SorceryGames Dev

Giving Character to a game

2012-01-26T10:54:00.000-08:00

Bob the Frog, the game i am currently developing is taking shape pretty well, though i have other distractions I need to work on at the moment. Such as the Android and iOS versions of my book 'Five Golden Coins'. While i am working on this new title i am spending more time considering options and challenges facing Bob the Frog. What options do i have besides gamplay? Well that's the thing. I

Jak & Daxter Interview

2012-01-24T10:19:00.000-08:00

Last week i was lucky enough to be involved in an interview about the re-development of Jak & Daxter for the PS3. Mass Media, the company i work for was charged with the difficult task of taking what is probably the most technically accomplished title from the PS2 and put it onto the PS3. Meanwhile keep all the gameplay and feel of those games exactly like their originals. No easy task i can tell

Severe bugs

2012-01-22T20:58:00.000-08:00

Some people believe that the only severe bug in a game are A bugs. But that is of course just another classification. But what constitutes an A or severe bug? It is usually a bug that faals into one of several areas Effects the control of the character in a negative way (eg: stuck in wall) A player abusing a bug can get an unfair advance or advantage in the game.(eg: allows you to skip

Promotional Strategy part1

2012-01-20T16:25:00.000-08:00

I have been reading over the last several years about promotional strategies for generating interest in the game before it is published. So when it is published it will have the biggest splash. However i have never really been good at this part. Once the game is written and put out there i think i do a pretty good job of contacting reiew sites and doing my press releases. It seems so far this is

Lines from IGE to Game

2012-01-19T09:00:00.000-08:00

Here is a screenshot of the game. This is a screenshot i took last night. It is of my development level 9. Which means it is the level where i am experimenting on using moving platforms. Platforms that move a certain distance and then come back, repeat etc.. Also i have platforms that move in circular patterns. Well i placed a bunch of these platforms and realised that without some visual

Bugs at night

2012-01-18T11:25:00.000-08:00

I am not sure about any of you coders out there. But for me i hate getting bugs in the middle of the night. Cos there i am last night after watching a movie that was a bit drab tbh (Intacto). A nicely made film, but on a subject i find a bit incredulous i suppose.. Still that took an hour and 45 minutes of my free time up and so left me to start late on coding for Bob the Frog. It must have been

The IGe is ready

2012-01-16T00:41:00.000-08:00

It didn't really take me long at all to get the IGE working after i solved the scrolling issue. The new editor version seems clean as i added some feedback (flashing the button pressed etc). I had to solve a couple of typo bugs, but that was the worst of what i have had to deal with. I also added some niceties to the editor. Some mode changes that i never originally designed in, but after soem

My IGE is saved

2012-01-13T09:43:00.000-08:00

Ahh it was a good night. I had a hard time deciding on which method of scrolling the screen i wished to use, and in the end i decided i would probably end up with both. But here is what happened... 1. I thought about adding a scroll square to the top corner of the screen, and proportionally scroll the screen from input inside the square. Seemed like a clean and easy answer. 2. I also thought

My IGE or In Game Editor Sucks

2012-01-11T23:30:00.000-08:00

Maybe i am being a bit harsh on my editor. Maybe it is in fact not too bad. Then again maybe it really does suck and i am not as good a designer of IGEs as i am game design. Still it appears it might not all be useless, or that is my current hope haha! Let me tell ya what happened. So i have spent some time writing this editor, as previously mentioned in this blog. Then last night was my big

Levels saves are a Go!

2012-01-10T19:44:00.000-08:00

Yes, it is true. I finally figured out how to get my binary files into my deployment and load them for my level data. In fact it was another simple thing in Marmalade, only ya have discover just how simple it seems. So all ya do once ya saved out ya file is to place it into ya MKB project file. That way the file gets included and sent over to the deployed to machine. Simple.. then ya just use

Why must i Serialize?

2012-01-09T00:14:00.000-08:00

I am sure there are good reasons for this. I am sure if i could be bothered to search the web i would find more information about serializing my saved data out. BUT I DON'T WANT TO! I have been developing games now for so many years (ok, so it's approximately 30). I have never really needed this functionality before. In fact i view all variables and classes and structs etc as simply a layout of

Midway3 and more Tease

2012-01-05T22:15:00.000-08:00

Let me say right now at the start to this post. I HAVE NO SOLID INFORMATION FOR YOU (at this time). Now i have stated that, let me say that Midway 3 is looking pretty neato. I think it will complement the other midways very well and any fans will not be disappointed. I have now started back at Mass Media Games and have enjoyed my layoff. Recovering from Jak and Daxter will most likely be

Eternal progresses

2012-01-03T19:25:00.000-08:00

Ok, anyone reading this blog must realise how much i love writing games. They must also realise that my latest game has taken my time by storm. Every game developer out there knows what i am tlaking about. Our latest creations take control of our minds.. ARGH!!!!!!!! Run, Save the kids! So it is with Eternal Recoil featuring Bob the Frog. I think it may be time to rename it, only i love the

Hotchicks, sales numbers

2012-01-02T00:27:00.000-08:00

It is now the 1st of the new year. A year in which i hope to have a much better commercial success than i did with my own games in 2011 (and in fact 2010). Below there is the graph taken from Pubcenter for my game Hot Chicks, which features the really easy and cool in game ads from Microsoft. So lets start with some some numbers Currently:- Sales to date = 5345 (ok, so it's actually downloads!

Once is all ya get!

2011-12-29T14:09:00.000-08:00

Once, just once. That is all one gets for something to be New. So take for example trying to introduce my new game to my family (usually home brewers first audience). They are all excited to try the game, and i am very interested in watching them play to see how difficult the game is for a newbie. I also watch a lot more signs like frustration and assumptions etc. Generally (possibly always) i

5 levels in and so much more

2011-12-27T23:54:00.001-08:00

Development continues at a good pace here in my spare bedroom at home during this Holiday break. I am not quite sure what i am hoping to have completed by the time i go back to work in the new year, but i think it will be something fairly substantial. Obviously i keep making levels, this is sort of to prove to myself that the concept and control scheme are worth pursuing. In fact i really

4 levels done

2011-12-25T22:18:00.000-08:00

Ok, so these are effectively example levels. But they do in fact show some of the gameplay off in a good way. There is a lot more i can add by expanding the gameplay experience with some new elements. That can come later, but now it is time to test those levels on unsuspecting friends. That is what i thought earlier today, before i went off to a nice Xmas get together at a friends house. A place

More Game Dev and Unity too?

2011-12-24T22:51:00.000-08:00

I have been very busy these last few days. I now have a 3 level game, though one might argue that they are not quite right for the first three levels of my game. In fact i would assume they would be spread a bit apart, though the first level is designed to be the first level for sure. this has been going well as along with the three levels i now have a results screen and a proper ready screen

Ads make me all AdWhirl

2011-12-23T16:02:00.000-08:00

Ok, so my game is Ad supported. I got iAd into my iPhone version, but since we updated to the new XCode and New Marmalade versions, we cannot get the darned thing to build. Still an ongoing issue which will be resolved soon i hope. So all this Ad stuff is a nuisance. It really is, there are so many ad suppliers, and as a businessman (yeah, soemtimes i like to dabble in this), i would like the

What Game will do well ?

2011-12-18T13:52:00.000-08:00

I am a bit frustrated i have to say. I really want to have my Indie games be financially successful. The need and desire for this has several aspects to it. It is not just an avaricious thing like it could be. Though i know everyone wants to make oodles of money (of course). 1. I have a family to support so spending all my time developing Indies detracts from my family time. If the earning of

Marmalade #6 - iAd issue, Kindle Fire

2011-12-17T23:08:00.000-08:00

It has been a fairly busy couple of days. I really thought that the iOs version of the game would be good to go by now. Unfortunately there have been a bunch of unforseen issues. So i will discuss them, and then go on to describe my Kindle Fire and dev for that device. iPhone version is not ready yet... 1. On wednesday i worked with me mate Paul for quite some time, maybe 2 hours in total. Doing

My new Game has been done Already?

2011-12-16T09:39:00.000-08:00

During the last few days a couple of people have shown me 2 games Doodle jump and Funny Bounce. It seems that both these games are indeed the same (on first perusal), but I was shown them because i described my new game to these people. Interestingly the games they showed me are similar in foundation to my own. Though the gameplay will be a bit different since i made the decision to go puzzler

New Game dev - Eternal Recoil update

2011-12-14T17:01:00.000-08:00

I am loving the development of a new game. Using C++ again for making games seems to make it quite enjoyable. Also using the tech and SDK aspects i am now familiar with means i am writing a game and not fighting with Tech so much. So the old working title was 'Eternal Recoil featuring Bouncing Bob'. The rename is 'Eternal Recoil featuring Bob the Frog'. This has come about due to my crappy

Marmalade #5 - Ads and iAds

2011-12-13T21:52:00.000-08:00

This is part 5 of me talking about using the Marmalade SDK for the first time to convert a game i have out on the Windows Phone 7. Ok so the conversion went well. Trying the game on several versions of hardware showed up right away that i was not using frame compensating (obviously i knew this). I came up with a plan and it was easy to solve this issue. Sounds were not sounding good, with so

The Game is tasteful?

2011-12-06T13:40:00.001-08:00

History and Reasoning:- Quite some time ago i decided to create a game called 'Cards en Fuego'. However it did not get many downloads, but as it is Ad supported i could track the amount of playtime the game was getting. It appears that it got a lot of people coming back to play again and again. However both myself and my partner felt like one of the problems with the initial download numbrs was