Owing to it’s rarity I never expected to actually own a copy, but here it is – beautifully re-imagined, for a new audience, by Visual Editions.

The first thing that hits you upon opening the box, containing the 150 pages that comprise this piece of work, is bemusement. Composition No. 1 flies in the face of our conventional understanding of how to consume a piece of literature. The most obvious way that this manifests itself is through its unbound pages.

The idea is that you shuffle the pages to create your own story – a quick factorial calculation (150!) reveals 3.8089226376305687e+260 unique combinations (that’s a lot) or, as its more elegantly framed in the introduction, 150 different beginnings with 149 possible endings.

You really need to hold the physical stack of pages, first-hand, in order to feel the overwhelming instinct to leave them in the order they are already in. If you can fight this paralysing instinct, you may find that you come out of the other side, as I did, with a devilish desire to wreak havoc on that neat stack and shuffle the pages into your own chaotic mess of literature.

The challenges to convention don’t end with the shuffling of pages. On closer inspection you’ll realise that Composition No. 1 has no page numbers, no chapters, and doesn’t have a beginning, middle, or end. Each page is intended as a short piece of writing that can be read in isolation but that, when combined with its siblings, tells a greater story.

As you finish reading your first page you are confronted with another assault on convention. What do you do with the pages you have read? Do you create a separate pile or simply put them to the back? They don’t have numbers to mark them so, if you put them to the back, how will you know you’ve reached the end – does it even matter?

I haven’t mentioned the story yet, and I’m not going to. That would spoil it. It’s part of the mystery, that information about the story itself is difficult to find. Besides, this piece of interactive fiction focuses on the separated pages rather than the story it has to tell – it challenges conventions.

As you can see from the images in this post, the Visual Editions version of this book is beautiful to behold. Striking contrasting colours adorn the sturdy, well cut box. At fist I was unsure about the weight of the paper (I felt a thicker stock would allow for more shuffling), but then I realised that this would make the book difficult to handle and would remove the work too far away from the concept of a book. It’s the very fact that the pages feel like a standard novel that creates the disconcerting feeling.

In the box there’s an introduction from Tom Uglow (Creative Director for Google & Youtube) that does a good job of introducing you to the book and its relevance in a modern society. I understand that the original book has a brief explanation on the inside of the box that has you assume a role – I think this may have been a nice inclusion but it certainly doesn’t detract from the experience.

(A little bit of internet research reveals the text from the original book – I’ve stripped out the elements that reveal the books premise)

“The reader is requested to shuffle these pages like a deck of cards; to cut, if he likes, with his left hand, as at a fortuneteller’s. The order the pages then assume will orient X’s fate.

For the time and order of events control a man’s life more than the nature of such events…

..Whether the story ends well or badly depends on the concatenation of circumstances. A life if composed of many elements. But the number of possible compositions is infinite.”

One of the coolest aspects of the Visual Edition version are the text patterns on the back of each page. When laid flat and looked at from a little distance, they look like three dimensional landscapes rising out of the page.

As if the physical book weren’t enough, there’s even an iPad version of the book. I’d encourage you to buy the real thing though.

Overall its a really nice piece of work. It questions the way we approach reading and provides an element of interaction. It’s not intended to revolutionise the book as we know it, it’s merely intended to make you stop and think about tried and tested conventions, and in this it succeeds.

Time for a new interactive fiction project? I think so…

We’ve already had great posts from Game from Within, Acorn Heroes, Retro Dreamer, Rizer Games and Québarium. For my post I wanted to cover something I’ve been meaning to write about for some time…

Recently I’ve had a couple of emails asking for advice on getting started with iPhone game development. I thought, to save time in future, and to reach as many people as possible, I’d write a kind of comprehensive overview post here. Bear in mind that this is my opinion. I would encourage anyone starting out to get advice/information from as many sources as possible so that you can make your own informed decissions.

A Tip

First a tip that I’ve found particularly useful. “Keep the scope of your first few games small”. Don’t try to do too much. Its better to produce something basic and focus on completing it, rather than developing something complex that you never finish. Once you’ve done this a few times, you can move on to your super-awesome RPG/FPS/RTS hybrid.

Getting Started

When developing my first iPhone game, I spent the first few months getting to know the development environment, programming language, and iPhone platform. The best way to do this is either via a book (I bought “Beginning iPhone Development” by Jeff LaMarche and David Mark) or you could look for some basic tutorials online.

You should also download Xcode and the iPhone SDK (They are both free but you will need to register). Xcode is the IDE (Integrated Development Environment) that you will use to create your iPhone games. It comes complete with an iPhone simulator so that you can test your games on your computer. Whilst the simulator does a good job of mimicking an iPhone, you will want to test your game on an actual device early on in development (particularly if your game uses the accelerometer).

iPhone Apps are written in the Objective-C programming language (although you can also use C or C++ if that suits you). You will need to get familiar with this programming language before you begin to develop a game. Books and online resources are the best way to do this, although, if you can’t wait to get started, the book I mentioned above assumes only minimal knowledge of Objective-C.

Planning your game

When it comes to writing your first game, there are numerous ways to go about it. You should be aiming to get as much information from as many sources as possible. Looks for inspiration everywhere. The first thing I usually do is sketch out some ideas (remember to keep the scope of the game small to begin with). There’s a balance to be made here. Time spent on the game concept and planning how it will work should, in theory, save you time when developing. However, it is possible to spend too much time in this planning phase. Due to the nature of the platform, iPhone game programming lends itself to rapid development and iteration. As such, decisions you make in the planning phase are likely to change during development.

As part of the planning phase I tend to develop some very light prototypes testing specific functionality/features. I find this helps me get a feel for what will work and what won’t.

Once you leave the planning phase, where to next? You have project management (maybe), graphics, code, sound design and production. I mentioned the iterative nature of iPhone game development above and this very much extends to these stages. You’re not going to want to produce final work for any of these steps in one sitting. You should aim to iterate code, graphics, and sound as your project progresses. I tend to focus on code and switch between project management, graphics, and sound as I go. Lets take a look at each one of these processes.

Project Management

You’re going to want some form of project management for your game. There are plenty of best practices out there and also plenty of professional tools. My personal view is that you should find a project management process that suits you. If pieces of paper with lists on them suits you then go with that, If you feel that a full blown project management system (complete with lists, Gantt charts, time management, etc) is what you need then that’s fine.

Some popular options you could look at include Basecamp, Pivotal Tracker, Trac, Omniplan, and Things. Ultimately I decided that none of these suited me and decided to write my own (and why the hell not? thats the beauty of being a developer right).

Whichever process you choose, you are looking for something that drives the development of your game forwards.

Graphics

Lets keep this straightforward with some tips, software, and processes you can use. I hear that @weheartgames is going to be posting some graphics related topics as part of iDevBlogADay, so look out for those.

Moodboarding is one of my favourite processes to undertake at the start of the “graphics process”. The point of this is to brainstorm images, text, and colours relating to your game. In theory it should help to define the art direction you want your game to take. Take a look at this post on Moodboards and this post on creative tools.

When it comes to producing the art assets for your game you have a myriad of options available to you. I can’t cover them all but you’ll want to make a decision between 2D vs 3D and you should also consider animation. Oh, and since this is a beginners guide, I strongly recommend you opt for a simple 2D game and remove the concept of animation (Your objects can still have movement paths but don’t animate them as they move). If you do opt for animation, “The Animators Survival Kit” by Richard Williams is a brilliant book covering the core principles of animation.

For my current project I’m using Opacity to produce vector graphics which are then exported as PNG’s. Vector packages are a good way to go because they are resolution independent. This means that you can scale them to your hearts content without losing any fidelity. This is particularly useful with the current state of the iDevice. We have the iPhone 3G/3GS (and there iPod touch counterparts) as well as the iPhone 4 and iPad. All have different resolutions and different dpi’s. With Opacity I can use “factories” to automatically export my Vectors at different resolutions (targeting different devices). A good free alternative is Inkscape.

I also use Photoshop Elements to touch up my graphics or to produce other assets such as logos, titles, screenshots etc. A good free alternative to this is Gimp.

The other tool I rely on heavily is my Wacom Graphire3 tablet. It makes producing art assets in the aforementioned packages much more natural.

Sound Effects & Music

Unless you really know what you are doing you should either have someone else produce these or buy stock sound effects and music. If you really want to produce them yourself then you might like to try some automated solutions – you can read my previous post on sound effects and music here.

Whichever route you take, its important that you consider sound effects and music early on. Leaving these until the last minute will give you a huge headache and will really degrade the quality of your game (take this from someone who knows!).

Code

The code itself. This is the best bit right? Hopefully the above shows you that there is more than just the code to think about when you’re creating your own game.

You’ll be developing your game in Xcode. As part of this you have a number of tools and libraries available to you. UIKit (Apple’s user interface framework) is fairly powerful and you can do a lot with it. However, its more than likely you will want to venture into OpenGL ES at some point.

As a beginner I recommend you choose a game framework. There are a number available but I think its fair to say that cocos2d for iPhone is one of the most popular and a good place to start. Cocos2d is a 2D framework that provides you with lots of helper classes to achieve common game related tasks. It also abstracts the OpenGL ES library to make it easier to work with.

Its important to make a distinction here. Cocos2d is a framework, it’s not a drag-and-drop Interface. Whilst it definitely simplifies the process of coding a 2d game, you still need to be able to write Objective-C. If you’re not interested in the coding side of producing a game then maybe you’d like to check out something like GameSalad which involves no programming.

Be prepared to iterate with your code. You won’t get it right first time and will most likely find yourself re-writing code often.

Testing

Test early and test often. Once you have something running on the simulator, get it running on a real device too. There are a number of differences between the simulator and the actual device. You won’t get a true feeling of your game until it’s running on a device. Interacting with your game using a mouse is a totally different experience to interacting with it via you devices touch screen.

If you can, testing on as many different devices as possible is also a good idea. Release a game to the App store means that iPod touches, iPhone 2G, iPhone 3G/3GS, iPhone 4, and iPad users will all be able to download it. These devices all have different capabilities that will impact your game in different ways.

Something you might consider is getting other people involved in testing. You can do this by creating an Ad-hoc build of your game and distributing it to your testers. This has the advantage that you don’t need to own all of the devices since your testers will cover the majority of the platforms. You will need to enrol in the iPhone Developer Program in order to distribute your Ad-hoc build.

Publishing & Marketing

In order to distribute your game to the App store you will need to enrol in the iPhone Developer Program. Once you’ve done this you can submit your application to Apple for approval. Approval can take some time but you will usually hear back within a few weeks.

Expect to spend decent amount of time on the submission process. There are lots of things to prepare such as bank details, tax forms, and the upload of details and screenshots for your game.

Marketing – This is at the end of this article but really it should be at the start. You should always be thinking about marketing. Blog about your game, tweet about it, post in forums, tell everyone you meet. There are 225,000 Apps in the App store – I bet you can only name a handful. I’ll leave the details up to you (mainly because I don’t have a magic formula) but, like testing, Market early and Market often.

Conclusion

So there you have it. A comprehensive overview of iPhone game development. Its tough developing a compelling game, and the rewards may not be what you’re expecting. You’ll have good times and bad times. Don’t be afraid to experiment, you often get unexpected results. Get involved with the iPhone development community, go to events, but most of all have fun!

As we entered 2010, and with a third iPhone game in development, I decided it was time to do something about the site. What you’re browsing now is my redesign for 2010. What do you think?

I love web design and development and with this latest design I took the opportunity to focus on the details and components that make up the site. Here’s a brief look at some of the key decisions I made for the new design.

Colours

Inspiration for the colour scheme came in the form of Pantone’s announcement of their Spring 2010 fashion colours. Whilst this is perhaps an unlikely source, design inspiration can come from just about anywhere. Pantone’s “Tuscany” captured, in colour, the earthy, crafted, scripture feeling that I wanted from the new site.

I didn’t directly use Tuscany anywhere on my site but it influenced the palette of colours that I did use. From the creamy, textured header and footer to the earthy browns used in the central gradient.

Layout

A good layout was really important for my design. The purpose of Bytesize Adventures is first and foremost to showcase my games and secondly to share my experiences with others. The showcase carousel takes prime spot on the home page, allowing the visitor to easily cycle through my games. As a complement to this I have the “games” menu item in the navigation which takes the visitor to a list of all my games.

I decided to make the footer an integral part of the site design, using it to share information about myself as well as to drive traffic to my blog. Also in the footer is contact information, my twitter feed, and a newsletter signup.

For the blog itself, I opted to drop many of the features that provide, what I consider to be, unnecessary functionality. Instead, the design is focussed on displaying my posts as cleanly and effectively as possible. I hope that this improves the reading experience and as a result the average time spent on the site.

Typography

Well thought out typography has been a growing trend in web design for some years now. We’re now at a point where good typography is expected rather than just being a feature thats nice to have. I’ve really only scratched the very surface of this art with my new design, but what i’ve tried to do is enhance the earthy, crafted feel that I mentioned earlier.

Readability was also extremely important to me. I wanted my blog posts to look nice but not at the expense of readability so I purposely went for a reasonably large 14 pixel sans serif font.

The new Bytesize Adventures design uses 2 very different font families. The primary fonts in each respective family are the serif font “Georgia” and the sans serif font “Helvetica”. A classic combination perhaps, but one that I feel works well in my design.

To keep things interesting i’ve used a variety of font-sizes, italics to emphasise the serif font, dotted and solid underlines, and a heavier weight where necessary. These are subtle touches when viewed on their own but as a whole they work to keep the design interesting.

Conclusion

There are various tweaks that i’ll make in the coming weeks and months but overall I’m happy with the new design. I hope that you find the site a more pleasant experience as a result.

The first step for me is the idea. I don’t have a specific method for this, I get inspiration from things I see around me. I probably come up with around 5 ideas before settling on one that I like. The idea for this particular game came about because I was inspired by an image I saw.

At this point I would normally begin coding but I was inspired by this post I read regarding mood boards and decided to apply the process to this game. I bought myself a Moleskine sketchbook and began collecting various scraps, images, doodles, and notes. I’ve really found this process helpful in defining the look and feel of the game. I hope time spent on this will shine through in the cohesion of the final game.

To ensure I get the right look and feel i’m using my Wacom drawing tablet along with inkscape to complement the moodboarding. This is very much an iterative process, trying things out in digital format and refining my mood board. I’ll share some of these designs with you in the coming posts.

Oh and, being a developer, I couldn’t help but begin coding alongside this process. I’ve rapidly programmed a basic working prototype to ensure that I could achieve the core gameplay.

Does anyone else use moodboarding or do you have alternative techniques?