Development Diary

How we handle terrain dressing

2015-12-14T16:12:00.002+00:00

Terrain dressing is what we call the sprites which appear on the surface of the terrains where the cars can drive.

We create groups of terrain dressing objects, for instance one group for trees, one for bushes, one for foregroud bushes. These are stored in a .asset ScriptableObject database.
Each group contains a lot of parameters which determine how the dressing is generated.
These include horizontal spacing, offset ranges in Z (to create parallax) or Y (clouds, for instance), and scale ranges.
There's also a Max Slope Angle which determines what slope the objects should appear on. We don't want trees on steep slopes, but bushes can go there fine.

Added on to this is a script which is called per-object. I derive classes from a base Dressing Base script. When being placed, all DressingBase scripts are called in the object's hierarchy.

The two in use here are DressingPlacement and DressingColor.

DressingPlacement decides whether the object should take the angle of the surface (eg. for bushes) or not (eg. for trees). Also there's a random range which is added to the rotation of the object.

DressingColor simply modifies the color of various parts of the object randomly for variety.

When AutoUpdate is set on the terrain script, we can adjust the variables in the groups database and see the result in realtime in the editor.

Once we have a set of groups in place, and have decided how we want the particular game to look, we can duplicate the groups for other types of terrain.

Here we have 3 more terrains which are basically the same as the first one we made, with a few groups duplicated and modified:

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2015-12-10T09:06:00.002+00:00

Dressing Scripts

For our latest game, we automate scenery dresssing, which I'll cover in overview in another post. But today we made color modifications to various items of scenery.

Here are the trees, made from multiple source sprites

When these are placed down in the scene, the code searches for any scripts derived from DressingBase and runs that code on the objects.

We have all kinds of scripts to modify things, but here's the colour modifier script for the trees:

It simply lists the sprite renderers which are to be modified, and changes their colors. In this case we use a green gradient to colour the trees per-tree (rather than per-renderer).

The result we get when putting the trees in to the scene is this:

This also has other randomization applied, but you can see the trees have a nice variation in color now.

Depending on the game, we might use a palette database for this colorization, so we can tint everything in the level depending on other factors, like time of day, or time of year.

2015-12-09T09:31:00.000+00:00

Unity 5.3 arrived last night, with some nice new improvements. Upgrading was painless.

They now have multi-scene editing, which looks interesting.

Currently we have multiple levels in each scene, split between me and Rob doing the design. We do this because it's very useful to have different levels easily accessible, so we can check things, or copy and paste parts from other levels.

On my current task list is a tool to split the scenes up in to multiple scenes, one per level, to make loading quicker. I deliberately avoided getting on with this task because I knew the new Unity version was coming out soon.

It looks like it was a good decision. I think we can now have one level per scene, and still have all the other scenes on-hand as reference. I'll be trying it out in the next week or so, but fingers crossed, this could be a big improvement.

2015-12-07T13:48:00.000+00:00

Working on a new sidescrolling racer in Unity3D.

This is exciting for me, even though I've created loads of these games, because I get a chance to re-write it all from scratch. I can get rid of all the hacks from previous games.

Working on a mission database at the moment, so I can link up tasks and unlocks. For instance:

Level1, wheelie for 5 seconds -> unlock the Bus.

I'll keep this updated every day! (honest!)

Live coding!

2015-07-23T15:16:00.001+01:00

Watch live video from LongAnimals on www.twitch.tv

Heyup,

Here's a proper inside scoop on the development of our latest game, a 3D mini golf multiplayer with Pirates.

Arrr
UPDATE!!
We're doing a soccer game now!

NB we're not at it 24-7 :) If we're offline at the moment check back from about 8am GMT+1 for more action!

Know your enemies

2015-04-08T14:03:00.002+01:00

Sometimes the Alienblobs' experiments go wrong. Trying to take over the body of a helpless blob, they instead took over the Soul of a boot!

But who are the Alienblobs? This turned out to be a good question. We thought that random boots and missile launchers and stuff were kinda cool, but wouldn't it be a lot more fun if they each carried an evil controller?

Alienblob on board

So, what do you think?

The Bomb

2015-03-30T15:25:00.001+01:00

The bomb is one of the dangers faced by Blob during his adventures, placed by the evil Alienblobs to thwart his progress.

Get too near a bomb and it will wobble and blow up. Worse still, there may be cannons shooting them across your path...

The Robots

2015-03-28T16:05:00.000+00:00

Robots are amoral, the Alienblobs are unable to take over their minds. But they always want something. they often won't open a door until you've given them what they want. This is usually bits of metal.

But who are the Alienblobs... ?

Blob's Adventure is coming soon - but who is Blob?

2015-03-26T15:55:00.000+00:00

Who IS he?

Blobuloids have been hanging out at RobotJAM's house forever. Rolling around, picking up dust, making the occasional sarcastic comment. They've even found their way into some of the games:

Water Werks, a Flash game from many years ago :)

So maybe Blob is a Blobuloid who's gone off alone and got himself into space travel - but his rocket ship keeps breaking down on alien planets. It could be that Blob has to keep looking for a new ship to borrow while lots of weird and dangerous things are happening.

Oh no! The rocket ship is broken!

I interviewed LongAnimal Julian about the characters in the game and all he would tell me about Blob was:

"Blob is... a blob."

What is it?

2015-03-02T14:07:00.001+00:00

Working on a new game at the moment - what do you think we should we call it?

Rock Vs Zombies for Android

2015-02-24T10:54:00.001+00:00

Hey hey hey - happy new year (ok, ok...)!

Lots of work is going on in the background as TurboNUKE gets underway with Unity development. Lovely stuff!

Our first title is out on Google Play already, free to download here.

It's a fun Minecraft-styled 3D maze puzzle where you tilt your device to roll the rock around to squash all the zombies and rid the town of the scourge. It's a little tricky because you don't get much time to do your work, and there's obstacles and pits of boiling acid to contend with along the way.

We'd really love to get your comments and +1s!

Check out a quick video preview:

Blog is back!

2014-06-12T09:19:00.002+01:00

After a server catastrophe in which we lost everything, we're bow back online with a new server.

(I thought RAID systems which duplicated data were supposed to stop this from happening. Ours seems to have overwritten the good HDD with data from the bad HDD! :) )

Loads of new stuff coming out from us, and a couple of new directions with the games. More posts to follow in the next few weeks...

LongAnimals

Grand Truckismo preview

2013-10-14T14:16:00.000+01:00

Gearing up for release is our new smashing, crashing, monster trucking derby!

Here's a little video teaser...

Blast Driver is out now for android devices - and it's FREE!

2013-09-03T15:43:00.000+01:00

Blast Driver (we found out we couldn't call it Out of Control :)) is now available for android devices and coming soon for iPhone/Pad.

Become a secret agent assigned to the bomb division.Bombs have been planted on cars, and the accelerator pedal stuck down. The cars are out of control! Jump in to the cars and use your skill to get the car to the bomb squad safely on each level.

It's really exciting - get it here!.

Out of control!

Grand Prix Go 2 is in pole position!

2013-08-27T16:38:00.001+01:00

Grand Prix Go 2 will be released soon! Meanwhile here are some cheeky screenshots...

Title screen

I can make my car look REALLY tasteful!

I can choose a creative racing line...

Out of Control

2013-08-08T17:11:00.000+01:00

Here are some work-in-progress screenshots of a new game loosely based on the film "Speed" - race against time across rough terrain and stay the right way up - or you'll explode!!

Will be available for mobile and immobile devices...

Harry Quantum 3: Cheese Carnival

2013-08-01T16:04:00.000+01:00

Point and click adventure starring Harry Quantum, PI. Solve the mystery of the sinister Cheese Carnival and save the world!

Play it over at TurboNUKE, or if you like Kongregate how about putting in your vote there?

Soccer Balls is now available from iTunes!

2013-08-01T12:11:00.000+01:00

Follow @turbonuke on Twitter for a chance to win a free copy!

You think it’s a fantastic new soccer game for iPhone and iPad? It is now!!

SOCCER BALLS, a fun and fascinating physics game is available now in the iTunes store. Score goals, and knock over referees, using a variety of strange objects and scenery.

SOCCER BALLS contains 72 levels; the aim of each is score goals, but with the additional challenges of collecting coins and, of course, to knock over the referee! The mechanics of the game are to move the ball using a simple swipe across the screen, choosing the direction and angle as indicated on the screen. The levels increase in complexity, as you find you will need to employ team work (with onscreen team mates) and make the most of physics to find your way around the objects and scenery. To add to the fun there are switches to operate mechanical devices, and also different sizes of ball – giving you the satisfaction of kicking a beach ball in a referee’s face! But it’s all good clean sporting fun, suitable for ages 9 to 90. Pick a different team, or use your coins to unlock extra features such as different heads and EXPLODING REFEREES!

Price: $0.99/£0.69

Go to App Store

2013-03-08T11:14:00.002+00:00

Cyclomaniacs Epic is now released on Turbonuke!

http://www.turbonuke.com/games.php?game=cyclomaniacsepic

We're really proud of this, please go and try it out, and let us know what you think.

Mobile versions coming soon! :)

Cyclomaniacs Epic

2013-02-22T18:13:00.000+00:00

Cyclomaniacs Epic is now in beta testing over on Kongregate.

Finally! This one has taken way too long, and has tired us out!

Head there and sign up to Kong+ if you want to participate.

Soccer Balls 2 in development

2012-11-01T19:13:00.000+00:00

It's been such a long time since we released the original Soccer Balls game.

Finally Soccer Balls 2 is on the way, and it's coming to iOS as well.

This time we have included a team kit editor, so you can play your favourite team against any team in the world.

The characters have quadrupled in size over Soccer Balls 1, and the world scrolls around to give you much more freedom.

There are lots more things included... screenshots coming soon.

Flaming Zombooka Released!

2012-10-17T16:41:00.001+01:00

Now you can destroy zombies in fun ways on iOS devices, for free!

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/flaming-zombooka/id498266246?ls=1&mt=8

Flaming Zombooka iOS

2012-10-16T10:01:00.000+01:00

We're really excited about this, Flaming Zombooka for iOS is 'Ready To Release' on the Apple store..

More news soon...

Stage3D / Mobile

2012-10-08T09:08:00.002+01:00

We've been working on adding Stage3D to our engine, and it's gone very smoothly indeed.

This is only to get the games working on mobile (for the moment at least), as we don't believe there's enough compatibility out there for Stage3D browser games to be successful yet.

I've written versions of the rendering code for Stage3D, not using any 3rd party libs like Starling or Genome, so the overhead is very light. I'm using project specific properties to switch between versions, so it only compiles in the correct version of the code.

I'm creating texture pages in-game, as the graphics are mostly stored as movieclips. This way we can have full quality bitmaps for hi-resolution devices, and drop back to low resolution for older machines. Still waiting for Adobe to add in some texture compression tools though, as currently the only option we have is 32 bit per pixel, which is INCREDIBLY wasteful.

So, we've just started work on SoccerBalls 2, and this will be the first one we've developed to work on both mobile and browser. Looking forward to seeing how well it goes....

Rocket Panda: Quest For Cookies

2012-09-20T16:51:00.003+01:00

Here's a screenshot from a new one by LongAnimals and Asute:

It's a Launcher game in the style of Burrito Bison, but with a Panda!

Here's a screenshot of a development process I'm using to graph the distances the panda has flown in each successive launch. It's going to come in very handy as we balance the game for difficulty.