TOTB4 - Simo103

simo103

With the great organization and theme from Stormy and all the wonderful ideas people have come up with ... I couldn't resist jumping in also.

I've decided to attempt a board game for the iPad ... this one's titled "It's the End of the World - As we know it!" ... if it gets to be good enough for release I will likely need to modify the name since it's from REM's song. Anyway ...

I will have the ability to pick 1-4 players and the board with adjust as needed so players would sit around the table with the ipad in the middle.
I want to use the dynamic nature of the device to make it better than just a copy of what a real board game will be so will be using great graphics, animations and interactivity.

BOARD LAYOUT: Each player will have a world in front of them and their various status, play and info.

GAMEPLAY BASICS: player one clicks to start their earth spinning and clicks to stop. The point the earth stops on is a point in history of the planets lifetime and a multiple choice quiz is presented to player one based on that time/date. A correct answer fills the planet with a life part. An incorrect answer allows the next player to answer a new question from the same time/date period (age appropriate for Player2) and if Player 2 answers correctly then Player1's planet takes damage. And so on and on. If a players planet has so much damage it is destroyed. If a player gets all their planets life parts first they win.

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gteteris001

Great idea, keep us posted!

simo103

Brief update ... have setup some of the attributes to manage number of players, going to have ability to assign age range to each player so questions/challenges can be age appropriate by player, and have the 'board' layout adjusted by the number of players etc. Working quite nicely so far ... however I think the real value will be in getting teh graphics, animation and challenges right to make it really fun and give it a reason to be on a digital device rather than a real board. Anyway heres the short video:

simo103

NEW UPDATE: wanted to add some images so I could get a feel for the layout and gameplay. These are just placeholders for now as I used some planet images from google ... will create my own once I'm sure of the layout and design elements. Anyway the video now shows adjusting the layout based on number of players and spinning globes to show how the type of challenge is presented for each player. As always any thoughts/input/ideas would be great .. thanks.

EthanZarov

I like your graphics! Cool board game btw. VEry unique doing one.

http://forums.gamesalad.com/discussion/37443/totb4-etzer-i-think-it-is-very-unique#Item_6
TOTB4 THREAD-METEOR APOCALYPSE 2012

simo103

UPDATE: spent the time i had yesterday cleaning up a bit and putting in the logic to convert each players spinning globe angles to pass the correct game play element .. ie: when the globe spins stops on Trivia, then that value is assigned to an attribute I can then use to select a random trivia question to display. Was quite a bit of work but I think its starting to look good. Down the road would like the spinning globes to have a common light source so the shadows don't rotate, just the planet and and few other things but heres a quick video showing how the correct labels are captured with 3 or 4 person layouts:

ozboybrian

Verrrrry interesting mate and definitely one of the most original by far! Art work is coming a long nicely as well.
Art is my biggest issue at the moment, would love your opinion on my thread to mate Good luck!

@simo103 - Fantastic man, yeah having any art in there makes things so much easier to work with

simo103

thanks Brian ... will be redoing the artwork as some of it is 'borrowed' as a placeholder but I have all the art in photoshop layers so the parts I've done I can keep and replace out the rest. I have been reading your thread ... will post a comment

simo103

UPDATE: I now have successfully setup the attributes to pass into the Pause screen where challenges/trivia/games will be played and to have that Pause screen triggered when the Globe stops spinning. When you 'answer' the challenge it also automatically moves the 'Go' to the next player. Shortly will have oriented the Question towards the player whose turn it is and also worked out how to handle a Head 2 Head or All Play challenge and how that will orientate.

I have a short updated video here (NOTE: I still have an issue coming back from teh first Pause screen which kills all subsequent Globe spinning down slowly effects for some reason ... see my post here: http://forums.gamesalad.com/discussion/37595/issue-when-un-pausing ) ... anyway here's the latest movie:

simo103

UPDATE: Been a few days since last post. Had to rethink a few things and also work out other features. Originally I had the mechanics of gameplay in each players spinning globe .... what I am redoing now is there will be placeholder globe images in each players position but when it is their turn the 'active' globe will appear in their position and thus there will be one play globe which will move around based on whose turn it is. (This won't be noticeable to the players other than there position lighting up for there turn). Anyway in addition I have worked thru the gameplay further.
Each player has a marker on the worlds timeline and must progress thru various eras like Big Bang, Roman times etc in order to win the game. Each set of challenges/questions will be based on the era that player is in. Additionally there is now a HUD that indicates 4 statuses of that planet and bonuses and penalties will be based on the levels of those statuses. Each challenge/question will effect some or all of those statuses and failure to maintain them can lead to Earths destruction.
Here's a screenshot of an active player with Timeline and HUD:

simo103

UPDATE: Have done a lot of 'under the hood' stuff to clean up the code and completed the orientation of the globe/HUD/timeline to face each active player when its their turn. I have also setup the start of a few of the challenges. One is for All Play and it will be a variation of 'Rock/Paper/Scissors' but using different items and a roulette type wheel to match against each players choice to see who wins. Also added the start of an Image fun challenge that uses a pixelated image that steps toward focus and if you know what it is you can stop the challenge and answer. Each of these challenges will provide (or take away in the case of a loss) Health/Resources/Population or Climate and are part of your challenge to maintain a healthy planet across the timeline. Still lots to do .. my hope is to have a good sample challenge for each play type and the rewards/penalties all showing for the end of the month and to submit as a TOB4 entry. I have a Head2Head chariot race being worked on for the Roman Times which is looking like a lot of fun ... so stay tuned!

Braydon_SFX

Looks great, @simo103.
Keep at it!

simo103

@Braydon_SFX ... appreciate the post, thanks ... hoping next few days will move it forward a lot as I think I have done most of the foundation stuff which was a bit tedious. Will likely need tables to be able to make this into a sellable app as games of this type need a massive amount of questions/challenges/images to make it random enough to play a few times and to justify a price. Would also be a great IAP project ... to release additional packs of stuff. Also in teh video the movements/spinning look choppy but on the device it's fast and looks great.

mmzbr

Great concept, I will follow this, looks very interesting and thanks for tips in my topic!