Obviously I can't just give up. So, I started thinking of contingency plans. I think I have something, but I'm a little too tired to fully test it tonight. Here's the idea...
My game is huge. It's mostly comprised of background images. So, it's probably a good idea to reduce the size of those images. There are three main things that determine the size of an image file...
1 - The Compression Format 2 - The amount of pixels 3 - The amount of colors
I can't change the compression format. That's PNG and GameSalad is already compressing that for me. With or without ImageOptim it's pretty much the same thing.
I'm not going to change the amount of pixels. Retina display is one of the primary design objectives of the project. The headline on Touch Arcade is "BOT... 146,800,640 pixels of exploration". I don't know if this game will meet expectations, but it's certainly not going to be from lack of trying! I am still determined to maintain the size of the game.
That leaves the amount of colors used in the image. The way iOS works is funny. Even if I reduce the amount of colors, the same amount of RAM is going to be used. So, I normally don't bother with reducing the color palette. But in this scenario, there are huge advantages to reducing the color palette. Instead of millions, what if I limited it to 256?
My preliminary testing is encouraging. It's about a 75% reduction. THAT'S HUGE! My 200 MB game could be reduced to about 50 MB. The loss in quality seems to be minimal. Pixelmator does a nice job at creating Indexed PNG files. When I look closely, I can see some difference, but it's barely noticeable. I think players are more likely to notice the loading times and the huge size of the game.
Considering that the huge size of this game is likely the cause of the publishing error, I'm probably going to have to use this trick.
In a way, I'm actually happy about this. It makes me feel like a real game developer... like in the 80's and 90's... when color palettes mattered... when 256 on-screen colors was exciting! SEGA!
Hey photics I've been experimenting in the last few days for the ideal compression and thought id mention incase you hadn't come across it. I've been using the polarizer image mode to reduce the number of colours but keep it looking very similar, 30-60 levels depending on detail. then I use imageoptim for compression (with the mentioned 'PNGOUT' plugin downloaded separately, all settings on max)...helped me a lot last few days with the transparent clouds and other graphics. Serious image file size differences with very little difference in quality.
i know you have a lot of graphics so imageoptim is great - drag and drop and changes the names automatically to the originals (which get added a '~') so just drag and drop (latest modified) into gamesalad and replace all. it works best after using the polarizer and saving for web (especially the polarizer)
Hmm I dunno id rather still use it, it tells u how much was saved through compression before feeding it to gamesalad where who knows..more flexible with the settings too. been using it to keep the file size to a minimum, much bigger file without it. already saved 30% on file size with like 6 image changes
This morning, the "Project Size" was 192.8 MB. After carefully reducing the color palette of my background actors, the project size is now 67.9 MB — with two areas still left for improvement.
I use the word improvement because I believe this has made the game so much better. The most obvious reason is that the game can actually be published. I built an Ad-Hoc version this morning.
Yet, I use the word improvement because I feel the cavernous area looks a lot better now. I wasn't too crazy about the areas surrounding the main base. It was OK, but not as impressive as the other areas. Today, I actually felt happy with the revised cavernous areas.
When I tried reducing the color palette of the cavernous areas, it looked pretty bad. All of the other areas were fine, or only needed minor adjustment. But the cavernous areas had large shadows that blended. Reducing the color palette resulted in severe banding.
So while cleaning up this level, I realized that I could add parallax scrolling. I swapped out the clouds and put in a pulsating actor underneath. It added a nice sense of depth and the colors really pop. I think it's a great beginner area, so that players can get used to moving around the game.
Three of the five cavernous areas have been updated. Once that problem is fixed, most of the issues discovered with the 0.9.3 update should be resolved. GameSalad is still working on the disappearing content thing. If they don't get it working, I have my own solution.
However, I think I found a significant problem with the GameSalad publishing process!
It seems that the GameSalad server is ignoring the color palette. The "@2x.png" images (Retina Display) are actually SMALLER than the regular .PNG files. That means non-retina display players might actually see longer loading times, as their files are larger.
I'm going to send an email to GameSalad and see how they respond.
Wow, there should be a sticky about this. My project wouldn't open today. Considering the frustration that I've been experiencing over the last 3-4 days, I wasn't as shocked as other GameSalad developers might be. It was more like — what's wrong now?
Yet, I had remembered reading information about jump-starting a GameSalad project. It involves renaming the .gsuser file to something else.
It was like TANK had a dead battery, but now he's back online. My project opens quickly now. There was a bit of loading before GameSalad opened my project. I thought it was because the game is huge. Nope, it seems that the .gsuser file was getting corrupted.
I was thinking that I should simply stay clear of this forum. It might make me more productive. But because I keep up-to-date on what's going on, I'm better prepared for catastrophes like this.
Also, I gotta stop saying things like this...
Game Center seems to be pretty straightforward.
Heh, Game Center is not as simple as I thought it would be. Although, I did use the word "seems". Apparently, looks may be deceiving. The problem is with the pop-up alerts and players without Game Center support. Here's the issue...
BOT is a game without words. That's so I can localize the game. All I'll need to do is update the description in iTunes, and BOT will be ready to go global. Game Center disrupts that plan, as the alert messages (when Game Center fails) are in English. Since I can't detect things like iOS version, or Game Center connectivity, I can't hide the alerts from players that don't need to see them.
I don't want to constantly remind first generation iPod Touch users that they can't login into Game Center. It's like saying "Upgrade, you loser!" every time they play. Even worse, players in Japan or China might have no idea what the alert message means. TANK is a giant robot with a sword and a gun, so I think this game could be big in Japan.
It's surprising to me how the software can't do simple things... like tell time, or detect other system information. Since I don't control what GameSalad puts in their software, I'll have to figure out a solution. I think Game Center will be off by default. If the player enables it, then the Game Center features will run. That way, players won't be bombarded with auto-login issues... but can enable auto-login if they want.
Not everything about 0.9.3 is negative. It was pretty cool to see the words "Welcome back Photics!" in one of my own games. I updated Photics.com with an article about testing Game Center Leaderboards...
OK, I'm going back to work. This morning, I almost finished up another area. That leaves just two left. I haven't heard back from GameSalad, so it seems the destroyed Austin, Texas is not an option. It's too bad. I think a statue version of the Salad-Bowl icon would have been a cool way to say, "Made with GameSalad!"
TANK is a tough robot. Even though he's a giant machine, he's manly. Yet, how manly is too manly? I didn't want to discuss this issue, but it has been a reoccurring problem throughout development. Does it look like a penis?!
Back when The Little Mermaid was a new cartoon, there was a rumor floating around that the cover artwork had hidden phallic drawings in it.
It's the same with BOT. I'm not intentionally trying to put hidden penises in my game, but I can see where a wandering mind would find such comparisons. Is it a fire gun or a sperm blaster? Is it a laser or a giant stream of pee? I can't obsess over things like that. I think the weapons are cool looking, so I'm not planning to redesign them. Lots of real military weapons are quite phallic looking, but the world is not about to rid itself of intercontinental ballistic missiles.
But today, while adding options to the equipment menu, a line had been crossed. It was just too phallic. Here's the story...
I had to decide where to put the volume controls. Since I decided against a title screen, opting to use a custom loading screen instead, I had to find a place for the option buttons. I figured the Equipment menu was a great place. On the equipment menu is a large picture of TANK. I think it's one of the coolest images in the game. I worked really hard on it. Yet, there was still some space on the edges for a button.
Slider or buttons?
I wasn't sure if I was going to use a volume slider or two buttons (one up and one down) to control the volume. (Example - Commove uses buttons. Photics: Toolbox uses sliders on the lightbox.) Since Display Text isn't retina display quality, I decided to go more visual. I would use a slider.
Right there I knew I was in trouble. I wanted the slider to appear in the middle of the screen, but that's exactly where TANK's penis would be. I can't put controls over there, so I decided to make the control vertical instead of horizontal. Ha... that made things worse. For the music controls, that's fine. That slider would appear off to the side. But for the sound effects slider, that was dangerously close to the middle.
I thought it wouldn't be a problem. I'll just make the sliders bigger, so they cover TANK. If a big slider is covering TANK, then maybe people won't think it's a sexual reference.
Nope... it made it worse. Basically, to control the volume, you'd have to slide the dial up and down the slider. It was horribly sexual. It was so bad I thought I might have to change the rating on my game. HA HA!
So, if you decide to buy BOT when it's finished, now you know why the Game Center button is on the left of the sound and music buttons.
m456arcus said: Haha! That's hilarious. Now you have to show us some screenshots!
Heh, I think this is one of the situations where I'm glad I'm not posting screenshots yet.
———————————————————
May 18, 2011 - Progress Report
Are we there yet?!
For the last week, I've been struggling with technical issues. It's been confusing to find the source of the problem. It can be from three main sources...
• A mistake with GameSalad software • A mistake with my use of the GameSalad software • Limitation of iOS hardware.
When I started iOS testing on older hardware, the machine gun and fire gun were not working properly. With the Machine Gun, it was an iOS hardware issue. I had to do some optimization. With the fire gun, I was using the wrong attribute. And meanwhile, 0.9.3 has been causing issues. It's taking longer than it should to track down these problems and eliminate them.
Even at this stage... a game that's almost complete... project killing issues can still appear.
Meanwhile, I figured out a workaround for particles. I thought that there should be an option to specify the location based on scene values, rather than relative to the actor. Today, I realized that I could do this — WITH MATH!
By grabbing the actor's position, and then using to find the scene origin, I can spawn particles relative to the scene... it's just some extra math. Basically, it's just entering the scene value, then subtracting the actor's position.
I'm trying to wrap this game up. The plan is to ship it to Apple this month... maybe next week if possible.
I've added coins to the game. With this addition, the game is totally playable. TANK can roam around, shoot the bugs and coins randomly drop from slain enemies. I think it's pretty cool. I even put a little twinkle effect on the coins.
Here's the best part —— The Coins can fall down holes.
Sticking with the theme of not building a mindless RPG, combat should matter. Where you kill the enemies should matter. If you shoot the Robo Wasp over a hole, the coins will fall into the hole. I can just imagine the expression on players faces as they watch the precious loot slip from their grasp.
But to show that I'm not completely heartless, coins can be picked up with the sword. It's a little tricky. But if a coin does manage to get stuck in a space you can't reach, players can try grabbing the coin with the sword.
Then... something really strange started happening... my heart started pounding. It was a kid on the day before Christmas. I could feel the game getting stronger. I could feel the anticipation building. I'm actually going to be launching this game soon! It made me wonder if this game is going to be successful. BOT could be a winner, but I'm not sure. Is this game like one of those coins that fall down the hole —— success that's just out of reach?
I also like the way the game plays. I think that might have been part of the excitement too. I think it's fun to fight the enemies. When two or three of them spot TANK, it could be a tough battle.
Today I'll be populating the 146,800,640 pixels playing field with enemies.
I'm really happy with the way BOT is progressing this week. With monsters to fight and coins to loot, it feels like a real game. Yet, I know that players will tire quickly of such content without more difficult challenges. So, I added the first boss to the game.
It's like Mega Man, as only one of the four guns will have any effect on it. Players will have to find the monster... figure out the right way to kill it (There are two ways to kill the first boss)... then actually survive long enough to kill it.
I'm happy with the explosions too. There's a lot of math (cos/sin) powering the exploding bits in BOT. Much of my afternoon was spend getting the boss to explode in a satisfying fashion. Basically, almost my entire day was working on just this single enemy.
Well... I did test something... The Mac Desktop. It seems that there are some issues to resolve with porting my game to Mac. My method of four-way auto-rotational support has some tricks that are not Mac friendly. If you are considering porting your game to the Mac, you might want to stay away from relative positioning based on screen size. Maybe this is a bug, but Game.Screen.Size.Width (and Height) were not reliable attributes for me while running BOT as a Mac app.
I'm wondering if it's even worth the effort to port this game to the Mac. I probably will. That doubt is probably just from fatigue.
I was also wondering about something today. What if I created the 2x.png files myself? Because GameSalad doesn't respect Indexed PNG settings, my non-retina display graphics are actually larger than my retina display graphics. Unfortunately, I don't think I can manually create the images.
The biggest weak-point of BOT is the slow loading. Even with the white-box / timer trick, older iOS devices have long loading times. If I could customize the low-res images, I could improve the loading times. This is one of the biggest issues with GameSalad... the inability to make custom improvements to the game.
I can picture a cartoon in my head. TANK turns to the Salad-Bowl icon and asks, "What time is it?" The Salad-Bowl replies, "I don't know!"
Being unable to add customized code or modification — and struggling with the glitches from 0.9.3 — are the most frustrating parts of this project. But overall, I know that GameSalad is a powerful tool. I'm still glad that I chose GameSalad as the development software.
I'm also OK with 0.9.4 being delayed. BOT is behind schedule. If BOT was on schedule, I would be angry and frustrated with the lack of progress. But now, I can just focus on making BOT even better.
I'm giving Touch Arcade until May 25, 2011 to respond to my email. If they don't respond, I'll have to figure out another place to post pictures.
Photics said: I'm giving Touch Arcade until May 25, 2011 to respond to my email. If they don't respond, I'll have to figure out another place to post pictures.
Why not post them here too? Perhaps a small "coming soon 30sec vid trailer" might get TA or other places to be interested.
rdcube said: Why not post them here too? Perhaps a small "coming soon 30sec vid trailer" might get TA or other places to be interested.
I'm still considering the possibility of an exclusive interview. Review sites like exclusives. If not, I think it makes the most sense to release the promotional content on my website. Heh... and I'm thinking of posting up a pretend interview on the Touch Arcade forums.
——————————————
May 23, 2011 - Progress Report
5%
I have some experience with beta testing MMORPGs. There's an important lesson that I remember, which is directly applicable to building BOT. The difference between a good game and a great game is that last 5%. So, I'm being careful about game details.
Line of sight is an example. I added it to the game. There's a part where TANK pushes giant blocks. However, these blocks would move even if TANK wasn't directly facing the blocks. So, I added line of sight. It's really easy to do when so many of TANK's attributes are already accessible. That's probably one of the core technical aspects of BOT. With X, Y and Angle data, there's so many cool tricks that can be done.
Today I'm working on finalizing the shops. There's something unique about BOT. It costs gold to save. This forces the player to think — Do I risk it and keep playing, or do I play it safe and save my game?
By visiting the Repair shop (and clicking on the save progress icon) TANK's game data can be saved... like weapon levels, gold and upgrades. If TANK dies while exploring, progress since the last save is lost.
One of the tricky things about saving was creating a save icon without words. This is a dystopian future. What kind of storage devices are they using? This isn't Microsoft Word. A floppy disk icon would look dated. Yet, would people really understand the meaning of a removable storage icon? What's the universal icon for "Save" in the future?
I decided to go with a cd/dvd/blu-ray like disc icon. While there is debate if people will even be using such storage medium in the future, there does seem to be room for growth. Like this...
ok, i think the hype has finally sucked me in!haha.
photics, ive been planning an rpg/adventure that's a cross between zelda and resident evil style of games, after your experience would you recommend gamesalad for it? I've been making smaller arcadey games in corona for the past few months, but had been using gamesalad since last feb. I think as a coding/scripting learner, gs would be best for such a big project.
I added the first quest today. I think it's brilliant! I had a lot of fun testing it out.
Here's the story. There's a soccer woman that's bored with being trapped inside the base. She can't go outside or the vicious machines will kill her. Yet, she wants to play. So, she wants TANK to get her a soccer ball. I think how TANK gets that ball is pretty creative. It seems that there's something of a mini-game in BOT after all.
———————————————————
digleto said: sure a quicksave option is available
There is no quick-save option. The game is designed with only one save point. TANK has to get back to the repair shop and pay the gold fee. At least the repairs are free.
gazjm said: photics, ive been planning an rpg/adventure that's a cross between zelda and resident evil style of games, after your experience would you recommend gamesalad for it? I've been making smaller arcadey games in corona for the past few months, but had been using gamesalad since last feb. I think as a coding/scripting learner, gs would be best for such a big project.
Except from eliminating loading times on all iOS devices, I've managed to hit every one of my project's goals with GameSalad. I think I have another approach to dramatically improve the loading times, but it would be too difficult to do with BOT. I'd basically be starting over. So, I am considering building a fantasy RPG with GameSalad. If BOT is successful, the sequel might be built with Unity.
I don't consider Corona a serious option. A project like this is too big to manage in a text editor.
cbt said: Every time I see a new post in this thread, I get excited and hope to see some in-game stuff.
But, no sir, you are just insistent to not to give anything away till the game is done.
And, if this is half as huge as you mention, this will be great.
Photics said: They don't take GameSalad seriously. That's OK. One of the aims of BOT is to fight the stigma surrounding GameSalad.
Ditto on that front. Are they rejecting it without seeing images themselves? If you don't mind me asking, what benefit do you get from making the preview exclusive?
mangaroo said: Ditto on that front. Are they rejecting it without seeing images themselves? If you don't mind me asking, what benefit do you get from making the preview exclusive?
Review websites compete too. So, for them to stand out, they need unique content.
They haven't seen the images. That would have been fair. If they said, "Show us some pictures first and if it's good we'll preview it." then that would show good judgement.
Right now, there seems to be unhappy visitors on the Touch Arcade website. I think Hodapp made a mistake.
Yes! at last , i was waiting for this for loooong time I always read your log , it inspires me a lot , and its very refreshing after 4 hours in front of photoshop! And now the screenshots will add a dimension to the text !
Comments
Contingency
Obviously I can't just give up. So, I started thinking of contingency plans. I think I have something, but I'm a little too tired to fully test it tonight. Here's the idea...
My game is huge. It's mostly comprised of background images. So, it's probably a good idea to reduce the size of those images. There are three main things that determine the size of an image file...
1 - The Compression Format
2 - The amount of pixels
3 - The amount of colors
I can't change the compression format. That's PNG and GameSalad is already compressing that for me. With or without ImageOptim it's pretty much the same thing.
I'm not going to change the amount of pixels. Retina display is one of the primary design objectives of the project. The headline on Touch Arcade is "BOT... 146,800,640 pixels of exploration". I don't know if this game will meet expectations, but it's certainly not going to be from lack of trying! I am still determined to maintain the size of the game.
That leaves the amount of colors used in the image. The way iOS works is funny. Even if I reduce the amount of colors, the same amount of RAM is going to be used. So, I normally don't bother with reducing the color palette. But in this scenario, there are huge advantages to reducing the color palette. Instead of millions, what if I limited it to 256?
My preliminary testing is encouraging. It's about a 75% reduction. THAT'S HUGE! My 200 MB game could be reduced to about 50 MB. The loss in quality seems to be minimal. Pixelmator does a nice job at creating Indexed PNG files. When I look closely, I can see some difference, but it's barely noticeable. I think players are more likely to notice the loading times and the huge size of the game.
Considering that the huge size of this game is likely the cause of the publishing error, I'm probably going to have to use this trick.
In a way, I'm actually happy about this. It makes me feel like a real game developer... like in the 80's and 90's... when color palettes mattered... when 256 on-screen colors was exciting! SEGA!
I've been using the polarizer image mode to reduce the number of colours but keep it looking very similar, 30-60 levels depending on detail. then I use imageoptim for compression (with the mentioned 'PNGOUT' plugin downloaded separately, all settings on max)...helped me a lot last few days with the transparent clouds and other graphics. Serious image file size differences with very little difference in quality.
i know you have a lot of graphics so imageoptim is great - drag and drop and changes the names automatically to the originals (which get added a '~') so just drag and drop (latest modified) into gamesalad and replace all. it works best after using the polarizer and saving for web (especially the polarizer)
Recovery
This morning, the "Project Size" was 192.8 MB. After carefully reducing the color palette of my background actors, the project size is now 67.9 MB — with two areas still left for improvement.
I use the word improvement because I believe this has made the game so much better. The most obvious reason is that the game can actually be published. I built an Ad-Hoc version this morning.
Yet, I use the word improvement because I feel the cavernous area looks a lot better now. I wasn't too crazy about the areas surrounding the main base. It was OK, but not as impressive as the other areas. Today, I actually felt happy with the revised cavernous areas.
When I tried reducing the color palette of the cavernous areas, it looked pretty bad. All of the other areas were fine, or only needed minor adjustment. But the cavernous areas had large shadows that blended. Reducing the color palette resulted in severe banding.
So while cleaning up this level, I realized that I could add parallax scrolling. I swapped out the clouds and put in a pulsating actor underneath. It added a nice sense of depth and the colors really pop. I think it's a great beginner area, so that players can get used to moving around the game.
Three of the five cavernous areas have been updated. Once that problem is fixed, most of the issues discovered with the 0.9.3 update should be resolved. GameSalad is still working on the disappearing content thing. If they don't get it working, I have my own solution.
However, I think I found a significant problem with the GameSalad publishing process!
It seems that the GameSalad server is ignoring the color palette. The "@2x.png" images (Retina Display) are actually SMALLER than the regular .PNG files. That means non-retina display players might actually see longer loading times, as their files are larger.
I'm going to send an email to GameSalad and see how they respond.
Crash!
Wow, there should be a sticky about this. My project wouldn't open today. Considering the frustration that I've been experiencing over the last 3-4 days, I wasn't as shocked as other GameSalad developers might be. It was more like — what's wrong now?
Yet, I had remembered reading information about jump-starting a GameSalad project. It involves renaming the .gsuser file to something else.
———— "GET THE DEFIBRILLATOR!"
———— "CLEAR!"
———— *ZAP*
———— Beep... beep... beep!
It was like TANK had a dead battery, but now he's back online. My project opens quickly now. There was a bit of loading before GameSalad opened my project. I thought it was because the game is huge. Nope, it seems that the .gsuser file was getting corrupted.
I was thinking that I should simply stay clear of this forum. It might make me more productive. But because I keep up-to-date on what's going on, I'm better prepared for catastrophes like this.
Also, I gotta stop saying things like this... Heh, Game Center is not as simple as I thought it would be. Although, I did use the word "seems". Apparently, looks may be deceiving. The problem is with the pop-up alerts and players without Game Center support. Here's the issue...
BOT is a game without words. That's so I can localize the game. All I'll need to do is update the description in iTunes, and BOT will be ready to go global. Game Center disrupts that plan, as the alert messages (when Game Center fails) are in English. Since I can't detect things like iOS version, or Game Center connectivity, I can't hide the alerts from players that don't need to see them.
I don't want to constantly remind first generation iPod Touch users that they can't login into Game Center. It's like saying "Upgrade, you loser!" every time they play. Even worse, players in Japan or China might have no idea what the alert message means. TANK is a giant robot with a sword and a gun, so I think this game could be big in Japan.
It's surprising to me how the software can't do simple things... like tell time, or detect other system information. Since I don't control what GameSalad puts in their software, I'll have to figure out a solution. I think Game Center will be off by default. If the player enables it, then the Game Center features will run. That way, players won't be bombarded with auto-login issues... but can enable auto-login if they want.
Not everything about 0.9.3 is negative. It was pretty cool to see the words "Welcome back Photics!" in one of my own games. I updated Photics.com with an article about testing Game Center Leaderboards...
http://photics.com/testing-game-center-leaderboards
OK, I'm going back to work. This morning, I almost finished up another area. That leaves just two left. I haven't heard back from GameSalad, so it seems the destroyed Austin, Texas is not an option. It's too bad. I think a statue version of the Salad-Bowl icon would have been a cool way to say, "Made with GameSalad!"
Phallic
TANK is a tough robot. Even though he's a giant machine, he's manly. Yet, how manly is too manly? I didn't want to discuss this issue, but it has been a reoccurring problem throughout development. Does it look like a penis?!
Back when The Little Mermaid was a new cartoon, there was a rumor floating around that the cover artwork had hidden phallic drawings in it.
But according to snopes, that wasn't intentional...
http://snopes.com/disney/films/mermaid.asp
It's the same with BOT. I'm not intentionally trying to put hidden penises in my game, but I can see where a wandering mind would find such comparisons. Is it a fire gun or a sperm blaster? Is it a laser or a giant stream of pee? I can't obsess over things like that. I think the weapons are cool looking, so I'm not planning to redesign them. Lots of real military weapons are quite phallic looking, but the world is not about to rid itself of intercontinental ballistic missiles.
But today, while adding options to the equipment menu, a line had been crossed. It was just too phallic. Here's the story...
I had to decide where to put the volume controls. Since I decided against a title screen, opting to use a custom loading screen instead, I had to find a place for the option buttons. I figured the Equipment menu was a great place. On the equipment menu is a large picture of TANK. I think it's one of the coolest images in the game. I worked really hard on it. Yet, there was still some space on the edges for a button.
Slider or buttons?
I wasn't sure if I was going to use a volume slider or two buttons (one up and one down) to control the volume. (Example - Commove uses buttons. Photics: Toolbox uses sliders on the lightbox.) Since Display Text isn't retina display quality, I decided to go more visual. I would use a slider.
Right there I knew I was in trouble. I wanted the slider to appear in the middle of the screen, but that's exactly where TANK's penis would be. I can't put controls over there, so I decided to make the control vertical instead of horizontal. Ha... that made things worse. For the music controls, that's fine. That slider would appear off to the side. But for the sound effects slider, that was dangerously close to the middle.
I thought it wouldn't be a problem. I'll just make the sliders bigger, so they cover TANK. If a big slider is covering TANK, then maybe people won't think it's a sexual reference.
Nope... it made it worse. Basically, to control the volume, you'd have to slide the dial up and down the slider. It was horribly sexual. It was so bad I thought I might have to change the rating on my game. HA HA!
So, if you decide to buy BOT when it's finished, now you know why the Game Center button is on the left of the sound and music buttons.
LOL!!
@photics have you posted any images of your game yet? I would like to see what it looks like.
———————————————————
May 18, 2011 - Progress Report
Are we there yet?!
For the last week, I've been struggling with technical issues. It's been confusing to find the source of the problem. It can be from three main sources...
• A mistake with GameSalad software
• A mistake with my use of the GameSalad software
• Limitation of iOS hardware.
When I started iOS testing on older hardware, the machine gun and fire gun were not working properly. With the Machine Gun, it was an iOS hardware issue. I had to do some optimization. With the fire gun, I was using the wrong attribute. And meanwhile, 0.9.3 has been causing issues. It's taking longer than it should to track down these problems and eliminate them.
Even at this stage... a game that's almost complete... project killing issues can still appear.
Meanwhile, I figured out a workaround for particles. I thought that there should be an option to specify the location based on scene values, rather than relative to the actor. Today, I realized that I could do this — WITH MATH!
By grabbing the actor's position, and then using to find the scene origin, I can spawn particles relative to the scene... it's just some extra math. Basically, it's just entering the scene value, then subtracting the actor's position.
I'm trying to wrap this game up. The plan is to ship it to Apple this month... maybe next week if possible.
Loot Greed
I've added coins to the game. With this addition, the game is totally playable. TANK can roam around, shoot the bugs and coins randomly drop from slain enemies. I think it's pretty cool. I even put a little twinkle effect on the coins.
Here's the best part —— The Coins can fall down holes.
Sticking with the theme of not building a mindless RPG, combat should matter. Where you kill the enemies should matter. If you shoot the Robo Wasp over a hole, the coins will fall into the hole. I can just imagine the expression on players faces as they watch the precious loot slip from their grasp.
But to show that I'm not completely heartless, coins can be picked up with the sword. It's a little tricky. But if a coin does manage to get stuck in a space you can't reach, players can try grabbing the coin with the sword.
Then... something really strange started happening... my heart started pounding. It was a kid on the day before Christmas. I could feel the game getting stronger. I could feel the anticipation building. I'm actually going to be launching this game soon! It made me wonder if this game is going to be successful. BOT could be a winner, but I'm not sure. Is this game like one of those coins that fall down the hole —— success that's just out of reach?
I also like the way the game plays. I think that might have been part of the excitement too. I think it's fun to fight the enemies. When two or three of them spot TANK, it could be a tough battle.
Today I'll be populating the 146,800,640 pixels playing field with enemies.
Like A Boss
I'm really happy with the way BOT is progressing this week. With monsters to fight and coins to loot, it feels like a real game. Yet, I know that players will tire quickly of such content without more difficult challenges. So, I added the first boss to the game.
It's like Mega Man, as only one of the four guns will have any effect on it. Players will have to find the monster... figure out the right way to kill it (There are two ways to kill the first boss)... then actually survive long enough to kill it.
I'm happy with the explosions too. There's a lot of math (cos/sin) powering the exploding bits in BOT. Much of my afternoon was spend getting the boss to explode in a satisfying fashion. Basically, almost my entire day was working on just this single enemy.
Well... I did test something... The Mac Desktop. It seems that there are some issues to resolve with porting my game to Mac. My method of four-way auto-rotational support has some tricks that are not Mac friendly. If you are considering porting your game to the Mac, you might want to stay away from relative positioning based on screen size. Maybe this is a bug, but Game.Screen.Size.Width (and Height) were not reliable attributes for me while running BOT as a Mac app.
I'm wondering if it's even worth the effort to port this game to the Mac. I probably will. That doubt is probably just from fatigue.
I was also wondering about something today. What if I created the 2x.png files myself? Because GameSalad doesn't respect Indexed PNG settings, my non-retina display graphics are actually larger than my retina display graphics. Unfortunately, I don't think I can manually create the images.
The biggest weak-point of BOT is the slow loading. Even with the white-box / timer trick, older iOS devices have long loading times. If I could customize the low-res images, I could improve the loading times. This is one of the biggest issues with GameSalad... the inability to make custom improvements to the game.
I can picture a cartoon in my head. TANK turns to the Salad-Bowl icon and asks, "What time is it?" The Salad-Bowl replies, "I don't know!"
Being unable to add customized code or modification — and struggling with the glitches from 0.9.3 — are the most frustrating parts of this project. But overall, I know that GameSalad is a powerful tool. I'm still glad that I chose GameSalad as the development software.
I'm also OK with 0.9.4 being delayed. BOT is behind schedule. If BOT was on schedule, I would be angry and frustrated with the lack of progress. But now, I can just focus on making BOT even better.
I'm giving Touch Arcade until May 25, 2011 to respond to my email. If they don't respond, I'll have to figure out another place to post pictures.
Perhaps a small "coming soon 30sec vid trailer" might get TA or other places to be interested.
-RD
——————————————
May 23, 2011 - Progress Report
5%
I have some experience with beta testing MMORPGs. There's an important lesson that I remember, which is directly applicable to building BOT. The difference between a good game and a great game is that last 5%. So, I'm being careful about game details.
Line of sight is an example. I added it to the game. There's a part where TANK pushes giant blocks. However, these blocks would move even if TANK wasn't directly facing the blocks. So, I added line of sight. It's really easy to do when so many of TANK's attributes are already accessible. That's probably one of the core technical aspects of BOT. With X, Y and Angle data, there's so many cool tricks that can be done.
Today I'm working on finalizing the shops. There's something unique about BOT. It costs gold to save. This forces the player to think — Do I risk it and keep playing, or do I play it safe and save my game?
By visiting the Repair shop (and clicking on the save progress icon) TANK's game data can be saved... like weapon levels, gold and upgrades. If TANK dies while exploring, progress since the last save is lost.
One of the tricky things about saving was creating a save icon without words. This is a dystopian future. What kind of storage devices are they using? This isn't Microsoft Word. A floppy disk icon would look dated. Yet, would people really understand the meaning of a removable storage icon? What's the universal icon for "Save" in the future?
I decided to go with a cd/dvd/blu-ray like disc icon. While there is debate if people will even be using such storage medium in the future, there does seem to be room for growth. Like this...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_Versatile_Disc
...or this...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein-coated_disc
...so I have something of a universal icon that shouldn't be obsolete in the near future.
But, no sir, you are just insistent to not to give anything away till the game is done.
And, if this is half as huge as you mention, this will be great.
Good luck!
photics, ive been planning an rpg/adventure that's a cross between zelda and resident evil style of games, after your experience would you recommend gamesalad for it? I've been making smaller arcadey games in corona for the past few months, but had been using gamesalad since last feb. I think as a coding/scripting learner, gs would be best for such a big project.
What is thy quest?!
I added the first quest today. I think it's brilliant! I had a lot of fun testing it out.
Here's the story. There's a soccer woman that's bored with being trapped inside the base. She can't go outside or the vicious machines will kill her. Yet, she wants to play. So, she wants TANK to get her a soccer ball. I think how TANK gets that ball is pretty creative. It seems that there's something of a mini-game in BOT after all.
——————————————————— There is no quick-save option. The game is designed with only one save point. TANK has to get back to the repair shop and pay the gold fee. At least the repairs are free.
I don't consider Corona a serious option. A project like this is too big to manage in a text editor. I even just explained that to Hodapp over at Touch Arcade...
http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=86586&page=10
I'm not releasing screenshots or promotional videos because an exclusive preview is still a possibility.
They don't take GameSalad seriously. That's OK. One of the aims of BOT is to fight the stigma surrounding GameSalad.
They haven't seen the images. That would have been fair. If they said, "Show us some pictures first and if it's good we'll preview it." then that would show good judgement.
Right now, there seems to be unhappy visitors on the Touch Arcade website. I think Hodapp made a mistake.
Screenshot Release
I'm planning to post screenshots up of BOT tonight at Touch Arcade.
http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=86586&page=11
I always read your log , it inspires me a lot , and its very refreshing after 4 hours in front of photoshop!
And now the screenshots will add a dimension to the text !
Roy.
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