Semi Secret Software
| Adam Saltsman | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Nationality | American |
| Other names | Adam Atomic |
| Occupation | Indie video game developer |
| Known for | Canabalt |
Adam Saltsman, also known as Adam Atomic, is an American indie video game designer best known for creating the endless runner Canabalt. He is a founder of Semi Secret Software and Finji video game studios.
Adam Saltsman, also known as Adam Atomic, made the endless runner Canabalt in 2009, where an anonymous runner runs in one direction and is able to jump and slide upon landing. Boing Boing described the game as a "one-button action-opus". It was made in response to Experimental Gameplay's "Bare Minimum" challenge. The game's viral success was a surprise to him, and he later felt like he squandered the opportunity and audience. When asked in an interview where he imagined the running man coming from, Saltsman stated "I used to have fantasies at my old office job of running down our long, long hallway just for fun. And to literally escape. I'd forgotten about that until months after Canabalt came out. There used to be an intro cinematic that I was designing, where the character receives an email, but it was all getting in the way of the main thing".
Saltsman produced an open-source game development library for Adobe Flash called Flixel. He has mentioned meeting people developing their first games in Flixel, and a development tool called Stencyl built atop Flixel. Saltsman presented on "Time Until Death" at the 2011 IndieCade.
Saltsman began to collaborate with Greg Wohlwend on Hundreds. The game was Wohlwend's first as game designer, and he open sourced the game after online game sites showed no interest in purchasing it. Semi Secret's Eric Johnson found the code and made an iPad port in a weekend, beginning the collaboration. Semi Secret did not have the funds to begin a new game from scratch, so the project fit their company roadmap. Saltsman did not expect to work on the game himself, but became the primary puzzle designer. It was released on January 7, 2013 for iPhone and iPad, and on June 28 for Android to what video game review score aggregator Metacritic called "generally favorable" reviews. It was an honorable mention in Best Mobile Game and Nuovo Award categories of the 2012 Game Developers Conference Independent Games Festival, and an honorable mention in Excellence in Visual Art at the 2013 festival.Hundreds was also an official selection at IndieCade 2012. In January 2013, Saltsman was working on an Android release of the game, an iOS update for Canabalt, and paternity leave in March.
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