Phoenix Details

I think its now time to shed some more info about Phoenix, as the major code is finished, it now all about level design and a bit of polish here and a bit of juice there.

Phoenix is a puzzle game.  You, the player are a ball, you enter a world of a specific shape (World 1 = Square,  World 2 = Triangle, World 3 = Circle).  In the game you destroy a particular 'normal' block(s) to get your self to the goal line,  for every block you destroy you loose 10 points,  so try to destroy as few a blocks as possible.  Sounds simple right, well there are obstacles to make things harder, here are some of the obstacles:

Bouncy Bouncy - If you collide with this obstacle, you will bounce away in a particular direction, this could either be in your advantage or most likely not.

Death - Collide with this obstacle, and you will be destroyed, particles flying everywhere and level restarted.

Shape Shifter - Enter this obstacle and after a few seconds you will be converted to another shape, but will that shape be to your advantage?  Who knows!

Teleport - Enter this obstacle and you will be teleported to another section on the level,  again, will this help you complete the level? or will it take you to your death?

Earthquake - Collide with this obstacle and your screen will shake for 10 seconds,   watch out you don't destroy too many normal blocks as you will loose points.

Lights Out - Collide with this obstacle, and your screen will mimic that of a strobe light for 10 seconds, it will annoy you, as you loose sight for a few mili seconds, and it will confuse you.

Spin -  This obstacles stays in one place, but spins at a certain speed, if you collide with it, it will push you in the direction it is spinning (not an amazing obstacle, but needed something small to start off with)

Gravitron - Enter this obstacle, and you will encounter almost zero gravity,  and it may take you in a strange direction, tap the player on the screen to gain more speed and gravity and escape the Gravitron.

Electric Pulse - Collide with this obstacle and you will be electrocuted - that's not good is it!

Each world will have 25 levels (free version will only have 1 world).  In each level you have bonus drops, 2 purple and 1 gold.   The gold bonus drop is the one you have to collect, the gold bonus drop is the location where you have to guide yourself to. You have to collect all 25 gold bonus drops to unlock the next world.  Each bonus drop is worth 50 points,  so it is worth collecting all drops in the levels to increase your total game score for the leader boards.

Once I finish World 1 levels, I'll post a gameplay trailer,  all of the obstacles will not appear, as some of them are for the paid version only.  

Brick Wall has gone

2 Weeks ago I posted a blog post stating that I had hit a brick wall in development of Phoenix.  I totally thought I found a bug in Stencyl,  as I had tried everything to sort it, but whatever I tried the collision was not being detected between two different objects.   After posting on the Stencyl forum I got one very friendly user who kindly looked into the problem for me.  Last week, he got back to me and figured out the solution, it was trivial to say the least, but he didn't fix it with the first idea he had though.

So back on track, I have managed to create the code I wanted, and things are back on track :).   But I am now participating in a game development contest over at TOTGB (Think Outside The Game Box).   The theme for the contest is Evolution,  so far there have been very interesting ideas floating about and I can not wait to see the outcome of some of the games.

You can read about my entry over at TOTGB and read my development blog there.

In my next post I will give away information on what each obstacles are in Phoenix,  stay tuned, it will be a good one :)

Just another brick in the wall!

Just as I thought development of Phoenix was nearing the end,  it seem's I have hit a brick wall.   I have found what I can only see as a bug in the software (not a bug in the game) that I am using to develop the game.  The bug does not stop me designing and creating the levels,  but it really does stop the game being a polished one.   I am not going to be releasing this in August it seems, as there is a major update to the software coming up in the next 2 months, so I will have to wait until then :(

The good news is, I can carry on with Apollo,  which is more or less finished code wise (apart from a few things),  but there's a lot of work needed for the graphics,  this is the only major work that needs to be done for that.

We have also started working on another app,  the app is not a graphical app,  so the app should be finished in 2-4 weeks.  I will give this the code name of "Socrates".  Socrates will be a free app, and this is a type of app that seems to be popular in the last couple of months.   The game will contain iAds, and Game Center leaderboards.  I am unsure about achievements at the moment,  but I will think about it.

We will also be busy partaking in a game design contest on http://totgb.com/page/game-design-contests  (Think Outside The Game Box).   The theme is yet to be announced (announced on 5th August),  but if the contest seems like something we can do,  then we will do it.  It will be our first contest, and we look forward to competing against other developers.

Keep reading, I will post updates on the development of Apollo on Socrates.

G

Level Design

Well level designing and creation is well under way,  but it is taking a lot longer than we expected (damn!).  It was intended that all the first 25 levels would have been finished by 2nd July, but it seems there will be a slight delay in sending out beta versions of the game out for testing.

The reason for the delay is that we did not anticipate that level creation would be that hard.  Yes, it is hard, especially if you have 25 levels (Free version) to create.   We have to try and keep the levels entertaining and that each levels become more hard and more thought is needed to complete.   We also want to try and not use all of our obstacle objects in the first 25 levels.  The first 25 levels (in both Free and paid version) is more of a introduction to the game,  the first 5, are the most simple levels,  no major obstacles,  just a quick way to learn what to do.  Then from level 6 onwards,  we introduce a new obstacle.  These obstacles can either be on your side or against you it all depends.

We have thought of three more obstacles to be implemented,  these will be a special feature in the paid version along with a few others which have already been implemented.  I anticipate to use 2 - 3 major obstacles in the free version,  but the last level in the free version (level 25 (free version only)) I implement a level which includes all the current obstacles as preview of what to expect if they want to purchase the full game.

When we finish all of the 25 levels, I will announce the actual name of the game, and release one game play screenshot.  So stay tuned (within the next few weeks or so).

Cheers,

Universal App is a Go Go!

Well I finally got around to testing if "Phoenix" is playable on iPad, and what we saw was good.   There does not seem to be any problems with it, although I did not test on The New iPad, I did test on the retina iPad simulator,  and from what I saw, everything should be A OK :)  . We are now implementing our first 25 levels, once that has finished we will split the game into two projects (free and paid). 

We finished our social network integration code, in the end we opted for the easy way,  similar to a tweet/post button on a website.  This seems like the easier option, until we can get our hands on the Facbook/Twitter iOS API,  which when we can, will be one of the first updates in the game.

Also we spotted a few minor bugs during our alpha testing, and those have been rectified, which is great.  So we anticipate to finish the first 25 levels by the 9th July, and we will be passing the Lite/Free version on to our beta testers, and hopefully there won't be any major bugs.  I anticipate the testers to have a few comments on some improvemetns on the game (which is expected really), and we will take all onboard.  All improvemetns that we feel that are necessary we will do, but for other not important, we might keep them for an upcoming update.

Whilst testing the other day, we got an idea for another game mode or even a different game entirely but with the same graphics.   We thought this idea was crazy and fun,  and we thought it would be an amazing iPad only game (seeing that the screen space much larger than iPhone/iPod).  We have decided to make the new gamemode an upcoming project for the end of this year, and codename "Phoenix-Assemble".    We might include a different version of this idea in "Phoenix" 2.0, which we will optimize for iPod/Phone.

Hopefully in the next few blog posts I can post some sort of image as a teaser for you guys.

Cheers,

Lite/Free version nearly complete

In the last week or so I have been working hard trying to complete the major bits of code that is stooping us separating the App to one Full version and a Free version.  Yesterday we finished what I think was the hardest bit of code left to do, and all that remains is the finishing touches on all first 25 levels (first 25 will be on Full and Free version), a few graphics for world select and a touch up on some features to get it running smoothly.  I anticipate by next week sometime, we can get the free version into an Alpha testing state, we might even go straight to beta with the free version.  If all goes well, I'll go and add iAds in straight away.

For the full version, once we have completed the split between full and free, we have a lot of work to do.  The major part of this work is the GameCenter Leader Boards and Achievements.   We have decided on the achievements we were going to create, but no graphics have yet to be made for the notifications, badges and no code as been implemented to track the achievements.

We also have to create further 50 levels for the two extra worlds that are bundled in the full version (we are discussing adding extra levels in each world before release).  Once the free version is out in beta, I'll get straight to work with the achievements, as it seems that will be the most time consuming and most problematic.

We will also be testing the universal app feature with the free version, if that goes well, we will most certainly be introducing "Phoenix" as a universal app for all iDevices.

I have also been working on trying to get proper social integration working on my app so that users can post their score on Twitter or on Facebook.  I have spent a lot of time trying to sort it out, but kept running into problems, so it looks that a smooth social integration will be off the cards for now, and I will stick to the old simple way of social integration.

The difference being that the simple less hassle way and the proper integration is just a url that passes a string to twitter and allows the user to post.  The downside of this is, the text appears in an editable box, so the user can type anything he/she wants, which is not desirable really, but if they wan't to cheat that's fine.

The way I was trying to get it was, that it was passing certain variables from the app to my webserver, a php script would be dealing with the request, and send information back and forth between the app and facebook, but it proved to be too big job for me.

New Website is up and running

I have been busy this week developing the new Gwef Tech website, It is now up and running for all to see.  I will be keeping the site more up to date than I previously did, alongside my blog and social network accounts.

Our aim so to give our existing and potential customers enough information on our upcoming projects.  By doing this we hope that they will see that we are hard working people and we aim to finish our jobs efficiently and at a high standard.

Please follow our social accounts:

Twitter - http://twitter.com/GwefTech
Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/pages/Gwef-Tech/123256927729340
Flickr - http://www.flickr.com/photos/gweftech

We will be updating these accounts on a regular basis (eventually) and we hope that we get a good following so we can interact with all and share upcoming projects.

Just a quick update on "Phoenix" - We are starting our draft advertising graphics now,  and are adding a few features in the game before sending out to alpha testers.  We have decided to finish the free version first before working any further on the full version.

That's it for now,  Thanks,

Gwef Tech

Delay in further Testing

Well, some interesting stuff has happened recently.  Me and my Fiancé Jemma have moved into our first house, and this came to a surprise as it was earlier than we expected.  So in the last two weeks or so, I have not been able to further any work or pass on 'Phoenix' to alpha testers.

I still don't have any internet connection at home, yet!  But it is scheduled to be set-up in June sometime. Once I get that up and running I am sure I can send the "Phoenix" build to alpha testers. I am now at work (I am employed full time by Bangor University),  and it is such a shock seeing the internet for the first time since I moved house.  I was thinking, who needs the internet,  I don't use it that much, really.  But little did I know, how much I would miss it.

But in the little time that I have had in the last few weeks, I have managed to scrape up a draft version of the Press Release I will be sending out on the release day, yay!.  I am contemplating whether or not I should send out a pre-release Press Release to spread the word, but something tells me it won't make that much of a difference.  If the game is good enough, the initial press release would be enough to get people's attention.  But I am not sure what are people's opinions on this,  if you have any, just comment :)

Seeing that I won't be able to pass on the build to testers until a further 2-3 weeks, I thought I would draft this 'draft' schedule:

------------

June - 25th - July 2nd - Alpha Testing

July - 3rd - July 16th - Alpha Testing bug fixes and continuous Alpha Testing

July - 17th - July 30th - Beta Testing and continuous bug fixing/feature enhancement (if any)

July - 31st - August 6th - Promotional Adverts/Graphics and Video Trailer/ Website

August - 7th - Final Preparations

August - 8th - Send to App Store for review

(Can take up to 2 weeks for review) 


August 25th - App Released - Press Release Sent Out.


--------------

Now this is only a draft schedule, dates are likely to change, but I will try to stick with this.

Almost Ready For Testing

I am a bit late writing this latest post, but things have been going crazy recently, with work and also looking at houses etc... I had very little time carrying on with work on my up and coming game, which I will give the code name of  'phoenix'.  But I did have enough time to make some necessary changes and update to phoenix which introduced a new obstacle that I had never thought about previously.

I wrote down my To-Do list,  and before I go into alpha testing I only have a few things left to do, which includes splitting the game into a Paid Version and Free Version.   I can give details on what the differences will be:

Free Version:  iAds,  1 World (25 levels),   No Future worlds added

Paid Version: NO ADS,  3 initial Worlds (75 levels),  GameCenter Leader boards and achievements,  Post Status to Twitter/Facebook,  All future worlds free.

I have yet to decide whether it will be universal app for both iPhone and iPad, it all depends on how alpha testing goes.    If that fails, I will make a separate game which might be different for the iPad as there is more space available to play around with,  I will have to think about this later on.

I anticipate in the next few weeks or so I will be reaching the alpha stages in the development on phoenix,  and if that goes as planned,  I will announce the name of the game, and post a few images.  During this time phoenix will be in the beta testing stage, and I will keep you up to date as often as I can.

Until next time

Goodbye

Introduction

Hello all,

I have never written a blog before, so I do apologize in advanced if it is a tedious post or if it may include grammatical or spelling mistakes :).

The reason that I have decided to set up a blog is to document the development of my up and coming mobile games.  As you may have read on my profile, I am a IT technician by day, and in my spare time I am a mobile game developer.   My name is Michael (Mike) Jones, but I have set up this blog with my company name Gwef Tech.  My games come under my company, so seeing that this blog is set up for letting the world know about my development, it just seemed like a good idea to have the username as my company name

I have one game currently on the market, this was my first experience in game development, and it was fun.  The game I created was a Christmas game called 'Save Xmas', in terms of success, it made £20 after Apple's deductions.  I had expected the worst, I was really expecting 0 downloads, but somehow I made £20, which in terms of expectations, was a success!  The game took round about 2 months to design and develop,  which really is not enough time to develop a very polished game, but it was great experience to get the feel of how it's like in the AppStore and developing.  (Save Xmas is now free,  feel free to give it a try,  more info on Save Xmas )


In January,  I came up with a idea for a game which was inspired by a game I saw on the on the Stencyl website called Drop Block - Link here.  If you never heard of it before I will give a brief description of what the game is.  You need to get yourself to the "finish line" (or whatever you want to call it), but you have blocks in your way, so you tap them to destroy them and it allows you to carry on moving towards your goal.  As the levels go on, you need to think more on how you get to the "finish line".  It is a very interesting game, and a game that made me think of my current game (currently in development).   I use Stencyl to develop this new game I am creating.  For my previous game Save Xmas, I used GameSalad.  Both have their advantages/disadvantages, but I am not going to go into that.   All I will say is that Stencyl is a great tool, and I will most likely now stick with Stencyl,  I learn new things each day I use it and I feel that my games will be just get better and better if I use Stencyl.

Over the next couple of  weeks/months I will post some more details of my game, some spoilers and images.  If anyone happens to see these posts/images/spoilers and want to give input on the game, feel free to contact me. I look forward to posting more information up soon, I will try and keep to 1-2 blog posts a week, so in a worst case scenario, my next blog post will be next Friday.  I have no idea what it will contain just yet, but you will find out soon enough.

Cheers,
Mike