Hi, I'm Himanshu!

Concept art for the second female protagonist in GRAVEFIRE: Dr. Storm, The Alchemist

by Matias Cabezas 

Her key strength is brewing potions and poisons.

Concept art for another one of the main characters: Blade, The Rogue

by Matias Cabezas

Her key strength is her speed, the ability to “vanish” and stealthily attack unsuspecting opponents.

Concept art for one of the main characters: Crow, The Necromancer

by Matias Cabezas 

On the other side of the lake, by the woods, lived a hermit. He used to live in the town nearby working as a medium not so long ago, helping people communicate with the other side to settle their griefs of loss of loved ones. 

It has been one month since Sheeping Around released on the App Store. 10 days after the game was released, I did a retrospective of the game’s launch and how it performed. It is time to look back on the good, the bad and the ugly. It was the first game that I actually released, so the learnings that it brought me has been immense.

Concept art for one of the main characters:  Skull, The Knight

by Matias Cabezas 

An exiled ex-general of the army of a distant kingdom, The Knight is a warrior that spent his days before the grave fire in a small cottage by the lake, training alone. 

The grave fire chewed everything and everyone up in flames. It was the end of all we know, and no one knows why or how it happened.

The survivors of the grave fire, though far and few between, were the ones really that were impacted. To survive an event that was supposed to destroy the entire planet was nothing short of a miracle. And it indeed was, because they remembered nothing of the event - only how good and peaceful life was before it, and what it is now - a meaningless existence. But they did have some things in common that perhaps made them survive. As the future events unfold, they will find out more.

「 G R A V E F I R E 」will be a deck-building roguelike, as has been pointed out in its subtitle, and will be its key selling point. There are a lot of players who love roguelikes and a lot who like card games as well, and quite frankly there aren’t enough games out there to cater to the demand. I can barely count the most popular roguelikes on my two hands. As a deck-building game, they key difference from roguelikes would be that everything would be a card, and you build a deck as you progress through the game.

Several years ago, a huge fire broke out, and all of humanity was burnt alive, chewed away by the flames. The fire was unlike any other: it pierced through oceans, shrivelled up all rivers, vaporised icy glaciers into thin air, and made the mountains bleed lava. And it kept burning - for years, until one day only the ashes remained.

tl;dr: Scroll all the way down for the numbers.

Sheeping Around has been live on the App Store for a little over ten days now. I think it is about time I look back at the development cycle, the good parts, the bad parts and also share some sales figures while I’m at it. I’m following the trend of transparency to help other indie game developers know and understand the market of premium games, for which I gained inspiration from Eric @ Slothwerks and Arnold @ Tiny Touch Tales. I’m also inspired by the way they work: solo devs working with talented people across the world on a contract basis, and I follow the same pattern.

2018 comes to an end with some great news! Sheeping Around: Strategy Card Game is now available for pre-order on iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sheeping-around/id1369538992

The pastures are green and the day is warm. Shepherd Hazel Woof is grazing her sheep peacefully. What could go wrong on this bright sunny day? Little does she know, her sheep could be ambushed at any moment. Poacher Alex Fox has been luring her sheep to traps he’s made. Fortunately for Hazel, Alex gets spotted and she can now take action. Will she be able to defend her sheep or will Alex steal them away? 

In my previous post, I talked about how Sheeping Around was going well as a tactics like turn based strategy game. However in mid 2017 I would purchase a game on my phone that would not only have me addicted to it, but also change the face of Sheeping Around for the better. That game was Card Thief, designed by TinyTouchTales.

This post introduces my game Sheeping Around to the world. It has come far along now in its development, but it had its humble beginnings at a game jam.