Game of the Month Winner: October – Deluxe Track&Field!

/ GotM

GotM October

Markontheiron

Congratulations to Deluxe Track&Feild, the GameSalad Game of the Month – October!

We are pleased to award this months Game of the Month winner to Marco Ferraguti, also known as MarkontheIron on the forums!

If you’re not old enough to remember the Nintendo Power Pad, and the athletics games that went along with it, then feast your thumbs on MarkontheIron’s Deluxe Track&Field, this month’s Game of the Month winner. With classic arcade style graphics, and thumb numbing action, Track and Field manages to transport you back to the summer olympics of old. Solid yet simple controls add to the experience, and you will find yourself pretty upset with your thumbs for their lack of co-ordination at times.

We sat down with Marco to learn a little more about his inspirations and the making of Deluxe Track&Field:

GameSalad: Hey Marco! After letting our sore fingers recover we’re happy to talk with you about your game! Tell us about Deluxe Track&Field.

Marco: Deluxe Track&Field is an homage to the old console Track & Field games. We deliberately kept the gameplay (tapping faster than humanely possible) as close as possible to those games to garner the favors of the good ‘ol players as well as the new ones that are too young to have played them.
GameSalad: What inspired your game design?

Marco:
When I accepted this project from Sunlight Games nothing like this has ever been done in Game Salad. So the real thing that pushed me on accepting this task was the challenge, and it was a fun one to take. The control system was relatively simple, the real problem started when the animations were included and performance problems started to arise. Moreover I needed the animations to dynamically change depending on the speed of the actor and the actions the player takes. To overcome this problem I was able to create a new system that allowed me total control on the animation and very good performance even on older devices.

 

GameSalad: What makes Deluxe Track&Field a unique, must-play experience?

Marco: To add a personal touch on it we added some disciplines that were not included in the old T&Fs games, we used a more modern graphic style and we included an hidden “training” feature to award the most loyal players (the more a discipline is played the more the player gets the chance to perform better). Deluxe Track&Field has a great addictiveness to it, it’s challenging but it also leave you with the feeling of wanting to beat your own records or the ones of other players (thanks to the inclusion of Game Center). It is also a great casual game that can appeals to those player that have only a few minutes to spare.

 

GameSalad: When you’re not developing games, what are some of your hobbies outside of GameSalad?

Marco: Reading fantasy and science fiction takes most of my non developing time, but I’m also proud of considering myself a more than decent cook and I enjoy a lot the time I spend in the kitchen.

 

GameSalad: How did you discover GameSalad?

Marco: It was on October of 2009. I wanted to create a game for the App Store an I started learning to code. Then I read an article on development tools on an italian blog so I got curious and tried it. I never stopped using it since.

 

GameSalad: When developing games, do you work independently or with a team?

Marco: I’m mainly a one man band. Sometimes for music or graphics I use external contractors, but whenever possible I like to make everything by myself.

 

GameSalad: Any new projects on the horizon we can look forward to? What are you currently working on?

Marco:I have too many project put on paper and too little time to work on them. I’m currently actively working on 3 projects: an update for Deluxe Track&Field to address some bugs, a point and click isometric pixel art adventure that I probably will never finish and a new project for the same producer that gave me the Deluxe T&F project.

 

Thanks for taking the time to talk with us, Marco! We look forward to playing the update to Deluxe Track & Field (after our fingers have sufficient rest)!

Game Features:

  • Eleven track and field events: 100 Metres, Long Jump, Shot Put, High Jump, 400 Metres, 110 Metres Hurdles, Discus Throw, Pole Vault, Javelin Throw, Hammer Throw, Triple Jump
  • Four game modes: Championship Mode (compete for medals and records), Multiplayer Mode (compete against your friends), Training Mode (train each event) and Endless Mode (compete for points and high scores)
  • Two difficulty levels
  • Fully localized in English, German, Italian, French
  • Game Center support on iPhone and iPad
  • 28 achievements to unlock
  • Innovative Training Engine (the more you play, the stronger your
    athlete gets)

Grab it today…

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