Author: bncastle

My March 2016 project is coming along, and I’ve decided to change the name to PixiCubes. I started with my old Ludum Dare Qbers but found it much more satisfying to just rewrite everything.  Here’s what has been accomplished in the last week:

• Base game code is up and running
• The cube grid along with all its cube operation methods is coming along nicely
• Had a 3D office environment in the game where the puzzles would be solved on your desk, but I’ve scratched that
• Added various sounds
• Particle effect for getting a block in the correct orientation
• The prototype works on touch devices
• Fixed the cube grid such that it can be rotated in any orientation and still work. This may not be useful but it was education and fun

While the list above doesn’t seem like much, there was a lot of work put into the base code that will pay off in the long run. After playing with the prototype, I’m undecided as to how I want to make the content available. I’m thinking either making the game free with purchasable add-on packs, or free to play with ads and an in-game economy to purchase new pixicubes.  Some additional things on the TODO list:

• Investigate asset bundles so that new pixicubes can be added without asset store re-submission
• How to represent a pixicube in code
  • min/max grid size allowed for the whole cube or each puzzle
  • name and description of the  pixicube
  • cost to purchase (in virtual currency)
  • Riddles for each face or no?
• Player save data
  • How to save puzzles in-progress
  • Reset puzzles
• Work on a more aesthetically pleasing cube scramble
• Work on a title screen where the title is scrambled and solved
• Menu system
• Prototype consumable skills and see if they increase the puzzle solving enjoyment
• More polish, sounds, and effects
• Improve the UI for touch devices

Well. That’s it for now. It’s off to work…

With my first month project done and under my belt, I’m now moving on to month # 2. I’ve given it some thought and this month I’ll be doing an update/ remake on my Ludum Dare 19 Entry called Qbers. The rules and setup of the game will probably change, but it will still be a puzzle game in which you rotate a matrix of cubes to reveal a specific picture.  Some things I’m looking into doing for this game:

• Possible add-on packs with more puzzles later
• Consumable skills that can be used to help solve puzzles. these might be purchasable using puzzle points
• Earn puzzle points by completing puzzles in different ways: complete the puzzle within a given time, finish the puzzle, finish it on hard difficulty, etc
• More pizzazz  when rotating cubes and putting them back into place
• Look into making the cubes feel like little individual objects with physics. This would probably change the game play but might add a lot to the feel.
• Create a 3D environment where you solve these puzzles i.e. at a desk
• Figure out how to do the different puzzles/packs
• Since a cube has 6 sides, perhaps make each puzzle pack have 6 pictures in it. During that pack, all 6 pictures would be on the cubes but for each stage you would only be trying for a particular picture.
• Riddles or no riddles for each picture? Haven’t decided yet.
• Maybe change the name of the game

This weekend I created a repository for the code and checked in a skeleton for starting out, so I’m ready to get going.  I’m off to code. Until the next post…

Yesterday I pushed the button and release Buggers (my February project) to itch.io for PC,Mac, and Linux. It always amazes me how many bugs you find whenever you are getting ready to release a piece of software. It seems as though as soon as you finish preparing the release package, you find something that requires you to start over. Heck, about an hour after I released V1.00, I found bugs I felt needed to be fixed, so I rebuilt and very briefly retested all my platforms and uploaded the files. Then this morning while preparing an apk file for Android release, I found some more stuff that needed to be fixed, so the through the process I went yet again. Anyway, as I write this, Buggers is sitting at V1.02 and that will hopefully be as far as it goes for now.

Here’s what’s been done since the last post:

• Implemented a news subscription dialog in the game
• Implemented in-game voting when all game levels are complete
• Cleaned up and fixed all my NGINX config files to work correctly with my now multiple SSL certs
• Installed/ configured mailing list server software
• Refactored bug pathing and upgraded the pathing library to the pro version
• Added local and global highscores
• Lots of bug fixes
• Removed the bordering bush requirement for levels
• Mud now slows the player down
• Added a custom cursor
• Added a custom icon (done quickly and could be better)
• Added screenshot capability to the desktop versions (press f11 while in-game)
• Fixed several tile types not having colliders and layers set properly.

This month I was 3 days late releasing, but that extra time allowed me to get some much-needed infrastructure in place that will carry over for the rest of the games I’ll be building in the next 5 months. Today I released the Android apk to itch.io as well as the Google Play store.

In my scurry to begin the iOS release process, I realized once again how much time it takes.  I’ve done iOS releases twice before and while it has gotten better since my first one, I have determined that it will require too much time per month to do the release. Therefore, I’m amending my rules to remove the requirement for a monthly iOS release, but I still plan on releasing all 6 of my creations to iOS after July 2016 when my game/month plan is done. Now to get started on my March project …