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TIGSource ForumsCommunityDevLogsWizard Ball - an infinite-scrolling iOS coffee break game
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Author Topic: Wizard Ball - an infinite-scrolling iOS coffee break game  (Read 3469 times)
jkd
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« on: December 04, 2011, 07:11:10 PM »

Blink Gameplay video!
Blink Video of iPad version
   
   

Download
Windows: WizardBall.zip (requires MSVC runtime, OpenAL)
Mac: WizardBall.app.zip (only tested with Snow Leopard)

Wizard Ball is a coffee break Coffee action-physics game, designed for iPad/iPhone.  As the wizard, you draw magik lines which bounce the ball around. The objective is to collect as many ▲s as possible to get a high score. It scrolls vertically upwards, and continues infinitely until you die.

I made a prototype for the game in 2007.



Any feedback would be great! I've been working on the game too long to really see it from the eyes of a player any more. What do you think of the concept? The controls? Difficulty?

The graphics, I'm not sure about. I've been trying to learn how to make decent looking art, but it's been a struggle. The term programmer art comes to mind. If any artists are interested in working with me please send me a PM or reply in this thread!

Technical stuff:
- entity/component game engine, written in C++
- integrates SDL 1.3, Lua, Box2d, OpenGL ES, OpenAL, Ogg/Vorbis
- game code written in Lua
- engine currently supports Win/Mac/iOS (possibly Android in the future)

Writing my own engine has been fairly painful. I'm not sure why I decided to do it. I tried making the game in Unity but had a lot of problems doing 2D. So, I figured I'd write my own 2D engine that works a lot like Unity does (entity/component).

Wizard  Hand Point RightHand Shake Right
« Last Edit: December 14, 2011, 04:28:53 AM by jkd » Logged
Udderdude
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« Reply #1 on: December 05, 2011, 06:59:50 PM »

It's a neat concept, and I like how there's lots of different obstacles in your way.  My biggest issue is with the lines you can draw and how the ball interacts with them.  It never slides down the lines naturally, always bounces off them no matter what.  Some variation here could help a lot.

Also the game starts with the music off, and at some point the sound effects bugged out and stopped playing.  Not sure why.
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jkd
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« Reply #2 on: December 05, 2011, 09:20:01 PM »

Thanks for the feedback.

Is there anything about the bounce mechanic that you don't like, or is it just that you want more depth to the controls?

I prototyped blue paint, which the ball rolls on instead of bouncing. It works fine, and makes the game much easier to control.

However, the game is designed primarily for iOS, and I can't really think of a good way to have two different types of paint with only a touch screen. I tried a virtual button at the bottom (either a toggle or like hold it down for jump), but that felt very awkward.

I tried paint and hold for bounce, let go for roll. That didn't work very well either.

Probably the best scheme I can think of would be something like, touching with two separated fingers and releasing makes a pink straight line (that you bounce on), whereas touch-and-drag paints a blue line that you roll on.

On desktops of course, I can just use left-click and right-click as different paints, and this works quite well. However, I think the game suits touch devices best.

Does anyone have any other control scheme ideas?

Wizard
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Udderdude
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« Reply #3 on: December 06, 2011, 06:28:56 AM »

Quote
Is there anything about the bounce mechanic that you don't like, or is it just that you want more depth to the controls?

The latter.

Quote
Probably the best scheme I can think of would be something like, touching with two separated fingers and releasing makes a pink straight line (that you bounce on), whereas touch-and-drag paints a blue line that you roll on.

On desktops of course, I can just use left-click and right-click as different paints, and this works quite well. However, I think the game suits touch devices best.

These are good ideas but here are some other ones.

Have you tried changing it so the ball reacts depending on the angle of the line?  It would bounce on straight lines and roll on sloped lines.

Tried tap once for pink, twice for blue (before you start drawing the line)?

Tried hold for pink, and tap then hold for blue?
« Last Edit: December 06, 2011, 07:49:43 AM by Udderdude » Logged
jkd
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« Reply #4 on: December 07, 2011, 03:57:34 PM »

Udderdude: Given that most people find the game too hard already, I think complicating the control scheme for the reason of adding depth might be a mistake. My personal design philosophy is to cut out absolutely everything you possibly can without ruining the core of the game. That's not to say that I don't appreciate the feedback; I do!

* I updated the original post with some videos as well as additional information.
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capn.lee
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« Reply #5 on: December 07, 2011, 11:17:09 PM »

I like the idea that udderdude proposed, I don't think it is complicating the control scheme so much as it is giving you more to do with the current one.

a touch screen interface is an ideal way to accurately draw different types of line and as long as players are aware of how to trigger these different effects then they can choose to use them or to keep it simple and only draw straight lines.
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jkd
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« Reply #6 on: December 07, 2011, 11:52:22 PM »

 The reason the ball is pink/blue is that I had planned pink lines for jump and blue lines for roll. I guess I could revisit this idea and play around with various control schemes a bit more.
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jkd
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« Reply #7 on: December 08, 2011, 04:10:26 PM »

Nevermind the scary windows package (it's going to iphone/etc anyway, right?)...

I'm just curious, what do you mean by this?
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jkd
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« Reply #8 on: December 13, 2011, 04:52:50 PM »

So, I've been working hard to try and finish things. I finally sorted out how to do a nice space background, without magic art skills. I figured I'd write up a quick tutorial; see below.







How To Make Outer Space (using Gimp)

Step 1:
  • Make a new layer, filled black.
  • Filter->Render->Clouds->Difference Clouds
  • Check randomize, tileable. Set detail and scale to your liking. (I used 4 for detail and both scales.)
  • Create the clouds.



Step 2:
  • Colors->Levels
  • Adjust top slider to the right, to cut off below a certain brightness level.



Step 3:
  • Change the layer blending from Normal to Additive.


Step 4:
  • Colors->Colorize
  • Adjust Hue, Saturation and Brightness to taste. Blue and purple tends to look space-y.



Step 5:
  • Make another layer and do the same. Perhaps try different cloud parameters. Use a different hue. Experiment.



Step 6:
  • Find or snap an image of the night sky, perhaps dark blue, with stars. Put it below the other layers. Adjust transparency levels on your cloud layers etc.. Have fun!
« Last Edit: December 13, 2011, 09:05:54 PM by jkd » Logged
oahda
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« Reply #9 on: December 14, 2011, 03:07:18 AM »

This is just gorgeous. The fact that you're showing it upside down and it's still perfectly playable is a great bonus. You should make a multiplayer mode with multitouch support and have one player on each side!

I was going to ask whether there will be things to avoid, and your latest screenshot and the latter part of the vide do confirm that. Perfect! The only concern I have is that the level shown in the initial video might be a little too difficult for a general player to pick up the first time. You should make som ridiculously simple ones to begin with, I think.

Like I said on IRC, I'll try the game as soon as I can. Hopefully this very evening.
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oahda
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« Reply #10 on: December 14, 2011, 07:33:35 AM »

I've played it now! Once again, gorgeous. I think you could probably make that background a bit more interesting without it getting in the way, though. It was quite hard, and I love such challenges, but maybe you should make it a bit easier (but still interesting) in the beginning, for the general public, and offer difficulty levels, so that the experienced players don't have to go through the, to them, boring and easy beginning every time.

Those blasting cannons managed to get me every time! Are they aiming at me, or just shooting in a certain direction? Sure felt as though they were aiming for me anyway. One thing that struck me as a good idea, which I'll suggest, is that, unless it isn't already the case (I couldn't tell), maybe you should make long lines disappear more quickly, so that you have to choose between short lines that will stay in place and guarantee a safe bounce as long as you hit them, while long lines will guarantee that you hit them, but might not guarantee a safe bounce. Just a little thought that might make things more interesting.

You also need some cool music, and maybe more sound effects! As for the final product, you also need to offer instructions, but I guess you're well aware of that. Anyway, this was nice already on the PC, but it will be just perfect for the iPad. Since I'm an iOS developer myself, I have access to putting anything on my iPad, so if you want a beta tester, here I am. I love these types of games.

Well done! Go on! Coffee This could increase my caffeine consumption!

EDIT:
Oh! Just saw the new background up there. Perfect. Never mind that part of what I said, then. Looks great.
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eyeliner
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« Reply #11 on: December 15, 2011, 07:39:25 AM »

Why not implement the following:

Start line from the left: Pink
Start line from the right: Blue
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Yeah.
jkd
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« Reply #12 on: December 15, 2011, 11:11:29 PM »

Why not implement the following:

Start line from the left: Pink
Start line from the right: Blue

Yeah, I prototyped that early on, as well as a variant which looks at up/down instead of left/right. Both seemed confusing, but maybe it's just because I got used to being able to draw lines whichever way I liked. I think I'm going to go with just one kind of paint for now.
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jkd
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« Reply #13 on: December 15, 2011, 11:18:23 PM »

I got music playback working on iOS. The only engine task remaining is porting to iPhone/iPod.

I started working on the app icon:



Most app icons I've seen tend to not have the title on them...maybe there's some better way I can fill the space than with the text.
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jkd
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« Reply #14 on: December 16, 2011, 12:04:03 AM »

Quote
Those blasting cannons managed to get me every time! Are they aiming at me, or just shooting in a certain direction? Sure felt as though they were aiming for me anyway.

Haha yeah, I know what you mean. But no, they don't aim at all. They simply shoot horizontally once a second. A good way to get past the cannons is to draw an L shaped line to protect you and also allow you to bounce up (or even a circular shield around wizardball, but that is a bit harder to pull off.)

Quote
You also need some cool music

The music is off by default, but there's a button to turn it on in the bottom right. Here is the music currently in the game. It's one continuous track with 5 songs. wb-mix-3.mp3

Thanks for the feedback. Smiley
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