Testing meeting tonight!
Will be doing an informational meeting @ Champlain in the Hauke 008 Lab for any of those interested. I will be talking about what we are looking for, etc.
Ummmm, so I guess we really should give a build to Apple by Friday. Cannot believe its Wednesday already. In full bug hunting mode at the moment. Pathogen is not yet bullet proof and while playing it may in-explicitly break for no apparent reason. I will be trying to find & squash those.
Matt is going to be creating the in-game tutorial, which is kinda like a flip book of rules. Little animations play on each page, showing the player some core gameplay items.
Originally I just wanted these animations to be done by our artist. She would then hand them off, I would make movie clips out of them and bam, we would have a looping animation.
Forgot that animations require space on a sprite sheet. The artist handed them over & they are all about 100 frames long, with pretty large dimensions, somewhere in the 400x200 range. Which means, in order to use them we would have to make 3 2048x2048 sprite sheets. That would DOUBLE the current amount of sprites in the game.
My fault...
So, what we need to do is re-create the tutorial animations via code. This is pretty difficult however as we would have to clone & adapt the core game code to run these animations.
Getting very tired of tutorials...
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Take that Apple!
Finally caught a break with my iPhone 5 issues. Thank goodness...
Apple requires all applications to have a Launch Image, in particular they want to ensure that the iPhone 5 has one. In x-code & Unity these Launch Images are very simple to slot in. However in Flash its a bit more round-about.
The image must be named in a very particular way. For instance the iPhone 5 Launch Image is named: Default-568h@2x.png....
And this is the iPad 3 name: Default@2x-Landscape-ipad
Kinda strange...
We attempted to push to Apple a little while ago, but received this error message:
Phone 5 Optimization Requirement - Your binary is not
optimized for iPhone 5. New iPhone apps and app updates submitted
targeting iOS 6 and above must support the 4-inch display on iPhone 5
and must include a launch image with the -568h size modifier
immediately following the <basename> portion of the launch image's
filename. Launch images must be PNG files and located at the top-level
of your bundle, or provided within each .lproj folder if you localize
your launch images. Learn more about iPhone 5 support and app launch
images by reviewing the iOS Human Interface Guidelines and iOS App Programming Guide.
Fun times...
The big problem is that we don't even have an iPhone 5 in the office. Thankfully Thatcher had one and came in to give us a hand.
Sometimes the most frustrating problem is caused by the simplest error. It ended up being a typo: Default-586h@2x.png
Without these Launch Images the device actually cannot give the correct screen height x screen width to the application. Go figure...
-----
In other news work continues on about a million little polish items that will help make Pathogen shiny.
Working with a publisher is an interesting experience, we check in once a week, sit down Skype chat kinda thing, though Marguerite touches base much more often then that.
We go over the changes & then talk about what else could help strength the game as a whole. Social integration, tweeting from the game, or posting on your wall is something we are currently looking at. In addition to potentially making slight changes to how progression works in the single player campaign.
Apple requires all applications to have a Launch Image, in particular they want to ensure that the iPhone 5 has one. In x-code & Unity these Launch Images are very simple to slot in. However in Flash its a bit more round-about.
And this is the iPad 3 name: Default@2x-Landscape-ipad
Kinda strange...
 |
| iPhone 5 Launch Image |
Fun times...
The big problem is that we don't even have an iPhone 5 in the office. Thankfully Thatcher had one and came in to give us a hand.
Sometimes the most frustrating problem is caused by the simplest error. It ended up being a typo: Default-586h@2x.png
Without these Launch Images the device actually cannot give the correct screen height x screen width to the application. Go figure...
-----
In other news work continues on about a million little polish items that will help make Pathogen shiny.
Working with a publisher is an interesting experience, we check in once a week, sit down Skype chat kinda thing, though Marguerite touches base much more often then that.
We go over the changes & then talk about what else could help strength the game as a whole. Social integration, tweeting from the game, or posting on your wall is something we are currently looking at. In addition to potentially making slight changes to how progression works in the single player campaign.
Monday, August 26, 2013
Script that tutorial
Very dark outside in Burlington today.
After a very active weekend, its back to work.
Matt is back! Yay! He came in & banged out a sound manager with no effort at all. We now have a ambient looping audio track. At the end of all things, we will have a total of 3 that we will cross fade between to give the experience a little more variety.
Tutorial stuff yet again for me. Though it is coming together pretty well I believe. Maybe by the end of the day I'll be able to put it out.
Going on to campus this afternoon to encourage people to attend the informational meeting on Wednesday. The goal is to get a group of kids who can be "on call" for when we need them. First testing session will be on Friday I think.
Wow, end of the month is coming up quick. We set a soft deadline of the 1st week in September for our contest builds for both the French competition & FIG. So we are rushing to get everything all squared away.
After a very active weekend, its back to work.
Matt is back! Yay! He came in & banged out a sound manager with no effort at all. We now have a ambient looping audio track. At the end of all things, we will have a total of 3 that we will cross fade between to give the experience a little more variety.
Tutorial stuff yet again for me. Though it is coming together pretty well I believe. Maybe by the end of the day I'll be able to put it out.
Going on to campus this afternoon to encourage people to attend the informational meeting on Wednesday. The goal is to get a group of kids who can be "on call" for when we need them. First testing session will be on Friday I think.
Wow, end of the month is coming up quick. We set a soft deadline of the 1st week in September for our contest builds for both the French competition & FIG. So we are rushing to get everything all squared away.
Thursday, August 22, 2013
Universal Language
Another sunny day in Burlington, weather this weekend is supposed to be up there.
Still working on Achievements today, the framework is complete & I am now putting the hooks into the code to update the achievements as players progress. Working pretty well thus far I believe.
Potentially going down to New York in a few weeks to meet up with the marketing team.
Oh, we were accepted as finalists to this competition: http://strasbourgfestival.com/page/soumettre-jeux.php Which is really awesome. Unfortunately we wont be attending, but its nice to be showcased & once again, you never know what is going to happen.
We were looking at attending this http://storyhackvt.com/ in October, to take a quick break from traditional development & do something new. Stretch some narrative muscle potentially.
Still working on Achievements today, the framework is complete & I am now putting the hooks into the code to update the achievements as players progress. Working pretty well thus far I believe.
Potentially going down to New York in a few weeks to meet up with the marketing team.
Oh, we were accepted as finalists to this competition: http://strasbourgfestival.com/page/soumettre-jeux.php Which is really awesome. Unfortunately we wont be attending, but its nice to be showcased & once again, you never know what is going to happen.
We were looking at attending this http://storyhackvt.com/ in October, to take a quick break from traditional development & do something new. Stretch some narrative muscle potentially.
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
If you teach a man to fish...
Summer warm today.
Working on achievements. Using Stickman Sports GameCenter.ANE to hook up with the iOS game center. Functions pretty well, very simple & quick. The only downside is that the documentation hosted on git is terrible. No real additional information about how its used. Caused me to run in circles for an hour or two trying to figure out to how post a completed achievement.
All good now & create the list of basic achievements. Will be working on getting them into the game next.
Matt brought up a good point & highlighted our need for some kind of testing base for the online system. Need to begin recruiting for that, good thing Champlain goes back to school on Monday. I'll be posting on campus for our need & hopefully we can find some testers.
Marguerite made business cards today after Lucy finished the logo designs. Looking good thus far & we will be getting them printed soon.
Working on achievements. Using Stickman Sports GameCenter.ANE to hook up with the iOS game center. Functions pretty well, very simple & quick. The only downside is that the documentation hosted on git is terrible. No real additional information about how its used. Caused me to run in circles for an hour or two trying to figure out to how post a completed achievement.
All good now & create the list of basic achievements. Will be working on getting them into the game next.
Matt brought up a good point & highlighted our need for some kind of testing base for the online system. Need to begin recruiting for that, good thing Champlain goes back to school on Monday. I'll be posting on campus for our need & hopefully we can find some testers.
Marguerite made business cards today after Lucy finished the logo designs. Looking good thus far & we will be getting them printed soon.
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Rolling
A very nice day to be in Burlington today.
Success yesterday! Built a practice system that allows the player to see the result of the move before they make it. It should help players understand how a move cascades.
A few more polish items have been added as well, its starting to look pretty sharp. Thank goodness for Plants Vs. Zombies 2 for being so good at UI & tutorial systems.
Matt is continuing his advance into online territory. Trying to create the framework for ranking & how all of that information is calculated.
Boston FIG is now T-Minus 25 days...
Success yesterday! Built a practice system that allows the player to see the result of the move before they make it. It should help players understand how a move cascades.
A few more polish items have been added as well, its starting to look pretty sharp. Thank goodness for Plants Vs. Zombies 2 for being so good at UI & tutorial systems.
Matt is continuing his advance into online territory. Trying to create the framework for ranking & how all of that information is calculated.
Boston FIG is now T-Minus 25 days...
Monday, August 19, 2013
Teach me how to open a door.
Friction today,
More than just a few conflicting opinions & thoughts. Its a case of the Monday's.
Working on the tutorial, trying to make it as transparent and understandable as possible. Exploring alternative control methods as well. The game is currently driven by taps, but we could do more drag options when moving cells.
Played a lot of Plants Vs. Zombies 2 this weekend which is helping point out what we are missing from the experience.
Matt continues to tackle online. We needed to construct an additional project that will manage the back-end without having to jump onto FLOX & sort through the data. This also give us a control for when we want to expand the online system.
Plenty to do.
More than just a few conflicting opinions & thoughts. Its a case of the Monday's.
Working on the tutorial, trying to make it as transparent and understandable as possible. Exploring alternative control methods as well. The game is currently driven by taps, but we could do more drag options when moving cells.
Played a lot of Plants Vs. Zombies 2 this weekend which is helping point out what we are missing from the experience.
Matt continues to tackle online. We needed to construct an additional project that will manage the back-end without having to jump onto FLOX & sort through the data. This also give us a control for when we want to expand the online system.
Plenty to do.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)