When I released the Christmas update for Coffee Cellar I thought “I know what would be cool. A mug icon with Rocket Santa on the front”. That’s how these things start.
For those of you who don’t know, Rocket Santa is a game I created in collaboration with a talented pixel artist in 2009. The aim was to test the Christmas market and… well… it kinda failed.
Back to my riveting anecdote. I went ahead and released Coffee Cellar with its cool Rocket Santa mug icon. I also thought, I haven’t played Rocket Santa in a while, I’ll download it. Well, I did and it crashed upon opening.
So, I thought I’d just fix the bug and update it. Cutting an overly long story short, my code was a mess and really out of date. I had a go at fixing it but ultimately settled on a better idea. I’d re-write the game for scratch with zero code re-use.
It turned into a bit of a challenge. Trying to re-write the whole game with superior gameplay and no new graphics (whilst trying to keep the dev time short). A few weeks later and that’s what I’ve done. The same awesome graphics with a new engine. Here’s what’s changed…
+ Brand new sound effects and music across the board.
+ New gameplay based on delivering as many presents as you can.
+ Cool particle effects including… Snow!
+ A more dynamic landscape.
+ Dynamic difficulty.
+ Game Center leaderboards.
+ Better performance.
+ Re-worked controls for smoother gameplay.
+ A new icon.
Oh yeh, the best bit. Its Free too. No Advertising. No IAP’s. No virtual currency. Just plain ol’ Free. A gift from me to you. Happy Christmas.