Powered by LootLocker: Helping a developer aged 15 (yes, 15!) to get his first game out on Android

Red Diamond is a one-man studio. A young man too. Arthur is one of the new generation who waste no time getting games designed, developed and released.

If you’re good enough, you’re old enough

Meet Arthur: an entirely self-taught game developer from Moldova. His first game, Into Space, is out now on Android. It’s a classic arcade shooter (a genre thirty years older than Arthur himself), in which you protect your spaceship from incoming asteroids.

Arthur’s been making games for three years. “I learned to make games on my own,” he says. “I really liked playing big titles, so I jumped blindly into game development without any knowledge about what I wanted to do.”

We love it when members of the new generation sign up to LootLocker. Many young developers like Arthur aren’t just creative and energetic – they really understand the fundamentals of game-making and, most importantly, they actually ship finished games.

Nailing the basics

Arthur created Into Space in just three months – doing every aspect of development himself, including all the visuals and the original music. This is the area of his work he finds most fulfilling. “My favorite thing about game development is coding and art design,” he says. “Making things work and look good at the same time is really satisfying.”

In Into Space, you swipe the screen to maneuver your spaceship around the asteroids, all while collecting powerups like shields and missiles. The more asteroids you evade and destroy, the higher your score.

The game shows an impressive grasp of game design fundamentals. It’s a simple, enjoyable core gameplay loop, the difficulty curve ramps up nicely and the scoring system keeps you feeling like you can always raise your game a little higher. It’s a really pure, classic example of an on-the-bus hyper casual mobile game.

A little help from LootLocker

Arthur wanted to have a competitive element to his game. So he shopped around for something that would make it quick and easy to create a leaderboard system.

“I chose LootLocker for great friendly support on Discord, and for simplicity and flexibility,” says Arthur. “I was searching for free hosting to make an online leaderboard, and I stumbled upon an online tutorial about LootLocker. It was my luckiest day.”

He says it took him only six days to get his leaderboard system up and working. For his next project, he plans to make use of LootLocker’s collectibles feature.

Keeping the joy of game-making the top priority

Here’s why we love partnering with young developers like Arthur: we can take care of the more arduous parts of making a game, so the developer can focus on the things they enjoy most.

Leaderboards, collectibles, leveling, achievements…these things are fun to design, but time-consuming to program from scratch. Making a game should be about the creativity and the challenge (especially when you’re new to it) – not endless hours coding the bits that don’t bring you joy.

The features we cover aren’t just important to the way a game functions. They often have a big impact on how many players a game gets, how long those players stay, and how much money the game can make. So the more we can take these demands off the developers’ shoulders, the more they can relax on the commercial side and unleash their full creativity.

How can we help you reach the next level?

LootLocker saves you precious development time with pre-made game systems. You can use them across multiple platforms, without needing to push game updates. The time you save is yours to focus on bringing your most ambitious ideas to fruition.