Bytesize Adventures

It’s been about 5 months since I set out developing games for the iPhone. I started with a decent amount of programming experience but no real knowledge of Ojective-C, Xcode, or indeed games development. Now, with my first game available on the iPhone app store, my first free update complete, and a website and blog under my belt, I thought I would take some time to review the experience.

I started this journey because I have a passion for video games and video game development. The iPhone platform presented me with an opportunity to develop a game for very little cost and publish it to a potential user base of millions. I won’t lie to you, the possibility to earn some money was a big draw and certainly acted as motivation in some small form.

I spent the first three months learning to program with Objective-C in Xcode. Coming from a Java and web scripting background, I expected to coast through but alas I found some of the concepts a bit difficult to get my head around. In the end it was sheer bloody minded determination and hours of late nights that saw things finally click into place for me. The first three months also made me realise that my original idea and code needed to be scrapped and I had to start again with a blank canvas (but this time with 3 months of experience to my name).

keep reading…

By Chris | Posted in: Tangents | Tags: cocos2d, objective-c, sales, story, xcode
17 Comments »

The game is not far off release now. There’s some difficulty balancing to be done and I really want to add as much polish as possible to the final product. keep reading…

By Chris | Posted in: Development Diary | Tags: story, storyboard, storyboards
3 Comments »

I have now developed my game prototype to a point where I know that the ideas I have on paper are possible in practice. The next step for me is the story. Due to the nature of the game i’m developing, I feel that I need to thoroughly research the history of the genre. Crucially, I need to ensure that my control scheme will retain the enjoyment that comes from the basic mechanics of this type of game,  whilst also adding a new level of accessibility. I’m also looking for inspiration in order to create a story that is unique in addition to making the odd, gentle nod to the genre’s illustrious history.

The basis for my research is a rather excellent book titled “Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Fiction” by Nick Montfort (That should give a rather huge clue as to the nature of my game). This is a fantastic book discussing the early origins of interactive fiction and then taking a deep look at the computer text adventures in which interactive fiction manifested itself. The chapter on riddles is particularly interesting and it certainly provides some inspiration for the elements that my game could contain.

In addition to this I’m also enjoying some key pieces of interactive fiction, the most notable of which is “Violet” by Jeremy Freese (A winner of the 2008 Interactive Fiction Competition). If you think that interactive fiction is limited to games where “you are in a dungeon” and have to “pickup sword”, you really should try this. It’s amazing how far interactive fiction has progressed.

I have a few ideas for my story but so far i have not pinned anything down. This will be where my focus lies in the coming weeks.

By Chris | Posted in: Development Diary | Tags: ideas, interactive fiction, research, story, text adventure
2 Comments »

Progress on the game is pretty good. I’m currently getting a handle on using multiple views to display the various interactions that will comprise my game. All of my project time is currently being spent on the game engine, with the next component having the potential to make or break the game. Aside from this core development i’m only too aware of the need to make some progress on the story side of things. The current plan looks something like this… keep reading…

By Chris | Posted in: Development Diary | Tags: game engine, middleware, story
No Comments »

It occurred to me the other day that i don’t really have any sort of project plan for my Game. Sure I have some ideas scribbled on pieces of paper scattered around my apartment but nothing more concrete than that. What i’d really like is a tool or suite of tools for recording my ideas and planning the remaining tasks.

To that end i started to research some available options on the internet. One of the first leads i stumbled across was this article which refers to an issue tracking system called Trac. I played around with this a little but ultimately felt that it was too heavy for my project and didn’t offer me the speed or flexibility i needed for prototyping my ideas. keep reading…

By Chris | Posted in: Tangents | Tags: fossil, ganttproject, ideas, merlin, omnioutliner, process, project management, story, trac
2 Comments »