Some details about how Chronic Logic's game AstroDriller3020 was designed:
How did you come up with the concept for AstroDriller?
The concept of AstroDriller came from wanting to make a more refined and challenging yet fair version of Oddictive, my first independent game. You can consider AstroDriller and Oddictive like sequel - cousins or something. Both concepts stem from me playing this really cool flash "game", I think simply called "Sand Game". Found here: http://chir.ag/stuff/sand/ you can see that at first, there isn't much in common, but inside this game, I started creating lines of sand and watching the particles flow from one place to another. I starting thinking about controlling the flow of those particle to a particular destination. That's the basic idea of AstroDriller: stuff spawns from the top, control the flow of where it goes, match it at the bottom.
What makes it different from the millions of other "match 3" type games that are around?
Well, it's not even a traditional match-3 as you just match asteroids one at a time to increase your streak. Streak increases your multiplier, and on top of that, you have the concepts of "grinding" down the asteroids and collecting "schmoints" placed in the levels to increase your score even more. Where a traditional match 3 game relies heavily on matching and collapsing colors together, AstroDriller is much more about combining all the different ways of accumulating points into a short burst-effort to get a new high score. The game is really all about that "score-attack" style gameplay, where you repeatedly try and beat your own score in the set amount of time. I got the time limit idea from Pac Mac CE. I think it's cool to be able and try and get a new high score in the same amount of time, instead of "the longer you play, the higher a score you get".
What can you say about the later levels in the game? I get the impression that levels will get completely manic and about a million times more difficult!!
The later levels will swallow your soul and kill your inner child. Don't journey into the Kappa galaxy unless you want to get your ego smacked around. They are doable though, as I've completed them left handed with no upgrades.
How have sales been so far? Is it (or will it be) available on Steam?
We are just starting to promote the game to other sites so ask me that in a month or two :) Steam is the #1 site we would like to sell AstroDriller3020 on but it can be very difficult to get in touch with them. We will keep trying though :)
Many thanks to Bryon, Garrett and Josiah at Chronic Logic for their cooperation on this.
If you like puzzle games, why not download the AstroDriller3020 demo?
