In the beginning there was only light...

...because we work in a conservatory and it is really really sunny today.

So this is officially day one of the dev blog, but really it's about day 15 of the project. I forget now precisely how many days it's been since I quit the mainstream industry and set up Spilt Milk, but the day Jon told me he was joining in the quest for indie happiness was one I'll never forget!

He totally ruined all my plans, and I had to hastily rethink the next few months ;)

We decided we've got enough time to try a few ways of making enough money to survive on indie games, one of them being something on xblig. Conventional wisdom suggests we're not going to make a mint, but we've got something pretty cool up our sleeves, and we're not stopping with this project anyway, we'll be crossig platforms as well as genres. So nerr.

First up, a little bit about the game - Knuckle Sandwich is a single-screen 2D brawler, styled after Final Fight and Streets of Rage, but with the wave and score mentality of something like ODST's Firefight mode.

We're hoping to provide a real retro slice of classic action, but brought up to date with some snazzy effects, cool moves and exciting powerups.

Now that the blurb is out of the way, I can tell you a bit about today's development.

The interesting thing about being an indie is that you can tell yourself when to work, and what on. So while I did some background art pixel pushing and Jon tinkered with a bit more AI code, we also allowed ourselves to spend time on various other little bits and bobs:

Dustbin

Drinks Can (4 colours)

Choccy Bar

Crisp Packet

Barrier (reversed)

Oildrum (empty)

Oildrum (full)

Paper

Leaflet

AI: Wandering Behaviour

Blog setup

Emails (various websites, press contacts and other interested/interesting parties)

Develop blog draft

On the not-necessarily-work-related list we have:

20 minute jog

Dog walk

Dog lying-to

Ball throwing

Stencilling (shh, it's a secret)

Lunch making

Tea drinking

Joke cracking

Obviously because this is the first post we've gone into extra detail, and the yawnsome bits will be left out in the future.

Today's biggest thing was really the emailing and setting up of this blog. We're keen to be open and friendly with any fans and the community we're trying to build here. We're not shy about showing people the game in its earliest stages, and we hope that this development diary will help give you guys out there an insight into the excitement that is indie development.

We're trying to build up awareness of not just the brand but also the game we're making. We know it's the community who end up buying the jubbly toys we make so we want to do anything we can to a) let them know we exist, and b) give them a reason - beyond promises of being an ace game - to stick with us.

Hell if you really want to, email me at andrew dot smith at spiltmilkstudios dot com.

Go on; send me a funny link, I'll plonk it up here tomorrow.

There's a lot of other good sources of this kind of thing out there already, but by contributing our small amount we can only hope to strengthen the community and contribute in a meaningful way.

So as a recap for those that don't know:

Here is our daily TwitPic update page (latest - zombie *yawn*!)

Here is our Twitter feed

Hopefully see you tomorrow for more ramblings!

Have a lovely interim :)

PS: Our good buddy Defdefire made this, it is wonderful. Hint: Dreamcast, Jet Set Radio, Anniversary. Nuff said.