Well, this will be interesting. The diary this week could quite easily read “Loads happening and nothing that I can talk about” – hmmm. I’ve always said that honesty is the best policy, so here goes:
Loads happening and nothing I can talk about.
See you all next week.
.. but wait – that wont do! Gah! I need to think of other things to write about. Ok. Let me think. Oh yeah. RoChain. RoChain beta competition closed last week, and our winner will receive his prize shortly. We were hoping to put the full version of the game on our site shortly thereafter, but as with everything, “the best made plans and all that”. We had a few bug reports submitted which meant we needed to make a few fixes quite late in the process. Not massive game stopping issues, but issues that niggle and needed to be resolved so that we can present a professional looking product to you guys.
It’s genuinely been a blast, and there is so much more we could do with RoChain if we decided to spend more time on it, but at this point we are drawing a line underneath it and moving on to different stuff. That’s not to say we won’t return to RoChain at a later date, but for now, we are finished with it (bar any bugs we need to fix of course). I guess the next logical step for it would be to try and port it to iPhone/iPad. Technically this isn’t really an issue, however thinking about the design of the game and the size of an iPhone screen; we need to give some serious thought to how we would make the game work. iPad is less of an issue, but we still need to figure out some fairly chunky design issues.
So what happens now then? Well, we’ve started some concept art for Project Blast! which can be seen on our website and also had some good brainstorming sessions to discuss what features we want to move forward with and which we are going to drop. We are also looking at other engines (Unity, UDK to name but two) to maybe use for Blast! This is really down to our own engine being primarily designed for 2D games and with the plans we have for Blast! we really need a powerful engine that can utilise the wide range of 3D (or even 2.5D) effects to give us that professional finish and feel. None of us have really used these engines in the past, so it’s effectively a case of all playing with them, looking what features they have and deciding which is most suitable to us. Of course these engines don’t come free (well, they do for non commercial use) so we need to factor in license costs into the equation too.
It feels very much like we are going through an R&D phase, laying solid foundations to build from which is encouraging. Once we have done our research and decided on an engine, the next step is for us to prototype the various features we wanted to see in the game, to see if a) it’s possible in the chosen engine and b) that they work as we envisaged. We will no doubt allocate various prototype tasks to each member of the team and then get together with them and have another discussion. All this whilst working full time and trying to keep the family happy. Whoever said this game development stuff was easy?
Again, sorry for the short diary, but genuinely I can’t talk about 99% of what I want to. Hopefully over the coming weeks/months I can let you guys into our inner sanctum (oo – err missus) and reveal all, but until that point, my lips are sealed!
minerwilly
Dont forget Android , over 200,000 android phones are being registered every single day . We got Angry Birds beta this week and its beautiful on my HTC Desire. Hopefully Plants v Zombies will be finished soon too.
DJ Judas
Indeed! I much prefer my android over iOS and wouldn’t want to miss out on all the other pads/tablets/netbooks/TVs emerging that are android powered.
PROJECT(84)
Ahh, I’m glad someone already said this as I was just about to.
Having been on the beta, I think it would definitely work on a mobile platform (albeit with a smaller gameboard), in fact it could actually be well suited to mobile gaming as its something you can easily pick up for a few minutes. Maybe I just wanna have it with me on the go =P
gnipper
Folks – RoChain is now live on the site, so download and enjoy!
Thanks for the other comments – gives us stuff to think about!
a inferior race
Just a thought. If the powers that be allow it, maybe you could post a link somewhere on the site to help direct people to RoChain or at least in this article.
a inferior race
Also, when I clicked on the donate button I was given a message saying “Fatal Failure”.
gnipper
Hmmm weird.. I just tried and it worked ok.. Will do some more testing..
a inferior race
Nah it’s still not working for me. I’m using Internet Explorer 8 if that helps. If you want PM your e-mail address and I will send a screen grab. Unless you manage to suss it out in the meantime.
nemesisND1derboy
Hey guys, the game is fantastic! You really need to put a health warning o it cos its so damn addictive! Managed to get third on the leaderboard :P
Manorhowze
Really addictive game. I managed to sneak on the high scores at no. 15 for all of about 5 mins. Now i’m miles off that.
Manorhowze
Just broke into the top 6. This game definitely has that “Just one more go” appeal.