For this special Indie Monday, say hello to Widget Monkey Games, an up-and-coming independent developer and game publisher. In addition to producing an assortment of fun game widgets for Apple’s Dashboard, David Janik-Jones created Widget Monkey Games as a place to sell and promote his own games as well as the best new casual games from independent developers. Here are the first three offerings:

Chocolate Castle by Lexaloffle
Eat your way through one of the most delicious games to hit the Internet, a cute and ingenious confection titled Chocolate Castle. This game is all about sliding blocks of various shapes around the puzzle rooms in order to allow your hungry little animals to gobble up all tof the chocolate blocks. But the puzzles are complicated by the fact that chocolate tends to stick together…and what has been stuck cannot be un-stuck! [Website]

Turret Wars by Sector 3
Turret Wars, produced by Australian sturio Sector 3, is a 3D arcade game where shells don’t go in a straight line. In a world full of armed bunkers and guns waging war in exotic environments, your quick thinking and careful aim will mean the difference between survival and destruction. Multiple types of turrets, varying wind speeds and special upgrades like bomber attacks and shields keep the action from getting monotonous, and the basic gameplay is always exciting. [Website]

Sheeplings by Karjasoft
Recently reviewed right here on Casual Review, Sheeplings is an adorable adventure in sheep-herding. You play Windsor the sheepdog, and you must bring your flock of sheep safely through 84 levels of non-linear adventures. Wolves, eagles, bandits and worse seek to bring harm to your woolly friends, and all you have to protect them with is your fierce bark. Just watch that your sheep don’t wander off into more trouble than you can keep them out of… [Website]

This Indie Monday also features a special interview with David Janik-Jones, founder of Widget Monkey Games as well as co-founder of the Widget Monkeys. He took the time to tell us a bit about why Widget Monkey Games was formed, the background behind each of the games on the site, and what the future has in store.

CR: Can you tell us a bit about yourself, and what brought you to casual game development? How did Widget Monkeys and Widget Monkey Games get its start?

DJJ:I’ve been interested in developing games ever since I started using computers. This was back in the days when my high school had a Wang punch card-based computer and the fastest thing you could buy was a TRS 80 of Vic 20 computer. I’ve owned Apple computers since the Apple IIe and work on both Macs and PCs now. I’ve always thought that given my renaissance interests and wide-ranging formal education (geography, fine art, meteorology, graphic design, marketing), as well as the way I like to play and evaluate games for their potential for pure “play” and “enjoyment”, that I could make my own games (and publish other people’s).

So given my curiosity I’ve tried almost every usable “game engine” on both Macs and PCs over many many years to see if I could make a game. It wasn’t until I got involved in the early beta testing of the Unity game engine (http://www.unity3d.com) that I found an engine that was truly capable of everything it said it was. I was so impressed that I even wrote some of Unity’s first tutorials for new users.

Not to tout Unity overly much but having been around computers for almost 30 years I’ve never met an game creation tool as user friendly and capable as Unity is. Unity’s key strength is the asset management, workflow, ease of use, understandable UI, full Aegia physics engine, great developers and community, ability to code in whatever language floats your boat (Javascript, C#, Boo), and “flow.” It simply feels right, especially for creative types who want to make games. It’s wonderful and quick to work in. There are many examples of what’s being done with Unity on their site, I’d recommend your readers jump on over and have a look. And the ability to create Mac and Windows apps, widgets, and web-based games all from the same project files is simply amazing.

Widget Monkeys was something of a fluke, in a sense. In general, I like computer games that are more like toys, and less like competitions. I like sandbox toys and simulators more than first person shooters and real time strategy games etc. So when I was writing some of the tutorials for Unity I thought that it’d be a neat thing to create a simple toy with it and post it for some of my friends to download. Our firm’s creative director, Ron Letkeman, is a traditionally trained animator now working in 3D apps so I asked him to make the monkey model. I simply wanted to recreate those little toys you hold a button (or the bottom) in on and it collapses.

It didn’t take more than a few hours of fiddling and we posted it. Created the Widget Monkeys site to promote it (http://www.widgetmonkeys.com) and thought we’d maybe get a few hundred people downloading it. Then it became the featured widget on Apple’s Dashboard website and we hit 20,000 downloads in less than two months. And it’s been rolling like that ever since.

Widget Monkey Games is something I started on my own just last month. I wanted a vehicle to promote and sell my own upcoming games (The Illusionist, SPQR, and an as yet unannounced “soccer-like” title that’ll probably get finished first), as well as a place that could distribute quality shareware games for Mac and PC from smaller, indie developers. I want to differentiate Widget Monkey Games from the many other game portals/distributors in a number of ways: 1) promoting the Unity game engine as the best game-making tool out there; 2) making certain that any games I distribute are always and immediately available for both Mac and PC; 3) focusing on smaller game developers with unique ideas; and finally, 4) making certain that the game developers I distribute get the best possible % deal in the business.

I was shocked to find out that (like art galleries) many game distribution websites take a huge % of the sale price leaving the game’s author/developer with, in my opinion, far less than they deserve. 30% of the sale price for the game portal was the LOW end of the scale. I wanted to be different and offer a fun game distribution site with good games that placed the focus (and the large majority of the game’s sale price) on the developer, not my own site. I want to make it easy for a developer to come to me and easy for people to know the games they are buying are encouraging even more cool shareware game development. Widget Monkey Games is still a one-on-one game distributor where my goal is not the business of games, but the games themselves. I just want people to have more access to fun games and to encourage indie game development.

CR: Tell us a bit more about the “Widgets” - what are they and how are they special?

DJJ: Unity allows you to save (compile) from a project file “widgets” in Apple’s Dashboard format. Widgets are brought to focus on Apple computers by simply hitting F12. We notice that there were a great number of “serious” widgets to get news and sports and track your parcels or the weather, but no one had made a toy widget. That’s what Ron and I are doing with our widgets. The free widgets Ron and I have on the Widget Monkeys site are always going to be there. We love making little toys (games?) and making people glad they bought an Apple computer to play with our widgets. We’ve currently downloaded in less than 20 months some 475,000 widgets and are on track to break the half million mark by the end of June.

There will be more fun Widget Monkey widgets coming in the future. We promise.

CR: Chocolate Castle received Game of the Month and Gold Awards from Game Tunnel in May 2007. Can you tell us about this game and its developer, Lexaloffle?

DJJ: Lexaloffle Games (http://www.lexaloffle.com) is a small game developer named Joseph White based in Wellington, New Zealand. I’ve always enjoyed Lexaloffle games; Joe’s games embody everything I enjoy in a game … graphics that are perfect for the style of game, simple game play with great depth, calming yet challenging, and games that are simply pure fun. His last game called Zen Puzzle Garden is, I think, a real masterpiece, so when he finished up Chocolate Castle I immediately asked if I could distribute the game on my site. He was thrilled to let me and I’m really happy with that decision. Chocolate Castle is another gem from Lexaloffle. A game that on first glance looks simple, and with easy-to-understand rules, but becomes challenging and rewarding a is a delight to look at. Toss in a level editor (like Zen Puzzle Garden also has) and he’s got another hit on his hands. The Game Tunnel reviews are right on and he deserves the awards he got last month for the game from them.

CR: Can you tell us about Turret Wars and its developer, Sector 3?

DJJ: Sector3 (http://www.sector3.com.au/) is actually a Melbourne, Australia based animation and visual effects studios and his been in the forefront of that industry in Australia for more than a decade. It’s a great team of creative and visual effects people lead by Seon Rozenblum and they launched a game development arm in February of this year. They chose the Unity engine because of it’s ease of use and ability to make any type of game, and within just a few short months had their first game, Turret Wars, for sale. They were Unity forum regulars and I’d watched the development of the game from inception, and knew I’d want to feature it as the first title on Widget Monkey Games. Turret Wars is a modern version of the classic artillery games, but is in full 3D, offers different game environments, weapons, bonuses, online scoring and many more features. It’s a great game to feature on the site. Sector3 responds quickly to feature requests and the needs of gamers — they offer two different license schemes with different pricing, depending on the buyer’s need — and as of this writing they’ve already released version 1.5 with some very cool updates.

CR: Can you tell us about Sheeplings and its developer KarjaSoft?

DJJ: KarjaSoft was founded by Swedish game developer Miro Karjalainen who has a background in Computer Science and a wide range of interests and abilities including embedded systems, Natural Language Processing, OpenGL/DirectX, music production and more. He created Sheeplings using the well-regarded game making tool BlitzMax and I really liked the concept and gameplay. Again, a game that on first glance seems simple but has a wonderful depth of play and a graphic style perfectly suited to the game. It’s a traditional “herding” sort of game where you assume the role of Windsor the sheepdog as you encounter logic puzzles, stubborn sheep that need to be moved, hidden powerups, hungry eagles, bothersome bandits, and much much more in this non-linear adventure that has more than 80 levels of game play. It’s so well put together, I really like the nature of the game play and the the way he’s allowed a wide range of players to enjoy themselves.

CR: Where do you see the future of casual games? Where do you see real indie developers fitting into that world?

DJJ: I feel, like many in the industry, based on a number of societal, demographic, economic, and technology trends, that “casual” games are going to be increasingly popular among many different groups of gamer players and buyers. It’s an opportunity for indie and small teams of passionate and creative game developers to really provide some great games to a market that always welcomes great concepts and unique game ideas. I think it’s a great time to be an indie game develper. They can develop their skills with a great number of really good tools and with a great idea can move into the realm of making a decent living at it. I’m one of many creative types with ideas that hope one day to quit my full-time job (senior print and web designer, CSS and W3C guru) and create three or four great casual games every year. Love to do that. And it’ll be the smaller, indie developers who bring the very best, innovative, daring and unique ideas to gamers everywhere.

CR: What’s next for Widget Monkey Games? Will your long-awaited full version of Banana Warehouse be coming out next?

DJJ: There’s lots in store for Widget Monkey Games. I have another two developers lined up for the site who have approached me to distribute their games. They like how approachable I am and the terms I can offer. They are also fans of Widget Monkey widgets and know me from that. I am slowly working on my first major game called The Illusionist (http://widgetmonkeygames.com/game_theillusionist.shtml). The Illusionist is a single player and online card game for 2-4 players who play rival Victorian-era magicians/illusionists set in a dark and crowded London. The goal of the game is to become the City’s most prominent performer by having the highest number of Prestige Points at the end of the game. Prestige Points are earned by creating/assembling astounding illusions and “performing” them at various classes of theatres in the city. Strategy, timing and elements of luck all play a role in your rise to prominence, as do the political machinations and jealousy of your peers. It’ll be later this year before it gets released. A follow-up game set in ancient Rome, SPQR, will use the same mechanics and be released in mid-2008.

In the meantime, I really excited about, and am working hard on, the first of two unnamed sports titles that will be released before The Illusionist (the first certainly by the end of summer). It’s sort of a “soccer game” that can best be described as a weird combination of soccer, marbles, curling and crokinole. It’s much more fun that that sounds! It’ll offer three types of innovative fast game play, online scoring, and a bunch of cool little features that’ll make it an enjoyable causal game for lots of different types of gamers. I’ve got the main models and physics all done, much of the coding, but have only started on the GUI and graphics. Details and an online test version playable in any browser (one of benefits to using Unity) to be announced soon. It’ll be followed up by a “hockey-like” game afterwards.

I’m please to say that Banana Warehouse is actually moving forward! While Ron and I juggle full-time work and family commitments, we have recently created a larger version of the widget for a private client in the UK, and because of that commission I recently completed perhaps 90% of the game’s underlying code, mechanics, scoring, etc. We’re now working out game play and levels, the overall graphics etc for the game and hope to actually complete it late this year. It will be a game that both Ron and I are developing so will appear both on Widget Monkeys as well as my game site, Widget Monkey Games.

CR: Finally, is there anything that you wish your customers knew about Widget Monkey Games?

DJJ: Drop by and buy a game! Buying from Widget Monkey Games means you support indie developers and they’ll keep making great games for you. And it keeps me going to both provide my own great games to you and also go get more indoe games on the site. And if you’re an indie developer or small game team or studio creating fun casual and shareware games that bend the rules to create something truly fun for both Mac and PC that put game play and that “wow” factor first, that appeal to lots of different gamers across a wide range of age groups drop by the developers page and get in touch. We’d love to have your game promoted on the Widget Monkey Game site.

You can see more of Widget Monkey Games at their website, www.widgetmonkeygames.com. Be sure to stop by and have a look! Check back at Casual Review soon for more developer interviews, features, and reviews.