Fantastic Fun Games from Five Fans Productions

Fliggles History

Fliggles is brought to you by Jeff Hester, Gary Copeland, David Johnston and Greg Conway.

As funny as it might sound, it all started with a dream. I (Jeff) wanted to get back into something that I really enjoyed, developing computer games. I had created Mac games in the past but that work came to a halt as other priorities, like getting married and having children, took precedence. After using an iPhone for a few years and also coming to realize that the iPad was one great invention I decided I really wanted to get back to making games and focus on the iPhone and iPad. I didn't know which game I would develop next, but I was eager to get started learning about iOS game development. I had been thinking whether to do a remake of Temple Tantrum or Bedlam but then "it" happened. I had a dream about cute, happy creatures that loved to giggle. When these creatures giggle they inflate and float. It was this night that Fliggles, "floating giggles", was born. I had very little other ideas and didn't even have an idea of what the little creatures looked like.

I shared my excitement with my wife and children the next morning by saying that something exciting was joining our family. My wife had a strange look on her face and my kids were excited to think that they were getting a puppy. They were a little disappointed to learn that it was Fliggles, not a puppy, that would be a part of our family. Little did I know what I was getting into either, time wise, since my game making experience in the past was based on making games for the Mac.

I soon contacted two really great guys, Gary Copeland and David Johnston, and set up the first meeting to discuss the game. I previously had the privilege of working with David, graphics artist extraordinaire, on the two Mac games, Bedlam 2 and Temple Tantrum. Having enjoyed working with David in the past I knew it would be great to work together again. I had not talked to David in several years but was excited to learn that David was available and interested in hearing more about the game idea. I have always looked up to Gary because he is the perfect example of what a Christian's walk should be. Gary's list of positive traits are innumerable but I felt that maybe I could add one more to the list by recruiting him to be part of a game development team. I looked forward to having fun working with those guys to make a fun game. Although Gary had never worked with game development I felt Gary would be a great help with generating sound effects. Gary would also be my Barnabas ("son of encouragement") when that was needed.

The first meeting went very well and both Gary and David were onboard. We were all excited about Fliggles. We all liked the initial idea but the initial idea was all that we had. All of us have day jobs that provide for our families and we couldn't quit any of that to focus full-time on Fliggles. I jumped head first into learning Objective C (having experience with several other computer languages). Most of my learning and game programming would occur in the evenings after my children were in bed. My wife supported this effort although it took lots of time away from the two of us spending time with one another in the evenings. The same was true for Gary and David because it was a big time commitment for all of us to put together the game.

David gradually shifted gears from his amazing, realistic art work and started wowing us with the cartoony Fliggle graphics. The more we accomplished, the more momentum we obtained and continued building up steam once the "look" of the game matured. Although Gary was first pinged to help with sound effects it soon became clear that there was a tremendous amount of other work that needed to be done. Gary became the carpenter with different "tools" in his belt and creating sound effects wasn't a priority at the time. The decision was made to try to have a face to face meeting every two weeks to discuss the development. These biweekly meetings were very instrumental..

Once Fliggles development was moving along at a nice pace I made contact with Greg Conway to see if he was available and interested in helping with Fliggles. I had worked with Greg in the past on Temple Tantrum and knew there was no one better suited for making Fliggles music. Greg was available and excited about the project as well. Greg created the great music you hear in Fliggles and also ended up creating most of the sound effects.

Now, after over two and a half years of hard work on Fliggles, we are happy to release the game. It is being released with the first four chapters of the game while we have plans to develop two more chapters and the desire to provide a total of twelve. All of us hope you will enjoy playing.

Temple Tantrum is another game we plan to release in 2015. The iOS version will be substantially different from the original Mac OS version created way back in December, 2000!