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TIGSource ForumsCommunityDevLogsButton Up! - Android and iOS - latest release: 13th March 2015
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Author Topic: Button Up! - Android and iOS - latest release: 13th March 2015  (Read 48494 times)
oodavid
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« Reply #380 on: May 20, 2015, 07:50:04 AM »

@slarti88 - Thanks! Don't forget to rate the game - it's really useful to have a good rating. I'll get this updated with our financial goings-on, admittedly it's a bit slow at the moment, but traction can take time and I'm new to marketing.

@Dewfreak83 - Well... we have an interesting tale that I wasn't planning on sharing, but it is rather amusing so here goes...

A Run-In With the Law

I came upon the idea that we could create "hype" with buttons. Literal, physical buttons that cost fractions of a penny to buy. So I went out and bought 3,000 buttons from PandaHall.com (China), the idea was a simple 2-stage flyer drop, and we thought it would be super-effective:

  • 1 - Post a button through local letterboxes, hoping that people would think "hmm, someone has lost a button" and ask their family / housemates if it was theirs. Interest piqued.
  • 2 - A few days later follow up with a flyer: "Lord Mountbutton has lost his buttons!" - baffling question answered!

Simon made the point that we shouldn't post small things through letterboxes in case a child or pet swallows them - good point Simon! So I thought I'd just blu-tac them to the letterbox instead. Didn't really give it any thought. And went out distributing... After doing 700 houses I get this bad feeling that I'm doing something wrong so cut my day short and go home.

I mention to Gavin and Simon that it didn't feel right, so we decided to keep an eye on Twitter, YikYak and Facebook to see what people were saying. Well, it worked. Sort of...



There were loads of these, in fact, for about £10 and a few hours of time we managed to get all the local papers...

http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/mysterious-buttons-appear-west-jesmond-9140120
http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/west-jesmond-button-mystery-solved-9142639

For some reason there's a myth in perpetuation from the 18th century that people still physically tag houses for burglary. Because gypsies or something. Anyhow people were of the opinion "Oh no! I'm being targeted for burglary by bandits from the 18th century... while they have mastered time-travel they are inexplicably incapable of writing down addresses on paper, or some sort of digital writing aid... I'll not over think it!

That was fun. I had to ring the police to tell them I was a promoter, and that they needn't worry.

So. Yeah. It's effective, we just need to work on the panic part. We never did get round to flyering for fear of a good pitchforking...
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latest release: 13th March 2015
Osteel
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« Reply #381 on: May 20, 2015, 09:13:18 AM »

Hahaha, wow, that's amazing.
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oodavid
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« Reply #382 on: June 01, 2015, 04:11:36 AM »

@Osteel - haha, yeah, it's pretty funny looking back!

A quick update on goings-on:

Analytics

A few days ago I added "App Events" support to the GameClosure Facebook module. Now, App Events is basically Facebook's own analytics service, I did a lot of reading of the various analytics options (Amplitude, Chartboost, Flurry, Google Analytics, InMobi, Jumptap, Metaps, Trademob, AppsFlyer, Apsalar, Mixpanel) and while we've been using basic Google Analytics (just sessions) but realised that Facebook's App Events were what I really wanted. Why? Well, because I'm running ads on their platform it makes it super easy to target users of a specific cohort, for example:

  • Players that have completed the last level, show them that there's a new chapter available
  • Players that have only completed a few levels, try to re-engage them with an incentive

etc. etc. etc.

These Facebook F8 videos added a lot of weight to the argument for App Events


The Map

Hot off the press (last night's coding session) is a refactored Map Screen that should be more memory efficient, I've slowed the scroll speed down so that it doesn't fly away into the ether with small gestures and should generally be a bit more pleasant to code in the future. It's 90% de-coupled so if I need a map in a future endeavour I'll be using this one.

What Next?

Simon has been working on a gameplay video for the App/Play Store



- complete with MUSIC!

Gavin is looking at a way to reduce the number of words needed on the tutorial by using graphics, we're hoping this will lower the learning curve AND make it easier to translate into other languages, ie:




Then for me, while the App Events backend is all coded up, I still need to implement them, I'll be doing that presently then looking at helping Gavin out.
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oodavid
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« Reply #383 on: June 01, 2015, 10:53:26 AM »

Right then, Analytics are online, here's an overview of the metrics we're measuring:

  • Viewed Content: Map, Loading, Game, Menu, Upgrades Store, Rate Game, PostCards, Postcard
  • Purchased Stuff
  • Completed / Failed a Level

That's pretty much it for now, must say though, that Facebook has a very useful "Most Recent Events" button that lets you validate everything is working as expected in real-time instead of (as I've experienced with Google Analytics) waiting for your tests to appear in some obscure, aggregated area of their system.

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highfalutin
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« Reply #384 on: July 08, 2015, 09:58:32 AM »

Hi David,

Just want to say that I found this thread when doing some searching to find others who remembered Chiral and might be interested in the reboot I'm working on (hopefully will be ready to release this fall). I downloaded "Button Up!" and it's great! Honestly, I'm really impressed to see that you've taken some of the core mechanics of Chiral and done something different an unique with them. Well done.

My own Chiral reboot is a more "apples to apples" recreation of the original in that you start with a blank grid and place atoms that are selected at random, as opposed to your cool button-threading mechanic (though I'm taking liberties with level progression and scoring mechanics), but I'm pretty jealous at your more creative approach to making a Chiral-type game for mobile. I've got an ugly (but hopefully pretty soon) webpage up for Chiral at www.chiralgame.com. Please check it out if you are interested.

Hope that Button Up! does well for you.

Best,
Jason
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oodavid
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« Reply #385 on: July 14, 2015, 11:10:08 PM »

@highfalutin - that's great! Clearly I'm a big fan of Chiral and Atomino, they're still stand-up puzzle games. I started off replicating the Chiral gameplay element, but as I programmed away the concept evolved as I followed the rabbit holes that presented themselves; I've come to realise that almost any grid-based puzzle game can be drastically altered using the "infinite falling blocks" mechanism. I think even chess would work!

Thanks for having a download / test, glad you're feeling inspired! I'll most certainly be playing your game, beta / early testing if you need it! I took great pleasure in mentally reverse-engineering Chiral, there's something epiphanic about older games IMO, with a limited body of work to inspire them, they feel somehow very pure...

Release 0.9.9

The biggest part (work wise) was translating the game to 11 new languages. The first stage was being able to load the game with a language selected, then I decided I wanted to be able to select the language in-game, which meant that the non-unreasonable amount of "static" text is now dynamic. The things we do!

I've not had any native speakers take a look at the translations, and I'm sure that Google has done some strange things, but what the hell, it's in the wild now! If anyone can cast a knowing eye over the game, I'd be very grateful!

View The Translation Spreadsheet



The FTUE / Tutorial has been revamped once more... is this the 10th time?). Since we were looking at translations there was a very real requirement to simplify the language used, we've also decided that almost every step of the FTUE should be interactive - no more clicking through instructions. Just like Shia LaBeouf says "DO IT!"

The loading screen now shows a combination of tips (below) and just weird little sayings, that Lord MountButton is a strange man.



And as always, Google Play is ready TODAY, but iOS... you have to wait for it to be reviewed
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« Reply #386 on: July 15, 2015, 01:11:41 AM »

Quote
I've come to realise that almost any grid-based puzzle game can be drastically altered using the "infinite falling blocks" mechanism. I think even chess would work!
If you make this, I predict you will be swimming in money.

Well, you or Zynga or King or whomever rips you off. But someone will.
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oodavid
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« Reply #387 on: July 15, 2015, 06:43:08 AM »

Quote
I've come to realise that almost any grid-based puzzle game can be drastically altered using the "infinite falling blocks" mechanism. I think even chess would work!
If you make this, I predict you will be swimming in money.

Well, you or Zynga or King or whomever rips you off. But someone will.

Well, once all the extraneous parts of Button Up! are done (which, I'm getting close to) it'll be time to start branching out our offering of puzzle games... Infini-chess? time will tell!
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jctwood
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« Reply #388 on: July 15, 2015, 07:18:51 AM »

DO IT!! JUST DOOO IT!!!
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JobLeonard
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« Reply #389 on: July 15, 2015, 09:11:27 AM »

Listen to JctWood. This will blow up like crazy, I tell you!
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oodavid
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« Reply #390 on: July 15, 2015, 01:49:48 PM »

OK. After a little blue-sky thinking* around the subject of chess-style games, I've come up with something pretty interesting (as a mind-game).

"Rabble"

2 player board game
Played on a regular chess board
Both players start with ONLY pawns (16 each - will need two sets)
Whenever a player captures another piece, the remaining piece is upgraded
The object is to gain a King (possibly in an "unchecked" state?)

Ranks

* Pawn
* Knight
* Rook
* Bishop
* Queen
* King

Rule for upgrading -  "the next rank from the highest ranked piece in the exchange", ie:

Pawn takes Pawn = Knight
Pawn takes Knight = Rook
Knight takes Pawn = Rook
Rook takes Pawn = Bishop
Rook takes Knight = Bishop
Knight takes Bishop = Queen
Queen takes Pawn = King
etc.

*I've just finished reading "A very short introduction to complexity which made me think of this hierarchical emergence from a set of simple pieces...

Aaaanyhow, I must off to bed, slumber beckons!
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jctwood
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« Reply #391 on: July 15, 2015, 10:18:04 PM »

That sounds really brilliant! I can imagine some very slick transformation animations between the pieces.
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JobLeonard
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« Reply #392 on: July 16, 2015, 03:35:50 AM »

That sounds good. I also thought of a version. It kind of combines chess with rugby or American football.

  • The game stars with 16 pieces each, in normal position.
  • They "rush" to the centre and clash into each other. (so bottom colour falls up, top colour falls down)
  • If you take a piece, a piece of your colour slides in from your side. If the opponent attacks, a piece of the opponent's colour slides in on his side. Does not have to be in the column that a piece moved from.
  • The previous idea can also be switched around so that there are always 16 pieces of both colours, and only their strategic position changes
  • Perhaps if you take an piece it is taken out for x turns before returning to the field again. Pawns don't have time-out, so if you lose a knight, etc. it gets replaced by a pawn.
  • Perhaps pieces are always replaced with pawns. If a piece gets through to the other side it gets promoted, then wraps around and falls back into the field from his own side

You win the game by having your king reach the other side N times. Losing your king gives the opponent an extra turn.

I think we can come up with plenty of other game modes with a bit of brainstorming.
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jctwood
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« Reply #393 on: July 16, 2015, 03:41:42 AM »

Really we should just make a chess engine. CHECKmake? Integrated with something like PeerJS and a nice share feature it could be really powerful!

InfiniChess could be played where:

  • Players begin in the centre of 'their' board, with pieces in a square layout protecting the king/queen.
  • The edge of each board borders four others and so each player's starting position is within four normal boards, with a player at each corner.
  • Players are limited to their sections of each board and can win by capturing a King, at which point the entire game resets.
  • Turns are played sequentially within each board with the player being able to move a piece within each section they occupy.
  • The boards magically wrap around to help balance empty player slots and a player not bordering another on any one side simply loses the pieces from that section, encouraging even distribution.



Created that layout using this little tool.
« Last Edit: July 16, 2015, 04:33:07 AM by JctWood » Logged

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« Reply #394 on: August 29, 2015, 03:32:28 AM »

I realise that this is a little late in the thread since the last postings but I came across your signature for Button Up through scrolling through some long-forgotten threads I'd contributed to and immediately thought "holy crap that's a genius idea", and promptly watched the gif loop around in glee a couple of dozen times before clicking it and starting the devlog.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that the thread had nothing to do with buttons and so pored over the progression eagerly watching as it grew bigger and better, evolving to include buttons and knitting and seeing everything fit together so brilliantly.

Unfortunately I neither have an android or an iphone, so I'm going to have to wait patiently until my girlfriend comes home and nab hers to have a play!

I've also really enjoyed reading the business side of the devlog, as that's not especially a side of a game dev that you often see or hear about. I was saddened to see that you had put a hard deadline of July in your targets, although it does make sense to have a cutoff point to force yourself to consider whether it's worth continuing or not.

Noting that this thread hasn't been updated since July, I just wondered whether your targets had been matched and you're continuing development behind the scenes, or if you have shelved this for greener pastures. At it's core, even if you did shelve it I'm glad that you managed to succeed in taking a game all the way through from concept to launch and even make a bit of money from it. It looks like it's a great concept and I'm really looking forward to playing it later on.

Thanks for sharing your process and making it such an interesting read!
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