Postby Mark » Thu Jun 07, 2012 10:29 am

We’re really pleased to announce that we’ve finally got our act together and released Uplink iPad. Before I tell you little about the history of the project take a look at this video to get you in the mood:For those who can’t wait, here’s the link to the app. For those of you that have been following the Introversion Story you’ll know that we have had our ups and our downs. Swelling to 8 people and a couple of freelancers at our height we are now back down to the original founding fathers. Myself, Chris and a bit of Tom. This is great. Chris and I have both had children in the last 8 months, so not having to worry about managing a team is a welcome relief at a time when our personal lives really need to take a priority. This reduction in size has also given us a never before enjoyed financial security. Thanks to Steam and Humble bundle we’ve been able to rumble forward knowing that we can comfortably make it to the launch of our next game.This new found release from financial concerns and the pressures of running a larger business has given us the freedom and space to start thinking about the kind of projects that we want to work on, rather than being on the back foot just trying to stay alive.So we’ve not been lazy and it’s going to be an exciting summer from Introversion. We’ve got a few things planned that are very cool and we’re very excited about, the first of these projects I’m going to tell you about now.There have been many arguments at Introversion HQ and over the years we have been able to predict when some arguments will occur. Chris and I know each other inside and out and most of our big rows are driven by ideological differences about the purpose behind Introversion. Chris is an artist. I mean this in a fundamental sense – not that he draws graphics for a living, or produces visual assets – he has a deep connection with his work. He is strongly driven by an internal voice and vision and is able to deliver on that vision. If you look at his track record of Uplink, Darwinia, DEFCON and Multiwinia you’ll see a canon of games that, whilst not flawless, are an impressive collection of games. When he’s working on a game, he’ll work tirelessly and eventually, given enough time, the finished product will be great – he’s a safe pair of hands. He’s also a foot stamping lunatic. Ask for his attention on something else when he’s “in the zone” and brace to receive both barrels. Point out that whilst it would be nice to jam away on the next game concept for 3 years, the reality is that the money runs out in 6 months and we need to plug a hole and he’ll take an awful lot of persuading.This is the core of one of our repeat arguments – Mark: We need to do x to make some more $$, Chris: The only way we’ll survive is by creating new IP so bugger off and let me get on with it. Retrospectively Chris would say that this approach to “safe” financing has directly led to Multiwinia, Chronometer and Darwinia+ all of which he considers failures, whereas the previous focus on the next game led to Uplink, Darwinia and DEFCON. However in my opinion, it was Chris’ reluctance to get stuck into these projects from the start that was the greatest contributor to their relatively poor commercial performance.The first time we yelled at each other over this was when Uplink was about a year old. The money was starting to run out and the next game (which was actually subversion at the time – we started on Darwinia after Subversion got “put on hold” the first time) was way off. So we had the idea of porting Uplink to Windows CE. Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) weren’t huge at the time, but Uplink being a technical game, we reasoned that a large number of players probably had PDAs. That was 2002 – we started up, but couldn’t get it to work, so it got shelved (much to Chris delight). The project picked up again in 2005 with a fan using the Uplink Source code to try for Pocket PC. Again it went nowhere. Finally, in 2010 the project rose again, zombie like, when another fan – Andrew Carne – asked if he could do an iPad port. We let him rumble on and in early 2012 he finally had a version that looked great. We had the time to run with it and I am so proud to be able to announce that after 10 years we have finally completed the first ever port started by Introversion. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you:It’s a great port; the iPad is a natural fit for Uplink. The interface needed a little tweaking to ratio correctly and we had to work hard to make sure the software tools looked and played well, but we’re all really pleased with the result. The world map looks great and the sensitivity of the iPad means that tapping away to complete a hack feels natural and intuitive. It took us a long time to get here, but Chris and I both agree that whilst we may not have seen eye to eye during development, it’s really come together well and we’re both proud that this one is finally out the door. If you’re an Android fan don’t worry, that’s on it’s way and it’ll be with you very soon.We may have had our disagreements over the years, but right now Introversion is operating about as slickly as it ever has and we’ve got a great summer of content lined up - Uplink iPad is only the beginning!Follow us to stay up to date: