More Summer Games

I've been working on the Olympics style game a lot lately in an effort to get it out before the actual Olympics start. Its a little daunting at this part because I've still got a lot to do even though I've made some really good progress. Currently the game has five completed mini-game events in it: Hurdles, Long Jump, Triple Jump, Freestyle Swimming, and Single Sculls Rowing. I had to axe the Javelin because I thought the actual gameplay of it would end up being way too much like the long jump. I'm going to a Cycling game as well, but I've stepped away from the mini games a little to work on getting some more of the little important stuff set up. In each event I've set a gold, silver, and bronze level for scores. When the event is over, a window now pops up and shows what medal you got, what score you just got, what your best score is, and there is a little badge on the window if you've just beaten your high score for the event.

Now I need to start setting up the main menu and some of the other pages. I need to make a settings page for things like sounds and music, but it will also have a toggle button where the user can switch the game into "left handed mode" which just swaps the side of the screen the buttons are on to make it easier for left handed people. I had a left handed friend test the game and he had to play it upside down so the run button was on his left, which makes me feel like this is a pretty good option to have.

I'm also planning on putting in a game mode where the player plays one game after another and their placement in each event is taken into account and they are awarded a medal for their overall performance, sort of like the Decathlon but with events outside of track and field. This is going to have to go on the back burner for now though, because there is a lot to do and the London Games start in just over a week. Maybe I can add in this mode in an update after the games have already started.

I've made a lot of good progress so far, but there is still a lot to do and I might have my work cut out for me here but I'm hoping Tia and I can get it all set up before the Olympics start.

Summer Games and Bounded Chase Cameras

Today I started working on another minigame type pack. Tia and I decided to work on a track and field/summer games type setup to celebrate the upcoming 2012 Olympic Games in London. Today I was working on a Hurdles game, but a lot of the stuff will form the basis for some of the other minigames included in the pack. So far we are thinking of adding the Long Jump, Freestyle Swimming, a Javelin Toss, and possibly the Triple Jump. I'd like to add a few other games that aren't centered so much around track and field or swimming, but we'll see how we are looking for time once the other games are done. The Olympics start the 27th we'll have to get things all set at least a couple days before then. If we have 4 or 5 working games at that point then we can either decide from there whether to add a couple more minigames or focus on some of our other on going projects. Either way, I'm excited to work on another minigame project that lets me dive in to some more AndEngine feature that I haven't yet taken a look at.

In this project I've been using a bounded chase camera to follow the player's sprite as they run down the track, for example. It allows me to have a track that is longer than the screen itself but still move the player sprite and not the background behind it. Everything I've read points to this being the best way to go about making a side scrolling shooter or platformer, so I'm happy that I'm learning more about it because I've got ideas for both of those genres. That's a while down the road though. At this point I just need to focus on finishing up and polishing the games I'm already working on.

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.

Crabs and Databases

I haven't done much development lately. I've been sick for close to two weeks now and haven't really felt up to the task. Right before I got sick, however, I came up with a game idea based on one of my favorite activities: crabbing on the pacific coast. I was having some trouble with how some aspects of the game were going to work out, but after Tia and I discussed it for a while we came up with some changes that work really well. I haven't done much work on the game since then, but it is in a playable form right now and I think it's pretty fun, so I'm excited to keep working on it later.

I'm slowly getting over my sickness now and I've decided to finally start looking in to using SQLite in conjunction with Android. There are a couple apps I'd like to work on that would really benefit from the use of a database and SQLite seems like the best way to go. I haven't worked with databases in close to two or three years, so I've been reading up on some SQLite tutorials as well as some general database design articles. It's been a good refresher and I'm looking forward to working on some database applications.

Some of My Favorite Games

I don't have much to talk about development wise, so I thought I would write about a couple Android games that I've particularly enjoyed.

Cartoon Wars is a pretty awesome tower defense type game. Basically you just send out waves of your various stick figure warriors to fight against comic book looking monsters. Its a tug-of-war until one team destroys the tower at the other team's end. Your different unit types can be upgraded to deal with the harder levels and more challenging enemy monsters. Some games become such a back and forth fight that they end up lasting 15 minutes or more, which is rough because you only have 20 minutes to destroy the enemy tower or you lose. All in all, its a solid tower defense game that is definitely worth a play.

A game that I've recently started playing is Temple Run. In this game your character has stolen a treasure from an ancient temple and is now in the process of fleeing as they are chased by some sort of vicious ape creatures. The game involves swiping the screen in different directions to turn corners, jump over or slide under obstacles. It also uses the device's accelerometers to strafe back and forth on the track you are running on. If you think about it, this game is played a lot like Dance Dance Revolution or Guitar Hero for your phone, but instead of pushing one of the 4 buttons in time with music, you swipe in the correct direction to jump over a pit or slide under a fire spitting statue. When you add in the "Temple of Doom" style setting, you feel more like you are a fast paced Pitfall or even a Tomb Raider type game. At first I felt the game was too repetitive, but it quickly grew on me and the upgrades you can buy with the gold you collect while playing keep me coming back to try get better power-ups.