Mac-Metro Anyone?

Lately, I've been trying to spend at least 60 hours a week coding on my game projects.  Since I don't have a day job (will blog about that later), or other things hindering me or demanding my time, I've got a very large amount of time on my hands to work on this from sun-up, till sun-set!  For the past few weeks, I've been focusing primarily on gameplay and feasibility rather than the other stuff, but there comes a time where closing and re-opening your application every time you want to try again.  So, I spent the past few days designing a new and improved menu API class.  It's not as robust as it should be (a few hard coded things that should be configurable via .xml), but it works for what I need it to do.

For this game, I specifically chose to use the Windows Metro look for the menus.  I've had one person tell me that Windows Metro kinda goes well with OSX, in an odd way.  Another person said that a metro look might drive iOS users insane!  Well, that's a risk I'm willing to take!

As you can see, I am a fan of the Metro style, hence I wanted to give "Mac-Metro" a shot.

Btw, I know the title font looks especially bad.  Just know that it's really just a place holder for the time being.  This will most definitely be changed in the final release of the game!

Aside from that, I don't have much else to say besides the fact that I added a few new game features (ohhh, it's nothing *snicker*).  And as always, thanks for reading!

Shogun.

Let's Play Loop-til!

Lately, I've been experimenting with a new game concept, and so far, it's turning out more interesting, more challenging and over a a better idea than I anticipated.  The idea came to me one night before going to bed, and the name soon after!  Let's have a look at Shogun3D's latest title: Loop-til!

Looking at these two screen shots, you're probably thinking "Okay, what the heck is this?".  Okay, let's get into that.  You, the user, are controlling the black dot, which leaves a black trail behind it wherever it moves.  Your objective: loop around the red squares to create a circle and any squares caught in the circle are destroyed.  If you touch a red square or touch the sides of the screen, you lose.  There are also blue and green squares.  Touching a green square will give you a shield which is good until you touch a red square.  The blue square will destroy all squares on the screen, even the good ones, so be careful.

In order to create a circle, you need to move the dot in a loop and cross the trail you left behind before it fades out.  The circle you created is called the "Kill Circle".  The circle is only good for the moment it was created, and will fade out once it's been created.  Just kill as many of those pesky red squares as you possibly can.  Sounds easy?  Think again!  This game is not exactly a push over or child's play.  Even I've been finding myself challenged and sometimes even baffled by my own game!  These squares come from random directions and move at various speeds.  Just be careful and don't let it tick you off too much!

Another interesting feature of this game is that everything you do will effect the outcome of the game!  Let's say you destroy the first 3 squares but ignore the next three, this will impact the game play session's outcome!  Those who have a high IQ or have good pattern recognition skills may appreciate this game.  I find it best to develop a strategy from the beginning of the game to get the desired result you want after destroying what squares in what sequence does what.  Tbh, this wasn't a feature that I was planning on, but the secret is in my random number generator where every event tied to it effects the outcome directly.  In a short sentence, pay attention to what you do and see what creates more desired results.

Development on this game is moving pretty fast and so far, the immediate releases will be for Windows (Win32/Win8), MacOSX, iOS and Android.  I already have a working prototype for iOS.  The Mac port is working and the Windows port will be worked on within this week.  Stay tuned for updates on this unique concept!

Shogun.

MilkChan Finished!

Okay, now I can finally say that the Super MilkChan project is finished.  That last bug was really annoying but I found a work around for it.  I'm just glad this project is finally done so I can move on to bigger and better things.

I also changed the controls a bit by moving the buttons to the bottom while raising up the scene above it so that the user's thumbs don't obstruct the user's view of the sides.  Add a few more bug fixes and viola, it's finished!

So it will be released on the app store for free very soon.  I look forward to seeing what sort of critique it may receive.  ^^

Shogun

Super MilkChan Release Delayed

This is something I've been meaning to post about for quite some time now, but I've had numerous people asking me about the Super MilkChan game and when it will be released.  The wi-fi at my place has been down for a few days now, so I had to run to the nearest Starbucks.

It seems that every time I fix a bug in MilkChan, a new one arises.  This one nearly makes the game irritating to play, so there's just no way I'm releasing something that I know is broken.  I've also gotten feedback from other people about re-positioning the buttons to make the controls a little less awkward.  See what happens when you listen to your fans and potential followers?  Your game improves!  Stay tuned.  For more updates!

Shogun.

Let's do PlayStation!

Now, I feel like a complete twit for not noticing this earlier.  \/_\/

According to this fairly new tweet by Sony Playstation's twitter page, Sony is looking to recruit more indie devs to develop for their current and next consoles.  It appears that Sony wants to get off on the right foot with indie devs and build up it's list of content prior to it's release.  IMO, this is a pretty smart move.  Considering that the PS3's profitability wasn't nearly as high as Nintendo's or Microsoft's console, even the iPhone (as a gaming platform), at a certain point, I don't think Sony can afford to make the same mistake twice.

The indie market is growing at a very fast pace and it can no longer be ignored.  Many say that the indie market is growing too saturated making it harder to stand out amongst the ever growing list of competition.  Of course I agree, but if there's one thing I learned about marketing is that the best time to get into a particular market or area of the market is when the market penetration level is near or at the %2 mark.  This rule has been used in other markets for years and usually pays off.  Maybe it's time for Shogun3D to put it to the test!

Shogun.

BugPlanet (Sneak Peek)

This is a game that I've been working on for quite some time and have quite literally lost quite a bit of sleep working on it.  It's my 2nd bullet hell shooter, Bug Planet!  Using a more enhanced engine used to create RyuAwai (speaking of which, I haven't blogged about this yet), Bug Planet aims to be a challenging shmup/bullet hell shooter pushing the user to his/her greatest potential under an ever increasing difficulty!  The longer you stay alive, the harder it gets!

Story: "On a newly discovered binary Earth-like planet in another galaxy, you are an elite spacecraft pilot assigned a mission to accompany the team of scientists hired to investigate the newly discovered planet and determine if the planet is hospitable for human colonization.  Very soon after your arrival, you are attacked by a swarm of hostile giant insects who assume you and all other humans as a threat!  It's time to hop in your ship of choice: one with great maneuverability or the other with heavy artillery!  You, and you alone are the only hope (because the military didn't want to send backup)! Choose quickly, before you and your crew are destroyed!"

I started putting this project together in late November of last year (2012) but at the moment I was busy with other things and other game projects.  Now I've been putting the majority of my development time into this game to get it working in a more stable state.  Most of the game's mechanics and features are ready and working.  It still has some fine tuning and additional things to be added before being released.  All of the required resources have been gathered except sound effects.  It's not easy finding the right sound effects for a particular game genre sometimes.  I'm still improving my sound editing skills as I go... -_-

There are a handful of extra features I've been working on.  I won't say what they all are (just in case I see the need to drop any number of them and avoid disappointments , but one troublesome feature to add to MacOSX apps is force-feedback.  Unlike Windows via DirectInput or XInput for 360 controllers, or even iPhone's rumble feature, MacOSX does not have a straight forward means of implementing force feedback or any means of joystick support.  It can be done, but it isn't very easy and the process is fairly long and requires a large amount of code.  Sure, I could always use SDL 2.0 for both, but not only is SDL 2.0 not yet stable, but using it actually broke BugPlanet completely.  Therefore, I'll be setting out on my own to write my own code to implement this feature.  Joystick support is already added and works well with my 360 gamepad (after installing the right driver, of course).

Working on this game has been a good experience, but I hope it doesn't resemble Bug Princess too much.  When I started writing this game, I did not have Bug Princess in mind at all, but it still slowly but surely grew into a game that started resembling it.  Now, I hope I don't piss off any Cave employees ^^;

Release Date: Soon, but when it's ready!

Target Platform(s): iOS, MacOSX (obviously) and Windows.  Maybe more.

Screen shots (beta):

If games like this interest you, please share.  Your opinions count! ^_^

Shogun.

Metal Skull

Metal Skull: Shogun3D's next 16-bit style Sci-Fi thriller guaranteed to leave you absolutely fascinated.  Blow  your enemies away, or be blown away yourself.  Either way, you'll love it!

Coming soon to a PC, Mac, and maybe even an Xbox near you!  Be prepared...

Shogun!