Welcome to Show and Tell, a regular feature where we speak to indie devs to find out what they’re working on, what they’ve released, and what they might be releasing soon. Today we have Ally Lester for Games Lab in the hot seat to talk about what they’re bringing to the app world.
Can you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your studio?
My name is Ally Lester and I’m the Production Coordinator / Social Media Marketing Guru / Mail Getter / Kitchen Cleaner for our Sydney-based company Games Lab. Currently there are two different teams in our office consisting of programmers, artists and technical artists. One team is working on casual games for iPhone and Android, and the other team is working on a Big Secret Project that’s due out in the next few years.
Our two maiden games, made in Unity 3D, are Bomba, an Aztec-styled strategy/puzzle game, and Penny Parlor, a collection of four vintage arcade machines, which are both available now on the App Store and Android Market.
One thing that’s unique about Games Lab is that we create our mobile games in an exciting way -– all the employees at Games Lab are invited to submit game designs and we have regular Game Design Days to brainstorm and decide which ones we should bring to reality.
What game are you working on at the moment?
At the moment we have two mobile games in the works. Escape to Apetopia is a cartoony side-scrolling game involving, funnily enough, a monkey, escaping from a lab to make it back to the mythical land of Apetopia. I imagine we’re going to have a lot of fun recording the sounds for that soon.
Toot Toot ABC is an alphabet and counting learning game for young children with really colourful animal characters and some very cheerful trains.
Where and when can we play?
Escape to Apetopia and Toot Toot ABC are due for release mid-November on iPhone and Android. Bomba and Penny Parlor are currently out on both platforms for 99c (AUD) each, as well as Bomba Lite which has 9 levels for free.
What’s next for your studio – any big plans?
We hope to be releasing four to six apps per year from here. We’ve also got that Big Secret Project but my lips are sealed for now!
Any words of advice for those who want to get into the games industry?
If you want my job? Start from the bottom and try to accrue whatever extra responsibility you can. I’m still wiping the kitchen benches but I also get to spend time reading game review sites and play testing our new game ideas, so it’s definitely more fun than anything else!
Are you an indie dev or game design student working on a cool project? Wanna show and tell us what it’s all about? Drop us an email here and we can have a chat about it!
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