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[RinseWashrepeat]

Hello everyone!

I thought it would be a good idea to start one of these here DevLogs for a number of reasons;

1. To show my students that I'm not a 'do as I say, not as I do' type of person. I keep telling them to make and release games, so I thought I'd better take my own advice too!

2. By writing this out I'm more likely to feel compelled to actually launch the game and not just stick with a working prototype.

3. Getting involved in the TIGSource community seems like a good idea and doing one of these here logs is a good way of going about it.

So, about the game. It's a fairly straightforward 'infinite runner' where the only unique element is the fact that you have two characters to look after. When you press the screen, the top character jumps and when you let go of the screen the bottom character jumps.

It's REAL simple, but from a bit of playtesting I've done, there's a nice rhythm that you get from the touching and letting go.

Plans for the game are as follows (list is in no order whatsoever);

- Launch on iOS and Android
- Have unlockables and powerups
- Have 'missions' to complete (collect 10 coins in one run, reach 30,000ft in total, etc)
- Get adverts working so I can say I've made a commercial product
-
- PROFIT!

Here's a few screens;


This should make it quite clear that graphics aren't a strength of mine. Not too sure whether or not to keep the simplistic look. Thinking I might, though if any artists read this and would want to get involved and offer their input...

[RinseWashrepeat]

I went and edited the original post. So have a look at those screens.

I've decided that I'm about 20% there.

I still need to get 'per-run missions' working. I need to get coins working. I need to get powerups working. I need to get 4 different 'enemy' types into the game too.

Maybe 20% was too generous :S

As a start, I've chucked up the early version of the game onto the Playtesting forum. Hoping for some feedback from that. I'm always open to new ideas.

http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=43810.0

Until next time...

[louiscroquet]

Hi! 
Good idea to post your game here. I just gratuated from a Game Design school and I totally agree with you, students need to make games when they can, at school, because after it's too late.

What are you using to develop your game? Which language?

[RinseWashrepeat]

I'm making it using Gamesalad. The main reason behind this was because I needed to get to grips with it for one of my 'lower level' classes (students that aren't ready to code quite yet).

It's OK. I'll never make another 'full' game in it again, mind. Still, it's nice to have another engine / piece of software under my belt

[RinseWashrepeat]

Not too much 'coding' has been happening. I'm lucky enough to have someone taking care of the audio side of things, but I've had no luck finding an artist.

As a result, I've been playing around with different art styles, though all will be 'simple'. Anything realistic is out of my ability and wouldn't really fit the theme anyway.

You can see that it's still quite similar to the original screenshot. It's just that I've thought about the colours a little more and started adding extras shapes as I'm after more than one enemy type.

What do you guys think?

[RinseWashrepeat]

Well, a couple of things;

I've made contact with someone when it comes to the art side of things. I'm hoping she'll be able to add some real 'oomph' to the game, though she's busy ATM
This means I went ahead and edited the graphics anyway. Not a real biggie as I'm using simple shapes. Just put in a little more though to the colours is all.

Here's a GIF of the new 'graphics' in action;

By no means perfect, but 'better' is all I'm aiming for at the moment.

Other than that, I've got a second obstacle type up and running. These guys fade in - I've got another 'switching' enemy up my sleeve too. Probably viewable in the next update.

You might also see that there's a trail when the squares jump. Just though something a little visual to signify the state of 'jumping' and 'not jumping' would be useful.

Next steps are to get the Game Over screen fully functional. At the moment, it displays your score, but it needs to really show high score, coins got (coins don't work) and how many obstacles you destroyed (a feature which isn't in the game yet).

So enough to be getting on with. Just happy to see that I'm making progress alongside keeping up with my marking and getting ready for the next projects in November.

I do have half-term coming up though. A 'week off' should see me getting a whole lot more of this game done. Can't wait!

[Andy Rhetoric]

1. To show my students that I'm not a 'do as I say, not as I do' type of person. I keep telling them to make and release games, so I thought I'd better take my own advice too!

Excellent reasoning! I wish I'd had more of this when I was going through school...

Looking forward to see what you can do with the game! Good luck!

[RinseWashrepeat]

Thanks for the kind words people. Much appreciated!

Today I learned about the word 'scope'. I mean, I already knew it, but now I KNOW it.

You see, the original plan was to have 'per-run' objectives. These would lead to powerups. However, whilst all of this is feasible, it would kind of ruin the game's 'purity'. I mean, an infinite runner isn't about being able to grind your way through it to get the ability to 'run' better. The alternative was to have the unlocks not be power related but have them be extras such as new colour schemes, backgrounds, audio, etc...

I'm currently asking a musician and an artist to help me out with no guarantee of money. To ask them to double their workload so I can offer 'unlocks' is just dumb. I don't mind features that cause more work for myself, but to increase other people's workload? Bad.

Anyway - with the scope now reduced, I'm fairly confident I have a pretty pure and pretty simple runner on my hands now. I'm making progress with the UI and have got 3 out of my 4 enemies working. They don't appear at the intervals I quite want, and there's some 'balancing' of sorts to get right (when should new enemies appear, how fast should the game speed up).

Still no update on the artist that expressed an interest. She did say she was busy though and, to be fair, if she can't help out I'm happy enough with the shapes that are in there at the moment.

A real learning experience this 'making games' lark. Sure hope my students follow suit.

[RinseWashrepeat]

How do people 'specialise' in UI? I find it so boring.

Yet...

People that have been playing the game, quite rightly, think it needs its menus and UI in general tidying up. I can't help but agree with them. The problem is I'd much rather be doing something 'fun, like inserting new enemy types, adding some particles or making things go 'whizz, 'bang' or 'pop'.

I guess this is what making a game - a game that's suitable for release - is all about. Menus, UI, Tutorials, Instructions and just making everything as idiot-proof as possible.

Ho Hum. Update and a new build tomorrow. I might even be able to change the % indicator to a pretty healthy 50% soon!

[RinseWashrepeat]

Oh boy.

Well, this has taken much longer than I'd hoped! I'm now currently implementing leaderboards into the game and the rest of my time is taken up with crap I'd not really considered all that much.

I've been sorting out my store listings for the app store and for the Play store, I've been fixing bugs and I've been faffing about trying to sort out a trailer, video type-thing sorted out too. These are all very boring for me and I considered the main 'game' done weeks ago, but there's so much more to making a game than simply 'making the game'.

Hey, have a look at my idea for the trailer so far. I think it gets the idea of the game across fairly well. Let me know what you think.

YOUTUBE LINK

[Jin_K]

Oh this reminds me of a mobile game I made this year, you also have two characters, one is up side down. You can check the result, maybe it gives you some ideas 

Tiny Magnets

[RinseWashrepeat]

Like it.

I'm always impressed when a game takes a simple mechanic as far as it can go. Not saying my game is doing that, but look at Jetpack Joyride. I think that's a great title that does one thing and does it incredibly well.

Anyway, trailer is coming along. I was hoping that there was some trick to lining up the cuts in the video with the audio I'm using. Turns out there's not and that the way it's done is through hard work.

[RinseWashrepeat]

Well, I think this is finally all over.

Leaderboards are in, options screen is done and a one-screen tutorial is made. I had some issues with GameSalad's ability to display a splash screen properly on Android, but I think that's sussed now.

I even finalised the trailer, so my Google Play page will look nice and shiny!





All that's left is to finish my Google Play and iOS listings, get everything in a row on that end.

My next post will be to let you all know the game's available on iOS and Android. Thanks everyone. Merry Xmas!

[RinseWashrepeat]

This is all done. The app's been submitted and I spent the whole of yesterday (slight exaggeration) sorting out screenshots, trailers and website to get ready for the big launch.

I'm pretty happy with how the game turned out and learned a lot from this process. The number one thing that I'll take into consideration when planning out how long it will take to launch a game is just how much time is spent not even making the game.

Honestly, I know I started from 0, so in future it may be a bit quicker, but there were so many forms to fill out and 'bits' to get sorted. I belive I've spent about 65% of my time making my game and the rest just got taken up with 'stuff'.

Well, that's that. My first game under my belt, available to download and with adverts built in to maybe, just maybe, buy me a pint in the future.

Let's see if my students do the same...