Last July I lost my job as educational game developer for schools, due to a change over of government and the budget cuts that followed. Making games has always been my passion. Since my hands first touched a keyboard, I've been making games with whatever tools that were available to me. Over the past 7 years I have worked on some popular flash games appearing on Kongregate and Newgrounds, purely as a hobby as I have never really made any money out of it to call it a living. But after losing my job I felt like it was sign to take a risk, to try and make a living off making my own games, my personal dream.

I've decided to start off making mobile and tablet games. It hasn't been easy, the past eight months I've been working hard to develop, test and release my first mobile/tablet project. The amount of play testing just to make sure a game is fun, is so much harder than you could ever imagine. I've been using a development language called Haxe NME, an awesome language that will output your project as both ios and android apps, so you can build it once and release it for both platforms with minimal changes. I'd highly recommend it if you want to make 2d games and are happy developing purely in a coding environment.

The game I created is called Greyhound Racer. It takes the core concepts of greyhound racing and turns into an arcade game with light sim elements. You pick a dog, it's color, and give it a racing name. Then you train and look after it so it can win races and eventually win the grand championship. I am aware some states in America have issues with greyhound racing, but the focus of the game is really about caring for your greyhound and keeping it after it retires from racing. But just like every industry where money is involved, bad practices emerge. The pet industry has all the same issues. But alas I got sidetracked. I hope the game is unique enough to stand out, I know the concept can be successful as I made a similar flash game that received a lot of positive feedback several years ago.

Its a scary time for me now. If none of this works out I have no idea what direction my life will go in. This is always what I wanted to do, but just like any creative profession, it's tough breaking in and making a living out of it. But I believe I can do it, and I have the full support of my friends and family behind me. I'm taking a step into the unknown and have no idea where I'll end up when cross to the other side. If you read this blog post, thankyou.

If anyone would like to check out the game, its on both android and ios.

Greyhound Racer on ios

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/greyhound-racer/id626094399?ls=1&mt=8

Greyhound Racer on Android

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.eyespyda.greyhound