Leaderboard is Live

I put the finishing touches on the Leaderboard yesterday, and it is now live. Snowferno.com has been collecting game scores all during the beta period, so we already have a nice heap of data.

Congrats (so far...) to Baller77718 who leads the pack, and quite definitively -- although s/he has yet to conquer all 20 levels.

Some key features of the Leaderboard:

• Recently Played games gives a snapshot of the last few levels completed worldwide
• All-Time Top 5 by Level lists the best 5 scores for every level, mirroring what you see in-game on each "Level Complete" screen.
• Top 50 Completed Games sums up the best times by level for the brave snowballs that have conquered the Inferno.
• Click on any screen name to view that player's game stats and recently played levels. Stats include that player's best level times, total attempts, fallouts, meltouts, wins, their win %, and the score ranking per level.
• Personalized screen names are coming very soon, so you won't have to be your auto-assigned Inferno character forever.

Global Leaderboard participation is voluntary. "Post Scores" is enabled by default when you first launch Snowferno. To change your preference, be sure your device has Internet access, then tap Settings > Score Board from the main screen and toggle the setting there. NOTE: this does not delete your scores, it only changes whether your scores are displayed to the public. You can enable or disable "Post Scores" ad nauseam to suit your fancy. :)

Let us know what you think - comments are welcome: improvements, (errors?), suggestions for more Snowferno data mining goodness... I have been playing around with some graph-drawing libraries, but all the charts I've made so far are pretty ugly. But look for possible future improvements in that direction, too.

For the technically curious, the Leaderboard is powered by a custom WordPress plugin that hooks into the handy filters and actions provided by the WordPress core. Our own custom API gathers and stores the Leaderboard data in supplementary tables alongside the WordPress data.

I originally tried to find an off-the-shelf WordPress plugin for this functionality, but I found that the "community" aspect of WordPress is one area (admittedly, I think) that it is lacking. WP is a terrifically flexible foundation, and just having the blog and account management functions at our fingertips has been an immense time-saver. Now that we've built our first game website, maybe for future projects we'll look at a WordPress MU, Drupal, or very likely the highly-anticipated, 2.0 CodeIgniter rewrite of ExpressionEngine.

b096 released to testers

Hello all you beta testers! Beta 3 is ready!

B096 is uploading as I write this. Lots of changes since B094: You should go and get it here: http://www.snowferno.com/current-beta/.

This will most likely be the final beta release. If there are no show stoppers then we will most likely be able to add the final few sound FX and the end of game cutscene and submit late in the week!

ChangeLog:

• Compressed most all textures just a little bit more.
• turned the FPS counter off
• Changed the way the throttle works, so it should not get stuck anymore
• turned down the physics calculation rate (for performance reasons), this affected the way the accelerometer works slightly. I tried to bring it back in line with how it should feel.
• fix the post scores setting, now you can opt-out of posting your scores on the leaderboards (which will be turned on this week - watch this space.
• fixed the Firewheel level so that there is no longer a crash if you get into the flamethrower, and now the wheel is spinning again.
• changed the way the buttons work in level 12 linking rings. now it doesn't suck.
• fixed level 10 clock, now the exit passage is slightly wider and the middle ring should not get out of sync.
• fixed level 18 Infernal Machine, now the 'gears' should always spin fully 90 degrees instead of sometimes getting stuck on the last frame of animation
• fixed the popups so that they are visible again

Also, for those of you who managed to finish level 2 in under 10 seconds, how the hell did you manage that?

Cheers!
-Ben

beta 0.9.4 Released

Had a great week of beta, found a few bugs and lots of good suggestions, keep them coming!

Login now to download the latest build of Snowferno (b0.9.4). We emailed you the login info -- let me know if you need it re-sent (or if you want to join the beta program).

b0.9.4 Changelog

• At the end of a level, the scores formatting has been fixed, ranking has been added, screen name has been added, as well as the name of the level. (so now you guys can tell us which leve it was that you hate, instead of ' that one level, with the spinny thing in the middle')
• Added the level name to the main interface, upper left corner. just plain text for now.
• Adjusted the way the snowball reacts with the terrain to make the walls less 'jittery'. and to make it harder to accidentally roll over raised edges.
• Adjusted the terrain model for level 05 so that you cant get stuck on the first block.
• Changed the throttle control and the clock to match the rest of the interface buttons.
• Modified the terrain model for level 10 Clock so that the narrow passage to the exit platform is not nearly as narrow.
• changed the way that fires and snowpiles work so that they are more performance friendly (ie only doing stuff when you are rolling on them)

b0.9.4 Known Issues

• On level 10 Clock, if you spin the middle ring enough times, it will get out of sync with the other platforms. This will be fixed in the next release. Also, the model modification for level 10 above should help to mitigate this.
• there appears to be an issue with the throttle getting 'stuck'. We think we have fixed this but could never replicate it consistently, so if you run into this let us know
• On level 12 Linking Rings, there is a bug in the button scripts. If you (or a box) triggers a switch over and over again before the moving platform comes to a stop, then the platform gets out of sync and can go all sorts of odd places. I have tracked the cause down and there will be a fix in the sunday release.

b0.9.2 Known Issues

• The number readout in the upper left is a Frames Per Second meter to gauge performance. This is for beta only.
• Settings > Control > "Post Score" toggle does not connect to the online API yet.
• Online account management stuff isn't ready yet. (Settings > Control > "My Leaderboard Settings" takes you to a placeholder page.)
• There are some text-overlay "story" elements and SFX still missing, but nothing that affects gameplay.
• If you make it all the way to the end, it will be obvious that something fancier will replace the final screen.

Please post your thoughts in the comments section below, or email me at support@benbritten.com.

b0.9.2 Released to Beta Testers

Hey Beta Testers --

Login now to download the latest build of Snowferno (b0.9.2) which is our first build released to our beta testers. We emailed you the login info -- let Ben know if you need it re-sent (or if you want to join the beta program).

We're looking for the following:

1. Any bugs, naturally.
2. How the level progression/ balance feels. (ie is it too hard or too easy?)
3. and really anything else you want to tell us about the game!

Please post your thoughts in the comments section below, or email support@benbritten.com.

We are hoping to have the beta last about 2 weeks. If there are big bugs to fix, then we will do additional releases during the 2 week time. Our plan is to do a "final" pre-submission release in 10 days -- around July 15.  After that we will submit the newest build as v1.0 to the App Store, and any remaining issues will be fixed in v1.0.1.

b0.9.2 Known Issues

• The number readout in the upper left is a Frames Per Second meter to gauge performance. This is for beta only.
• Settings > Control > "Post Score" toggle does not connect to the online API yet.
• Online account management stuff isn't ready yet. (Settings > Control > "My Leaderboard Settings" takes you to a placeholder page.)
• There are some text-overlay "story" elements and SFX still missing, but nothing that affects gameplay.
• If you make it all the way to the end, it will be obvious that something fancier will replace the final screen.

Good FPS on beta

So, I have been adding all the little fiddly bits today, and fixing the little bugs that Brent and Mike have found in the pre-beta release. Mostly stuff like: I forgot to set the audio clip for an object in level 5 so it crashes out, things like that.

Also I have taken out all the old scratch buttons and put in some super-simple big target squares.

The old scratch buttons were sorta 2.5d arcade style with scratchy, gothy textures on them.. and they looked kinda cool, but didnt really fit with the emerging look and feel of the GUI. (you can actually see them on the 'Not That Way' trailer video, when Snowy rolls off the edge of the cliff) The new ones are not very special, just big boxes, nice and easy to hit with my big fat fingers. and while they dont really add any ambience to the GUI they dont really take much away from it either... they are just there..

This is why we need to make scads of money so that I can hire on the very talented illustrators that I know to do these things for me.

Anyway... let's talk FPS for a moment. On the most recent build, I am seeing frame rates around 22 - 28 on my iPhone 3G, and Brent is reporting similar results on his 3G. This is right about what I expected and not so bad that I feel like I need to hunker down for a few days just optimizing (tho I am sure I will do some of that).. In any case it is quite smooth and playable on the 3G.

I dont yet have a 3Gs to play with, but I did load it onto my Second Gen Touch and boy-howdy! rates in the low to upper 30s on the Touch. I am going to be using the touch to crush all the beta testers in the leaderboards that is for sure..

Astute readers will notice the oddly places '100.00' up in the upper left corner of the screenshot. This is the FPS. Visible only for the beta test. And before you freak out, that is the FPS in the Unity editor, not the phone.

Cheers!
-B