Cheers to a great 2011! It was an awesome year, with a lot of unexpected success and new milestones. So let’s get started.

Enter the Omega Box

My first game of 2011, Omega Box, surprisingly was a huge hit. I intended it to be a small project just to flex some brain and muscle, but it ended up racking 1,000,000 plays. It was also featured on Kotaku, JayIsGames, IndieGamesChannel, and for the first time I got on the front page of Kongregate and NewGrounds, a great achievement for any flash game developer. Much thanks to AddictingGames for licensing and publishing.

The Zombie Apocalypse

Zombocalypse — The best project I’ve yet to work on! I loved working on the new mechanics, and doing all the sound design — I’m very meticulous not only about small details but that the sound is good enough to immerse the player in the world I’ve created. I worked with the very talented Apatheria who did the infamous voice acting for when you pick up weapons, and Mike Puncekar who just blew everyone away with his artwork, and much thanks to Dan for publishing and licensing Zombocalypse into the ArmorGames pantheon.

This game was the pinnacle of IronZilla’s brand, racking up over 3 million+ plays, being featured as the daily and weekly game for NewGrounds (and winning various trophies) and reviewed by JayisGames, hitting frontpage on Kongregate, bringing in over 5,000 likes to IronZilla’s Facebook page, and spreading like wildfire everywhere else. It’s hard to fathom that I created a game that received this amount of love.

Professionalism

One of the most difficult things I’ve ever done has to be pledging and crossing into a professional business fraternity, AKPsi. It’s more of an organization than a fraternity, as people confuse fraternities with hazing, parties, alcohol, etc. All of that is illegal, since it compromises being professional and composed.

I had to keep a professional demeanor at all times, prepare and partake in interviews under a high pressure environment, give speeches and presentations, and manage and interact with groups of people to set up events. This definitely polished my business game, and allowed me to grow in confidence with my leadership abilities. To me, it’s important to be a good developer, but you’ll also need to be business savvy.

A great amount of sacrifice, determination, commitment, lack of sleep, and energy drinks pretty much sums it up! (Big thanks to my brother from another mother Steven Dizon for really urging me to go through with the pledging process)

And Some Goals…

I have a bunch of personal goals, but here’s some I’d like to achieve for IronZilla:

- Make 3-4 games this year, and 1 big sellable game
- Make a connection with the 5,200+ fans on our Facebook page. I’d like to get to know you guys more as John, and not just as some developer who makes these crazy games!
- Keep frequently posting on IronZilla.com, at least 1-2 times a week
- Grow IronZilla’s fan base, and expand the brand
- Set up more collaborations with talented people
- Attend The Flash Game Summit, and if by some kind of divine miracle, attend GDC.

And a BFTY!

Thank you all for supporting me and IronZilla (obviously since you’re reading this post), as well as the 5,200 fans on our Facebook page. It’s been a pleasure, let’s make 2012 awesome!

- John