Today I'm working on the guns. Now that equipment menu and shop scenes are almost complete, the next step is to improve the weapons. If the player doesn't feel a distinct improvement in the weapons, then the whole system could fail. If the player isn't motivated to upgrade the weapons, then the player could lose interest in the game.
Yet, it's really tedious to change levels of seven different things that TANK can equip. So, I created a cheat.
Konami is well known for their 30 lives trick in games like Life Force. They basically built their brand with a well-known cheat code. I've created the Photics code to BOT. It probably won't work on iOS devices, but it could be a real treat for those that have the Mac OS X version. Since Game Center is not included for Mac App Store apps, I think it's OK to add some cheats. I have no plans to publish this code. I think it's better to wait and see what happens. Maybe the cheat code will go viral.
Now I can add 600000 gold or complete level 4 items/weapons with use of the cheat code. It makes it a lot easier to test the game.
"...this fully armed and operational battle station."
The laser is working. It's ******* sweet! Heh, it took some pretty psychotic math though. The expression bar expanded beyond my 1280 pixel wide display.
I usually seem to get the happiest when working on the weapons. While pretty much finalized in design, the four different weapons need some more work — Translation: Explosions — but they're all pretty satisfying. Oh, and I added night vision too. That's going to be item #1.
So, I'm pretty happy right now!
I'm also on-schedule today. That's two days in a row. Heh, if I can do this like 30 more times in a row, I might actually have a finished game.
March 25, 2011 - Progress Report "I don't even see the code. All I see is blond, brunette, red-head"
I decided to be generous today. I'm going to share with you some of the "code" that's going into this game. The programming language with GameSalad is basically Math and English. The programming is done with behaviors and expressions.
By sharing these two expressions with you, I can show you the level of detail that's going into this game. This is actually one of the easier expressions in the game...
Everything is being done with a single touch. That way, I can ensure maximum compatibility with Mac OS X and iOS. It's also a great gaming experience — making it easy to play on an iPhone! I'm planning to release the exact same game for both platforms. But while playing with the laser — probably my favorite weapon in the game — I realized a balance issue.
Mac users could stand in the center of the map, move the mouse pointer beyond the screen, and kill everything in the scene. This is unacceptable. So, I had to limit the mouse to the game area. That's what the two expressions are for. It keeps the value of mouse touches limited to the screen area.
If your porting your iOS games to the Mac, this might be useful information.
I'm probably going to add this information to The Unofficial GameSalad Textbook. I think I'll be able to improve the Mac Publishing chapter with the knowledge I'm gaining from this experience. BOT will very likely be my first Mac App Store app.
I really like the laser. It's great! I think this is going to be a very fun game.
Photics said: March 25, 2011 - Progress Report I think this is going to be a very fun game.
YOU THINK?!?!?!
holy cow man, I hope you where being sarcastic... this game IS going to put GS on the map, for good. I can just see it, the next iPhone/touch/pad commercial will have BOT playing, I'm almost certain!
jobonoobdude said: I hope you where being sarcastic
I'm being modest... and a bit nervous. For over a decade I've been working on projects like this. They usually do OK, but they're never huge successes. This time, I feel differently. There's something special about this project. It's making me worry.
• What if my computer dies? • What if I add something and then the game doesn't work? • What if I don't finish on-time... or at all? • Will people enjoy this game as much as I do? • Will it run on older iOS hardware? • What if a GameSalad update breaks my game? • Will Game Center be ready before BOT launches?
Heh, then I get a hold of the laser and night vision... I start to feel a lot better
I don't know if the game will be in an Apple commercial. I doubt it. I think that the game is looking good, but it's still a 2D game. I think what makes this game special is that it fills a void. There aren't many RPGs on iOS. Many are ports of older games. It's not like a new Zelda game is going to hit the iPhone anytime soon.
I'm looking forward to presenting this game! It's hard to keep it a secret. There are lots of awesome features. Yet, I think it will make a bigger impression to show this game when it's ready.
tenrdrmerMember, Sous Chef, Senior Sous-ChefPosts: 9,934
Here's my thoughts on the matter
• What if my computer dies? - Make sure you are using Drop box or something so you dont lose your stuff.
• What if I add something and then the game doesn't work? - Save a new version every time its no biggie to roll back to 5 min earlier
• What if I don't finish on-time... or at all? - Oh now im sure you will finish. You dont seem like the type to give up.
• Will people enjoy this game as much as I do? - At least a couple crazy people will LOL
• Will it run on older iOS hardware? - Who cares? they will want it so bad they will upgrade.
• What if a GameSalad update breaks my game? - Haha. Finally a real concern. LMAO
• Will Game Center be ready before BOT launches? - Dont Count on it.
tenrdrmer said: - Make sure you are using Drop box or something so you dont lose your stuff.
I already backed up the project off my Mac. I'm thinking more about someone breaking in and stealing the Mac or the Mac simply breaking. Since I'm usually sitting at my computer for 12+ hour a day, it seems unlikely that my Mac will be stolen. But the better this project gets, the more I feel like I'm walking around with a lot of money in a bad part of town.
Heh, I just made another copy of my project again.
tenrdrmer said: Save a new version every time its no biggie to roll back to 5 min earlier
That's not the concern. The concern is more like this...
My 35 explorable areas are done... but now the loading times jumped from two seconds to five hours and 12 minutes. Unlikely? I don't know. I think there's something about instances vs prototypes. That never seemed to work right for me. I'm planning to do some performance testing today. I don't want to create millions of pixels worth of content, only to discover that my game breaks.
tenrdrmer said: - Haha. Finally a real concern. LMAO
Ha, it's funny, but it is a real concern. I still haven't figured out how 0.9.0 broke Commove. BOT is far more complex. There are plenty of places for things to break. Although, I think my "programming" is cleaner. The logic is better, and more resistant to weird glitches. I do care about older hardware, so I'm not just designing this for the iPhone 4.
tenrdrmer said: • Will Game Center be ready before BOT launches? - Dont Count on it.
I think the longest delay between updates was from 0.8.9 to 0.9.0. A large reason for that delay might be related to the GameSalad Direct® fiasco. That was about four months between updates. So, it's been about a month since 0.9.2 was launched, which was really a minor bug fix for 0.9.1. That was like two months ago.
So, even if it's another two months from now — and the next update is supposed to have Game Center — it's really close to the schedule for BOT.
If BOT is finished by April 30, but I learn Game Center is going to launch on May 15, then a delay is a no-brainer.
I've had enemies in the game for weeks now, but today is the first day I actually killed one of them. I'm trying to make each weapon satisfying. I think I'm hitting that goal. The idea is to create two different experiences when killing an enemy with a Machine Gun or a Rocket Launcher. I laughed pretty loud when the missile wiped out one of the enemies in a single shot.
I haven't been that productive the last three days. I took it easy on Saturday and Sunday. Today I finished up the design for Item #2 and worked on gun logic.
Also, I'm probably going to lose much of Wednesday. I'll be heading out to Nintendo World in NYC, so I can check out the Nintendo 3Ds. That's actually a secondary mission. I might have an announcement to make later this week.
The sword is working! This creates cool combos. You can lead off by shooting at an enemy. When aggravated, the enemy will charge toward you. When the enemy is in range, hit it with the sword. I think it's awesome... and the combo can be accomplished with one finger.
My mood is excellent. I feel great about the progress of this game. I think BOT will make the GameSalad community proud!
Thank you for sharing your development experience! I think your stages of emotions as you go through the development process are ripe for a scholarly case study on software development!
I enjoy your updates and have learned a lot through reading your updates. Thanks again for taking the time to communicate your progress with us all. It helps more than you can imagine!
Sometimes I'm not so confident. I thought Annoyed Tomatoes, Puzzling, Critique and my arcade collection would do a lot better than they did. Although, Critique was featured, as was Commove and The Unofficial GameSalad Textbook. So, I have found some success on the iTunes App Store. I think with the amount of effort that's going into this project, it should at least do better than my earlier game projects.
I've learned a lot in the last year. I think I have a better understanding of what works and what doesn't. I'm putting that knowledge into the game.
• This is a tier-1 99¢ app. • I'm adding lots of content. • I'm probably waiting for Game Center before launching.
I'm also in the process of creating a solid marketing plan. I have a great idea for the promotional video.
itwebsolution said: Thank you for sharing your development experience! I think your stages of emotions as you go through the development process are ripe for a scholarly case study on software development!
I enjoy your updates and have learned a lot through reading your updates. Thanks again for taking the time to communicate your progress with us all. It helps more than you can imagine!
I'm glad that you're enjoying the updates. I think it's very common for creative people to get hit with different emotions while working on a large project.
—————————————————
April 1, 2011 - Progress Report
"FINISH HIM!"
This morning I was feeling down. There's still a lot of work to be done. There's that nagging doubt that I constantly have to fight. I managed to crush those feelings today though. How did I fix that? Heh... I created exploding body parts.
Now that the enemies can damage TANK, and TANK can destroy the enemies, I had to work on the way the enemies die. I wasn't quite happy until I saw flaming heads fly across the screen.
It feels like a reoccurring theme in this thread — I write about how great this game is... I get back to work on the game... I start getting tired... I start to wonder if BOT is going to live up to the community's expectations... I keep working... I add something amazing to the game... I write about how great it is.
Here's a list of cool things I'm looking forward to showing you...
• four-way auto-rotation support • The equipment menu • The weapons... especially the laser • The enemies... AI and how they explode • An environmental effect • Night vision • Item #2 • The Sword
Sometimes I wonder why this project is taking so long, but then I go back and remind myself of the little details that I'm fussing over... like going back to make the fire more realistic, or playing around with the sound effects. The explosions and gun fire should sound great, but it shouldn't be too loud and repetitive. I think I'm finding the right balance.
I'm also being cautious about performance and maintaining the game's enjoyability. The game should be run well and be fun. I've messing with particles to find the right balance between cool effects and nice performance. I also worked on the health bar and other upgrades... like better defense and faster movement.
Missing features in GameSalad that would make BOT better...
• Access to the system clock, so I can create day/night effects • Positional sound based on camera location. (I could do this manually, but it would add a lot of rules... and there are so many already.) • Game Center... but it's on the way. • Movie behavior • Spawn particle location based on scene location, not just actor • expression for Animate, to control frame speed based on movement • expression for OpenURL / read data from web
But overall, it's looking like a pretty solid launch for version 1.
Once again, amazing job. I have my own list of missing features that would make everything so much easier, and sound easy to implement. Of course, they're probably extremely difficult to add, so we just have to be patient. But how come Corona has joints and collision shapes...
• expression for Animate, to control frame speed based on movement
It's not built in to GameSalad, but I made a demo showing how to dynamically control the speed and direction of any animation based on an attribute. Feel free to dig through it:
I thought about doing the animation manually, but there's already too much going on already. It's similar to manually creating positional sound. Sure, I could do it, but I think I'm pushing the software too hard already.
This project reminds me of what Synthesis was trying to create. Early versions looked like pretty advanced stuff for GameSalad, but the project was eventually abandoned because it ran too slowly. I'm trying to avoid that problem.
I think firemaplegames wrote about actor instances vs. prototypes. By switching to instances, The Secret of Grizzly Manor became possible with GameSalad. Otherwise, the images were too big.
Since I started focusing on level design, this became a concern for me. Yet, I've tested it before and I wasn't able to verify any performance increase. Today, I tested it again. I still didn't see any performance improvement with using Prototypes instead of Instances. And since it makes it easier to create levels with prototypes, it seems that's what I'm going to use.
Confidence is high that the game will be finished by the end of the month. Heh, that's pretty funny, as I wasn't so confident this morning. I was having real trouble with the levels. I didn't like the look and the performance was pretty bad. But today, I fixed that. I think I created a good style and repeatable technique for level design. That's pretty much the bulk of the work... more enemies and more levels.
• Instances vs. Prototypes • Constraints vs. rules
Which is better? After struggling to find an answer, I'm starting to wonder — maybe the old standards for creating GameSalad games have changed. The software has improved. I think the memory management is better, as I have noticed that the memory usage can decrease when scenes change.
I'm surprised that I changed the control scheme so late in the game, but it makes the game a lot better. This might be something to consider for your games.
I hate testing on the iPhone 4 because it takes so long to load. But since I added approximately 100 invisible actors to the scene, I was concerned about performance. While wandering through the new level, I noticed that something was off.
Previously, TANK would not fire his gun unless he touched an enemy. This created a problem. When touching an enemy, your finger blocks the screen. I had to change the controls around to resolve the problem. The solution adheres to the primary design restrictions, so I'm happy. Plus, now players can shoot whenever they want, not just when enemies are on the screen. Although, I think I'll probably disable shooting in the main base.
I really like this change, as it gets away from Guild Wars like controls. Combat in that game is fairly boring — click and watch. BOT is not an MMORPG, so the combat can be more real-time... aim, shoot, fun! I love the combos... it feels more natural when performing the shoot-stab technique.
It looks like Apple is going to be earning their 30% commission. This game is going to be huge. As expected, I've already passed the 20 Meg over-the-air limit. I'm estimating that this game will be about 100-150 megs... maybe more! I'm not using tiles. It's not just one tree graphic used over and over again. Custom backgrounds for each area dramatically increases the size of the game.
I'm trying to minimize the amount of loading between the 35 areas, but even if it's just 2-3 seconds, that's 2-3 seconds too long. People hate loading. That's why I think the Mac App Store version will be cool. It loads instantly. But to keep iOS users happy, I'm planning to fill each area with enemies. I think it should be like Zelda. Almost every area had a secret. I think there should be some puzzles in the game — in addition to lots of firepower. If each area feels interesting, then perhaps the loading will be tolerable.
Some math... if a person stays 30 seconds in each area, and it's 3 seconds to load, that's about 18 minutes of exploration. If I can push that up to a 60 second average per area, that's 36 minutes of exploration. I think that's great. I can slow the player down with enemies, loot, obstacles and puzzles.
Of course, the game is not designed to be played straight through. Certain areas will require certain items... like night vision, the missile launcher, the fire gun... maybe even the laser if I get creative with mirrors.
I did have some serious trouble with the weapons today. My change in the controls broke the laser, Item #2 and movement. I fixed it, but I lost a significant part of the morning in doing so. I'm not sure if the Laser is my favorite weapon anymore. I like the sword. I might have to go back and balance the weapons again.
I'm not completely satisfied with the look of the first eight areas. They have the same general look, as it surrounds the main base. What works is that I started getting lost... and I made the game. Only three of the eight "noobie" areas are done. I think getting lost is a good feeling to get in a game like this. The idea is that the player can stay close to the town, while collecting coins and getting used to the game.
Yet, the overall look is not as impressive as I'd like. I think it needs more stuff... like environmental effects to add a sense of depth... maybe some rocks too. In addition to smashing enemies, it's cool to break other stuff. Destructible environments are good for games.
There are still many days... perhaps weeks... of extremely tedious work. One of the worst parts of the task is that I keep seeing and hearing the same part of a movie in my head... all because I named one of my invisible actors "hole".
"Then it wasn't there anymore... nothing was there anymore." "A hole?!" "Nah... a hole would be something. This was nothing."
A project crushing error has occurred. This could be the end of BOT.
The game is too big. I can no longer test it on my device. I try to test it, but it crashes while compressing assets. I figured something like this would happen. It was loading too slowly already.
This leaves me with two choices...
1 - Give up. 2 - Convert my artwork to tiles... what I previously referred to as the "one tree graphic used over and over again"
Considering that I already spend money on my artwork, this is not good discovery. Although, this could be an opportunity, as I wasn't completely satisfied with the artwork. Although, I would be really annoyed if I created hundreds of little tiles, only to see my game crash again.
Production has ceased indefinitely while I ponder the situation.
Photics said: April 6, 2011 - Progress Report Supplemental
"Austin, we have a problem!"
A project crushing error has occurred. This could be the end of BOT.
The game is too big. I can no longer test it on my device. I try to test it, but it crashes while compressing assets. I figured something like this would happen. It was loading too slowly already.
This leaves me with two choices...
1 - Give up. 2 - Convert my artwork to tiles... what I previously referred to as the "one tree graphic used over and over again"
Considering that I already spend money on my artwork, this is not good discovery. Although, this could be an opportunity, as I wasn't completely satisfied with the artwork. Although, I would be really annoyed if I created hundreds of little tiles, only to see my game crash again.
Production has ceased indefinitely while I ponder the situation.
Don't give up, I have been wanting to see this for a while. Create a copy of your file and delete some actors one at a time, see where the main uses of memory are. The same thing happened with my game, just kept on crashing on a scene as there were lots of thing going on at once. The annoying thing about gamesalad is that it seems rather restricting in this way. Maybe it's poor programming and design on your and my part, I dunno, but it sure is annoying.
April 6, 2011 - Progress Report Second Supplemental
"68 bytes of trouble"
As I was considering the possibility of acquiring a sci-fi tile-set, I decided to take a closer look at the crash log. Why exactly was it crashing?
Application Specific Information: abort() called objc[482]: garbage collection is ON *** Terminating app due to uncaught exception 'NSImageCacheException', reason: 'Cannot lock focus on image <NSImage 0x20025b400 Size={0, 0} Reps=( )>, because it is size zero.' *** Call stack at first throw:
What?!
The problem wasn't that my files were too big. Rather, it was because one of my files WAS TOO SMALL!
Apparently, bigger is better!
I created a 1x1 image to use as a blank image. GameSalad didn't like that. I deleted the image and then my game ran normally! I'm still considering the idea of using tiles. I'll think more about this tonight. I'm not 100% happy with the way the levels look, so it's something to consider.
This is bad news for 2 reasons. (1) BOT was my most anticapted game since Shenmue3 (and that was cancelled too). (2) I will miss your daily log. Hope you resolve this for inspiration read FMGs original thread for GM. :-)
hey. I reported that as a bug a while ago. Seems GS hates anything less than 2px. if you try making an image at 320x1 and sticking that in an actor, and then try stacking them, you will get a 1px buffer between each actor (I found this out when messing with my sin created road curves)
But yeah, GS totally crashes when building with 1x1 images reporting them as 0x0
It took a while to get back into action. I was a bit doubtful of my artwork. I want it to look good. So, I was questioning the overall style of the work. How would a player feel about the look of the levels?
I started messing around with Pixelmator to get some new ideas. It was easy to get sidetracked. That's where the 1x1 pixel comes from. I was making an animated explosion, but I wanted the explosion actor to be invisible when things weren't exploding.
I've really improved the way I make fire!
I remember Ninja Gaiden on the XBOX. I just stared at these torches. They were amazing to me. I was so impressed at how realistic fire could be in a video game. I wondered how they did that. It's the same thing with Gunnar's Hold in Guild Wars Eye of the North. The big fire in the middle of the Norn camp is quite an impressive effect. A few years ago, I could only look and wonder how special effects like that were created. Today, with GameSalad and Pixelmator, I'm creating similar effects in my games.
I also like the choice of Pixelmator brushes. It really helped to get over this hurdle. Without them, my artwork looked a little unnatural. With the brushes, I could make the artwork more realistic. It shouldn't be too realistic, as that's not the look I'm going for. But instead, I have some good backgrounds. They're rough, dark and crisp. The backgrounds really make the actors stand out.
I'm starting to pick locations for screenshots. Sector X5/Y5 is a great location. It's a crash site. I'm happy with the way that area turned out. It still needs some more work, but at least the background art is ready.
I start to wonder if I'm being too hard on myself. Tiny Wings was a #1 game. It beat Angry Birds. Yet, the graphics and sound effects are pretty simple. The graphics and sound effects in Angry Birds are far from spectacular. If that was my standard, I'd be OK. But I've been looking at games like Final Fantasy VII. If graphics like that could be accomplished 14 years ago, why should I settle for less today? I think when players see a 100+ Megabyte download, they're going to expect good graphics. My artistic abilities are not on the same level as Squaresoft, but I'm pushing the graphics as hard as I can.
The problem is building a desolate world that looks attractive. I remember one of my biggest complaints about Guild Wars. The game was very depressing looking. Unfortunately, there's a similar theme at play here. I don't have green grass or flowers to make the game pretty. This is a dystopian future. The game is dark. This game is geared towards hardcore players.
I'm out to show the world that iOS and GameSalad is not just about casual games.
Comments
"Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A"
Today I'm working on the guns. Now that equipment menu and shop scenes are almost complete, the next step is to improve the weapons. If the player doesn't feel a distinct improvement in the weapons, then the whole system could fail. If the player isn't motivated to upgrade the weapons, then the player could lose interest in the game.
Yet, it's really tedious to change levels of seven different things that TANK can equip. So, I created a cheat.
Konami is well known for their 30 lives trick in games like Life Force. They basically built their brand with a well-known cheat code. I've created the Photics code to BOT. It probably won't work on iOS devices, but it could be a real treat for those that have the Mac OS X version. Since Game Center is not included for Mac App Store apps, I think it's OK to add some cheats. I have no plans to publish this code. I think it's better to wait and see what happens. Maybe the cheat code will go viral.
Now I can add 600000 gold or complete level 4 items/weapons with use of the cheat code. It makes it a lot easier to test the game.
It's good to be the developer.
"...this fully armed and operational battle station."
The laser is working. It's ******* sweet! Heh, it took some pretty psychotic math though. The expression bar expanded beyond my 1280 pixel wide display.
I usually seem to get the happiest when working on the weapons. While pretty much finalized in design, the four different weapons need some more work — Translation: Explosions — but they're all pretty satisfying. Oh, and I added night vision too. That's going to be item #1.
So, I'm pretty happy right now!
I'm also on-schedule today. That's two days in a row. Heh, if I can do this like 30 more times in a row, I might actually have a finished game.
Reminds me of the cheat code for sonic 1 on the megadrive
Good times!
Was the original cheat code for Contra on the NES. Good ol Days
"I don't even see the code. All I see is blond, brunette, red-head"
I decided to be generous today. I'm going to share with you some of the "code" that's going into this game. The programming language with GameSalad is basically Math and English. The programming is done with behaviors and expressions.
By sharing these two expressions with you, I can show you the level of detail that's going into this game. This is actually one of the easier expressions in the game...
min(max(game.Mouse.Position.X+scene.Camera.Origin.X,scene.Camera.Origin.X),game.Screen.Size.Width+scene.Camera.Origin.X)
min(max(game.Mouse.Position.Y+scene.Camera.Origin.Y,scene.Camera.Origin.Y),game.Screen.Size.Height+scene.Camera.Origin.Y)
Everything is being done with a single touch. That way, I can ensure maximum compatibility with Mac OS X and iOS. It's also a great gaming experience — making it easy to play on an iPhone! I'm planning to release the exact same game for both platforms. But while playing with the laser — probably my favorite weapon in the game — I realized a balance issue.
Mac users could stand in the center of the map, move the mouse pointer beyond the screen, and kill everything in the scene. This is unacceptable. So, I had to limit the mouse to the game area. That's what the two expressions are for. It keeps the value of mouse touches limited to the screen area.
If your porting your iOS games to the Mac, this might be useful information.
I'm probably going to add this information to The Unofficial GameSalad Textbook. I think I'll be able to improve the Mac Publishing chapter with the knowledge I'm gaining from this experience. BOT will very likely be my first Mac App Store app.
I really like the laser. It's great!
I think this is going to be a very fun game.
holy cow man, I hope you where being sarcastic...
this game IS going to put GS on the map, for good. I can just see it, the next iPhone/touch/pad commercial will have BOT playing, I'm almost certain!
keep up the good work!
-Jobo
• What if my computer dies?
• What if I add something and then the game doesn't work?
• What if I don't finish on-time... or at all?
• Will people enjoy this game as much as I do?
• Will it run on older iOS hardware?
• What if a GameSalad update breaks my game?
• Will Game Center be ready before BOT launches?
Heh, then I get a hold of the laser and night vision... I start to feel a lot better
I don't know if the game will be in an Apple commercial. I doubt it. I think that the game is looking good, but it's still a 2D game. I think what makes this game special is that it fills a void. There aren't many RPGs on iOS. Many are ports of older games. It's not like a new Zelda game is going to hit the iPhone anytime soon.
I'm looking forward to presenting this game! It's hard to keep it a secret. There are lots of awesome features. Yet, I think it will make a bigger impression to show this game when it's ready.
• What if my computer dies?
- Make sure you are using Drop box or something so you dont lose your stuff.
• What if I add something and then the game doesn't work?
- Save a new version every time its no biggie to roll back to 5 min earlier
• What if I don't finish on-time... or at all?
- Oh now im sure you will finish. You dont seem like the type to give up.
• Will people enjoy this game as much as I do?
- At least a couple crazy people will LOL
• Will it run on older iOS hardware?
- Who cares? they will want it so bad they will upgrade.
• What if a GameSalad update breaks my game?
- Haha. Finally a real concern. LMAO
• Will Game Center be ready before BOT launches?
- Dont Count on it.
Heh, I just made another copy of my project again.
My 35 explorable areas are done... but now the loading times jumped from two seconds to five hours and 12 minutes. Unlikely? I don't know. I think there's something about instances vs prototypes. That never seemed to work right for me. I'm planning to do some performance testing today. I don't want to create millions of pixels worth of content, only to discover that my game breaks. Ha, it's funny, but it is a real concern. I still haven't figured out how 0.9.0 broke Commove. BOT is far more complex. There are plenty of places for things to break. Although, I think my "programming" is cleaner. The logic is better, and more resistant to weird glitches. I do care about older hardware, so I'm not just designing this for the iPhone 4. I think the longest delay between updates was from 0.8.9 to 0.9.0. A large reason for that delay might be related to the GameSalad Direct® fiasco. That was about four months between updates. So, it's been about a month since 0.9.2 was launched, which was really a minor bug fix for 0.9.1. That was like two months ago.
So, even if it's another two months from now — and the next update is supposed to have Game Center — it's really close to the schedule for BOT.
If BOT is finished by April 30, but I learn Game Center is going to launch on May 15, then a delay is a no-brainer.
"Explosions"
I've had enemies in the game for weeks now, but today is the first day I actually killed one of them. I'm trying to make each weapon satisfying. I think I'm hitting that goal. The idea is to create two different experiences when killing an enemy with a Machine Gun or a Rocket Launcher. I laughed pretty loud when the missile wiped out one of the enemies in a single shot.
I haven't been that productive the last three days. I took it easy on Saturday and Sunday. Today I finished up the design for Item #2 and worked on gun logic.
Also, I'm probably going to lose much of Wednesday. I'll be heading out to Nintendo World in NYC, so I can check out the Nintendo 3Ds. That's actually a secondary mission. I might have an announcement to make later this week.
"Combo!"
The sword is working! This creates cool combos. You can lead off by shooting at an enemy. When aggravated, the enemy will charge toward you. When the enemy is in range, hit it with the sword. I think it's awesome... and the combo can be accomplished with one finger.
My mood is excellent. I feel great about the progress of this game. I think BOT will make the GameSalad community proud!
I enjoy your updates and have learned a lot through reading your updates. Thanks again for taking the time to communicate your progress with us all. It helps more than you can imagine!
I've learned a lot in the last year. I think I have a better understanding of what works and what doesn't. I'm putting that knowledge into the game.
• This is a tier-1 99¢ app.
• I'm adding lots of content.
• I'm probably waiting for Game Center before launching.
I'm also in the process of creating a solid marketing plan. I have a great idea for the promotional video. I'm glad that you're enjoying the updates. I think it's very common for creative people to get hit with different emotions while working on a large project.
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April 1, 2011 - Progress Report
"FINISH HIM!"
This morning I was feeling down. There's still a lot of work to be done. There's that nagging doubt that I constantly have to fight. I managed to crush those feelings today though. How did I fix that? Heh... I created exploding body parts.
Now that the enemies can damage TANK, and TANK can destroy the enemies, I had to work on the way the enemies die. I wasn't quite happy until I saw flaming heads fly across the screen.
It feels like a reoccurring theme in this thread — I write about how great this game is... I get back to work on the game... I start getting tired... I start to wonder if BOT is going to live up to the community's expectations... I keep working... I add something amazing to the game... I write about how great it is.
Here's a list of cool things I'm looking forward to showing you...
• four-way auto-rotation support
• The equipment menu
• The weapons... especially the laser
• The enemies... AI and how they explode
• An environmental effect
• Night vision
• Item #2
• The Sword
Sometimes I wonder why this project is taking so long, but then I go back and remind myself of the little details that I'm fussing over... like going back to make the fire more realistic, or playing around with the sound effects. The explosions and gun fire should sound great, but it shouldn't be too loud and repetitive. I think I'm finding the right balance.
I'm also being cautious about performance and maintaining the game's enjoyability. The game should be run well and be fun. I've messing with particles to find the right balance between cool effects and nice performance. I also worked on the health bar and other upgrades... like better defense and faster movement.
I'm trying to finish version 1.0 this month, as the NYU Workshop is scheduled for May 7.
Missing features in GameSalad that would make BOT better...
• Access to the system clock, so I can create day/night effects
• Positional sound based on camera location.
(I could do this manually, but it would add a lot of rules... and there are so many already.)
• Game Center... but it's on the way.
• Movie behavior
• Spawn particle location based on scene location, not just actor
• expression for Animate, to control frame speed based on movement
• expression for OpenURL / read data from web
But overall, it's looking like a pretty solid launch for version 1.
http://gamesalad.com/game/3158
This project reminds me of what Synthesis was trying to create. Early versions looked like pretty advanced stuff for GameSalad, but the project was eventually abandoned because it ran too slowly. I'm trying to avoid that problem.
"Instance vs. Prototype"
I think firemaplegames wrote about actor instances vs. prototypes. By switching to instances, The Secret of Grizzly Manor became possible with GameSalad. Otherwise, the images were too big.
Since I started focusing on level design, this became a concern for me. Yet, I've tested it before and I wasn't able to verify any performance increase. Today, I tested it again. I still didn't see any performance improvement with using Prototypes instead of Instances. And since it makes it easier to create levels with prototypes, it seems that's what I'm going to use.
Confidence is high that the game will be finished by the end of the month. Heh, that's pretty funny, as I wasn't so confident this morning. I was having real trouble with the levels. I didn't like the look and the performance was pretty bad. But today, I fixed that. I think I created a good style and repeatable technique for level design. That's pretty much the bulk of the work... more enemies and more levels.
• Instances vs. Prototypes
• Constraints vs. rules
Which is better? After struggling to find an answer, I'm starting to wonder — maybe the old standards for creating GameSalad games have changed. The software has improved. I think the memory management is better, as I have noticed that the memory usage can decrease when scenes change.
"Level Design"
So tedious... AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
"Watch those hands!"
I'm surprised that I changed the control scheme so late in the game, but it makes the game a lot better. This might be something to consider for your games.
I hate testing on the iPhone 4 because it takes so long to load. But since I added approximately 100 invisible actors to the scene, I was concerned about performance. While wandering through the new level, I noticed that something was off.
Previously, TANK would not fire his gun unless he touched an enemy. This created a problem. When touching an enemy, your finger blocks the screen. I had to change the controls around to resolve the problem. The solution adheres to the primary design restrictions, so I'm happy. Plus, now players can shoot whenever they want, not just when enemies are on the screen. Although, I think I'll probably disable shooting in the main base.
I really like this change, as it gets away from Guild Wars like controls. Combat in that game is fairly boring — click and watch. BOT is not an MMORPG, so the combat can be more real-time... aim, shoot, fun! I love the combos... it feels more natural when performing the shoot-stab technique.
"20 Megs... plus!"
It looks like Apple is going to be earning their 30% commission. This game is going to be huge. As expected, I've already passed the 20 Meg over-the-air limit. I'm estimating that this game will be about 100-150 megs... maybe more! I'm not using tiles. It's not just one tree graphic used over and over again. Custom backgrounds for each area dramatically increases the size of the game.
I'm trying to minimize the amount of loading between the 35 areas, but even if it's just 2-3 seconds, that's 2-3 seconds too long. People hate loading. That's why I think the Mac App Store version will be cool. It loads instantly. But to keep iOS users happy, I'm planning to fill each area with enemies. I think it should be like Zelda. Almost every area had a secret. I think there should be some puzzles in the game — in addition to lots of firepower. If each area feels interesting, then perhaps the loading will be tolerable.
Some math... if a person stays 30 seconds in each area, and it's 3 seconds to load, that's about 18 minutes of exploration. If I can push that up to a 60 second average per area, that's 36 minutes of exploration. I think that's great. I can slow the player down with enemies, loot, obstacles and puzzles.
Of course, the game is not designed to be played straight through. Certain areas will require certain items... like night vision, the missile launcher, the fire gun... maybe even the laser if I get creative with mirrors.
I did have some serious trouble with the weapons today. My change in the controls broke the laser, Item #2 and movement. I fixed it, but I lost a significant part of the morning in doing so. I'm not sure if the Laser is my favorite weapon anymore. I like the sword. I might have to go back and balance the weapons again.
I'm not completely satisfied with the look of the first eight areas. They have the same general look, as it surrounds the main base. What works is that I started getting lost... and I made the game. Only three of the eight "noobie" areas are done. I think getting lost is a good feeling to get in a game like this. The idea is that the player can stay close to the town, while collecting coins and getting used to the game.
Yet, the overall look is not as impressive as I'd like. I think it needs more stuff... like environmental effects to add a sense of depth... maybe some rocks too. In addition to smashing enemies, it's cool to break other stuff. Destructible environments are good for games.
"Madness!"
There are still many days... perhaps weeks... of extremely tedious work. One of the worst parts of the task is that I keep seeing and hearing the same part of a movie in my head... all because I named one of my invisible actors "hole".
"Then it wasn't there anymore... nothing was there anymore."
"A hole?!"
"Nah... a hole would be something. This was nothing."
"Austin, we have a problem!"
A project crushing error has occurred. This could be the end of BOT.
The game is too big. I can no longer test it on my device. I try to test it, but it crashes while compressing assets. I figured something like this would happen. It was loading too slowly already.
This leaves me with two choices...
1 - Give up.
2 - Convert my artwork to tiles... what I previously referred to as the "one tree graphic used over and over again"
Considering that I already spend money on my artwork, this is not good discovery. Although, this could be an opportunity, as I wasn't completely satisfied with the artwork. Although, I would be really annoyed if I created hundreds of little tiles, only to see my game crash again.
Production has ceased indefinitely while I ponder the situation.
What you may need is something to inspire you to continue, how about this http://gamesalad.com/stories
......go oldskool.
do dev builds when you wanna test
after all...that's what most other sdks have you do.
"68 bytes of trouble"
As I was considering the possibility of acquiring a sci-fi tile-set, I decided to take a closer look at the crash log. Why exactly was it crashing? What?!
The problem wasn't that my files were too big. Rather, it was because one of my files WAS TOO SMALL!
Apparently, bigger is better!
I created a 1x1 image to use as a blank image. GameSalad didn't like that. I deleted the image and then my game ran normally! I'm still considering the idea of using tiles. I'll think more about this tonight. I'm not 100% happy with the way the levels look, so it's something to consider.
edit: as "68 bytes of trouble" slipped in while I posted this I guess that too big is no longer your problem.
Seems GS hates anything less than 2px.
if you try making an image at 320x1 and sticking that in an actor, and then try stacking them, you will get a 1px buffer between each actor
(I found this out when messing with my sin created road curves)
But yeah, GS totally crashes when building with 1x1 images reporting them as 0x0
sucks, but easily solved.
Back to work!
It took a while to get back into action. I was a bit doubtful of my artwork. I want it to look good. So, I was questioning the overall style of the work. How would a player feel about the look of the levels?
I started messing around with Pixelmator to get some new ideas. It was easy to get sidetracked. That's where the 1x1 pixel comes from. I was making an animated explosion, but I wanted the explosion actor to be invisible when things weren't exploding.
I've really improved the way I make fire!
I remember Ninja Gaiden on the XBOX. I just stared at these torches. They were amazing to me. I was so impressed at how realistic fire could be in a video game. I wondered how they did that. It's the same thing with Gunnar's Hold in Guild Wars Eye of the North. The big fire in the middle of the Norn camp is quite an impressive effect. A few years ago, I could only look and wonder how special effects like that were created. Today, with GameSalad and Pixelmator, I'm creating similar effects in my games.
I also like the choice of Pixelmator brushes. It really helped to get over this hurdle. Without them, my artwork looked a little unnatural. With the brushes, I could make the artwork more realistic. It shouldn't be too realistic, as that's not the look I'm going for. But instead, I have some good backgrounds. They're rough, dark and crisp. The backgrounds really make the actors stand out.
I'm starting to pick locations for screenshots. Sector X5/Y5 is a great location. It's a crash site. I'm happy with the way that area turned out. It still needs some more work, but at least the background art is ready.
I start to wonder if I'm being too hard on myself. Tiny Wings was a #1 game. It beat Angry Birds. Yet, the graphics and sound effects are pretty simple. The graphics and sound effects in Angry Birds are far from spectacular. If that was my standard, I'd be OK. But I've been looking at games like Final Fantasy VII. If graphics like that could be accomplished 14 years ago, why should I settle for less today? I think when players see a 100+ Megabyte download, they're going to expect good graphics. My artistic abilities are not on the same level as Squaresoft, but I'm pushing the graphics as hard as I can.
The problem is building a desolate world that looks attractive. I remember one of my biggest complaints about Guild Wars. The game was very depressing looking. Unfortunately, there's a similar theme at play here. I don't have green grass or flowers to make the game pretty. This is a dystopian future. The game is dark. This game is geared towards hardcore players.
I'm out to show the world that iOS and GameSalad is not just about casual games.