TOM FRANCIS
REGRETS THIS ALREADY
Hello! I'm Tom. I'm a game designer, writer, and programmer on Gunpoint, Heat Signature, and Tactical Breach Wizards. Here's some more info on all the games I've worked on, here are the videos I make on YouTube, and here are two short stories I wrote for the Machine of Death collections.
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By me. Uses Adaptive Images by Matt Wilcox.
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What I’m Working On And What I’ve Done
This is a list of games I’ve worked on or am working on and the things people usually ask me about them.
Current: Tactical Breach Wizards
Turn-based game where you control a small team of wizards in tactical gear, breaching into rooms full of armed gangsters and the like.
Role: designer, writer, programmer
Working with: John Roberts (art), John Winder (programming)
Made in: Unity
Prospects: it’s taking a while!
More info: wizards.cool
Heat Signature
A space game where you can actually go inside the spaceships and beat up the crew and steal things and get shot.
Role: designer, programmer, writer, sound designer
Working with: John Roberts (art), John Winder (programming), Ivan Semidolin (music)
Made in: Game Maker Studio
Platform: Windows (2017)
More info: dev log videos, development blog
Get it: $15 on Steam
Morphblade
A turn-based game where each hex you move to turns you into a different kind of weapon. Inspired by Michael Brough’s iOS game Imbroglio, but I ended up moving it to a hex grid, letting you build the grid as you play, getting rid of enemy health, and letting you upgrade weapons by crossbreeding them with each other, each pair having a unique result.
It’s out now!
Role: designer, programmer, artist, sound designer
Made in: Game Maker Studio
Platform: Windows (2017)
More info: blog posts
Get it: $5 on Steam
Floating Point
A peaceful game about maintaining speed and grace by swinging yourself around randomly generated spaces with a rope. Built in three weeks from the rope physics I developed for the Grappling Hook Game.
Role: designer, programmer, sound designer
Working with: Form & Shape (music)
Made in: Unity
Out on: Windows, Mac and Linux (2014)
More info: trailer, dev log videos, development breakdown
Get it: free on Steam
SimAntics
Competitive multiplayer game about steering anteater tongues down randomly generated ant tunnels. Made in two days with Liselore Goedhart when we were on the Super Game Jam documentary.
Role: co-designer, programmer, writer, co-sound-designer
Working with: Liselore Goedhart (design, art)
Made in: Game Maker Studio
Out on: Windows (2014)
More info: my post with some thoughts on the episode and stills thereof
Get it: with the documentary series on Steam, which is $20 for 5 episodes and the 5 games made during them
Distance
A visual short story by Natalie Hanke, made for the Space Cowboy game jam.
Role: programmer
Working with: Natalie Hanke (design, art, writing), Jukio Kallio (music)
Made in: Unity
Out on: Windows, Mac and Linux (2014)
Get it: free on itch.io
Gunpoint
A noir-themed creative infiltration game that lets you rewire its levels to get the jump on people and punch them endlessly in the face.
Role: designer, programmer, writer, sound designer
Working with: John Roberts (art), Fabian van Dommelen (art), Ryan Ike (music), John Robert Matz (music), Francisco Cerda (music), Abstraction Games (Mac & Linux port, ongoing support)
Made in: Game Maker 8.1
Out on: Windows (2013), Mac and Linux (2014)
More info: trailer, development breakdown, dev log videos, the whole development blog in chronological order, how its launch went, in-game commentary and a making-of feature are included in the Exclusive Edition,
Get it: free demo, full game $10 from us, comes with a Steam key
Paused: Civ-Style Experiment
I thought it was a shame that Civ: Beyond Earth didn’t change the very messy and complicated formula Civ has built up over the years. So I decided to spend all the time I would be playing Civ on making my own Civ-style game, to see if some of my theories about how it could be simplified work out. Taking it off my plate for now, might come back to it the next time I’m annoyed about complexity in 4x games.
Role: designer, programmer
Made in: Unity
Coming to: Windows
Release date: unlikely to ever be finished
More info: videos
Paused: The Grappling Hook Game
A game about a team of thieves using grappling hooks to help each other break into banks, hotels, casinos. Took a long time to get rope physics right as a Unity novice, ultimately decided Heat Signature was more viable with my skills at the time – and just as exciting.
Role: designer, programmer
Made in: Unity
Prospects: might get back to it after Heat Signature, if it still excites me then
More info: dev log videos
Game Jam Games
I’ve made three or four smaller games for other game jams, and written up ideas for a bunch more. You can see all that on the Game Jams tag.