https://quickchargegames.com/tags/development/ Recent content in development on QuickCharge Games Hugo -- gohugo.io en-us Copyright © 2012-2016 QuickCharge Games, All Rights Reserved Tue, 25 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000 https://quickchargegames.com/news/putting-steel-in-steel-dragons/ Tue, 25 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000 https://quickchargegames.com/news/putting-steel-in-steel-dragons/ By The Puzzler Several elements set the steampunk world of Steel Dragons apart from both historical feudal Japan and other steampunk settings. One of the most important of these elements is the inclusion of the substance known as “smart steel.” Smart steel is a metal that can be “programmed” to take on any shape. In its natural form, it’s a liquid metal that looks and acts similar to mercury. https://quickchargegames.com/news/name-of-the-game/ Mon, 17 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000 https://quickchargegames.com/news/name-of-the-game/ By T.Kiya William Shakespeare had a famous quote about roses and names: “Would you stick your nose in a rose if they called it ‘stabby-thorn bee-attractor?’ I don’t think so.” I’m pretty sure Shakespeare said that. The guy was a marketing genius, and he had a point: no matter how cool you game is – or sweet your flower smells – it has to have a killer name, or no one’s going to check it out. https://quickchargegames.com/news/hamster-android-roller-coaster/ Thu, 18 Aug 2011 00:00:00 +0000 https://quickchargegames.com/news/hamster-android-roller-coaster/ The first few weeks after Hamster was released on Android, we saw great growth, and it looked like we had a hit on our hands. Almost every day we got more users than the previous day, and when we released updated builds, we saw huge spikes in users. And so it went until the middle of July, when the bottom fell out from under us. Apparently Google has been tweaking the way the market works, and something happened to the ranking that caused it to drop like a rock. https://quickchargegames.com/news/hamster-attack-video-previews/ Fri, 15 Apr 2011 00:00:00 +0000 https://quickchargegames.com/news/hamster-attack-video-previews/ https://quickchargegames.com/news/graphics-optimization-using-texture-atlases/ Mon, 21 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0000 https://quickchargegames.com/news/graphics-optimization-using-texture-atlases/ One of the ways I’ve learned to improve performance of a game is to reduce use of video memory through the use of texture atlases. A “texture” in a game, in this context, is a bit of graphics that will be drawn to the screen as part of the game. A texture atlas is a set of textures that have been cropped to the size of the actual image I need in the game – when image files come from the artist, they usually contain a great deal of blank space around the image, and those blank pixels take up valuable video RAM, which can slow down the frame rate during game play. https://quickchargegames.com/news/writing-engine/ Thu, 17 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0000 https://quickchargegames.com/news/writing-engine/ When I started to work on my first indie game under the Recharge Games banner, I wanted to start with an existing library. I’d just spent almost six years working on the Playground SDK for PlayFirst, and was sick to death of writing game engines. After doing a survey of what was available for Android in May of 2010, though, I came to the conclusion that none of the contenders would do everything that I wanted. https://quickchargegames.com/news/final-stretch/ Tue, 15 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0000 https://quickchargegames.com/news/final-stretch/ We’re approaching the final stretch on our first original game – close enough that I want to finally announce its official name: Hamster: Attack!We had a great response to it at GDC. Angel and I showed a pre-alpha version of the game with animations, demo levels and game art. We were able to demo the game to a broad audience, including some folks from Android at Google. What I liked in particular was how so many people lit up at the animations and gameplay; we tried hard to make the characters fun and whimsical, but you never know how people will react until you put the game in front of them. https://quickchargegames.com/news/new-team-member/ Wed, 12 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000 https://quickchargegames.com/news/new-team-member/ I’m happy to announce that Angel Inokonhas joined the team working on our first original title! Angel has a distinguished history producing hit titles like Dream Chronicles 2: The Eternal Maze, Dream Chronicles: The Chosen Child, and others for PlayFirst, where she worked with Tim. At Recharge Games she will be taking on the role of Senior Producer and Lead Designer for our first independent title, and we’re all excited about the energy, experience, and design expertise she’s bringing to the project. https://quickchargegames.com/news/mobile-game-development/ Tue, 04 May 2010 00:00:00 +0000 https://quickchargegames.com/news/mobile-game-development/ Hi, I’m Tim Mensch, a long time game industry veteran, and I started Recharge Games [edit: now QuickCharge Games!] in May, 2010 to develop mobile games. I’m assembling a virtual team of other experienced game developers, including artists, programmers, so if you’re interested in participating, please document.write("contact me"); contact me [Email Protected] . There isn’t a lot of news I can share with the world quite yet, and as of this writing the Recharge web site hasn’t gotten past the “free Drupal theme” stage.