Alpha Squadron was created a long long time ago using a framework called XNA.

Why,

It is not like A Shooter was a success back in XBLIG land. Discovery and making Niche games is a lot of fun, but is oft not financially rewarding.

I wanted to do a test. After XNA there were other Game Dev Frameworks… which will lead me to other Fables when I get chance to write them.

However one of the ones I really liked is Unity. But the way that framework works is so incredibly different to anything I had used before.

I wondered…

Could my old game be ported to a Game Engine like Unity?

Am I good enough?

Am I dedicated enough?

In fact I need to talk about How and Why did A Shooter turn into Alpha Squadron 15 years later and no longer under SorceryGames?

Well the short answer is Yes… but there is more to it than that.

Namely Ender

Ender is an inspiration. They are, as well as being my oldest child, a creative powerhouse, and just like their Dad, they tend to finish what they start.

And though it will be in another Fable about VBHh and our history together, I always enjoy our creative conversations.

We get along well, and they encourage me to create more. We needed a place to collaborate on all things.. And the Workshop is the place.

So… Alpha Squadron, my renamed A Shooter from 15 years  ago has been resurrected into Unity and is to be released on Steam.

I should also mention it is nice to have a low expectations game released on Steam before some of our larger titles go down that path. Experience counts in all ways.

The Fable of

Back then was called Ashooter and was published on the Xbox Live Indie Games (XBLIG) service run by Microsoft.

Being able to just create a game and put it right onto your Xbox360 was incredible and Microsoft should be commended for making it even possible.

Now XBLIG had many issues, and those are detailed and I guess archived now for people interested in the past, and I am not here to bring up old gripes.

How,

Renaming the game is not hard of course. A Shooter seemed like such a clever name for a basic skills side scrolling Shmup,, but the name when searched for simply got lost. Every FPS is called a shooter after all. Ugh, what a silly mistake.

So it needed a new Name. My great friend Terry who did the original artwork was up for doing a new Logo, and so Alpha Squadron was born. Well, the initials are still AS after all :)

It took me two attempts to create Alpha Squadron in Unity. The first attempt failed as I simply did not understand how to use Unity effectively. But after I worked on VBHh with Ender, I knew much more. And this allowed me to take all the Level data tables and artwork from the XNA version and make it work in Unity. There some things I had to recreate from scratch, such as the Menus, or the Starfield. But the data held true and this made the game play exactly the same now as it did 15 years ago. Wow

With the Creation of the Workshop for Endeavors favored by Ender and Rob (me) and all our incredible friends, we needed to move Alpha Squadron as the first of many creations to be published.

Next?

Perhaps a Successful launch on Steam and some sales. That would be nice to share with the Artist who did such great pixel work on the game.

If you enjoyed the Story, please go Wishlist this game.

Please click the image and go Wishlist the game, if interested

Why was this Side Scrolling Shmup created?

I LOVE arcade Shmups. I always have and I suppose because of that I tend to play them quite well.

I love these kind of games so much that way back in 1984 I was invited to take part in the British Arcade Games Championship due to my being able to play Gyruss incredibly well.

So here I was trying to play these kinds of games with friends who never really grew up on the Arcade experience like I did.

I Mean, they didn’t even know how to Dodge a bullet…

This simple fact gave me the inspiration to create a simpler game, with less distraction or many firepowers to choose from, or confusing backgrounds distracting the player. Along with that it needed to be balanced and progressively challenging.

And so… A Shooter was born, with so much bullet dodging!

Of course I also wanted to keep playing with my friends, so it is also local multiplayer! Which I also spent a large amount of time balancing.