Bringing Circix to Windows Phone

Two developers discuss the making of their independent mobile game, and the benefits of bring it to Windows Phone as part of the The Beautiful Game Competition.

Russell King

I’m an keen and experienced programmer who has had a great love and enthusiasm for writing games since I first learnt to code from a young age. After making my programming skills official, following my graduation from university, I went on to set up the partnership KPM Software, who have thus far released two games.

Bungee Ninja was the first and was released for iOS and Android and it a simple endless runner game. Quick to make and instantly easy to play, Bungee Ninja was both fun and novel but was ultimately lacking in re-playability.

Their most recent game Floobz (iPhone 3 and 4 only) and is a more involved puzzle/strategy game inspired by classics such as Lemmings. It was both their greatest achievement in terms of the scale and complexity involved, but also their biggest failing, in that it failed to garner any real attention.

With a creative and excitable mind and drive for success to match, I am already planning the next project; with important lessons learnt already from Circix.

I have quickly learned that developers of new titles, particularly indie devs who don’t necessarily have the budgets to splash out on large marketing campaigns, should definitely have a presence on the Windows Phone Store. Period.

Graham Barber

I am a husband and proud father to my 16-month-old baby boy. Originally born in Brighton, I now live in the North West near Burnley.

Having written a few basic websites in my spare time, I decided to train as a software developer in 2005, working in the finance industry, and loved writing every line of code. This is what I wanted to do. In 2010 I fancied more of challenge and made the move to write clinical software.

I have dabbled in writing games over the years, but never taken the plunge to release one to the public. Circix is my first released game, working with my friend and colleague Russell King. I have owned two Windows Phones now, and having quickly become a fan of the OS, was very keen to release a game on this platform. As Russ had the experience of writing games for Android and iOS, the partnership fell into place.

It has taken us six months and while working on Circix has been challenging at times (trying to write a game in our spare time), it has definitely been great fun and we are now proud to say, that we have a game released on all three platforms.

One thing I have learned about games development is that the hard work actually begins post-release. Mainly due to the challenges surrounding marketing and game support.

Entries for The Beautiful Game competition are open until June 20th, 2014. Find out more here.