Congratulations to Birk Aas, developer of our March GameSalad Game of the Month, LittleSaw.
Our March winner is a simple-but-challenging platformer where you test your skills by dodging saws through 66 levels.
We got some insider info on LittleSaw from the developer himself, Birk Aas.
GameSalad: Tell us a little about yourself and your experience as a game developer. How long have you been making games? What got you interested in GameSalad? How long have you been using GS?
Birk: Hi! My name is Birk Aas and I’m from Oslo, Norway. I’ve been studying interior architecture and furniture design so I didn’t really have any background or experience in making games, I only had experience playing them. I came over gamesalad a few years back but I just played around and made some small prototypes that didn’t amount to anything more. While studying I kind of forgot about it until last summer when really wanted to try to make a game and see what I could do. I also knew gamesalad is a great tool to use for a beginner. That’s when I started making Littlesaw.
I didn’t remember anything about how to use gamesalad but with the forum and YouTube tutorials it didn’t take that much time to learn and make all the rules I wanted for the game. I love platformers but I’m not a huge fan of endless runners (except Robot Unicorn attack) so I knew I wanted to try to make a full game with levels.
Since it’s on the mobile platform I wanted to make them short so you could easily pick up the game and try again without having to do a lot again if you die or quit the game.
The main gameplay of Littlesaw is inspired by a great game called Super Meat Boy that has hard and short levels that I thought could work great on the mobile platform.
I made the graphics of LittleSaw clean and simple cause I think thats the best way to go when working with games for small mobile devices.
GS: That was smart thinking on your part making the levels short. It sounds like other than tutorials and some forum help you made this game, art and all, all by yourself! Is that correct, or were you part of a team?
Birk: Yes I’m a one man team so I did everything myself but I love to draw and create stuff so I really enjoyed making the characters, environment and feeling of the game by myself. That said I had some friends beta test the levels for me so that helped a lot.
GS: That’s very impressive! How long would you say it took you to create LittleSaw? Did LittleSaw meet or exceed your expectations?
Birk: I think from start to finish it took me around 4 months to make. I’m glad I went for 66 levels instead of 100 as the original plan was! But I’m very happy with the result and people seem to like it so thats really great!
GS: The game looks very polished, especially for taking only one person around 4 months! Do you have any tips you’d like to share with other developers?
Birk: Well I might have one for beginners. If you want a feature for your game and you have no clue how to do it, take your time to learn how instead of thinking it’s too hard to do and then just skipping it. Also check out the Gamesalad tutorials on youtube, they helped me a lot.
GS: I think that’s a great tip, and thank you for sharing! Do you have any plans for your next project?
Birk: I’m not 100% sure what my next project with gamesalad is going to be but it might be a survival game or a 2 player game for tablets, or it might even be both. Last I want to thank you guys for picking my game as game of the month! Thank you very much!
GS: Thanks and congratulations again to Birk Aas, the developer of our March Game of the Month LittleSaw! We wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors!
LittleSaw is available in both free (lite) and paid versions for iPhone and iPad on the iTunes App Store!
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iPhone:
