Objecty - The 2D game developers kit of the future!

So I was reading through my local paper in an elusive search of a job that I either am qualified to do or is interesting enough for me to not hate every living second of it, when I stumble across an article about a local independent game developer (SKN3) seeking funding through Kickstarter. I thought to myself, finally something of interest both personally and professionally (Try not to laugh, I know I don't get paid for this but here's hoping one day it will make me some beer money).

What was this product you ask, well SKN3 had looked at the developer kits and tools for creating games from scratch and found them to less than helpful! So Johnathon Pittock and his 2 employees are seeking funding for a project called Objecty, it seeks to become the go to tool for 2D game developers. It isnt a game engine but rather a set of tools to let you build 2D games using any Game Engine, SDK or Framework you have access to. Not being technically minded in this area I have borrowed this table from his Kickstarter page.

Ouya, just a little bit. Ouya, a little bit more.

Now I’m not an avid follower of kickstarter. Being someone with no money himself it’s easy to not be drawn into such endeavours. However whenever something catches the collective eye of the community, it’s usually something worth paying attention to. If you haven’t heard of Ouya by now, then get the fuck out from under your rock and start taking notes. Ouya is a fully fledged games console, with all the nuts and bolts, running Android and literally begging you to hack it and make some cool stuff for it. Sounds like it’d be an absolute flop, I probably would have agreed with you, but people want this thing, not just because of the hardware, but because of the message that comes with it, indie is good.

Let’s face it, the vast majority of the most innovative and creative games to have been released over the past two to three years have been indie games and games from smaller developers; the same time scale has also seen the rise of the free to play game, shaking up long established beliefs over the nature of the games consoles and big titles. Such innovation and adaptability, combined with a platform that encourages and supports it and who knows what would come of it... it’s like leaving a kid who’s got too much time on his hands with a copy of Minecraft.