Everyone loves indie developers. Even if their games don’t have the biggest budgets, they often have the most creative ideas.
Take, for example, Tiki Games. This small studio started developing Galaxy’s End, a real-time strategy game designed from the ground up for the PSP. With an intuitive control scheme and vibrant graphics, publishers were impressed, but weary of funding a real-time strategy game for a handheld.
"We developed Galaxy’s End to the point where we had a playable demo which demonstrated our control scheme (which is very pick-up-and-play oriented), how to issue and attack orders, how to acquire resources, and how to construct units," said Tiki Games president Kevin McCann when he chatted with us about the title in June. "It also demonstrated basic combat AI."
"When we started shopping it around publishers really weren’t looking for original IPs for the PSP, and I actually think the RTS-angle hurt it from a publisher’s viewpoint," remarked McCann. "Sure, they’re an extremely popular genre on PCs, but it was a tough sell to convince publishers that if it was done well and not dumbed down that we could find a good audience on the PSP."
Screen from an old build when the PSP was locked at 233 MHz
"In the end we simply didn’t have the financial resources to finish Galaxy’s End. So I had to figure out what we could finish with a reduced team size. Welcome to being independent."
Now, four months later, McCann must decide if development on Tiki’s PSP RTS should continue. That’s where you come in.
"The decision to resume development of Galaxy’s End isn’t mine alone, though," said McCann. "Quite frankly we don’t have the finances to finish Galaxy’s End right now which means we’ll likely have to look for another loan. Subsequently we need to make sure there’s a large enough potential audience that would be willing to purchase a downloadable real-time strategy game for the PSP."
PlayStation community, now is the time to speak up! Check out this quick survey to let them know what you think about the game.