Last month I hit a bit of a wall. I had far too many features stuffed into the game and was working on them all simultaneously. I felt totally overwhelmed, not knowing what to work on from one moment to the next. To remedy this I stripped the game right back, ripping out the level editor and character customisation. This has given me the clarity I needed to continue developing the game. I still hope to ship the level editor with the final game, the customisation on the other hand is unlikely to make the final cut.

In conjunction with stripping the game back, I also started to read a book titled The Art Of Game Design: A book of Lenses. This lead me to re-evaluate some of the core concepts in my game. The result is the removal of both the exploration bar and the timer. The game will still focus on exploration, but the pressure of time will be replaced with pressure of a different kind – preparing for random events.

The random event wheel

The biggest change to the game is the introduction of the random events wheel. This wheel spins at set intervals and randomly lands on one of a number of events. Preparing for these events, through the purchase of items such as water flasks and the like, will ensure that you have maximum time to explore the level and search for gold and artifacts.

The first event i’ve coded is rain. I decided to take this a step further and program the framework for a basic weather system. This will enable me to add additional weather events (such as snow) with less effort and greater flexibility. The weather system allows me to add my weather system object to the level and call the appropriate weather method .e.g rain. In order to enhance the realism of the rain, I also created a raindrop class. Each raindrop object has it’s own random position and speed. This has the effect of creating a truly dynamic rain experience – I can also vary the amount of rain with relative ease.

The next step is to create the camp where you will be able to buy supplies to prepare for each level. I’ll also be programming an inventory screen so that you can activate items in-game.

In other news, my sketchbook project sketchbook arrived from the US – I have a few ideas for filling it but nothing set in stone yet.

I also took delivery of a vintage Zassenhaus coffee grinder. It’s a huge improvement over the blade grinder I had been using previously since it uses burr’s. After talking to @rizergames on Twitter, I decided to completely dismantle it and clean it. I also took some time (and risk) to align the burrs a little better. The result is that the vintage grinder can now produce grounds fine enough to easily choke my espresso machine – so well worth the effort.

Until next time.

The concept is currently this: You’ll be put into various levels with the core objective of reaching the exit. However, the key mechanic is to explore the level for which you will gain exploration points. You’ll have limited time to reach the exit so you’ll need to balance the reward of exploration points against the risk of not reaching the exit in time. The penalty for not reaching the exit in a level is permanent damage to your explorer. This damage is carried with you through the entire game.

An important concept that will enhance the experience is customisation of your explorer. The idea behind this is to create some emotional investment in the explorer to amplify the impact of both the damage mechanic and the reward mechanic. Exploration points can be spent on additional items and clothing for your explorer (As well a potentially unlocking levels).

I’ve put the level editor to one side for the time being whilst I focus on creating a compelling prototype level. I’m really working on making sure that you want to explore the levels – I’m not there yet.

I’d like to share some early videos demonstrating both the current gameplay and the level editor. I run a slight risk here, since the game is far from being in a playable state, but I want a record of the evolution of the game, thats what this blog is for.

In other news, the BrainWave Private Beta has finally kicked off with the first round of participants receiving their invites this weekend. I’m finding the tool extremely useful for capturing my ideas in a central location but I feel that the task area needs more work.

Apple have announced UK iPad pricing and release date – £429 ($635) and 28th May. The price, whilst steep, is not entirely unexpected and could have been worse. I’m still deciding whether to jump on it now or wait a few months – we’ll see if I have the willpower to resist when pre-orders open on Monday.

More to come soon.

(Tortoise image courtesy of cliff1066)

It’s way to early to be talking about firm release dates, but I’m aiming to have launched Explorer (working title), BrainWave, and potentially BrainWave for iPad by the end of the year. This may not sound like much but when you have a day job as well it can be tricky to find the time. Before we move on to other news, I thought it would be fun to show you some of the iteration that has gone on since the game began.

On the subject of BrainWave, You can sign up for the private beta now. I hope to begin sending invites for the Beta at the start of May. If you’d like to learn more about BrainWave, check out my blog post here. As a result of this i’ve spent a fair amount of time sorting out a login system and adding the concept of users to BrainWave. I’ll also be spending some time over the coming weeks, tidying the application and ironing out any bugs.

The big news this week was iPhone OS4. I really didn’t expect this to reveal anything exciting (I really don’t care about multi-tasking that much), how wrong I was. Apple have announced some really great features… the two that spring to mind are iAd and Game Center.

iAd is Apple’s mobile advertising platform putting it in direct competition with existing platforms such as AdMob and Quattro Wireless. iAd really shines in two places, first it should be easier to integrate since it’s API’s are built into the OS, and second, and perhaps more excitingly, Apple have added an extra layer of interactivity to these adverts – allowing for inline games and video – impressive stuff indeed.

Game Center is Apple’s answer to social networking for games. Competing directly with current leader, OpenFeint and others such as Crystal, Scoreloop, and Plus+. I haven’t looked into the features of Game Center yet but it obviously has one huge advantage, like iAd, its built into the OS. As a developer I will certainly integrate Game Center over the others due to the minimal effort required and the audience reach.

There are also a whole host of additional API’s for developers to use. Something that stood out in the keynote was the mention that Apple are also releasing their automated test tools that they use when testing Apps submitted by developers. I haven’t looked into this yet but it has the potential to be really helpful in debugging issues with our Apps and speeding up the approval process (with less likelihood of being rejected).

Fortunately I’m still in the early stages of development on my current game, so it makes sense for me to begin integrating these features now. I’m still undecided on pricing for Explorer but the iAd model looks very promising so perhaps this is the road I will take (Free to download, supported by Advertising).

Check back soon…

I suppose one of the key differences from last week is the fog. The purpose of the fog was to drive exploration – the idea being that if you can’t see something, you’re more likely to want to go and investigate. The problem was that the fog just wasn’t working the way I had hoped. I struggled thinking of a way to cover the level without fog. Then it dawned on me, I could just zoom closer to your immediate surroundings. This effectively means that you cannot see the rest of the level thus creating a virtual fog and enhancing the element of exploration. The other advantage is that the explorer becomes more prominent which means the layers of customisation I plan on adding will be more relevant.

As I mentioned, exploration is a key mechanic for this game. The blue bar along the top of the screen is the exploration bar. The more you explore, the more of this bar you will fill. This is not the primary objective in each level but the more exploration you do, the more you will be rewarded. You will need to balance this against the red bar along the top of the screen – this is the time bar. This will deplete as time progresses and you will need to complete your primary objective before it ends. This introduces the concept of risk vs reward – do you explore the level at the risk of time running out or do you focus on your primary objective at the expense of reward.

Both the exploration and risk vs reward mechanics need further fleshing out and will continue to evolve throughout development of the game. Hopefully you get the idea though.

In other news, both Rocket Santa and Star Fusion each received a short but sweet review from Indie Appolis. Go check them out and have a look at the other great content on the Indie Appolis site whilst you’re there.

Notice the website is faster? I’ve finally moved web host, ditching my old host in favour of ThisWebHost. The experience so far has been great – really fast server speed coupled with some of the best customer service i’ve experienced from a web host. We’ll see how it pans out but so far I’m happy.

I should touch on my project management tool, BrainWave. I’m continuing to tweak it and will be registering a domain for it shortly – I need to do this so that I can begin using it for my game. I’ll also begin to look into some infrastructure so that I can launch a private Beta for those of you who have shown an interest.

Until next time…

(Image of golden gate bridge courtesy of Giles Douglas)

With a theme selected, the artwork was, and still is, a challenge. I want the game to have a strong visual identity so i’m aiming for anything but realism. What I currently have will alter considerably before the game launches – this is just a first pass.

I also introduced a new element to enhance the exploration theme, fog. I hope this will serve its purpose to enhance the feeling of exploration and indeed to drive it. It’s still very much in a prototype form (hence the visual artefacts).

Next steps are work on the customisation and level editor. I’ll then build off all of these elements as I flesh out the game.

In other news, i’m finally fed up with the current project management tools on offer. Its not that they’re not very good – they are. They just don’t seem to fit with my style of working. I find myself forcing my workflow into the tools and inevitably they end up just getting in the way.

To that end i’ve decided to take a weekend out of game programming to write my own project management tool for game design and development. I intend for it to very simple and driven by the way I work. Perhaps calling it a project management tool is a bit of a stretch – its more of an idea management tool… but thats how I design and develop my iPhone games. I’ll write a blog post detailing the tool once its complete at the end of this weekend.

Until next time…

Carrying on from last week, I’m continuing to evolve the gameplay to create a more coherent and compelling experience. Its still not quite there but its improving almost daily.

The code is now at a point where you can play through a single level. Its in a very raw form, and far from thrilling, but it demonstrates the core gameplay mechanic. The game engine is also generating the aforementioned level from an sqlite3 database. This will store the official levels for the game as well as any additional levels you create.

Next up is some early work on the level editor. I wan’t to get it working in a raw form and inserting levels into my database. This is a really important step since i’ll be using the editor to create all of the official level’s in the game. I expect the editor to become more sophisticated as development on the game progresses and further requirements are highlighted. The advantage of this is that the level editor that finally ships with the game will be powerful and highly polished.

In addition to this i’m also playing around with the customisation element of the game. This will actually play a fairly crucial role in the game so its important that it works in a raw form early on in development.

So overall progress is good, but there’s still a long road ahead.

I want to share an early screenshot of the game, but please bear in mind that nearly every element in it is likely to change before the game is released (Especially the art).

In other news, I recently joined the Touch Arcade private developer forums (You’ll need to sign up and request access to the forum.). These are a great resource with some really interesting discussions. I certainly recommend other devs take a look.

One particular thread pertaining to engines caught my eye. I’ve thought about creating my own re-usable engine in the past but am currently using the excellent cocos2d framework. However, I continually find that I barely utilise the wealth of features offered by cocos2d, instead preferring to utilise my own methods. As a result i’m now reconsidering the idea of developing my own lightweight 2d engine. I don’t want to disrupt my current game development so I don’t plan on ditching cocos2d just yet but I think it would be a great learning experience once this game has shipped.

I bought a few new books this week. The first is “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft” by Stephen King. This has been on my wish list for some time now, ever since it was recommended by a game designer. Apparently many of the concepts it discusses are not unique to writing novels. I haven’t dived into it yet but i’ll let you know if it turns out to be particularly useful.

The second is “The art of looking sideways” by Alan Fletcher. Its basically a melting pot of random design thoughts, ideas, and imagery – even the layout, colours, and typography used in the book are part of the experience. It makes a nice coffee table book to dip in and out of every once in a while.

Elsewhere, there’s lots of movement on the iPad front as it’s US release draws closer. Developers are ramping up the hype about their first iPad games and Apple are now accepting submissions ready for launch. Unfortunately, being based in the UK, I have to wait an extra month to get my hands on the device. I haven’t even touched the iPad SDK since downloading it and have no intention of doing so until I own the device. It will be interesting to see demand for these first round of games.

Now, back to Xcode…

As part of the evolved gameplay, the visuals are also changing on a daily basis. I’m still not happy with the basic style and thats something i’m working on.

In other news, and completely out of nowhere, Rocket Santa has received its first professional review from Indie Game Mag. This in itself is interesting since Christmas has been and gone and we’re over 2 months into the new year. Anyway, its also unfortunately a largely negative review. In fact the only positives quote is “…The game is technically sound, and the visuals are nice …”. This is the first time i’ve had to deal with negative comments from a professional source and I can tell you its not the nicest thing to read that someone doesn’t like your game, especially when they feel compelled to write about it.

I’ve read the review a few times to try and extract as much feedback as possible and learn from the comments. It seems in this instance the reviewer found that the game lacked challenge and also really disliked the lack of music and poor sound design.

As much as I hate to admit it, these are both fair comments. The game isn’t much of a challenge for hardcore gamers and the sounds were added at the last minute. The game had a very short development cycle and was rushed to get it into the store in time for Christmas.

Its interesting that the game doesn’t represent a challenge for the reviewer whereas others have found it perfectly adequate. I suppose it boils down to your target demographic and ensuring its advertised appropriately. Should I have made more of an effort to encompass both types of player (casual and hardcore)? – i’m not sure.

At the end of the day, its nice to have some coverage even if it is negative. Developing games, like most things, is a constant learning experience and, like most things, making mistakes is all part of the experience.

Until next time…

This week has been an interesting one, i’ve been playing with 2D physics engines. More specifically i’ve been testing integration of the Chipmunk physics engine into my new game. I have to say, it didn’t take too long to get to grips with Chipmunk and the templates included in cocos2d give you a good starting point. Rather than moving objects to a specific point, you move them by applying forces to their body within the game space (which itself has a number of attributes such as gravity).

For anyone interested here are some of the tutorials I used to help me:

An Introduction to game physics with Chipmunk
Cocos2d Example – Bouncing Ball

Having imbued my game objects with real world physics, my game became instantly less appealing. The physics were great to play with but ultimately removed the enjoyment of the core game mechanics. Imagine if the original frogger had physics – without a drastic redesign of the core concept, you would lose the fun of the timing based mechanics and the satisfying feeling of solid, definite movement. So whilst it was a fun detour i’ve taken the decision to remove the physics and go back to basics for this game.

When i’m developing a new game I often create a number of sub projects to test out ideas. I feel i’ve done enough of these now to begin laying down solid code for the actual game. This ultimately involves taking longer to think about my classes and functions to ensure they are well written and flexible, whereas in the sub project stage I generally hard code variables and write some portions of the code inline.

In addition to implementing this core code, i’m now really in need of some visual design. Specifically, the style of the game and the placement of the GUI elements. This is certainly one of the phases that I really enjoy and of course it continues throughout the project. This is where i’ll be spending some time over the next few weeks.

In other news, it seems that Microsoft’s Courier device, which we saw a prototype interface for back in September last year, will be released in Q3/Q4 this year. Microsoft have also released more video of the prototype device.

Some publications are calling this a potential “iPad Killer” but I don’t really see them as competing devices. The iPad appears to be for casual users whereas the Courier looks to be aimed at creative professionals. I personally want the iPad for its development opportunities and for casual internet surfing. The Courier on the other hand looks like an excellent creative tool that could be used to enhance my game design process – essentially a digital Moleskine. I’m excited about the Courier and if Microsoft can pull it off I think it will renew my faith in them as a technology company.

I’ll leave you with a link to this interesting Twitter tag – #GameDevBookShelves – setup by @mysterycoconut. It’s always interesting to see what other developers are reading.

(Apple image courtesy of Abhijit Tembhekar)
(Courier image and video courtesy of Engadget)

Unfortunately I’ve been ill for most of this week so I haven’t been able to spend any time working on my game. I think this highlights the difficulties of working as an independent games developer – it doesn’t take much to disrupt your work and it can have a severe impact on your development schedule. I’m lucky in that I also have a full time job so I don’t have the financial pressures associated with developing independently. I wonder how other devs cope with this.

Here’s an image of the game editor in its current early form. I’m not going to go into detail about it now, i’ll leave that for a future post once its more developed.

I’m still looking for inspiration for the visual style of my game. I have some basic elements in and am playing with a few ideas but i’d like to come up with a strong, individual style.

I’ve also been thinking more about my first iPad game and I think i’m going to start sketching some concept UI’s for it. I want to hold off on actual development until I have actually played with the device (as detailed here).

Since I don’t have much to update you on this week, I thought i’d take the opportunity to share some of the books that are currently inspiring me…

The Art of Tim Burton

I have a real love of coffee table books – huge visual tomes that inspire you (whilst you enjoy a cup of your favorite java). The Art of Tim Burton is a unique insight into the mind of one of our greatest directors and acts as brilliant inspiration.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Ok so I admit that this was very much driven by my love of the worlds created by Tim Burton and the fact that his re-imagining of Alice in Wonderland is released in a matter of weeks.

This is the same novel originally penned by Lewis Carroll but brought to life by new illustrations from Camille Rose Garcia. Its not just the illustrations that are new, the typography is exemplary and a lot of thought has gone into the layout of the text. A truly lovely book to behold.

The Lego Book

Who doesn’t enjoy lego? This books explores the highly enjoyable story of Lego’s inception as well as a look at some of the more unique sets over the past 60 years or so. The art of creating something which encourages creativity , and makes the process fun, is something that i’d love to emulate in my game. There’s a lot to be learnt from the Lego way of doing things.

And that’s it for this week’s update. Next week i’ll hopefully have some more progress on the game to share with you. See you then.

Writers Block – “The inability to begin or continue work on a piece of writing; normally temporary.”

This has of course manifested itself in the lack of posts on this blog for the past few weeks. In an attempt to alleviate this i’m going to start writing regular weekly posts recapping progress on my new game. This will of course be in addition to other, more in depth, posts that I write (once my writers block subsides).

So here’s the first update: I’m currently working on my next iPhone game which is progressing steadily. I don’t want to share too much at the moment but I will tell you a few interesting things about it…

1) The game will have a built-in level editor to enable you to create your own levels directly on the iPhone.
2) All of the official levels in the game will be created on the iPhone using the same level editor you’ll have access to.
3) I plan on launching the game with a large number of levels. In fact i’m hoping to get as many people as possible to contribute a level for the initial launch.

I have a very basic game engine working and i’m now working on a very early version of the editor. After that i’ll move on to saving and loading levels. Then its back to the creative stage to design some of the more interesting game elements.

In other news, i’ve re-designed the website which you can read about here. I’m also going to be moving web host in the coming weeks, having finally had enough of the terrible performance of my current host.

The iPad launches in a matter of months and for my first iPad exclusive game I plan on returning to my canceled Interactive Fiction game but completely redesigned and redeveloped. I’m also still toying with the idea of Star Fusion 2 either as an iPad or iPhone game.

So lots on at the moment and some exciting things ahead. Stay tuned.

(Image courtesy of petesimon)