Well, I dont want to give it away, so I wont post a screenshot, but I just put the final touches on the final level of snowferno. Just a few more tweaks and she will be all ready for beta testing! (dont forget to sign up if you want to beta test, there is still room).
The last thing i need to do is to go back through and add sound effects to the various items. Luckily, unity's prefab makes this very easy to do and I dont think it will take me more than a day or two to put in all the sound.
Cheers!
-B
Hey! You! beta-testing people! We are just sorta starting to think about beta testing, (probably wont have a beta-ready version for a few weeks yet) but if you are interested, then email me at support@benbritten.com, with 'Snowferno Beta Test' in the subject. It will need to come from a real email address (or I wont be able to tell you where to get the binary) and I will need your device ID.
to get your device ID:
Launch iTunes.
Connect your device to your computer.
Select the device in the Devices list.
In the Summary pane, click the Serial Number label. It changes to Identifier.
Choose Edit > Copy.
Paste your Device ID into an email.
Be sure to include your name and device name in the email.
Cheers!
-B
Thought I would jump in here and talk really quick about the tools we are using to build Snowferno.
We are using Basecamp for the central location of files and calendar events and to-dos and things of that nature. Basecamp is pretty good, and I think it is a useful tool, but it doesnt blow my socks off. One thing that annoys me to no end is the writeboards.. ack! the formatting is terribly hard to deal with.
To get around the terrible writeboards in basecamp, we use a private install of MediaWiki (the same software used for wikipedia) to handle all our documenting needs. It is much easier (i think) to use than the basecamp writeboards.
As for desktop tools Brent did a post on the sound stuff he is using, so that is covered :-).
I am using Unity3D to build the game. We currently have only a single indie license, but we are thinking of upgrading to pro before we go live (although truthfully, the indie is a very very capable license)
For all the 3D art assets I am using Cheetah3D which is a surprisingly fantastic 3d modeler. I used to have a copy of Maya back during my time in the film industry (still have a seat that is a few versions old laying around here somewhere...) but I find cheetah to be much simpler to use. (and for what we need, Maya is a bit overkill anyhow)
For 2d stuff, textures and whatever, I am using the industry standard Photoshop/Illustrator pair. Although I must say, I love illustrator, but I kinda hate photoshop these days. I really dont like the CS3 interface changes. (I actually just recently upgraded, so I am still getting used to it) but to be honest, I am looking around for something photoshop-like that I can switch to. (while I probably use %15 - %25 of illustrator, i maybe use %5 of photoshop, I could really get away with much less... and before you say "Gimp", I will admit to not having tried it recently (and by recently, i mean in the last 8 years or so) SO I should really bust it out and see how it has changed... but I will say, that the x11 stuff turns me off a bit. (I know, I know...) I am even a unix guy from way back, but I just like to keep things simple.
As for version control, I use beanstalk and that has worked just fine for me for awhile now.
I think that is about it..
Cheers!
-B
First off, let me say that this is our first game. All three of us are veterans of various creative environments, and building a game is surprisingly similar to putting on a theatrical production of making a movie. That said, some people might wonder just what our general process has been for this game.
Well, first off, we decided that we wanted to build a game, and decided to build it for the iPhone. (mostly because I had already done a few apps for the iPhone and I have wanted to build some games for awhile now, but did not have any viable distribution platform, the iPhone solves that problem :-)
Next we all sat down and talked about what kind of game we wanted to make and started brainstorming ideas. Most of these ideas were quite good, but not really feasible for our first game outing. We finally chose to go with the rolly-ball genre because it is a nice simple gmae mechanic with lots of room for creative level/world design.
I built a prototype game, this was very basic and was mostly just a game mechanic demo really. the 'levels' in the original prototype look nothing at all like the ones in the current release. We probably spent three or four weeks just working out the best way to have the character respond to the inputs.
We originally had a two-axis accelerometer control, and the original snowball was fully physics based. This turned out to be too realistic, and it was sorta frustrating to control. One thing we didnt like was that you had to tip the phone away from you to move forward, this made it hard to see the screen. SO we moved away from the forward-back for the throttle and added an on-screen control.
Then we slowly moved the character away from a purely physics based movement model to a more controlled pseudo-realistic model. This way we can control via code how and when the character reacts to things. Now you can speed up and slow down easier, and the turning is much smoother, giving the user a feeling of more control.
Once we had a good character control mechanic we moved onto some level designs.
We started off a bit crazy and had all sorts of ideas and sketches for level designs and artwork. Ultimately, the reality of the iPhone and the scope of the project began to put limitations on what we could and could not do. At this point we tried to standardize on a handful of puzzle mechanics. (like switches, boxes, moving platforms, snowpiles and fires). Once we had a good feel for the pieces of the puzzles we could start designing levels in earnest.
As one of us would design a level, I would mock it up with Cheetah3D, and build the level in Unity. then we would play the level and modify it until we were pretty happy with the puzzle or feat of dexterity required to pass that level.
Now that we have most of the levels finished, I am going back through each one and adding proper textures, remodeling parts that need it and generally giving them all a once over in preparation for beta testing. During this time Mike and Brent have been writing all the music.
The next step, which I am just starting on, is to get the user interface under control. Up to now it has been very minimal, just enough to start the levels and do testing. I want to go into beta testing with the UI at 95% if possible. the UI sets the mood of the game so much that it is imperative (i think) to have a representative UI to go along with the game play. (and just to be clear, by UI I mean all the screens that you have to wade through to chenage settings, the opening screen, the score screens, the 'fall out' screens, and the game elements that are part of the HUD during gameplay.)
Once we have a halfway decent UI, we will go ahead and do some wider beta testing and tweak the levels and gameplay based on the feedback we recieve from that, then it will be time to add all the final bits n pieces and submit!
Cheers!
-B
