Got my new google+ business page up. I will start doing most of my minor updates on there and leave this blog for major releases. Click the google link below to go there!
Indie Game Design and Applications.
Monday, November 7, 2011
Google+ Page
Got my new google+ business page up. I will start doing most of my minor updates on there and leave this blog for major releases. Click the google link below to go there!
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Chaos Command
I have an old idea with puzzle formations that I was considering making into a game, when I stumbled on this article here http://www.squidi.net/three/entry.php?id=106.
Now I am trying to use this idea with the Puzzle Fighter style 1x2 blocks instead of tetromino pieces to make a battle simulation. Lots of tweaking to be done but looks hopeful so far!
Now I am trying to use this idea with the Puzzle Fighter style 1x2 blocks instead of tetromino pieces to make a battle simulation. Lots of tweaking to be done but looks hopeful so far!
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Word Wash Update
- Achievements!
- Challenges! Using the scoreloop menu a player can challenge other players.
- No more bubble overlapping.
1.2.1
- Fixed rare lock up issue.
- Challenges! Using the scoreloop menu a player can challenge other players.
- No more bubble overlapping.
1.2.1
- Fixed rare lock up issue.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Word Wash Design Inspection
This is a look at my design process for Word Wash a word game for the Android platform. It was a relatively quick process that took about two weeks of nights. It went through a number of nice game changes that have left me wondering what I did right and wrong for a phone market. I have broken the format into timing phases, not necessarily when I thought about them, but when they were implemented.
Idea
Looking for a quick game to make on Android to get a feel for Andengine I found a game from a previous game framework I have used. The game Super Bubble Pop Fruit Drop Deluxe Edition (click to play)works by filling bubbles into the screen and getting bonuses for how quick you are, the trick being you only click what is currently being presented in the box. While his game does get repetitive after only a few minutes, he was mainly trying to prove how fast you could make a game with his engine (less than 8 hours). He wrote a great blog about his development process seen here http://www.cokeandcode.com/node/1258.
Game Design
I knew I wanted to use the same bubble mechanic Kevin had used, but apply it to a word game and put letters into the bubbles. To get the feel right I wanted a quick and dirty template to see if the game was workable. To keep from having to implement a dictionary before I knew it worked, I simply displayed a word (e.g. "BANANA") and the player would have to spell it as fast as possible. This gave a good feel for the tempo, allowing me to balance the frequency of the letters and speed of the bubbles early on. I like to define the benefits of each approach, even templates. This approach had the benefit that it was language neutral as far as the game play goes (don't have to know the language words, just match letters), but since this was more like a pattern matching game than a word game I was ready to move on.
Focusing next on how to allow the player to make words. Letting the player create any word he wanted was very tempting, but it didn't give me much ability for game play growth. A good backup (which still is tempting as another way to play), but to allow more depth I decided to control the amount of characters. This would let me control how long the words are and control the difficulty as it was growing. With this approach I am also able to fill the partially fill the words with letters (e.g. "F--" or "B--T"). This gave me another good way to further control the difficulty and get around the "bell curve" difficulty in words. By this I mean there are much fewer two and three letter words, but a great amount of four and five letter words, and then that limitation comes back with six letter and bigger words.
Having settled how the core game mechanics worked, I turned to how the game would start and end. I like to use this approach with quick games when I can, because this can usually be one of the most touchy parts. I try to avoid time attack because it feels like a cheap cop out, so I decided on a life counter where each wrong word would cause failure. This had major drawbacks where you could think about the word forever and failure was almost completely based on dexterity of pressing the buttons. Cornered I realized time would have to at least be part of the solution. Working both life and time into the solution was the answer, but it felt cluttered and mechanical. Life had to go because it muddled and unfocused the game, but I wanted to keep that same feeling of an extra negative or positive that it gave. By giving more time or less time seemed to be the logical answer.
Game Name and Theme
Being an abstract word game I was open to any theme, but wanted it to be light and abstract. I decided the name was the best way to get theme inline and started that process. At first bubble seemed a must and I looked for games like "Word Bubble", "Word Pop", and so on, but almost all seemed to be taken and had little to no theme. I turned to my wife for some advise and she gave me "Word Turd", such a great idea, but leaving the theme for last made me shy away from it (you know you love it). Finally driving home one day seeing the car wash gave me the idea for "Word Wash". Allowed me to have a lite theme, yet could still be abstract.
Marketing
Added my game to a few announcement forums and submitted my game to a review website. Also tried using Admob a little to do some advertising, but seems to be very ineffective with a new application. Also this blog is partially for exposure.
Future
Adding other languages, looking at using ScoreLoop ability to challenge people for the most points, and achievements.
Looking for a quick game to make on Android to get a feel for Andengine I found a game from a previous game framework I have used. The game Super Bubble Pop Fruit Drop Deluxe Edition (click to play)
Game Design
I knew I wanted to use the same bubble mechanic Kevin had used, but apply it to a word game and put letters into the bubbles. To get the feel right I wanted a quick and dirty template to see if the game was workable. To keep from having to implement a dictionary before I knew it worked, I simply displayed a word (e.g. "BANANA") and the player would have to spell it as fast as possible. This gave a good feel for the tempo, allowing me to balance the frequency of the letters and speed of the bubbles early on. I like to define the benefits of each approach, even templates. This approach had the benefit that it was language neutral as far as the game play goes (don't have to know the language words, just match letters), but since this was more like a pattern matching game than a word game I was ready to move on.
Focusing next on how to allow the player to make words. Letting the player create any word he wanted was very tempting, but it didn't give me much ability for game play growth. A good backup (which still is tempting as another way to play), but to allow more depth I decided to control the amount of characters. This would let me control how long the words are and control the difficulty as it was growing. With this approach I am also able to fill the partially fill the words with letters (e.g. "F--" or "B--T"). This gave me another good way to further control the difficulty and get around the "bell curve" difficulty in words. By this I mean there are much fewer two and three letter words, but a great amount of four and five letter words, and then that limitation comes back with six letter and bigger words.
Having settled how the core game mechanics worked, I turned to how the game would start and end. I like to use this approach with quick games when I can, because this can usually be one of the most touchy parts. I try to avoid time attack because it feels like a cheap cop out, so I decided on a life counter where each wrong word would cause failure. This had major drawbacks where you could think about the word forever and failure was almost completely based on dexterity of pressing the buttons. Cornered I realized time would have to at least be part of the solution. Working both life and time into the solution was the answer, but it felt cluttered and mechanical. Life had to go because it muddled and unfocused the game, but I wanted to keep that same feeling of an extra negative or positive that it gave. By giving more time or less time seemed to be the logical answer.
Game Name and Theme
Being an abstract word game I was open to any theme, but wanted it to be light and abstract. I decided the name was the best way to get theme inline and started that process. At first bubble seemed a must and I looked for games like "Word Bubble", "Word Pop", and so on, but almost all seemed to be taken and had little to no theme. I turned to my wife for some advise and she gave me "Word Turd", such a great idea, but leaving the theme for last made me shy away from it (you know you love it). Finally driving home one day seeing the car wash gave me the idea for "Word Wash". Allowed me to have a lite theme, yet could still be abstract.
Marketing
Added my game to a few announcement forums and submitted my game to a review website. Also tried using Admob a little to do some advertising, but seems to be very ineffective with a new application. Also this blog is partially for exposure.
Future
Adding other languages, looking at using ScoreLoop ability to challenge people for the most points, and achievements.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Word Wash Update
Word Wash has been updated which includes a new way to play and some other nice stuff.
- New level based game play that includes 30 levels.
- Endless Scrub - original time challenge mode.
- Light Rinse - new level based game play of 15 levels.
- Medium Coat - new level based game play of 15 levels.
- Better memory handling.
- Bug fixes.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Word Wash
Goin' to the Word Wash! Bubbles are quickly filling the area and the only way to clean up this mess is to spell your way out. The quicker you spell the more time you have and the better bonus, but if you don't make a word you lose time. Uses tournament word lists (SOWPODS - TWL06).
Get it here!
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Starship Parish Design #2
Starship Parish is heavily inspired by Galaxy Trucker a board game that focuses on building a space ship. It uses a similar system of pulling pieces, which are called salvage and attaching them to your starship. These pieces define your ship and are essential in surviving the missions given from the Starship.
Also another blurb of game lore:
Aboard the Starship the need to escape the earths orbit has the inhabitants constantly looking for new recruits that can help. Emus are the first ship given to new recruits, primarily because they are junk. With only a unstable fusion core and metal to strap salvage onto, it lets the Starship command quickly find promising initiates.
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