The story of the Panda and iOS
the Idea
the Idea of creating games we with the colleague came at the end of 2009. Not even an idea, and the desire to create a game for the mobile platform. That is to say to try to create a finished product and sell it.Here we have to mention that on the debt of the current work, though, and related IT directly by coding. Programming experience is present, such as Java and ActionScript, which is very useful later, but with Objective-C previously crossed we don't have. Nevertheless, the development platform chosen was the iPhone OS (iPhone OS). We already had iPhones and it would be strange to buy the device, for example on Android, in order to write an application for it.
Remember the genre we were predisposed to the "slasher". However, wanting to make the game to the max on their own, without the involvement of third parties, estimated that the real would be to dwell on the less dynamic genre of puzzles. In the process of finding ideas were enumerated "battleship", "point", "hangman" and other options, often in fact already implemented and published in the App Store. But it is especially interesting to read in category "Dev Story" about many of the ideas we considered at that stage.
Returning to our work, at some point we came up with the following concept:
-
the
- Charismatic cleaner moves along the floor of the room, clearing it of debris/dust; the
- Different parts of the floor "stained" with different intensity; the
- On the floor there are obstacles in the form of objects of a social nature, they need to go around; the
- the Number of movements at the level of limited;
the Goal is to build an optimal way and for the least amount of movement to collect as many debris and, consequently, to earn maximum points.
The first draft sprites of the imagination. The image of the protagonist, for example, resembled a skull. It is, of course, redrew and added animation. And then gradually changed, and many other initial setup. The idea of making the next round, completely changed and the game was called “Panda Game”.
Development
Involved: Cocos2d, Xcode 3 it on 4-th, SVN, old free Zwoptex to collect textures, sprites, and Adobe products when creating the graphics.
Originally the prototype was statically coded 5 levels, they contained all possible game elements and allowed to test their display, the interaction with the character and user interface of the player. While debug, and fine-tuned code in parallel was written by a level designer. It was the development of ActionScript with the ability to save the edited level in the XML file that was imported into a project in xcode'.
Edit the levels themselves have taken a substantial time: the level had to be created so that it was interesting and it could pass. The difficulty here lies in the fact that in independent testing by third-party people could be that the level could be passed much more smoothly than we had planned and all interest is immediately lost.
Intermediate test versions were distributed among friends, colleagues and other sympathizers. It is possible to obtain initial feedback and comments, and to rank the levels according to the complexity and interestingness. We have tried to build the game so that the player was fun to play on.
Some of the early findings from the beta test:
the
-
the
- Add training levels; the
- Refusal of travel sites simultaneously; the
- add the ability to undo the last action.
Now we compare the real time development with a planned — simply because the plan itself was not. The development was carried out in free time and advancing to the final result was a zigzag: it actively changed the code, then catching and ahead of the graphic material. Sometimes development for a long time died away, but renewed again. Certainly one can say that the basic skeleton of the game were written really quickly, and the problems started later when all seemed to be over, and it was just finishing details. The process was delayed and we admit that could release the game much earlier.
Graphics and plot. What comes first?
The game has gone through 3 generations of graphics and changed the 2 icons before satisfied with the internal sense of beauty developers. During this time there were 5 different sets of game elements of different countries, then there came a lovely map to navigate your mileage level. With 5 different countries, creating different mood from playing in them, we began to wonder: why would a Panda travel? and anyway, why not sit at home? The answer was screenshots of the plot. So the middle of development, we know the story that was hiding in the game.
Voice
the Man who would be with the creation effects on, our team was not. Attempts to find itself among friends or freelancers — not evolved.In parallel to finding a professional we tried to solve the problem yourself. I must say that even in the early stages in the prototype was attended by sound effects — plug in the code for the subsequent filling sounds sane. At the stage of testing the samples it was recorded with a regular microphone using only speech and writing compositions by Bach arranged on acoustic guitar background. The latter way is perfect, but we did not find it possible and legal to use.
One day, stocks coffee with cognac, half the night we walked around the house and recorded on a directional microphone, the surrounding sounds of household objects, hoping to use excerpts of the results in the game. It was very fun! For example, you know how to record sound boiling the kettle, opening the door of the wardrobe or cereal of different shapes, falling on the cardboard? Or on a plate? It was recorded about three hours of "noise." I do not remember that from there something included in the release, but personally, I have learned one thing: that in 99 percent of cases people who did not participate in the recording, you'll never guess the source of the sound.
Would love to hear your feedback, questions and comments!
Link to Panda Game: itunes.apple.com/app/panda-game/id492040741
Комментарии
Отправить комментарий