next »

[oodavid]

Had a great session coding last night, a lot of fiddly things that needed looking at, Facebook integration is somewhat tighter, there's implicit (background) sharing of stores and explicit (user-driven) sharing of chapter postcards and 3-star level completions. Had a couple of up-stream issues when compiling to Android and iOS, but the browser works OK and the nature of the plugin says the browser should be the sole source of truth, so I'm happy to submit a bug report and wait for it to be addressed, I have other things to do!

Just tweaked the postcards to be flippable, on the reverse I'm going to add the description that appears on the open-graph object (aka facebook)



My next task is to modify my level editor to save out level previews so when a player shares a success on a level, facebook shows a preview rather than just the generic app icon



Finally, I've not forgotten about the "wacky waving inflatable tube man" (aka "The Bastard"), I've planned his actions out into tasks and am still quite excited about him!

[oodavid]

I realised that the close button not flipping properly made it look like it was flapping, so I've tweaked the flip animation a little:



Not made any real progress with the editor writing out level images, but it's all planned out, reckon I'll get it done tomorrow morning!

[oodavid]

Awesome - now you can share levels to Facebook and a preview appears in the feed like so:

This sort of stuff is (apparently) very good for click conversions, all about the K-Factor.

[oodavid]

Took a moment to tidy up the spacing on the Goal / Limit intro, quite pleased with the result!

[oodavid]

Decided to revamp my level editor a little since I stare at it so much, it wasn't bad before, but now? Now it looks kinda pretty.


click fer big!

[GrinningPickle]

I've got this to work. Not sure what was wrong before.
Initial impression is very good. It feels polished and the tutorial did a good job of teaching me what to do.

[oodavid]

Glad to hear! Maybe Google has an extra validation step for the new Android devices...?

[Pitoum]

Great great game, working perfectly on my nexus4. The loadings are a bit long, but it's ok! Any way to pay for it? :-)

[oodavid]

Thanks man! That means a lot to me! - I need to make half-sized textures to speed up the load-times on different devices

There's no payment system in place yet, I'd happily accept a rating on google play if you're feeling generous!

[oodavid]

Today's plan:

• Add a "feedback / rate on google play / apple appstore" prompt
• Add a "buy more lives" interface

Super useful features, if a bit dry.

Had a great discussion with Gavin (the designer) last night, I think we're going to review the intro levels (again) and modify the levels so that each chapter has a core game mechanic, ie:

• Chapter 1 - Drop the Runestones
• Chapter 2 - Create perfect molecules
• Chapter 3 - Clear the sludge

With secret paths holding alternative game mechanics. We're hoping this adds a level of consistency and progression to the game.

[Ellian]

I grabbed the game on my phone (a very, very old and very shitty Samsung Galaxy Ace which is barely able to make 2048 work without lagging)... and woah, it's working rather good.
Some lag issues here and there (which makes level 38 pretty much impossible to win for me), but man I'm having a blast.

Is 38 the level cap for now?

[oodavid]

@Ellian - great to hear! A lot of the optimisations are thanks to the developers at gameclosure.com, they do some pretty funky things with halfsizing textures and juggling memory about, they're some real clever folk there!

Where / when do you experience the lag issues?

38 is the cap for now (and is purposefully gnarly hard) - the next chapter is being designed at the moment; "The Swamp" - chances are the levels are getting a real good jiggle about (see my last post). EDIT - have you unlocked all the secret paths?

Have you rated it on google play yet? I'm adding the "please rate me" prompt in the next release

[Ellian]

I mostly experience lag on very big levels (the more molecules, the more I lag) and ... especially on timed levels, which is... annoying.
And I regard this as lag, but it's mostly inputs not being registered; sometimes I can swipe 5 or 6 times without the game registering any input at all.
But honestly, considering the phone I have I still only have praises to give.

I'm currently trying to gold all levels (not sure if I actually can, again because of my phone ahha), so I can't say if I unlocked all secret paths yet or not (they're secret, so how would I know?)... but I'm still enjoying it.

And I just rated it. :D
Keep up the amazing work.

[oodavid]

Finally got round to doing the feedback UI, I didn't want to have your standard "Now, Later, Never" dialog so I did some reading, it seems as though getting this right is worth its weight in gold.

As much as I desperately want emulate Dungeon Keepers rating manipulation (lets face it, that game does not deserve a 4-star rating) I'm hoping I've balanced out "give us a good rating" and "help us improve".

The good, the bad, the ugly:

[oodavid]

Got in-app purchases functional on iOS and Android, just need to do some tweaks to the user-interface to represent different states and I'm laughing!

[oodavid]

Managed to get a lot of fiddly things off my todo list this week, but nothing visual other than the Editor preview images, In-App-Purchases and Feedback dialog:

• Fixed the back-button handler on Android
• Swapped the Settings menu from the top-right to the top-left (apparently it was weird on the right)
• Postcards animate in/out from the bottom, that's where they live after all
• Facebook Open-Graph objects have functional app-links - If you click the link on iOS or Android you go to the App rather than the webpage
• Various minor tweaks to the website
• Fixed a zIndex issue with the various overlays
• Re-rendered the splash image with new colours, more resolutions for iOS

Noticed that there's only ~300 items left on my TODO list! Which is nothing when you consider the ~1,600 on the DONE list!
one of them is to find a new name, which is worth like 200 coding problems... *sigh*

Chuffed to bits!

  to the weekend! And beyond!

[oodavid]

A beer, gin, wine and rum fuelled "vision quest" has helped me solve one of my long-nagging problems; sadly, not the name, but:

"how do I integrate a simple story and give meaning to the game?"

There are a few variables that I know I want to include, such as:

• Chapter Based Progression
• A Nemesis (The Bastard / The Malignant Fingerer)
• Secondary Characters

At the start of each chapter we have a cutscene, with a character in distress, complaining that The Malignant Fingerer has messed up their perfect molecules / stolen their runes / put goo everywhere. So now this means that as you play through the chapter you have a definitive purpose, vengeance!

Thus, on the levels you're kind of chasing the Malignant Fingerer, and undoing his evil deeds, but he's also there on each level to try and stop you - which makes sense in this new context, you're undoing his mischief and wants to hinder your progress. Previously it was "just because he can"

Oh happy days!


Imma press these buttons, and bond these atoms - hhahahhaa

[oodavid]

Spent a good chunk of my day refactoring Facebook integration so that it's a bit of a smoother experience, all been great on the browser / simulator, but testing on native Android and iOS is just so bloody time consuming! I despair for anyone who has to regularly compile things that take more than a minute - how do you keep your train of thought?

Still, it's starting to come together, might get finished in the next few hours then I can submit it to Facebook for review and get a few extra permissions approved!


Who is that handsome chap with a sledgehammer and a corgi? 

[oodavid]

Had a fellow programmer ask:

I'm curious to know where you are using ParticleEngine in your game?

Well... EVERYWHAR!

[JobLeonard]

PARTICLE SIMULATE ALL THE THINGS!