Upload Successful!

Map sharing is now operational! As is the ability to browse user created content when a player decides to go online! That is pretty huge and a great step in the right direction. Today will be polishing off the create maps stuff, now that a player can select their multiplayer map from the browser. If a game is created it will create a database entry in the games table and will be "available" for other players to join (once we write the script). Getting to the Join Game script is today's goal.

In other news, we have entered two additional contests with Overflow. The first is MassDigi, a competition in Cambridge Mass, which we will have to drive down too and present at. There are two rounds of presentations, the first is a 10 minute, 1 on 1 with a judge. The second is a 8 minute in-front of everyone at the conference. So that's something to look forward too.

The second contest is the 9th annual Mobile Games Summit competition. We submit, the work gets judged, and any finalists are invited to the conference held in Barcelona.

So big things could be happening soon!

Map Marketplace

Yesterday we started on that page and scripts needed for a Create Game option when players are online. Planning ahead we want players to not only create games on the standard maps or on their own created maps, but on any map uploaded by another user. In order to browse through this hopefully large selection we have created a Steam Workshop esk hub for viewing the creations of other players. On this screen players can filter these maps via map size as well as sort by popularity, date created, rating, and map name.

Today's goal is getting this fully operational and attempt to build the system for map uploading (right now we are cheating and putting in a data directly into the database.)

Building Overflow's Community one PHP script at a time.

Every day this Async update gets more and more exciting.

Yesterday i finished up the player home screen that they will load into when choosing to go online. This screen will show all of the players current games they are in. From this menu players will also be able to create or join a game.

And getting that creation piece up is what today is all about.

Knowing full well that we want a browse-able workplace where players can view and play on maps created by other players, I'm planning with that in mind. So that means that this create game screen will need to pull down list of games and be able to sort them by size, or search by name. Eventually I want to be able to search by map creator, or map rating, or by newly uploaded content, etc.

Back to Async

With the post game report update finished, its now time to turn back to creating Async.

The good news is that user login has been completed, the thing to do next to create the players online "home page" a place where they can view all current games that they are involved with. This space will also link to their own profile which would track their win/loss ratio as well as other stats which are now available from the Post Game Report.

Words with Friends is the main inspiration when it comes to how this "home page" will look. A scrollable list of games waiting on your turn, the opponents turn, or games that are still waiting for players in order to begin. The main issue i have with the Words with Friends page is the number of ads... They are everywhere and it is safe to say that is not how Overflow is going to be. Not on my watch.

Post Game Report!

Completed the first iteration of the Post Game Report this weekend! And took it on its first game test to see how well it would do. Here are the results:



Going to make a few changes, spacing and color wise. But overall it looks pretty good. The image of the left is the state of the board at the end of the game. The second image is a overview of the whole game, and the graph shows the total number of tiles per player over the course of the game.

Marguerite played as Green, I was Red and Mike was Blue. It was close, but i lost... Mike handed Marguerite a good portion of the map which she then immediately locked down. But it was pretty close until the very end.

Going to try to get this update out by the end of the day to the web & all testflight users.

 

Up Next

Finished off the editor overhaul yesterday, updated test flight, the web build and sent a new one out to apple.

Looks good so far. Now we are getting to the bigger ticket items. Talked about it yesterday and decided that of the four major elements that need to be added,

1. AI

2. Async Play

3. Map Sharing

4. other device/resolution development

Async will be the deciding fact in creating a community who actively plays the game and wants to see updates. Other device development would also increase this base, but it would not keep them active long enough for the async update to roll out.

Thankfully Matt and I did some pre-planning back in November so we kinda already know how this is going to work development wise.Before I jump into that kind of work however, i want to make sure that all the smaller (easier to code) elements are out of the way.

Which means i finally get to create a proper post-game report. As a strategy player i have always loved the stats and graphs shown at the end of my game and one of the best games that does this is Starcraft. It shows a host of great statistical information that really drills down into how a player did over time.

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrlington

Back from break!

And Colorado has nothing compared to Vermont when it comes to temperature. -1 this morning, hello to you to Vermont.

I get to work on my PC now! Yay! my laptop is great for wordprocessing and that's about it, never meant for coding. The goal is

that by the end of the day i get the map editor update out, need to tweak a few things graphically since my laptop height resolution is smaller than an iPad, so when i play on my laptop i'm not really seeing the whole screen.

But the update should include the following:

1.Saving to any of the designated slots within a certain map size directly from the editor.

2. Loading from any slots directly from the editor.

3. Building maps with pre-populated player tiles.

K, off the work, stuff to do.