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[eigenbom]

CCTransitionFade inherits CCTransitionScene. Is that short enough an explanation?

[kleiba]

Did you see the part where I said "noob"? ;-)

But nevermind, this being a devlog forum my question was OT anyway.

[eigenbom]

Come on man, you have a PhD in CompSci right?

Code:

void CCTransitionFade::onExit(){
  CCTransitionScene::onExit();

  // do other stuff..
}

[kleiba]

Listen, this is the first time I see CCTransitionFade et al. :-)

What I was getting at was rather that "onExit" looks like some kind of event handling function, but then there's a whole bunch of other code being called from it. It all just looked new to me that you have all that "loadLevelAndStart" business inside a function that may have been called when something else was ready to exit something.

Lots of somethings.

Aaaanyway! Never mind the newbie.

P.S.: D.A.R.R.E.N. is a nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooob!

[eigenbom]

Haha, who knows, it's the way Cocos2d works. You're right to be wary, but in this case we have a transition, which is a special 'scene', which sits on top of our game scene with all the objects etc. When it finishes transitioning (fading in from white), but before it is destroyed, it calls that onExitDidTransitionFinish function, which is where I tell the game to start the level.

[kleiba]

Ah, cool. Thanks for the explanation! :-)

[eigenbom]

no problem mister

[CEDE]

BTW, where'd the original idea come from?

The original idea was sort of two part. Shade Dogs was originally going to be a segment in a zine comic comp I have been slowly putting together (but of course will probably never publish) The comic segment was about a dog who made a fortress out of random objects and junk to give him shade from the sun.

Also around this time - January 2012 - I had just finished all the art direction on Desi Leaves Town. It was a very big project made for a very niche and adult audience. I had recently seen my family over the holidays and had been watching my 5 year old niece play games on different devices like the iPad and 3DS. I thought of taking the comic concept I had had and applying it to a goofy game concept that someone like my niece could play, but also had a sort of 'adventure game minis' feel that an older audience could play for fun too.

Maybe some day I will scan my thumbnails for the original Shade Dogs comic strip.

[eigenbom]

Beta Test
We are only a few days away from having our final beta ready! If anyone is interesting in trying to break Shade Dogs, then head over to http://tflig.ht/Vwt9AF on your iOS device to sign up and a beta'll be sent out soon. Thanks! This will be a quick beta as we've done most testing already.

Working Remotely
This is my first serious remote collaboration, and I think we've got a good system set up. For instance, to help organise our work we use Basecamp. The TODO list feature allows us to have a separate thread for each item, and we ping the owner of the item back and forth as we work on each one. Basecamp lets you drag and drop images into the threads etc., which is vital for an image heavy project like SD. Our TODO list is slowly dwindling away, excellent!

[pluckyporcupine]

Not sure how I missed this but it looks great! Pretty unique idea for a puzzle game, as well.

[eigenbom]

Thx johnki, yeah we're really stoked with how it's looking. We've been really cranking the last two months to get it all done!

[eigenbom]

Here's a vine!

[eigenbom]

And of course the Moonman gets a show in..

[eigenbom]

Update: We finished the final beta. If you've signed up to test it , then thanks! and you should receive an email with instructions on how to install it etc. While the final beta is out in the wild, we're working on the last few assets. Here's a draft of a potential title image that will be shown in the AppStore. I basically just cut things out of all the levels and arranged them. Then Jakob will trace over it all with his Cintiq to make the final image.

Fun fact: We've completed 584 TODO's on basecamp since the project started.

[pluckyporcupine]

Trying out the beta. Looks neat in motion. The puzzles are pretty easy to solve but it's aimed at kids so it makes sense.

I was able to break the level where you feed the robot the trash lying around the level in a way that still allows the repair robot to come out and fix the lights, even after the trash-eating robot is stuck. Not sure how but it happened twice before I was able to finish the level on the third try. I think it had something to do with dragging the trash-eating robot over the hole while the repair robot was repairing the lights as opposed to before breaking the lights.

EDIT: Done. Took about 15-20 minutes. A few things I had issues with:

- The pirate hat kid on the beach level broke the first time, getting stuck in place right after being given the shovel, probably because the X was placed in quick succession.

- Due to the physics, the space level involving the bubbles was a bit of a pain. Orientating the objects just right so that they stacked without destroying each other was a bit difficult, and their size compared to the size of the screen didn't help.

[CEDE]

Trying out the beta. Looks neat in motion. The puzzles are pretty easy to solve but it's aimed at kids so it makes sense.

I was able to break the level where you feed the robot the trash lying around the level in a way that still allows the repair robot to come out and fix the lights, even after the trash-eating robot is stuck. Not sure how but it happened twice before I was able to finish the level on the third try. I think it had something to do with dragging the trash-eating robot over the hole while the repair robot was repairing the lights as opposed to before breaking the lights.

EDIT: Done. Took about 15-20 minutes. A few things I had issues with:

- The pirate hat kid on the beach level broke the first time, getting stuck in place right after being given the shovel, probably because the X was placed in quick succession.

- Due to the physics, the space level involving the bubbles was a bit of a pain. Orientating the objects just right so that they stacked without destroying each other was a bit difficult, and their size compared to the size of the screen didn't help.

Thanks for the feedback! It's definitely aimed at a younger crowd, but we are hoping the older set will enjoy it too in a casual capacity.

Your first two points should hopefully be easily fixable by adjusting or adding some conditions.

I am mostly curious about your third point - which objects did you ultimately use to stack to win the level?

[pluckyporcupine]

I am mostly curious about your third point - which objects did you ultimately use to stack to win the level?

I can't remember the exact objects but I distinctly recall giving up trying to stack the "fire totem" and went with at least the ice totem and the watermelon. I could have probably thrown the tower together using all the pieces but they just kept swinging around and grazing each other just enough.

I also recall assuming I'd need all of them, given I had to take the time to "unlock" them all.

[eigenbom]

Thx for testing johnki, its a great help! Time to squash some bugs and take a harder look at the Moon level.

[eigenbom]

Submitted!

[kleiba]

So the shady dogs are at 100% now? Yayyy!