Diary of an Indie Dev #3

Had some success today with Android dev.  I need to develop a short course for work which focuses on Flash, making games commercially and putting it all on mobiles.  iPhones are impractical for a short course because the logical step is to teach xCode using Cocos2D, but that means I'm the only one that can teach it.  If I develop it using Flash, there are about 3 lecturers that also know Flash and ActionScript 3.0 so they just need to learn the game biz stuff, you know, marketing, Agile, bugfix, QA etc and then we can all deliver it.

So the breakthrough today was getting a swf file  running on my new HTC Wildfire S (Android 2.3) and work's Motorola XOOM (Android 3.0).  I found AS 2.0 commands weren't supported by a 3rd party Flash Player, but AS 3.0 was.  I also found a simplistic pipeline for students to come to class, setup their phone for game dev and quickly test a sample SWF to determine if they can use the phone during the course.

The student needs to do the following

1. Install their phone sync software (HTC Sync for example-the official one for your phone) which also installs the required USB driver free of charge -that's the important part.
2. Download Flash Player from MarketPlace.
3. Install Adobe Flash Player 10 if you can from the Marketplace.
4. Turn on USB Debugging on the phone and connect as a Mass Storage device.
5. Drop the SWF on the root of the phone's storage device which is basically putting at the root of the SDRAM card.
6. Open Flash Player on the phone, ignore errors to download Adobe Flash, and click on the sample SWF.
7. A benchmark test was to go to kongregate.com (thanks Nick) to test if the Flash Player installed a simple SWF player for the browser.

We think students will want to make a build every night they go home (who wouldn't) so they can show it off to their friends.

Diary Of An Indie Dev #2

Struggled today to get the Android dev environment set up.  Concluded that cygwin doesn't like Windows 7 UAC to much.  I downloaded everything now, which took the most time.  I'm going to uninstall everything and try again later.

Read some more of Making of Prince Of Persia today.  Jordan Mechner's struggle with choosing between Film and Games reminds me of me.  Glad I'm not the only one torn between the two.

I gotta wrap up some client work, so I'll try the Android dev environment setup tomorrow.

Diary Of An Indie Dev

I've got some free time!  Starting reading The Making of Prince of Persia which has inspired me to write about my dev adventures too. 

I started on a new game idea the other day.  Gonna be a Smash TV sort of game.  Got the iPhone control system working with thumbstick and four on-screen buttons.  Next day added lots of billboard sprites to fill a room without too many draw calls.  Working all images from the one atlas - learned the hard way.

Have been thinking a lot about what I should be doing and all signs point to doing more for myself game dev wise.  I have a few contracts hanging around but I think I need to finish them off and go on a dev sabbatical, which means no work for them, and all my dev work is for me.  I was thinking the only thing holding me back is them, but I know it's really just me.

I've added some more detail to my other game, a TPS horror, such as sinks, toilets, desks, bags etc to start decorating the section of the highschool that the player does the tutorials in.  Looking pretty good.  I implemented a simple camera technique to never lose sight of the player and it works better that Torque3D's camera so I am really proud.

Starfighter keeps springing to mind and I want to have a crack at resurrecting that sometime in the future.

Last night I bought a HTC Wildfire S, and tonight I'm setting up my PC for Android development. Tomorrow I will do a simple build and work out the release cycle.  Then I am going to port Turbo Flick to the Android first.  I have to reduce some of the assets sizes though - especially the sounds, and I have no idea how to implement the video.  Will put it up for free with the first 5 levels, with an ingame purchase for about $2.50.  Hopefully it will make a mark on the Android market.  Everyone who played it likes it but for some reason it didn't capture the attention of the Angry Bird clone saturated market on the iOS.

Turbo Flick will be succeeded with BlitzBallz- a derivative of Turbo Flick, but it's always been in the plan since I thought up TF.  It will be Turbo Flick 2, still a flick shooter, but more cutesy characters.

Surf Prodigy will follow on the Android, but I really want to make it a different type of surfing game.

Surf Diary 2

Surf Log:  Thurs after work. I knew the cylcone swell was coming in, and to my delight - lines forever coming from a fresh NW swell, unblocked by Rotto.  Surfed at Isolators/Seconds.  Waist / Chest to Shoulder high.  Fairly crowded - I guess the word got out that the cyclone swell would be coming in.  Got long rides.  Wind was SE.  Wind was moderate, and worked out fine.  Bit of rain.

Swell was 1meter rising - but in a cyclone swell I have found it's random what you get - you just have to go look.

Personal Notes:  I love cyclone swell!!!! Got about 10 rides in 1 and a bit hours, between 50 to 150m long, lefts and rights.  A big pack of uni students from the US out there getting in the way, but they were fun, so I just surfed around them.  Got my leg caught in another guys leg rope, nearly got hit by one of the uni students, and in the end got smacked in the lip by my own board. Blood coming out so it was time to go home.

Here's the graph.  Surfed between 5 and 6:45pm.  

Visual Journal: Taken about 2mins after I got out ~ 6:45 pm.  There were lines forever.  Everyone got wave after wave after wave.  Went down the next morning early and it was all gone :(  New swell coming in over the weekend.  Should crank again, but from the SW this time.
(video link if not shown: Surf Diary on YouTube)

TPS Test for iPhone - Dev Blog # 1

http://vimeo.com/35826621

I've been working on an idea for a horror game and I needed an "over-the-shoulder" TPS engine.  I love all the models and the editor from The Games Creators (TGC) and own about 15 of the packs.  The Science Pack is the best for my horror idea but the problem with making a 3d game in FPS Creator is that it won't work on an iPhone. 

So I've begun converting the Direct X models from TGC to Collada format and imported them into ShiVa which is capable of building 3D iphone games.

In this test I've used Cartography Shop - which builds constructed solid geometry (CSG) - and loaded the exported X file into ShiVa, then made it a collider.

Next I've imported the Colonel from the TGC and attached his mesh to a dynamics objects which pretty much rolls along the floor.  The faster the ball rolls the faster he animates.

For the camera I'm casting a ray back from his head directly behind and if it collides with a collider (ie the level) it puts the camera at the point of collision.  This means the camera will never get stuck behind geometry and so will not lose sight of the player.

Next blog I will report on my work on adding detail to the level to make it look more realistic.

Surf Prodigy (DrewFX) 1.3.0 Christmas Update

Just in time for Christmas I've made a special updated version for those Surf Prodigy owners! Grab a fresh copy if you haven't bought one yet.

I've tweaked the game quite a bit to make it easier to play and added a new level for Christmas. The level is already unlocked ready to play (no need to complete the circuit) and you get a bonus item if you complete it. So UPDATE if you have it. As for some promo codes - I'll post some soon but there's some legal issue I have to look into which I think requires you to read an agreement. So more on that soon.

What's New in Version 1.3.0

* Christmas Update - Aerial jump contest off coast of an iceberg that floated into the bay for Bonus Item you can wear. Open the map to see the iceberg.
* Dodge ice fragments.
* Enhanced controls to make it more fun to play.
* Will stand up for you if you reach the top of the wave and are still paddling.
* Only fall off on lip of wave or out too far in front when cruising at low speed.
* Snap turn on lip of wave using Lightning button.
* Pump for power on middle of wave using Lightning button.
* Better turning.
* Better calibration.
* When holding the rail it drags you into an auto-barrel ride.
* Two bonus moves added on default - one aerial grab and another barrel move.
* Auto aerial jump if you have done a bottom turn.
* Holds on lip of wave and stalls if you haven't done bottom turn.
* Extended music tracks to full length.
* Earning more money for each location so you truly can compete without a sponsor.
* Moved buttons to work more ergonomically on iPad.
* General bug fixes.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/surf-prodigy/id323764843?mt=8

Surf Log - 19th Nov 2011

I'm doing this as an exercise to see if it yields anything interesting for myself.  What I'm doing is recording the surf I was in, and what the charts were doing at the time.  Theoretically I should be able to predict what the conditions are going to be like to go surfing.  This is especially important because some of the locations take a long time to drive to.

Surf Log:  Surfed at Avalon.  Chest to Head high occassionally said the report.  The reality was pretty close, but more like Waist / Chest to Shoulder high.  Fairly uncrowded on spot I chose.  Got long rides.  Wind was SE but break could have tolerated S.   Wind was moderate, and worked out fine.  I thought it was going to be blown out.  Forcast we moderate (15 kts) SE all morning.  Worked out a bit different (see below).

Swell was 3meters falling rapidly to 2m.

Here's the wind chart.  I surfed between 9 and 11:30am.

Tide went from 1.8m down to 1.3m over the session.  I noticed around 10am the reefs started to show and the waves got suckier and easier to catch.

Personal Notes:  Got about 8 decent rides, between 50 to 150m long, lefts from 3rds.  Total asshole out there was tring to tell me to move to another break because this was for SUPs only.  I ignored him and continued surfing.  He snaked me one time too.  His mates called him the Hog.  Fat pr*#k.

Visual Journal:  Here's some photos and video from the day.  Taken about 10mins after I got out ~ 11:45 am.
(video link if not shown: Surf Diary on YouTube)