Mega devlog update! Throughout july, august and september Crate Collector was on an almost total hold because of real-life activities. In spite of this I've signed the game up for the WSOC2013 compo on a polish gamedev forum. The deadline was on 1st of october so I hoped to have something to show by this time. Just before the deadline I've managed to finish some rough mockup and put it in the game.
Crate Collector took 9th place in the compo although the overall reception was rather indifferent.
All right, on to the devlog!
Day X+33 (2013-09-26): Prepared initial version of graphical mockup.
Day X+34 (2013-10-01): Finished graphical mockup, cut it and put into the game (see image below). Published
Flash version of Crate Collector for the WSOC2013 compo. Published
Android debug build for the compo.
Day X+35 (2013-10-10): Added sounds created in Bfxr (time ticks, crate collection, crate drop, score multiplier increase/decrease).
Day X+36 (2013-10-12): Added more sounds (collection of remaining crates at the end of the level, initial push of the crate, end-of-level jingle).
Day X+37 (2013-10-13): Added music with account to Android application life cycle (pausing/resuming) based on
Giggling Corpse's music loop extension for NME, added faster addition of extra columns (5 columns on level 5, 6 columns on level 10, etc.), decreased the number of crates required to collect on each level (10 crates instead of 50 on the first level).
Day X+38 (2013-10-14): Decreased number of lives to one, made slowly collected crates decrease tick interval (so it makes the game harder), slowed down collection of remaining crates, modified scoring method at the end of level (adding level number to each crate score). Began researching new color palette.
Day X+39 (2013-10-15): Added forcing of crate fall at the begining of the level if they don't fall on their own for too long, added sound management system (separate sounds/music mute controls). Also,
four-day streak of work, wohoo!
2013-10-15:
Results of WSOC2013 compo are announced. Create Collector takes 9th place.
Day X+40 (2013-10-20): Disabled slot clickability after collection of last crate, fixed life loss animation when game looses focus, added end-game summary screen.
Day X+41 (2013-10-28): Added variable grid size depending on screen resolution (40x40 px / 48x48 px / 56x56 px).
Day X+42 (2013-11-03): Began working on a new mockup, applied viewports for different resolutions (320x240, 400x240, 480x320).
Day X+43 (2013-11-05): Applied remaining viewports (see image below). Target scene size is 400x240 px so th scene will be zoomed on screens bigger than the target size. For example on Samsung Galaxy Ace (screen resolution: 480x320) will get viewport 480x320 with zoom x1 and grid size 56x56 px, Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini (screen resolution: 800x480) will get viewport 400x240 with zoom x2 and grid size 48x48 px, iPhone 5 (screen resolution: 1136x640) will get viewport 379x214 with zoom x3 and grid size 40x40px, etc.
Day X+44 (2013-11-07): Applied more divisions to the 48x48 px grid (48x48 / 24x24 / 12x12) for a better control of tiles.
Day X+45 (2013-11-15): Lowered camera view angle (see image below). Working in gray-scale to have a better flesh out elements of player interest (the current 12-color palette will probably change though to 16-color).