The Making of Color Coder

Now that we've recently released a new Color Coder update, I thought it might be cool to show some images that depict the evolution of the game from concept to finished product.

 

First up we have a picture of one of the pages out of my notebook with sketches of the game page layout and the game's logo, along with some notes about the game play itself.

 

 Next we have a couple screen shots from a very early version of the game's main menu and game pages. Notice the simplistic cell graphics used for initial game testing. The game also lacks any settings at this point, and therefore lacks a settings button on the main page as well. I believe at this point I was testing to see where the game was picking it's starting locations for the code, and so the "Codes Completed" info is a bit weird. At this point in development, the game actually lasted 3 minutes (180 seconds) instead of 60 seconds.

 

Later, we see the addition of the setting button on the main screen, and the classic cell images that are currently being used. However, there is still no clear or hint button.

Next we get the addition of the hint button the game page as well as the classic colored background. We also have our Egyptian cell images, but no Egyptian background yet.

 

 

After our initial release of our first version, we got a lot of feedback that there needed to be a clear button for if the player screwed up a code. I had originally intended to have the player touch a cell away from the code to start a new one, and then touch back in the area where the code is to begin again (which you can still do) but the suggestion to add a clear button as well was a good one and we added it for the next release. We also released our Christmas version of the game.

 

At this point we put new backgrounds in for the different themes we offered in the full version.

Then we decided to finally get rid of the default android buttons and replace them with our own button images.

Then, we increased the size of the game page buttons in the full version of the game. Finally, we added Scoreloop to the game, centered everything on the screen, and put in some background music by Andrew Bragg.

 

And there you go. That's how it all came about in to the product we have on the market today.

Game Tweaks

Not too much has been going on lately development wise. Tia and I have thrown around some ideas for the art in the game we are currently working on and she's started some feature graphic stuff. I think it is going to turn out pretty cool eventually.

I've also been tweaking some of the other games I've been working one. I made a couple small changes to my puzzle game that I think better the flow of game. Most people probably wouldn't even notice the change, but I think it will help with more serious type players.

I have also been playing around with my carnival game pack, specifically the Basket Catch and Pachinko games. In the basket catch game I changed up the way the balls fall. They will now fall at one of 2 speeds, which will be faster if in the hard mode, and will either fall straight down, curve to the left, or curve to the right a bit. I also made the balls fall more frequently in the hard mode. After some play testing with the way it was before, I found that in hard mode it was actually much easier to get a high score, even though the balls were falling faster. This was because the balls fell so fast that the first one was caught before the next one spawned, so while in the easy game mode the player might have to deal with multiple balls falling at the same time, in the hard mode the player just had to get in "groove" (so to speak) and they could potentially just keep going forever provided they had fast reflexes. Now, the increase in frequency at which balls are spawned in hard mode (one every half a second), should fix this problem. Also, the addition of balls falling at different angles in curves also should increase the difficulty of catching them since they might bounce off walls or each other.

In the Pachinko game I added the use of the accelerometer to kinda make the puck drift left or right. I've watched people play the game and they seem to just naturally think that tilting the device might make the puck move sideways. I also feel that it adds a needed amount of control. Before the only real control the player had was to pick where the puck drops from, but now if the puck falls and it's kind of hovering balanced on the divider between a 5 and a 20 point zone, you can tilt your phone to direct it in to the 20 zone. That being said, the tilt control is pretty subtle. The pegs that the puck hits on the way down cause it to bounce so much that the player might not even notice the effect their tilting has on it, but in the instances where the puck is falling straight down for a 5 zone or teetering on the divider between two zones, you can direct the puck a little in to a higher point zone. It's just something subtle the player can do to take an active role in the game while the puck is falling. Overall I think it is a good addition, but a subtle one that doesn't affect the game too much.

Color Coder Update

The work I've done with Scoreloop might actually start to pay off now. We've released a new update of Color Coder that includes Scoreloop global leaderboards and some new background music by Andrew Bragg.

Check it out:
 

There is a submission process on the Scoreloop end as well. I'm not really sure what it entails, but I made the mistake of submitting it on a Friday afternoon, and with time difference between me and the Scoreloop HQ, they were already gone for the weekend, so I have to wait until they come in to work on Monday to actually have them check it out. Even then it may take a couple days for them to get around to checking it out or what ever they do. So for now I just need to wait it out. After that I'm hoping Scoreloop users may take notice of the game. It would be really cool to start getting a bunch of users posting scores on the leaderboards, but we'll see.