Village Gamer

Sean Doherty, president and founder of New Brunswick-based Freelance Games, is proud to announce the release of its first independent game for the XBOX 360 – Starchon.

In development for over a year, Doherty is happy to see the game released to the public. “Starchon has a tremendous amount of depth and innovation for a game classified as a ‘shooter’”, says Doherty. “It’s hard to believe that Starchon actually started as a PC game back in 2005. It’s been a huge amount of work and consumed endless amounts of time. But, everyone agrees that the final product is well worth the effort.”

The arcade game’s description is as follows: The Engage the Pigia horde and defend the Super Defense Carrier while you destroy everything in your path. Unlock 5 game-altering playable starships, plus more than 39 components including weapons, shields, engines, and power generators. Over 80+ sectors of glorious victory.

“Starchon is a fun and engaging game in the spirit of classic arcade fun. This is one game that you won’t be worried about your kids playing,” says Doherty. “This style of game is more like how games used to be when I was growing up, but Starchon has been updated for today’s XBOX high definition gaming experience.”

Doherty is considering plans for Freelance Games’ future. “Starchon is the first game in the Starchon universe, but it will not be the last. I want this title to be the beginning of a series of independent video games for us,” says Doherty. “Today’s gaming platforms allow independent developers to publish games side-by-side with the big studios. It’s a great opportunity.”

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Starchon can be purchased by surfing to the XBOX Live indie games forum, and searching for “Starchon”. In addition to being available directly through the Games Marketplace on Xbox 360 consoles, the game can be queued for download at the Xbox 360 Marketplace site. The price of the game is 80 Microsoft Points (equivalent to about $1).