Whilst at the Windows Phone Dev Day in Bournemouth we got a chance to meet Ross Gouldthorpe, who has been developing for Windows Phone for two years. Ross was kind enough to give us a walkthrough of his upcoming Windows phone game, Atoms.
The game is also currently in development for the Xbox 360 and has a Nintendo DS homebrew counterpart. The game Atoms has roots as an old Amiga game of the same name. It started life as freebie on the cover of a magazine, which is where Ross first discovered it. Ross tells me he still has his Amiga machines but these days they are locked up in storage, he does still have the Amiga CD32 connected to his TV though.
The game, developed using the ever-popular XNA developer tools in conjunction with graphic artist Chris Hildenbrand, is taking shape nicely. As this is not a full time project for Ross, it has taken him some time to get to this stage, currently the Windows Phone version is making its way through certification. Once the app is released on the Windows Phone Marketplace, Ross hopes to devote more time to getting the 360 version up which will include online play, something that the Windows Phone version does not currently have.
Atoms on Windows Phone will support six players, either human or AI controlled, and will also support a reply mode to watch all the dramatic chain reaction events. If you're lazy, Ross advises you can get the AI to play as all six players for a more cinematic experience.
Ross Gouldthorpe
From what we have seen so far, the game looks pretty neat, the graphics and animations are certainly compelling and the game looks fun too. We’ll be keeping in touch with Ross to see how things are going. We’d certainly suggest he gets some online turn based features into his app as soon as he can. Thanks Ross for your time, we hope to see the game in the marketplace soon. You can check more about the game and its history on the Atoms game website.
