—
Here..
For those missing football after this week, one of Lake Mills’ own has created a new game in the Google Play Store, for those looking for a little extra playtime.
Joshua Garity, president and founder of Candorem, a Lake Mills based user experience, web design and strategic marketing firm, with his nine-year-old son has created a game called Football Runner. The game is currently ranked number three in the Google Play store for free sports games in the United States.
Garity launched the game under a new mobile game company called Pyramid Lake Games.
He created the game during Candorem’s holiday break.
As the running back, the goal of the game is to make it to the end zone while running past the opposing team’s defenders. Each touchdown stretches the field longer and increases the speed and number of players on the field.
“I decided to build and launch my first mobile game in the Google Play store for fun,” Garity said. “Just to see what the process was like and if I’d be interested in exploring that more.”
The game was published the first week of January and already has over 500 downloads.
“With the NFL playoffs beginning and the advertising that comes with it, there would be an uptick in searches for football games. With that in mind and knowing there was really only a few weeks to capture that momentum, I had to think of a very simple game that could be completed in time.”
Garity says an infinite runner is a popular genre on the mobile gaming scene.
“Your character runs forever, and you swipe the screen to run left and right to avoid running into objects in front of you that will end your game. I started with that concept.”
The game was created in a retro style.
I don’t have enough knowledge to build a visually impressive, computer generated, 3D style game so I opted for a throw-back retro style 8bit or 16bit pixelated style from when I was a kid,” he said.
Using his experience in sound editing Garity used licensed sounds, music and tackles to create the atmosphere of the game.
Garity’s son Cale is also interested in creating games, he says playing the game Minecraft allowed Cale to build houses, towns and more.
“Although he loves playing video games it seems like so much of his interest is in the ability to build and create things from them,” Garity said. “Now he plays Fortnite with friends and spends time in their creative mode where he can build his own levels that we can play together. I can see now how he thinks through level creation and the pacing and structure he applies will take him far in that industry if he decides to go that route. It comes natural to him. As part of a second-grade project at school he wrote and illustrated a book on how to play Fortnite. It’s pretty amazing.”
For Garity it’s pretty exciting to have a child who is so interested in his work.
“He is currently trying to draw out his own Fortnite game and assumes I know how to build a game like that as an individual. I keep trying to reign him in a bit and make simpler things that I can actually help him with but maybe that will be a motivation to learn new things himself, so he can create what’s in his mind for himself. Which is really exciting as a parent to think about.”
Garity plans to expand the game to release new teams and fun seasonal characters for different holidays.
“I’m hoping to catch the interest of other, larger, organizations like American Family Insurance that have ties to professional athletes like JJ Watt, or the Badgers, to possibly partner with them to release their own versions of the game.”
Garity was recently voted onto the Lake Mills Main Street Program’s Board and has lived in Lake Mills with his wife Jennifer and son for about four years.