PopCap Teams Up With 9-year-old, Creates Fun Video Game

PopCap recently released the Allied Star Police, a game which originated from the 4th and Battery studio – a place wherein PopCap’s designers can be creative and develop different offbeat games. The Allied Star Police is a mixture of a tower defense game and a real-time strategy that takes place in a futuristic setting and galaxy wars. But would you ever imagine that this brilliant creation actually came from the artsy mind of a 9-year-old kid?

Owain Weinert, a boy suffering from pre-B Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia, participated in the PopCamp event as a part of the Make-A-Wish Foundation. The said event allows all PopCap developers to use their creativity and imagination to create different games. The 9-year-old Owain then partnered with the 4th and Battery crew in order to fulfill his wish of creating a video game, which resulted to the Allied Star Police.

The game is described as a faster-paced version of Plants vs Zombies. Your enemy ships will fly from the right side of the field, while your ships are placed on the left to defend your tower. Unlike other tower defense games, Allied Star Police is not static. Instead, it lets you destroy your enemy’s forces in order to enter the next level. Once you defeat your attackers, you can earn money which you can use to purchase more powerful ships.

The game sounds very realistic for Owain Weinert. In fact, during the PopCamp event, he rolled out a PowerPoint presentation highlighting most of the game’s details – such as the storyline, firepower, shields, and respawn times.

According to Matthew Lee Johnston, 4th and Battery’s producer: “The minute he walked in the door he handed us a fully realized game design, figured out to the last detail. He stuck with that vision, and directed the team through the development process like a pro. When he first sat down to play it, he naturally knew what to do and won his first round easily, which felt to us like we did a good job executing on his plan.”

The Allied Star Police game can be downloaded for iPhone and iPad for FREE.

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