Introducing: Bugs and Bacon

Many of my favorite iOS games are the "simple" score-centric types (like Jetpack Joyride and Ziggurat) that I can quickly play during short waits. Those kinds of games (and my limited amount of time between college semesters) inspired me to develop a game with a similar mentality, albeit one with a unique premise. I present to you:

Bugs and Bacon is a game about taking risks. Your goal is to capture as many bugs as possible inside of bubbles and direct those bubbles (using swipe controls) into a bug zapper to score points. You have a limited number of bubbles, so you'll need to grab as many bugs as you can with each. However, one touch of a bee's stinger (or a number of other obstacles) will pop your bubble, and you'll watch as all your captured bugs fly away!

As you play, you will begin to account for your own limitations. How many bees can I avoid at one time? Should I risk everything to grab one more bug?

Okay, so you're probably wondering, "What about the bacon?"

The "bacon" part of the title is the other way you can score points. While you are maneuvering your bubbles around the screen, strips of bacon will fall from the sky. You can touch them to score some extra points (or capture them in your bubble to be zapped).

This circles back to the whole "risk-taking" aspect of the game. You could simply think of the bacon as a distraction and ignore it—or you could go out of your way to grab every single strip to give your score that extra little boost it needs.

Plus, you're rewarded with a very satisfying sizzle when you touch them. Just saying.

So now you might be thinking, "Why does bacon fall from the sky? That's crazy!" To that I reply, "Why, yes. Yes it is."

One of my main design decisions for this game was to include any ideas that I thought would make it more enjoyable, no matter how crazy or stupid they sounded. In fact, the more crazy or stupid, the better.

This led me to create some interesting bugs for the player to capture, like a praying mantis on a flying carpet that can teleport away if a bubble gets too close. Additionally, there is a handful of power-ups you can use to improve your score.

I'm particularly proud of the "Disco Fever" power-up that replaces the bug zapper with a disco ball. It also prevents bees from appearing for a while, since bees are terrified of disco music. Obviously.

There is so much more that I could say about this game, such as explaining all of the unlockable bugs and power-ups or how many stats the game will keep track of, but I'lll save that for later. Look for Bugs and Bacon on the app store within the next few weeks for $0.99 (and no IAP's).

I'd love to discuss any questions, comments, or suggestions you might have! You can leave a reply here, hit me up on Twitter @mgbesong, or email me at max@cyclonekick.com.

Browser version of Beast Squad is available!

If you want to play Beast Squad but don't have and iOS device or a couple of bucks to spend, never fear! You can now play it from the comfort of your own computer for free! This version has only 45 of the 60 levels, so if you enjoy it enough, why not pick up the iOS version as well? You can play the game on Newgrounds now, and I am prepping a version for Kongregate which will be out in another week or so.

Play Beast Squad now!

First review of Beast Squad

The site Pocketful of Megabytes has just reviewed Beast Squad and gave it a 4 out of 5 ! I could not be more happy about how the reviewer felt about the game, and his constructive criticisms will be very helpful for my future game projects.

Read the review here!

Beast Squad is now available for iOS!

Woohoo! Beast squad is now available on the iTunes app store for $1.99! It runs on iPhone 3GS and up, as well as iPod Touch 3rd gen and up, so if you own one of those devices, check it out! I hope there is not a law about using too many exclamation points in a single blog post! Oh well!

Get Beast Squad here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/beast-squad/id467075053?ls=1&mt=8

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Beast Squad is approved!

Today, Beast squad was approved by Apple and will launch on Friday, September 30th for $1.99! I cannot tell you how excited I am, probably because of all the stress I'm feeling right now. I still have some work to do on the browser version that will launch on the same day (the iOS version will have 15 more levels, plus addition ones in later updates, so that's the best version to play of course). I'll be posting much more later, but I've got a crazy amount of things to do right now!

Trailer and Gameplay Demonstration Videos

Now you can finally see what Beast Squad is like in motion! Unfortunately, the video quality did not translate well onto Youtube. Just keep in mind that the game moves much smoother and looks a heck of a lot clearer than how either of these videos appear. Next time, I'll try to find a new way to record the gameplay, but this will have to do for now. Maybe I'll put the original Quicktime movies that I used up for download if there is enough interest, which look much better than these conversions.

Trailer:

Gameplay demonstration:

Check out these high-res iTunes screenshots

Here are the screenshots that will be on Beast Squad's iTunes app store page. Click on an image to view it in its actual size.