Monday 2 February 2015

New Release: Grand Theft Seagull

For almost as long as I have worked at Troll Inc there has been development of Grand Theft Seagull actively taking place with varying amounts of programmers and artists working on it. I have a very short experience with this project with my participation only lasting almost 2 months.

Grand Theft Seagull sees the player take control of a seagull flying through the streets and causing havoc in the only way it can, by stealing food and making a 'mess'. The game features multiple environments from streets to sewers and many obstacles and people that will try to stop you. Collect coins and powerups to create more havoc and get a higher score, upgrade your seagull for better powerups and see how long you can survive.
GTS

When I joined the project, it had been moved around, re-written and the core gameplay had massively changed from the original game design document to make it play better. The game itself at this stage was good, just not finished, and I was given the task of finding problems to fix and to make sure that our players will want to come back. I was new to the project and I found that where the game was fun, there was nothing that made me want to come back for more, after a few plays I was happy with the game and would leave it.

After looking around at ways to make people come back for more, it was decided to add collectibles to the game and daily challenges to give the player something to aim towards. Once I had gotten the daily challenge system in the game and got the collectibles made up, we wanted to make sure that the player was rewarded for their efforts and so that not all their collecting and challenges they completed were in vain, and so we added in leveling up.

By leveling up the player can increase their base multiplier and get higher scores to beat their friends through Facebook, the player can level up by getting score from the game, completing missions, collecting the letters(collectibles) and completing daily challenges. With a base multiplier of up to 10x the score and an in game multiplier of up to 9x, the players who achieve this will be in with a good chance to beat their friends scores.

Whilst I never had a big part in the development of Grand Theft Seagull, I am familiar with the project and have seen the troubles it has faced. From running slowly on less powerful devices to having to change the game to make it play better. The game has gone through many changes over its long development, but it plays well and is much better than the prototype from January 2014.

Grand Theft Seagull was released today on iOS, Android and Windows Phone, it's free to play and I truly believe the game is enjoyable and the effort put into the game really shows with the level of quality of the finished game.

Link for iOS Download
Link for Android Download
Link for Windows Phone Download

Frozen Fishy out.