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[laxa88]

Title: Pip Panic!
Genre: casual / action / survival / endless
Platform: iOS / Android

In Pip Panic!, your goal is to survive for as long as you can from an endless wave of enemies. Purchase skill cards that are drawn randomly into your skill slots. Use the skills to improve your survival, and aim for the hi-score!

Backstory / Setting

Pip Panic! is set in an anthropomorphic world where Gladiators are celebrated as a common form of entertainment and as a path for fighters to gain glory, fame and fortune. Pip is a little flightless bird who seeks all of the aforementioned, but is oblivious of the hardship associated with it. Pip soon finds himself in the local arena where he is hunted by other gladiator wannabes, who gang up to show Pip that the world is not a fair place.

Video

Promotional video

Screenshots

Credits

• Game Design - LWY & Mok
• Programming - LWY
• Art - LWY & Mok
• Animation - Wilmer Lee
• UI Art - Ashly Teoh
• Background Art - Anson Tan
• Skill Card Art - Nadirah Sakri

History

We came up with the original idea of having the player control a helpless avatar, where the theme "panic" was the focus. We made two prototypes up until December 2014, and we thought our idea was validated when we showcased it at two local comic cons.

We started our dev from January 2015. We were ambitious and planned to have a story/campaign mode that spanned 5 chapters, with 66 skills, 33 enemies, 100 stages in total. We had set our deadline (as this gamedev project is funded by the goverment) at July 2015.

Up til May 2015, we redesigned the game 2 times because we couldn't figure out the main "hook" for the game, until we went to Casual Connect Asia Singapore and got feedback from peers -- they suggested that given the amount of unfinished work and the little time that's left, we strip down all the features and go with endless mode. And that's exactly what we did.

This is the result; 26 (instead of 66) skills, 12 (instead of 33) enemies, and only one stage. It may not seem like much, considering it's a 7-month work, but we've went into this with zero gamedev experience.

Now we're beta testing and adding some finishing touches, and we would like to get as much feedback on the game (even though we most like won't be making much changes anymore) as possible, hopefully to get insight on things we missed out.

Development

The game was designed and developed my partner (Mok) and I (WY). I did programming and Mok did the art. We hired freelancers to speed up on asset creation. We bought and used single-license sound packs and VFX packs from videohive and sonniss.com, with zero modification.

Tech

Engine: Unity 5
Art: Clip Paint Studio, Photoshop, Aseprite
Animation: Flash
SFX (cleanup): After Effects

Controls

(for desktop and touch-screen)
Tap or left mouseclick

(for desktop)
1,2,3,4,5,6 - hotkeys for skill slots 1 to 6
Arrow keys - move Pip

How To Play

• Use coins to purchase skills.
• Tap on a skill at the bottom card pane to use it.
• Collect coins to gain score bonus and heal a little of your life.
• Survive as long as possible to get a hi-score!
• Hint: The more skills you unlock, the higher the score multiplier.

Download

App Store (iPhone, iPad)
Google Store
GameJolt (Mac, PC)
Itch.io (Mac, PC)
iOS - Release date: 31st August 2015

Version history

7 September 2015

• Released on Google Store, without leaderboard/achievements

31 August 2015

• Released on App Store, available for iPhone and iPad

27 July 2015

• Uploaded desktop version (mac, win) - v0.1.24
• Fixed movement glitch when enemy is beartrapped
• Added 1/2/3/4/5/6 hotkey for keyboard players
• Added up/down/left/right hotkey for keyboard players
• Removed leaderboard button for desktop version

25 July 2015

• Uploaded desktop version (mac, win) - v0.1.23

TODO

• Add achievements for android (pending)

Contact

Any feedback or questions are most welcome! We are trying to release the game on schedule so we may not work on any additional features, but we will still listen; We never know if any comment or advice will come in handy at some point.

Email:

• hello [a] coinflipstudios.com (WY or Mok)

Itch.io:

• http://wyleong.itch.io/

Personal sites:

• WY - http://wyleong.tumblr.com | http://twitter.com/laxa88
• Mok - http://monosattva.tumblr.com | http://twitter.com/kidomok

[laxa88]

Spent about 3 days or more making a 1-minute promotional video!

[laxa88]

So apparently Game Center achievements for iOS may be a pain to manage, but they have this tool called "iTMSTransporter" to upload, update and remove Game Center data using metadata XML file! Finally got it to work!

[laxa88]

I implemented all 96 achievements into the game, then prepared to test all the achievements before finalising the build for release, but I ran into a game-breaking issue: The game crashes on the iOS.

There are 4 possible causes of the problem which I could think of:
1) My code - Bad coding, memory leaks, stuff that is the fault of the programmer (myself)
2) Unity's UI system - the Canvas.SendWillRenderCanvases() seems to hog a lot of resource
3) Game Analytics (GA) - Sending too many events
4) Game Center (GC) Achievements - Sending too many events

Before I started implementing GA and GC, the game ran smoothly with zero crashes, thus I am to believe the first two points above are not the direct cause of the crash. After I implemented GA, things slowed down a little, but the game still didn't crash during a lot of my test builds. When I implemented and tested GC with only 3 achievements, things went smoothly too.

But now there's 96 achievements, everything went wrong and I have spent the past 2 weeks troubleshooting, and with little success.

I tried searching online for solutions and asked some peers, but nobody had a clue. As such, I'll be removing GC and proceeding to release the iOS soon. Hopefully I would have learned of how to tackle this issue in the next game project I work on.

[KaiTheSpy]

I tried the game and it's pretty fun! Really like the art too! The progression felt kinda slow, but maybe that's a good thing since mobile games are generally played in short bursts. Anyway cool game! 

[laxa88]

Hey KaiTheSpy, thanks for trying it out! I agree, the progression felt a little slow. I've updated and rebalanced it a little in the latest iOS version. I'll update the desktop version a little later. Anyway, the game should be out on the App Store today! :D Whoo hoo!

[laxa88]

The game is now available for on Google Play Store! Whee! Except, there's no achievements or leaderboards. I'm sorry.