All Over Albany

Amelia vs. The Marathon

Check it out: Trouble Impact -- a new indie game studio based in Menands -- released its first game today: Amelia vs. the Marathon.

Here's how Trouble Impact's Cat Musgrove described the game to us in an email:

In the game, you play as up-and-coming marathon runner, Amelia, whose recent wins have attracted the attention of the reigning running champion. The champ doesn't want to be outdone, so she has sent her henchmen to slow you down. It's a family friendly game, with mild cartoon violence (such as throwing hats or getting hit by objects like pizza and cake), and a strong female protagonist (and antagonist!)

The game is available for iOS (iPhones and iPads), Android, Nook (the B&N e-reader), PC, Kindle Fire and the Mac App Store. It's $1.99.

Trouble Impact is a two-person studio -- Cat Musgrove and business partner Issam Khalil both previously worked at Vicarious Visions. Cat tells us Amelia is their take on livening up the well-established format in which you and your enemy each take turns attacking each other (turn-based combat). So they've included things like timing challenges in the game. "With that in mind, we also wanted to take this sort of typical game concept and apply it to subject matter that isn't usually explored in more hardcore games. Issam and I are both runners (we both plan on training for a marathon someday!), so it seemed like a natural fit to make the game about running."

Poking around the studio's blog, it looks like they have some other interesting ideas cooking. One that caught our eye: Crush, which grew out of exploring "the heart-in-your-mouth sensation of actually trying to talk to [a romantic] crush." The prototype game recently got written up on Penny Arcade.