Novastrike invades PSN this week

Hi there. I’m Kevin McCann, director of development at Tiki Games in (mostly) sunny San Diego. I’ll go ahead and start off with some undeniably fascinating information about me:

• Favorite Game Genre: 1st person shooters
• Favorite Game of all time: DOOM (the original – for me it was just the most ground-breaking title I ever played)
• Favorite Movie: Jaws
• Least known game that I worked on: Tanarus (as lead designer)
• Game you may know of that I worked on: PlanetSide (as lead designer)

And now that you know everything about me (and okay, maybe it wasn’t all that fascinating), I’ll move onto the better news. We just received word that our first game – NOVASTRIKE for the PLAYSTATION 3 – has been approved for release on PSN this upcoming June 5th. So I figure this is as good a time as any to make an appearance on PlayStation.Blog (thanks to the courteous folks at PlayStation.Blog).

NOVASTRIKE is going to be the first self-published game available on PSN so we’re pretty pleased with that. I’d also like to thank SCEA for all their assistance in making that possible. For you gamers that might understandably not mean much, but for any independent developers that are currently developing a title for PSN or thinking about doing it – we’re proof that you can self-publish a game on PSN.

I suppose I should probably give a little overview of the game now. NOVASTRIKE is a free-roaming top-down arcade shooter where you’re flying an advanced fighter and combating the Draelus invasion. Yes, aliens are pretty single-minded in that regard. Airborne enemies consist of fighters, aces, kamikazes, bombers and capital ships, and you’ll also need to deal with enemy ground installations.

Fortunately the ship you’re flying – the Scythe – can acquire and upgrade weapons over time. And there are nine weapons total, each with three additional upgrade states, to aid you in sending the Draelus to the great beyond.

I know that’s a pretty short description, but I just want to start off by briefly introducing myself and the game for now. Feel free to read more details on the game at our website, and I’ll also be responding to questions here (NOVASTRIKE-related or otherwise).