Creating the Fast-Paced Pixel Art Shoot ‘Em Up Let Them Come

In late 2014 I left Rocksteady in London and moved to Vancouver to work for a large game studio. Even though I was working at the cutting edge of games technology, I had been aspiring to also be a part of something more personal at that time. I looked up to successful indie game developers and grew fond of the idea of creating my own game, or being a part of a very small team of developers collaborating on a project.

It all started very innocently, exploring new software and new art techniques. There were no expectations. After all, I was doing this in the little spare time I had. As I got more comfortable using new tools, things increasingly got more exciting. An experience started to emerge, I was creating something truly my own and something others could interact with. I could clearly visualize it then, the game I wanted it to become.

Vancouver has a blooming indie scene. Only a couple of weeks after starting active development, I was taking the early prototype to indie meetups where other like-minded people hang out, a lot of them showing off their own creations. For the first time, strangers played my game and I got to see their positive reactions. I was captivated, there was no going back. I was really making a game! I named it Let Them Come.

I always liked those spectacle moments in first-person shooters where you mounted a gun turret and let loose against a horde of enemies, mowing them down. When I think about those action sequences, franchises like the “Alien” always come to mind and that ended up being one of the main sources of inspiration for the overall atmosphere and feeling of the game. Respecting this strict design limitation of no player movement left me free to focus on finding where the true fun of the moment is and building on top of that.

After about a year of development I partnered with an indie publisher Versus Evil. They came with experience and expertise that would give Let Them Come a fighting chance in a busy and saturated game market. To that end, I was very excited at the prospect of eventually releasing the game on Xbox.

Launching on Xbox One is fantastic, as the team behind certification have been great to work with and throw in the fact that Let Them Come feels great with the Xbox One controller — it’s a win-win. Launch time has finally arrived and with the release right around the corner I’m happy to say I can look back at those early days with a sense of accomplishment and pride.

Please join me in celebrating the release of my first indie game Let Them Come by ripping through alien scourge! I hope you have as much fun playing as I had making it.