I’ve started work on GlueFO 3, the third installment in my GlueFO series. I made the original GlueFO well over a year ago, and the followup GlueFO 2.0 over 6 months ago. The basis of the game is that you capture and fling tiny orbs in order to split bigger orbs. Splitting big orbs right down gives you more tiny orbs to collect and fire. Its Asteroids with a twist – you don’t have conventional ammo and instead use the tiny orbs that you split for this purpose.

Why two sequels?

When I made the first game I never imagined I would want to make two sequels. But for both sequels I felt I had enough additions and improvements to add to the core mechanic (which is pretty fun) to make it worthwhile. The first game was simple – it had unlimited levels and only a few upgrades. Although it was fun I thought I could make it more engaging and re-playable by adding context and variation, and I did this by making a Campaign mode with a specific target, along with achievements, challenges and extra upgrades. GlueFO 2.0 was more successful than the first (winning 3rd place in the Top of the World flash contest).

As a developer working on a sequel is a bit less fun than designing a new game. For me anyway, the most fun part of the development process is coming up with a new idea and bringing it to life with an early prototype. The polishing, balancing, beta testing, bug fixing etc that comes after this is somewhat less fun. The flip side is that making a sequel is less work than developing something from scratch – you can reuse code, fix bugs or design mistakes from the previous version, and hopefully end up with something that is actually a better game.

What’s new in part 3?

The third installment will be the game it should have been from the start, except that I could never have made it the first time because (a) I didn’t have the experience as a designer/developer, and (b) feedback and analysis from the first two versions informed design of the third. One big thing I think is lacking in GlueFO 2.0 is that the Campaign (and challenges) are arbitrary. Why are there 15 levels in the Campaign for example? [Answer: it just felt about right for the level of difficulty/ game length]. I’m addressing this in GlueFO 3 by having stage-based battles and a storyline to go with them. Other improvements/additions include:

• The presence of enemy GlueFOs is part of the story, and there are more types of them
• Progress is no longer lost when you die, you can continue from the last stage reached with upgrades intact
• A money/store upgrade system will be used instead of the somewhat arbitrary 2 upgrades per level in previous versions
• Shinier graphics!

Right now the game is almost feature complete – I need to add the achievements and get an artist to help out on some graphics. If you’d like to be involved in the beta testing leave a comment or email me: gordon[at]irregulargames.com