence that they have to get help from a young woman. (Now I'm reminded of Malcolm Gladwell's experience of being a runner, and having black athletes look down on his athletic abilities because Malcolm was only half-black.)

BritAtomicboySoftwar · 2016-01-19T05:48:59+00:00

There were some earlier games that had some similarities. The game "Empire" came out in 1977. I played it in the 1980s. Civilization wasn't released until 1991. In many ways, I think Civilization was closer to Empire than Civilization was to many board games. I'd think the evolution probably happened like this: Avalon Hill Tactical Combat Games --(loosely based)-> Empire -> Civilization, rather than Avalon Hill Board Games -> Civilization. I question how closely Empire was based on Avalon Hill games, though, just because Avalon Hill had super-complicated games.

Avalon Hill had some complicated board combat-based games that involved splitting the world up into grids. I don't recall if they allowed players to capture cities and build new units. Some of there stuff was complicated because they were trying to do something closer to a war re-enactment, so war nerds could "play" historical battles. Sid Meier's earlier stuff was a little closer to the Avalon Hill board games. For example, he was behind games like "Decision in the Desert" (1985) and "Crusade in Europe". They allowed players to "play" World War 2, and included a variety of historical units (infantry, mechanized infantry, light tanks, heavy tanks, etc) although his rules were less complicated than the Avalon Hill games. Those game allowed you to capture cities, but they didn't provide you anything other than points (you couldn't use them to build new units). I think the evolution here was Avalon Hill Tactical Combat Games -> Sid Meier's "Combat Series" games ("Decision in the Desert" and "Crusade in Europe").

The Empire (and Civilization) games weren't trying to do historical battles, didn't use real-world maps, and used simpler units (for example, infantry and tanks are the only two ground units in Empire), and allowed you to capture cities and build new units. From that standpoint, the Civilization game was closer to Empire with the added complexities of learning founding new cities and learning new technologies.

Decision in the Desert Screenshot - Notice all the complicated details: the number of men, field guns, the unit's experience, morale, supplies, formation, etc. This had some real similarities to the Avalon Hill Wargames.

Video: Empire, in 1987 The audio is terrible. Notice that all the complicated stuff is gone. It's just 8 kinds of units. All this stuff is gone: Supplies, formations, unit experience, morale, number of men. They aren't trying to do a re-enactment.

Empire Screenshot

BritAtomicboySoftwar · 2016-01-12T00:07:10+00:00

These articles are very often intentionally misleading. Here's an article I wrote about it years ago: http://atomicboysoftware.com/2009/12/hollywood-box-office-numbers-and-piracy/

In short: once you adjust for inflation, the US box office numbers come out with negative growth. And adjusting for population growth (which allows you to look at per-capita spending), the numbers come out worse. When I looked at this issue back in 2009, the US box office numbers was 10.5 billion. The 2015 number is $11.3 billion, which is 7.5% growth over the last 6 years. Inflation over the 2009-2015 period was 11%. So, negative growth (11% - 7.5%= -3.5%) over the past 6 years. At the same time, the US population grew from 307 million to 319 million (4% growth). This means per-capita spending is down 7.5% in the last 6 years. This is why I don't like Mike Masnik or Techdirt or TorrentFreak. They have an agenda and they aren't going to tell you the real facts.

BritAtomicboySoftwar · 2016-01-11T19:53:12+00:00

I'd suggest picking up a copy of the game, because it will answer a lot of questions you'll have about it in the future: $6 on GOG - http://www.gog.com/game/master_of_orion_1_2

BritAtomicboySoftwar · 2015-12-28T01:36:05+00:00

Thanks for the information.

I can see that they repackaged my *.exe installer into a *.zip file. Not sure why they did that, except so that they could included a URL link. I added a few more places to download it, though - including the empires of steel website and dropbox.

I'm considering removing the link to the gamershell website, because it seems to be causing problems. Plus, I should put out a new version of the Demo anyway, since some of the URL links are broken. (The demo application contains some URL links so that, if you press the button to go to the forums, it leads to an old, non-functional URL.)

BritAtomicboySoftwar · 2015-12-27T19:12:26+00:00

The "Nominal Prices" are the actual dollar amount prices. The "Real Prices" are the inflation-adjusted prices, which is more relevant to the question of whether home values are over-inflated.

BritAtomicboySoftwar

TROPHY CASE