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- Blogroll (45)
- Current Game Development (53)
- GoGo Digger (21)
- Lucky 7 Development Diary (32)
- Shuffle Blocks (27)
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- 19/07/2009: I’m back at last and there’s lots of news.
- 14/06/2009: Unity ROCKS and loading time problems with Solitaire Siege
- 07/06/2009: Solitaire Siege running on my iPod
- 31/05/2009: Solitaire Siege finally on the real hardware and Shuffle Blocks for the XBOX 360
- 18/05/2009: Finished the gf/x for Solitaire Siege and 10 min reviews in the forum.
- 10/05/2009: Another Solitaire Siege picture and Plants vs Zombies.
- 04/05/2009: Not all Clones are created equal
- 26/04/2009: Preview of the Comic Strip Adverts.
- 19/04/2009: Net Books, Starting up a business and more Solitaire Siege.
- 12/04/2009: Happy Easter
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Archive for the GoGo Digger Category
I’m back at last and there’s lots of news.
19/07/2009 by admin.
Hello,
I’m back!! Sorry for not blogging the last couple of weeks, but I’ve had my head down working hard on the games, trying to get everything finished up as much as possible.
Nearly all the work has been aimed at getting our games onto the iPhone and iPod, which to be honest isn’t that hard as I always designed the games with just the mouse been used for all the control system (I did this because when ever I watched my Dad play on his computer, he would never touch the keyboard (often it would be left on the floor of his computer desk)). So the games are not too difficult to transfer across and the only thing to really think about was the reduced screen size on the iPhone / iPod (320×480 screen size compared to at the very least 640×480 on the PC and MAC). So some clever redesign work was needed for some of the games, but not that much.
I’m also on Twitter by the way (http://twitter.com/BadBumble) if you want to follow me and this way there’s less chance of missing out on some of the stuff I’ve done during the weeks and if you want to ask me any questions, just twitter me (it also makes me feel like I’ve got lots of friends and important =))
I’ve also been playing around with Unity MAC and iPhone versions and it seems really, really nice. I was able to get a little 3D rolling ball game prototype done featuring a character that looks a fair bit like Homer Simpson running around a 3D city / maze in a couple of hours. So when the dust finally settles done, I’m going to have a really good go at Unity and see what sort of game I can come up with.
Speaking of iPhone games, I’ve been playing a lot of games just lately on my iPhone. Off the top of my head I can recommend the following:
Rope’n’Fly ($1):
It’s a Spider Man style game where you swing from building, to building and try not to smash into the ground. Theres also a lite version available.
Moon Drop ($1):
Another simple little game that get’s really active. Try to land the astronauts on the Moon base by pressing near them, to deflect their flight/landing path.
Draw Racer ($1):
The idea is to draw your driving path around a race track and then your car will follow it. You just have to make sure you don’t draw to fast or you will slide of around corners. Simple, but fun game.
Glpha (Free):
It’s a clone of Joust by Williams. It’s a nice smooth and fast version of the game and its free!
Jetman (Free):
For some reason I’ve played this game for ages and I have no idea why. Basically you just fly down a corridor dodging objects. Your only control is a single button to fire your jetpac. Graphics are simple, but it’s smooth enough and I played it for hours on and off. I would never buy it, but for free, give it a try.
Star Trigon ($1):
A Namco game where you jump from planet to planet trying to capture little aliens. Simple, fun little game. Not sure if this was a special sale price or not, but I wouldn’t pay much more for it.
Harbor Master ($1):
I’ve played this game a
BaseBall Slugger ($1):
This was on sale or else I would never have bought it and I would have missed out on a great little game. Basically you just have to hit the ball out of the stadium as many times as possible and every time you miss the ball or you cause a foul, you lose one of your ten lives. Sounds dull (I know, it’s rounders), but it plays really well and is nicely polished.
Weekending 19/07/09
Solitaire Siege:
Well there’s been loads of new things going on with Solitaire Siege. It’s almost finished now and I’m expecting it to be ready to send to Apple next week all been well. There’s been lots of little set backs over the last 3 weeks from not been able to get iTGB to build the game correctly (that took a whole week to fix in it self), too getting the loading times down to a half decent level, where at the moment it now loads on my iPhone in under 12 seconds and it’s even quicker on my iPod. Isaac has it now so that it automatically saves the game after every level, so it’s nice and easy to quit out of the game if needed and come back in again later, which is always nice for a portable game.
At the moment, there’s about two bugs left to catch and Isaac is busy optimizing the game to get some more speed out of the game and I’m expecting a new build later today from him.
We are still adding little polishing touches to the game, simply because as your play testing it, you start to think of new stuff to add or that may improve things slightly, so you try it and if it works then that’s great, and if it doesn’t you take it back out again. So when you finally get a chance to play the game for yourselves, it should be a nice, solid game which is nice and smooth to play.
GoGo Digger (iPhone/iPod):
There’s been a fair bit of work been done on GoGo Digger as well in the past couple of weeks. It’s just been me doing the designs for the game (it’s going to be a much improved version of the PC & MAC version) and I’ve got the basic graphical design down now and I’ve just finished building the barrel copter you fly when you go to different level. Below are a few mock up screens of the iPhone/iPod version, they are all using in game graphics but are what I’ve knocked up in Photoshop just to give me a better idea of how to do everything on the iPhone/iPod. So don’t be too surprised if the finished game appears slightly different.
There’s actually a fair few new additions that I have planned for the game and it will be interesting to see how well everything plays out with the game, but I’m making sure that the overall style of the game is not effected by these new features as I think the game itself is ideal for the iPhone/iPod and after all the current version of this game came out on mobile phones anyway (the very original version I made came out on the Amiga, written in AMOS almost 20 years ago).
Lucky 7 (iPhone/iPod):
I’m taking a slightly different approach with the iPhone/iPod version of Lucky 7 as the desktop version have a much bigger screen, I’ve had to play around a bit with the game for the iPhone/iPod. The basic game play is still the same, but due to the nature of the iPhone/iPod, I’ve made it more of an arcade style of game (at least for the main game mode) as I personally think when you play games on mobile devices, you want quick, short games that you can play while waiting in line in a queue, but they should have lots of replay value to the games as well. The picture is a mock up for me to work out the screen layout, it’s using the in game gf/x’s so it will look the same when it’s released, but the actual layout could change depending on how well everything plays out.
As long as we can keep the speed of the game going on the iPhone, it will be a great game to play and there’s been a couple of games that have just come out recently that have come pretty close to the style of game that is Lucky 7, so I would like to get this game out before anyone else does. Wouldn’t want anyone to think I was copying someone else’s ideas.
You may also notice that the games have a graphical connection through out all the games in that they all have Star Balls and Land Mines. This is just simply because I want the player to be able to play any of our games and knock basically what these things will do. It’s the same kind of thing as Nintendo has done with the Mario games. You know that collecting a mushroom is going to cause you to grow in size, and if it’s good enough for Nintendo, then it’s good enough for me =)
Right, I’ve got to get back to work now as there’s lots, and lots of stuff for me to do and don’t forget to follow me on Twitter if you want up to the minute updates and just to ask me stuff and please feel free to give any feed back you may have about any of this.
Take care,
Mike.
Posted in Solitaire Siege, GoGo Digger, Current Game Development, Lucky 7 Development Diary, Blogroll | No Comments »
It can gets expensive if you don’t read the small print =/
31/01/2009 by admin.
Hello everyone,
This will be a really quick message this week I’m afraid as I have a lot to do and I’m falling a sleep at he keyboard here.
Been a pretty bad week for me and very expensive. I’ve basically been prototyping up GoGo Digger for the iPhone. I know you wouldn’t think that there was that much work to do on it to convert it across, but just working out how to display everything correctly on screen (you are going down to 320*480 instead of 640*480, so you are losing half your screen) and you have the control system to think about and what’s the best way to do it. I also want to clean up and update the gf/x a bit for the game.
So with this in mind, I spent most of the week downloading all the latest versions of TGB, iTGB, X-Code and the iPhone SDK. I also went out and bought the latest version of the MAC OS (Leopard), as I know that you need that to run the iPhone SDK. The one thing I didn’t know was that I also need an Intel based processor in the MAC or else you can’t install the iPhone part of the SDK. After about an hour of cursing, swearing and punching the desk (I’ve got a really bad temper when it comes to computers (people I can keep calm with unless I don’t like you in the first place, but computers, I soon see red)), I calmed down and know I had to bite the bullet and buy another MAC. After a lot of web surfing, I ended up buying the base model of the 20’ iMAC, and I’ll upgrade the memory myself up to 4 gig as it should only cost me about £50 quid. This iPhone development thing is really costing me a fortune now and I just hope I can earn my money back from it with the iPhone version of GoGo Digger.
Next week I’m off to Canada for a month to visit the wife (we have been marred for 16 months and we have only been together for a single week, so I’m really excited about this trip even if it is -40 there), so I’ve been trying to get the laptop ready, which means basically rebuilding it again from scratch, which is taking ages. It’s a real pain trying to find all the CD’s and manuals / serial codes for every thing, not to mention all the Window’s updates and video codec’s again (I really hate computers with a passion).
Also on another random note, I just bought the new MicroSoft Blue Laser Explorer Mouse (DUH!! I’ve just almost blinded myself looking under the mouse for that name of it, that blue light is really bright!). Its suppose to be the all new, singing, super duper mouse that you can use anywhere (including a “Park Bench” (they keep mentioning the park bench which just seems a little strange to me, maybe there’s a niche market of people that sit on park benches with laptops that need ultra fine control where the touch pad just isn’t good enough, but I’m betting there’s more people with shinny black desks that don’t want to have to use a mouse mat)). Well it’s pretty poor when I try using it on a pure black desk. It jumps around constantly. Stick it on top of a magazine and it’s really, really nice, but on a dark, shinny black desk and you can forget it. Maybe I need to swap my nice comfy chair for a park bench?
Weekending 30/1/09
Lucky Seven:
I’ve been doing a couple of little sketches for the robot character, which I’m still not happy with. Every time I draw it, it just doesn’t feel right. It’s either to high tech looking or not evil looking enough. The basic graphical idea / theme for all the games is to have a kind of steam punk / cartoon feel style feel to them. Everything is powered by steam / gears / pistons and mechanical contraptions and weird flying boats and stuff (yeah I know, a bit strange, but it gives me plenty of freedom to do what ever I want, yet gives it a fairly fresh feel to it at the same time).
Isaac has been really ill this week so there’s not been much happening really. I warned Isaac to take it easy and get better before he starts working on the games again as your health has got to come first.
Shuffle Blocks:
Tommy has done another track for the game which is really nice. I wasn’t totally sure about it at first, but I kept listening to it for well other an hour while I was working and it actually works really well, it’s not in your face at all, but once you start listening to it you start to hear other melodies in there which I didn’t pick up on before (if that makes sense).
Dave has been working on the engine so he can port it across to other platforms if needed, basically making everything modular so it can be slotted into later projects and the like, at least I think that’s what he was explaining to me (it’s late and my head hurts). Dave has also been trying to build an iPhone development kit as well from spare PC parts (a MAC clone?), but doesn’t seem to be getting that fair and it sounds like more trouble then it’s worth.
Right then, it’s getting late and I need to be up early for the iMAC to come (I’ll be gutted if I miss it) and at least I can use the old MAC G5 as a Linx test machine and port the games over for Linx as well (may as well make the most of it I guess).
I’ll still post about the same time again next week, but don’t really expect a lot of progress next week as I’ll be travelling for over 40 hours straight to get to Canada, so that’s going to be almost two days lost (planes and the Grey Hound and a lot of waiting around).
Any way, have a good week and I hope I’ll see you next week and before I forget, thank you to every one that has been signing up to the blog and it’s okay to leave comments or ask questions if you want to.
Thanks,
Mike.
Posted in Shuffle Blocks, GoGo Digger, Current Game Development, Lucky 7 Development Diary, Blogroll | No Comments »
Another rough week, Lucky 7 monsters and a bit more Fable 2
15/11/2008 by admin.
Hello everyone,
It’s been a really rough week, this week and I’m looking forward to the weekend.
I’ve had lots of little family jobs to do this week, which has really eaten up a lot of my time. You know how it is, you just do a quick 5 minute job for someone and that turns into 3 hours because you have to hang around for this or that.
This week, project wise has been solely spent on Lucky 7 again (I really need to give some more time over to Shuffle Blocks), but it’s coming along really well.
Game wise, I had a quick look at Gears of War 2 and it’s nice, but it just seems like an extension to Gears 1 so far (only played it for a couple of hours so I’m sure it will improve). I also loaded up Fable 2 after not touching it for a couple of weeks and I found out that if you own any property in the game, it still collects the rent money even without playing it, so I went out and bought almost every building I can in Fable and I get over 16,000 gold each turn! This is definitely my favorite game so far on the Xbox 360.
Also for any Dilbert fans out there, check out the new “Dilbert V2.0” book (it’s a nice big (about A3) hard back book that comes in it’s own sleeve) that comes with a DVD with every Dilbert comic strip ever released. Check it out on Amazon.
Weekending 14/11/08
Lucky Seven:
This week I’ve been working on some of the HUD options and I’ve started to work on the monster main character models (the PumpKing baddie been the first).
Isaac sent me the new build of the game with a few (about 5) of the attacks already implemented in the game and it all seems to fit in and plays really, really well. One of the strangest attacks is when the game starts to rotate the blocks, it really does throw you for a couple of seconds, such a simple idea that works really, really well.
I think the game could be a fair amount of work to balance all the levels out so the game has a fairly smooth difficult ramp, but it should be fine with the way we are allowing the level selection, (which is a grid based layout).
Shuffle Blocks:
Dave has been full of cold this week, but has just about finished sticking everything together, so that means we can test all the main game functions out and see where we need to go from there.
Also for all the members of the News Letter, I’ve got everything setup now for you to download the mobile phone version of GoGo Digger (J2ME (Java) version), it’s taken me several hours of swearing at the computer and my web hosting software, but I think I’ve got the News Letter ready to go out now, so you should be getting something in your e-mail first thing, Saturday morning. So if you don’t see anything, have a quick look in your spam / junk folder, just in case it’s been stuck in there.
Right, I think that’s everything for this week, so have a good week and I promise to get the link sent out to all the News Letter members by the end of the weekend.
Mike.
Posted in Shuffle Blocks, GoGo Digger, Current Game Development, Lucky 7 Development Diary, Blogroll | No Comments »
New US president, Lucky 7 in HD 800*600 and Bonfire Night
07/11/2008 by admin.
Hello again,
Hope you all had a good week and didn’t eat too many sweets (candy if you are American).
Well the American elections are finally over with so the news can get back to normal. Coming from
I don’t know if the right person won the election (I don’t really follow politics that much at home, so I have even less interest when it’s in a different country), but it’s going to be interesting to see what happens in the next few years and it must be a rough start for him, what with Iraq and the current financial situation.
It was also Bonfire Night here in the UK on the 5th November, but I ended up walking home from work in the rain and got totally soaked and I didn’t fancy going back out there in the rain to watch the fire works display the local council did from the marina. I did see a bit of it on the local news and it looked good, but also very wet. It was also strange this year, normally for a couple of weeks before and after Bonfire Night, you can hear and see fireworks been let off every night by the local kids, but this year, there’s not been a single one let off. I guess the local police are clamping down this year. As kids, for two weeks before Bonfire Night, we would go around the near by areas and take as much wood as we could find for our street Bonfire. It wasn’t unusual to wake up in the morning to find your wooden fence had disappeared during the night, but local bonfires have now been banned due to all the accidents every year. It’s a shame as it was great fun as a kid, raiding the other streets bonfires to get the wood.
Any way this week I’ve been working away like made on Lucky 7. Week end was an almost lost cause as far as the projects where concerned, but I’ve been getting at least an hour in every morning before work and 2-3 every night to catch up and there has been a lot of progress been made. It took a lot longer to convert the gf/x across to 800 * 600, but it’s definitely been worth the extra work as it has allowed a lot more detail in the graphics and it makes everything just that little bit smoother and in some cases, it’s allowed me to do things that I couldn’t do before, well do them good enough to go into the game.
Also because a lot of the graphics (sprites) are rendered from 3D models, it’s allowed me to increase the animation a bit more without too much extra work, which will increase the overall download size of the game, but adds that little bit extra polish to the game and I like doing animation and it also helps to add a bit more character to the game.
Weekending 7/11/08
Lucky Seven:
Well, as I have already said above, this week has mainly been redoing all the graphics again for the higher screen resolution (from now on, every game I do from here is going to be 800 * 600, or higher), but I have also done some other graphics for the game and added more frames of animation to the various sprites, so everything moves that bit smoother and I have even added extra animations for things like the Pumpkin Bombs (it now winks and laughs at you, and bounces up and down) and the ghost blocks can now have a bit smoother fade to them. I know it may not seem like much, but it all makes a difference when you see it all together.
Isaac added the Ghost Block Attack to the game, but there was a slight mix up in communications. The actual attack effect was right, but how it was implemented was basically reversed. The good thing is, it also works this way as well, so that’s another special attack we can use for the game, but we will need to come up with a new name for the attack as the original idea was to have ghost blocks that go blank when you mouse pointer goes near them, but Isaac did it so that the mouse pointer caused the blocks below the mouse pointer to go blank (it looks like you are shinning a torch on the screen), either way, it’s a neat effect / attack, which works really well.
Shuffle Blocks:
Dave is currently busy sticking all the elements together (menu screens, main game and the like) into one build so we can see what else needs to be done to the game. I need to render out some of the animations for the various attacks and time outs, which shouldn’t be too hard to do.
GoGo Digger:
I’ve changed the MAC version from been compressed with Stuff it, to just a normal zip file (via OS X) so that it can be up loaded to the Apple site. I’ve had a confirmation e-mail from them to say that they have it and now it’s just a case of waiting up to 90 days for them to review it and decide if they want to host the file.
I hope they do as it should be good publicity for the site as well and for the other games that are coming.
I’ve also found some more mini reviews for GoGo Digger, which I’ll update on the website when I find the text file with the links in it =)
I don’t know how much work will get done next week. It really depends on my will power because Gears of War 2 has just come out and I don’t know how long I can hold out without playing it (it’s sitting at the end of my desk now teasing me). I also got Fallout 3 last week and forced myself to only play it for a couple of hours and leave it until Christmas as I know it will take a lot of hours to complete, where as Gears of War 2 should only take about 10 hours (I think) to run through, so it may be a case of a couple of late nights to get it out of the way. It’s a hard life =)
One last thing before I go, for all the people that have joined the News Letter (a big thank you again for doing that), I’m going to upload the original GoGo Digger mobile phone game for you guys ready for next week (I’ll send a news letter out with the link to it). I’ve just got to find it (it’s hidden away some where on one of the many DVD back ups). It will be the J2ME version which was originally designed for the Nokia 7650, but should work on any modern’ish J2ME compatible phone. It works fine on my Nokia 6233 (except the phone screen size is a bit bigger, so the game screen doesn’t cover the full screen). It’s still available on some Internet based phone game sites, so it’s not too bad for a thank you present I guess.
Right, I think that’s it for this week as I need to get some more work done before the end of the day, so have a good week and I’ll see you next week.
Mike.
PS. Sorry for the long ramble this week.
Posted in Shuffle Blocks, GoGo Digger, Current Game Development, Lucky 7 Development Diary, Blogroll | No Comments »
New GoGo model & Lucky 7 week
17/10/2008 by admin.
Hello everyone,
Hope you are all well.
Well it’s been a fairly busy week this week and the project work is starting to pick up pace again, which is really good news.
Lucky 7 has really taken on a new lease of life since concentrating on the Arena mode of the game. I spent over two hours last night on the latest build without even realising it which is a really great sign for the basic game mechanic, especially when you realise that about 70% of it is just place holder graphics, without and special effects and just a random audio track playing in the background. This game is going to be fun.
I’ve finished the new GoGo model for Shuffle Blocks. As you can tell, he’s changed a fair bit from the original model, but I’ve tried to keep the basic form and colour scheme the same and of course I had to make him a bit chubby (every real man has love handles (that’s what I keep telling my wife at any rate)). There’s still a lot of addition work to be done on it (animated morph targets and rigging (I hate rigging)), but the base model is done.
Weekending 17/10/08
Lucky Seven:
I’ve spent most of the week on this project and if I’m been honest, I’ve properly spent about half that time playing the game. So far, I’ve created a new back ground for the Arena mode which has a more hand drawn look to it and various little gf/x’s for the game.
The game really has taken a turn for the better since we started concentrating on the Arena mode. It really is relaxing to sit down and play with and we have enough different variations of the game that we should be able to add lots of different levels for the player so that with any luck the player will find the perfect set up.
The basic game mechanic has stayed the same, but the level structure has now totally changed and I think it will actually work out a lot better for the player as the player will get a lot more variety from the different levels and allow the player to miss out levels he may not like. It should also allow us to add bonus content to the level structure as well which shows the player what’s needed to be done to unlock hat bonus content. I guess it’s almost like a board game in itself for the level selection, but I’m getting a head of myself here, we need to build it and test it out to see how it plays out in real life, but I can’t think of anything major to effect it and Isaac is all for it.
Isaac has just gone mad again and is sending me a new build almost every day, I’m sure he doesn’t sleep and he’s got way more energy then me. I think it’s about time that I started to think about a Lucky 7 preview page for the game soon (I’m want to try something a bit better then just the normal pages and I may have to try to learn Dream Weaver and knock something really nice out when I’ve got some more graphical assets ready for the game).
Shuffle Blocks:
I’ve finished modelling the new GoGo model for the game which you can see a screen grab straight from LightWave below.
I’ve made GoGo a bit chubbier as I’m fed up of having muscle head hero’s and I wanted GoGo to be more of your average Joe style character. I did make him a bit fatter, but he started to look to much like Hommer Simpson, so I had to scale him down a bit. It’s actually pretty strange modelling a character as you have to make some strange decisions such as is his ass to big and should I make his crutch bigger / smaller? It sounds daft, but its surprising how long you spent on changing these things until they look right.
Dave has just sent me a new build of the game which I’m going to try out as soon as I have updated to XNA 3, but I’m also downloading the Apples iPhone SDK at the moment and it’s taking a while as my Internet connection is going really slow again at the moment.
GoGo Digger:
We have been getting a bit of good feed back from a couple of players about GoGo Digger which is a real boost for us and I really should start to publicize the MAC version a lot more (and the PC as well to be honest), as it is a really nice game to play and it will be good publicity for when we release the other games.
No doubt I’ve forgotten some stuff this week, but I can add them in the next post, so thanks for reading and if you have any questions just ask.
Have a good week,
Mike.
Posted in Shuffle Blocks, GoGo Digger, Current Game Development, Lucky 7 Development Diary, Blogroll | No Comments »
Your feeling sleepy, very sleepy.
03/10/2008 by admin.
Hello again,
Well that’s another month over with and it’s starting to get really cold now. It must be getting nearer to Christmas.
We I’ve finally got everything settled down again after the last couple of weeks of madness and it’s been nice to get back to doing something creative again, shame there’s not been that much spare time. It’s going to be a very short blog this week as I’ve a lot of things I need to do before I go to bed and I’m already half a sleep as I type this so sorry if there’s any spelling mistakes 
Oh I’ve finally got my hands on iTorque, so I can start to look into doing some iPhone games as soon as I get some spare time as well. I’ve got a few simple ideas that I want to flesh out and I would like to convert GoGo Digger across to it as well, but all in good time.
Weekending 3/10/08
Shuffle Blocks:
I’ve been knocking out a couple of new fonts for Shuffle Blocks and improving the new GoGo model for the game and high resolution renders and I’m hoping to have that finished really soon so I can get on and do some other things.
I’ve also got a couple of things to do for the front menu for Dave (scrolling slides and the like), while Dave is converting the code across to XNA V3 as we are too late for the XNA competition.
Lucky Seven:
Not a lot has been happening on this at the moment, that’s mainly my fault. Isaac is waiting for feed back from me on the current build before progressing (sorry Isaac, I’ll sort that out this weekend for you).
I had a bit of a shock this week, as I though I saw a game with our game play mechanic in it, but it ended out to be a totally different style of game and seemed a lot more complex then our game, so that a good thing for us (I think), as I think a casual game should be able to be played straight away by the player and without been confused (but still hold plenty of secrets / strategize for the player to work out), but it’s also really nice to see how other people can have almost the same idea, but take it in a totally different direction.
Right, that’s it for now from me as I really am sleepy and I’ll show you a couple of renders of the new GoGo model as soon as I have finished it.
Have a good weekend,
www.badbumble.com
Posted in Shuffle Blocks, GoGo Digger, Current Game Development, Lucky 7 Development Diary, Blogroll | No Comments »
MAC Gogo Digger, iPhones and poor Internet connections
13/09/2008 by admin.
Hello,
First off, sorry for this post been a day late, but my Internet connection just wasn’t working. I kept trying till about 1 am to send the post, but gave up in the end and went to bed. Still wasn’t working when I got up and I’ve had a few jobs to do today so only just had a chance to send this post now. The other really annoy thing about this is that I’ve just bought an iPhone and you need an Internet connection to active it, so I’ve spent a couple of hours just looking at a nice shinny phone and not been able to use it. Anyway, the Internet connection is back and I’m ready to post again. I’ll post a basic review up soon about the iPhone after I’ve had a day or too to play with it (first impressions are good, but the instructions are very poor (it took me about 30 minutes to find and install the sim card (this may say more about my logic and observational skill, then the phone itself, but please, a little icon on the inside back of the envelope isn’t good enough when you spend that much money on a phone and I then spent 10 minutes trying to find a paperclip to destroy so I could get the sim holder out, which after doing that, I found the metal clip stuck to the envelope, which just looked like a nice bit of design (okay after reading that, I know what your thinking and yeah, I may be stupid, but I would at least expect the icon and metal clip to be on the same page, it felt more like a puzzle from an old Lucas Games adventure (it felt like a puzzle out of Monkey Island, I was never any good at them either))))).
It’s been another long, hard week for me this week at the day job and I’ve been coming home to tire to do that much this week, still done a bit, but not as much as I would like.
There’s also been a few more people signing up to the newsletter, to which I thank you for doing that, we do appreciate it and we won’t bug you with e-mails every month like other sites do (we know you all have busy lives and don’t need us nagging you just because I’ve added a new paragraph to the website), so thanks again to everyone for joining.
Weekending 12/09/08
GoGo Digger:
Well I’ve added the MAC version to the website after having loads of trouble trying to upload it to the site (the supplied software I use only allows 10meg file uploads and I didn’t want to split the game up into files as that can get messy), so I had check to see why the MAC version was 2 megs bigger then the PC version. It turns out that there was a few temp files hidden away in the folders which I deleted so I could get the game under 10 megs and I was able to create an install file for the game, which was really easy to do (thanks to a quick Google search of course), so there’s now two versions of the game on the site and I plan on releasing it for the iPhone as well, but I will be charging for that version as it has cost me about £1,800 (about us$3,600) to get all the equipment and software, so I really do need to try to earn some of this back.
I’ve now got to start advertising the MAC version to various sites as well now, so if any readers can recommend and good MAC sites (totally new to the MAC world) could you e-mail me some links please?
Lucky 7:
Isaac has been busy again (as he always is) on Lucky 7 and has been adding new features to the game and is currently trying to add a couple of features, which if they work will let me create the game in a certain graphical style that I think could look really nice and be fun to play and it may even add a new dimension to the gameplay, but like everything, it needs to be prototyped first just to see how it all plays out as first and foremost, it has to be fun for the player and if it isn’t, that feature will get dropped.
Shuffle Blocks:
It’s been another poor week for me for doing work on Shuffle Blocks and my weekend was taken up with doing lots of little 5 minute jobs, that ended up taking most of the day (so much for my nice free weekend). I’ve done the menu elements that I needed to do and I think I’ve done all the trade items now (still need to render them out) and I’m playing with the main menu font again as Dave has done / found some code to display the non-proportional font for the game, it’s just proving a bit annoying trying to get the graphic file through the editor correctly (that’s a coder thing and I’m not going anywhere near that, Dave just tells me how he wants the font laying out and that’s it for me, I do as I’m told (you can ask my wife)).
Dave is also just about to buy himself a 360 XBOX, so it looks like this game will definitely become to the XBOX in some form or another.
Of by the way, if anyone reading this in the UK, Morrisons are currently selling console games at about half price (I’ve just got Metal Gear Solid 4 for £25), but I think it ends on Sunday.
Hope you have a good week.
Mike Moore.
Posted in Shuffle Blocks, GoGo Digger, Current Game Development, Lucky 7 Development Diary, Blogroll | No Comments »
GoGo Digger (MAC / OSX) and Softpedia clean
11/09/2008 by admin.
Hello everyone,
Just a quick post to let you know that I have uploaded the MAC version of GoGo Digger., so if you know anyone who has a MAC and likes free, fun games, pass the info on for me please.
*Image from the first level of GoGo Digger which acts as a tutorial for the game*
I’m sorry it took so long for me to post this version, but the file was a lot bigger then the PC version and I couldn’t understand why. It ended up been due to a lot of old files been included in the game folders (screen grabs, place holder gf/x’s and the original gf/x from the original mobile phone game) and it was zipping up to over 12 megs, but I’ve got it down to 9.5 megs now. Anyway, for all you MAC users I hope you enjoy the game and if you do please join the mailing list to show support for the games which will encourage us to continue doing MAC versions of our games (feel free to e-mail me as well (I don’t bite unless I’m hungry)).
Also the PC version of the game has just been through a Softpedia scan on the program, just to make sure that there’s nothing nasty or underhand hidden in the file (I told you that there wasn’t anyway, but it’s best to be safe then sorry).
I’ll do a progress update tomorrow for Shuffle Blocks and Lucky 7.
See you soon,
Mike
e-mail: mike.moore@badbumble.com
Posted in GoGo Digger, Current Game Development, Blogroll | No Comments »
Busy week and I’ve finally got a MAC
05/09/2008 by admin.
Hello,
Well it’s the end of another work week for me and it’s the weekend at last.
It’s been a fairly quite week on the game project front I’m afraid as it’s been a pretty bust week at work and I have been coming home feeling half dead.
My MAC off e-bay came and I got Isaac to do a build of GoGo Digger for the MAC and it works great, I’ve just want to find an installation program for the MAC so I create an installer for it (it’s better then just doing it as a RAR / ZIP file. I can’t make my mind up about the MAC, I really don’t know if I like it or not. There’s some really nice things about it (it basically set itself up on for the Internet connection) and then there’s some stuff that I really don’t like about it (I pulled my USB external drive out of the MAC without ejecting it and it crashed when I tried to turn the MAC off (plus there’s the strangeness of a new operating system to get used to, but that’s just a case of time I guess)), but its early days yet and I need to get used to the different operating system.
Weekending 29/08/08
GoGo Digger:
The MAC version is already to go up onto the website as soon as I get an installer program for the MAC (if there’s anyone out there that knows of a good one, please let me know as I am a complete newbie when it comes to MACs).
Lucky 7:
Isaac sent me a new build of the game and he seems to of gotten rid of almost all of the bugs in the game. There’s still a lot of level balancing to do to get the game feeling right, but it’s definitely heading in the right direction. I need to do some better place holder graphics for the game to start to get the right atmosphere for the game.
Shuffle Blocks:
It’s been a poor week for me for doing work on Shuffle Blocks, I’ve only been able to knock out a few more trade items for the game and I’ve got a couple of menu elements I need to finish off main menu screen. On the bright side I think I have the weekend free, so I should be able to get my head down and make up for the lack of progress during the week.
Dave has been busy doing front end and various hidden coding bits on the game.
All the best,
Mike Moore.
Posted in Shuffle Blocks, GoGo Digger, Current Game Development, Lucky 7 Development Diary, Blogroll | No Comments »
Long week and GoGo Digger on the MAC
29/08/2008 by admin.
Hello everyone,
Well it’s Friday again and that must mean that it’s time for another update.
It’s been a long week for me this week and by the looks of it the next couple of weeks are not going to be any better for me.
The big news is that I have gone out and got myself a MAC (well off e-bay, but it’s the same thing) so expect to see GoGo Digger on the MAC soon (all been well for the end of next week). It’s totally emptied by bank account now, but I’m hoping with the ability to release games on the MAC as well as the PC, it will be able to pay for itself as that’s the only reason I’ve bought the MAC to be honest.
I’m still playing Galaga Legions on the XBLA and still really enjoying it a lot (it’s great for a quick 20 minutes blast now and again).
I’m still thinking about doing stuff for the iPhone (part of the reason for getting the MAC), but I’ve already spent £500 on the MAC and it’s going to cost me another £400 just for the updated development software and then I’ve actually got the iPhone to buy on top of that, so I’m not sure it’s actually going to be worth while to develop for this format at the moment as it will take a while to recoup the investment and I don’t have that kind of moeny to spend at the moment. Maybe after we have a couple of games out already and if they do well, then we could move onto the iPhone as well.
Weekending 29/08/08
GoGo Digger:
I don’t think there’s been a lot happening on the GoGo Digger front to be honest with you this week. I keep googling “GoGo Digger” every now and again just to see if there’s any new reviews, but that’s it. Isaac has just sent me the MAC build for me to test when my MAC comes sometime next week, so if it works okay without any problems you should be able to download it by the end of next week (I’ll have to have a look for an installer program for the MAC as well I guess).
Lucky 7:
Just got an e-mail from Isaac this week about Lucky 7, by all accounts he has been hammering away at Lucky 7, sorting out the bugs and he said he would send me over a new build during the weekend, and trust me when Isaac says he’s been working hard at something, he really has been working hard on it. I’m sure the guy doesn’t sleep.
Shuffle Blocks:
I’ve not had that much of a chance to really work on Shuffle Blocks that much this week. I have modelled and rendered out a few of the trade items which took a lot longer then I expected it to. This was partly due to the fact that I messed up the plugin Light Wave uses for rendering out hair and it took me a re-install to get things working correctly again. Anyway, I’ve got about half of the item’s rendered out now and I’ve just noticed that a lot of the items are food and drink related (I think that that says more about me then I would like it to)
I’ve got a few things I need to do over the weekend, but I’m hoping to get the trade items finished over the weekend.
Mike Moore.
Posted in Shuffle Blocks, GoGo Digger, Current Game Development, Lucky 7 Development Diary, Blogroll | No Comments »