Over the moon to make an impact!

Jamie Bertenshaw, Thomas Wilson, James Johnstone, Haydn McIlroy and Leon Priestly of 1st Impact Games

The team of 18 have formed a company called 1st Impact to produce the game which is now in its first development stages.

Entitled, All Contact Lost, it is a classic first person shooter style game set in a colony based on the Moon.

And computer games fans were given a sneak preview of the game and a chance to play one of the early scenarios at the recent Games Mania convention at Blackpool’s Winter Gardens.

A screenshot from All Contact Lost a game from Blackpool computer games team 1st Impact.

Project leader Leon Priestley, 24, said they wanted Blackpool to become a hub for the computer games industry.

He said: “We have created a team here in Blackpool to do this, with just a few people from overseas, so it really is a Blackpool produced thing.

“I had been working on this for a long time and when I left Blackpool and The Fylde College I worked for another software company for a while before setting this up.

“A lot of us studied at Blackpool and The Fylde College on the software development and games design course where we got experience of using the Unreal engine which is used to create the game.

“We have team members from India and Poland too to help us and the team is growing.”

They are based at FY Creatives in Church Street, and are hoping to have the game at it next stage by July to exhibit at the next Blackpool games convention Play Expo Blackpool.

The player takes the part of a space trooper who must build up the moon base and fight off attacks from alien species which erupt from under the surface.

Jamie Bertenshaw who works on 3D modelling for the game said the feedback they got at the Winter Gardens was really appreciated.

He said: “It is in the pre-Alpha stage at the moment and we were wondering what people might think, but the reception it got even at this early stage was great.

“We had a lot of people play the game over the two days, with a table of highest scorers and there was plenty for us to think about from the comments which were mostly positive.”

Leon added: “I have been playing computer games since I was six and this is something I have always wanted to do.

“We are all very excited to be working on this game. We have a great team. There is a lot of pressure on us to make this work but it is something we all dreamed of doing.”