The current incarnation of Witch Beam received its Australian company registration on May 15, 2013. Founded by Sanatana, Jeff and myself, by that point we were already hard at work on Assault Android Cactus.
Since then we’ve gone onto release three games on multiple platforms and if you’ve ever started up Assault Android Cactus, Unpacking or Tempopo you may be familiar with the logo as well as the whispered “Witch Beam”, voiced by Jeff’s daughter Ella.
But the name and logo dates back a bit further than that. “Witch Beam” first showed up in 2009, when I collaborated with two different friends to make a mobile game for the recently released iPhone. Magic Chain was a puzzle game that told the story of Tabitha the witch who went into the forest to pick some berries, got seriously lost and spent the night obliterating wildlife.
The game itself consisted of tapping approaching enemies quickly to form “chains” to efficiently dispatch them and earn a high score, foreshadowing some of the game design and style that would come to define Assault Android Cactus.
The game sold terribly so my friends and I released a HD version for iPad that also did terribly. It has long since been delisted from the App Store, we only made an iOS version and I don’t know where the source code is so I guess the whole thing is lost media now.
Here’s a YouTube trailer to prove it ever existed.
Years later, when I started a company with Sanatana and Jeff and took another stab at indie development, nobody stopped me reusing the name and logo, so if you’ve ever wondered who the witch in the Witch Beam logo was, there’s your answer!
