"I like games that have depth and strategy to them and as such I try to make intelligent games. As far as possible, my design philosophy is to keep the player engaged all the time and to have a good reason for everything that exists in the game. Every gimmick, every unit, every mechanic is there to encourage a particular play style. When I make games, I think about specific scenarios that I think would be exciting." - Sean
During an interview by GameDev.net, Sean mentions that he initially started making custom maps for Warcraft 3 and then progressed to using Game Maker.
Battleships Forever is a 2D real-time strategy (although it is more tactical, with no resource gathering or diplomacy) where you control multiple spaceships and fight other spaceships. The main feature of it is that each spaceship is built from multiple modules like: turrets with fixed firing arcs, deflector shields, linking structure, etc and each can be individually destroyed. Thus, positioning is very important and you will have to decide between facing your offensive modules or protective modules towards the enemy.
There are currently 17 pre-designed spaceships that you can control and over 50 enemy designs, each with their own weakness and strength. Also, you can create your own custom designs. [Download: wyrdysm.com]
Sean has said that Battleships Forever is inspired by and loosely based on Warning Forever by Hikoza.T.Ohkubo, where the each round had only one boss which evolved based on how you killed it the previous round. [Download: cnet.com]
If you like the concept where spaceships are modularized, then you may wish to also check out another indie game, Captain Forever (US$15) which puts you in control of a single ship that you need to upgrade in battle using part from destroyed enemy spaceships.
