29/03/2009 by admin.

Hello again,

  I’m a bit late again, I know.  Sorry.

First thing to mention is that the main website (www.badbumble.com) may go down for a couple of hours during Monday night 30th March (from 23:00 – 01:00 GMT) as my web hosting company is doing a bit of maintenance to the servers.  It should all come back up again without any problems (fingers crossed).

  Also, in this blog, I’m just going to be talking about Solitaire Siege as everyone working on Lucky 7 is working on this project (Dave is still hammering away at the code for Shuffle Blocks) so we can try to get some cash coming in as it’s expensive buying all the development kit and software, plus the cost of running the website for so long without bringing any money in is starting to hit me now, so I need to do something to start the cash coming in for us.

  My leg is a lot better now and I can stand on it for almost a full minute before the pain gets too much and I have to move around to get rid of the pain.  It’s also means that I can actually do some game work now as well.  I have to keep stopping at regular intervals or my leg play up a bit, which can break your concentration when you are in full flow, but it’s good to be doing something again and day time TV was destroying my brain.

Weekending 29/3/09

Solitaire Siege:

   The big news at the moment is the new iPhone game which I started to talk about last week called “Solitaire Siege”.  I’ve just set up a page on the main site which I’m going to be adding to each week (hopefully) and the plan is to get the game completely finished in the next 3 to 4 weeks, which should be do able as I would say that the game is about 50% - 60% complete.  It does depend somewhat on how long Apple takes to approve my iPhone development licence, but I hope to get that next week so I can start testing on the real hardware and not just on the iPhone simulator.

  The current build is (very) playable at the moment, but only about 20% of the features are in there at the moment, but even so, I spent 3+ hours playing the current build yesterday without realizing it.  So once all the other features are in, it should be really, really fun to play and after all how many card games do you know where you can call for an air strike to remove cards for you?

  There’s still a fair bit of work to be done on it and a lot of polishing up as well so the game will look as good as it plays, but it shouldn’t be that big a job to do.  At the moment I’ve done all the background gf/x for the levels, but if there’s time (and file / memory space) I’m also going to do variations of the levels as well so there’s more variety to the levels.

  The playing cards will also get a clean up as well.  They look nice on the iPhone now (I’ve had to make mock ups of the game screens and copy the pictures to the iPhone to check that the size of the cards are okay and that they are readable), but I think I can make them look a bit better before release.

  I’ve also got to look at doing some particle effects for the game so when you use any of the weapons (Flame Throw, Rocket Launcher and Air Strike spring to mind), you get to see the effect actually in game.  I’ve just drawn some bullet holes for the screen so when you take damage, you see bullet holes appear in the glass.  It’s a nice effect and should be really atmospheric when the sound effects are added.  So basically, the vast majority of the game is done, but as you get close to finishing a project, you start to think about little things that would be nice to add to the game, which all takes time, but it just adds that little something extra to the game.

  Well I think that’s everything for this week and I hope everything will get back to normal again for next week in regards to the time I write and publish these blog entries.

  One last thing, if there’s anyone that’s reading this who may run an App site, if you would be interested in doing an early review of Solitaire Siege please feel free to get in touch (mike.moore@badbumble.com) as I would like to get some publicity going for our game as the iPhone is flooded with new apps every day, it’s almost impossible to been seen.

  Thanks for reading and have a great week.

Thanks,

Mike.

www.badbumble.com

Posted in Solitaire Siege, Current Game Development, Blogroll | No Comments »

20/03/2009 by admin.

Hello everyone,

  Sorry again for not updating the blog lately, but I’m still all over the place with my dodgy leg.  At the moment it looks like a zombie has been sucking at it (there’s a big 6 inch oval / circle shape on the back of my leg with no skin on it and it’s all shades of red, yellow and green (and it’s a bit crusty)) and it is really painful.  I’ve also got a swollen ankle as well.  I’m really having some great look at the moment.

  I now understand why the Eskimo’s have so many words for snow.  By the time I left Canada, I must have had at least 14 words for snow and they where ALL swear words.  It was funny coming home as one of the drivers on the Grey Hound was new to the route and got lost a couple of times =)

  Here are a couple of pictures I took while I was in Canada.

  Because of the leg trouble I’ve not been able to really work on the games that much to be honest as I need to have my leg raised all the time and that prevents me from working at the desk (it’s hard to concentrate when every 10-20 mins you get a shooting pain in your legs).  I have been doing stuff on my laptop, but the way I have to sit means I can’t really use the mouse / tablet very well, so I’ve been doing art just using the keyboard in Photoshop (painting pixel by pixel), it kind of reminds me of how I used to do art on the Commodore 64 and Spectrum 48K (yes I’m old).  So my graphical style has changed from what is needed for Lucky 7 and Shuffle Blocks, so I can’t do anything for them.

  So I’ve come up with a nice little game for the iPhone which I’ve talked Isaac and Tommy in to doing with me.  It’s based on a card game (a Solitaire style game), but I’ve got lot’s of extras features for the game that really make the game a lot more friendly and fun to play.  Isaac already had the basic card game written (pure luck), but has started to re-write it has it was an early project he did and his programming skill have improved greatly.  The game is going to be called “Solitaire Siege” and I hope should be finished before the end of next month (it would be a lot sooner, but because of my leg, I can only work for so long before it starts to really hurt).  The current build is only about 25% done and already it’s really good fun to play and there’s no real extras in the game at the moment and if this game does well, we are going to do an updated version of GoGo Digger for the iPhone as well.

  I don’t want to jinx this game, so I’m going to hold back for a week or two before I start to release any screen shots of the game.  I guess a card game isn’t the most interesting game to look at, but it already plays really well and it will only get better and if it does well, then I’m sure we will convert it across to the PC and MAC.

Weekending 20/3/09

Lucky Seven:

  I’m afraid for the short term, every one is waiting on me as I’m holding everyone up for new gf/x, but everything should be back up and running again in a month, at the latest.  Sorry everyone for that.

Shuffle Blocks:

  I had another e-mail of Dave just this morning, he’s just about got everything re-written now so it’s totally modular now so we can plug new stuff into it with out any knock on effects and it’s all nicely done so we can port the code over to other things

  Well that’s it really for me this week unless you want me to go on talking about my zombie leg (and I’m sure you don’t want that), so I’m hoping things will be back to normal again for next week in regards to the blog (sorry again for the delay in posting).  So I hope you have a good week and I’ll see you soon.

Thanks,

Mike.

www.badbumble.com

Posted in Solitaire Siege, Shuffle Blocks, Current Game Development, Lucky 7 Development Diary, Blogroll | No Comments »

03/03/2009 by admin.

Hello everyone,

  Sorry everyone for not updating the blog lately, but I’ve been really ill while I’ve been in Canada.  The first full week, I got a huge cold and was laid up in bed.  The second week, my leg swelled up like a balloon and I ended spending four nights in hospital and then having to go back to the hospital every eight hours for over a week to get IV’s to help the infection.  So it’s not been the best holiday ever, but at least I got to spend some time with my wife, even if I was in a lot of pain for most of it.  The $8,000 medical bill has really knocked any shine off the holiday, but I’m hoping my travel insurance will cover it all, but the way my luck is going at the moment, I’m not holding my breath.  It really makes me happy to have the National Health Service in the UK.

  So as you can imagine, I’ve not been able to do anything work wise, but every one else has =)

Weekending 02/3/09

Lucky Seven:

  Isaac has been knocking up a lot more puzzles for the puzzle mode of Lucky 7 and generally just tidying things up a bit.

Shuffle Blocks:

  I’ve had a couple of e-mails from Dave and he now has everything set up into a truly modular frame work so everything is now re-useable and things can be added / removed as needed.  I need to re-jig some of the gf/x for the game, but there should be something show able by the end of the month (fingers crossed)

Right, I need to start packing again as I’m travelling back tomorrow to England so I’ve got 40 hours of non-stop travelling to look forward to.

Thanks,

Mike.

www.badbumble.com

Posted in Shuffle Blocks, Current Game Development, Lucky 7 Development Diary, Blogroll | No Comments »