Ovine

Ovine on your iOS, Android and Windows Device

AndyH — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 11:00:58 +0000

What has OVINE been up to and why has it been so quiet here lately?

It has been quiet here, but we have been busy little sheep over the last few months developing some mobile games for Apple’s iPhone/iTouch/iPad, Android phones/tablets and Windows Phone. Our first game is out now.

And you can get a sneak peek at all of our other games that will be ready soon on the mobile site and on our G+ page.

Our first game is The Sky is Falling, an upside down take on games like Blitz where you have to clear a path home. It’s been a great game to work on and has helped for us to discover the quirks of publishing on the various app stores.

So what’s next? Well fans of Quantasm will soon be able to play a special version on your favourite phone and tablet. Watch this space. Also a new game with a Bee is on the way, again watch this space as we’ll be posting videos and screenshot soon!

Rosslyn in the top 101 Games for 2012 – gamespy

StuC — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 09:25:08 +0000

Thanks to the guys and gals over at for putting us onto their 101 free games for 2012 list !

Heres the linky http://uk.pc.gamespy.com/articles/121/1218358p2.html

POTATO

StuC — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 21:32:47 +0000

POTATO

God bless he Keith Lemon App, as modeled by MIA, my 8 month old daughter

Fusion of Apple

AndyH — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 18:55:49 +0000

Today, the thoroughly nice chaps at Clickteam, released the long awaited OSX Export Module for Multimedia Fusion.

For some time Multimedia Fusion 2 (MMF2) has been able to create rich content for Flash and JAVA as well as its native Windows, but with todays announcement it can also create xcode projects ready for compilation directly to iOS, in other words to create iPhone, iTouch and iPad games and applications.

If you’ve never come across MMF before it can best be described as a powerful game maker without the need to learn a programming language. It originally started as Klik and Play back in Windows 3.1 a tool that gave you a versatile level editor for setting up the game levels and a unique event editor for defining the logic, the mechanics of the game. Over the years it has had a couple of name changes, first Click and Create (published by Corel), then The Games Factory (Europress) before settling on the name it uses today.

MMF2 is one of Ovines favourite tools due to its power and versatility along with other game development systems such as Monkey. With the release of the iOS Export Module for MMF2 it opens some interesting opportunities for our games. The module is an add-on to MMF2 and costs $129, or £89 or €99. If MMF2 and the iOS Export Module floats your boat then you can try a demo of MMF2 at the Clickteam website or dive right in and buy them from their shop. MMF2 comes as a Standard version or bigger Developer version. The iOS Export Module can be found under the plugins section of the shop. I should ask for a sales commission but in all seriousness, MMF2 is a great product and I would recommend it highly.

Here’s some information about the iOS Export Module taken from the Clickteam forums:

Requirements for the iOS exporter

* Registered version of MMF2 or MMF2 Developer on a Windows machine
* A Macintosh computer running at least OS X Snow Leopard.
* You have to be registered as an iOS developer with Apple ($99 per year). Note: you can register a simple Developer account (free) and test your applications in the iPhone simulator, then register as iOS Developer ($99 per year) when you want to test your applications on a real device or distribute them.
* Xcode and the latest version of iOS 4 SDK installed on the Mac.
* To test on a real device, you need an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad running iOS4.

Limitations / differences with PC runtime

Graphics

The graphic engine of the MMF2 iOS runtime is hardware accelerated, but it doesn’t support shaders as well as the frame and layer effects of the HWA PC runtime. It supports
the blending and RGB coefficients at the same time as standard effects.

Even if it’s an hardward-accelerated runtime, graphic memory and processor power are limited compared with Windows machine. Follow the rules described in the help file to limit the memory your application uses.

Sounds

The iOS runtime supports WAV and MP3 files. Sounds that are not in WAV or MP3 format are converted to WAV. Limitation: as there is a single hardware MP3 decoder you should avoid playing several MP3 files at the same time.

External files

Very few objects support external files :

Array
INI
List box
Hi-score

They load/save files from/to the bundle of the application. You can include default files for the Array, INI and List box objects.

Strings and Fonts

PC fonts are replaced by their iOS equivalent when running on the device. Those fonts haven’t exactly the same size, you might have to enlarge the string objects so that the text is displayed properly.

Interface objects

The iOS runtime has its own interface objects (button, single and multiple line edit box). Most of the standard interface objects are either not available or have limited features.

Specific iOS objects

Accelerometer
iOS
iOS Button
iOS Multiple Line Edit Box
iOS Single Line Edit Box
iOS Store
Joystick Control
Multiple Touch
and soon Camera and GameCenter objects (MMF2 Developer only).

Supported standard and 3rd party extensions

Active Object
Active Backdrop
Active System Box
Advanced Direction
Advanced Game Board
Advanced Path Movement
Array
Backdrop
Background System Box
Button (limited features)
Calculate Text Rect Object
Clickteam movement controller
Counter
Date & Time
Direction Calculator
Easing
Edit box (limited features)
Get
Hi-scores
Immediate IF
In And Out controller
INI
Input
Layer
List box (limited features, no interface)
Lives
Location
Move Safely 2
Move It
MT Random
Object Mover
Platform Movement
Question and Answer
Quick Backdrop
Randomizer
Score
String
String Parser
String Tokenizer
Sub-Application
Wargame Map

Rosslyn gets a nice mention on Rock paper Shotgun!

StuC — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 13:58:55 +0000

Rosslyn gets a nice mention on Rock paper Shotgun!

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/06/20/the-da-vinci-mode-rosslyn/#more-62688

Rosslyn Chapel is out

StuC — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 11:47:57 +0000

We are proud to announce that The Rosslyn Chapel Adventure is now out

Go grab your copy from our mini site at http://rosslyn.ovine.net

v0.1 has been released after some users could not pickup “coins” Sorry for the inconvience

Rosslyn Chapel

AndyH — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 08:00:14 +0000

Unlock the secret of Rosslyn Chapel and find the great treasure the Templar Knights.

rosslyn

Rosslyn Chapel Adventure

Download

An original 3D puzzle adventure game brought to you by OvineByDesign.

Upon the death of your Grandfather Douglas Black a diary is passed onto you through his will.

It is a very strange diary, full of tales of the Templar Knights and the holy land, Rosslyn Chapel and a great secret kept hidden for hundreds of years.

Can you finish your Grandfathers work? Unlock the secret of Rosslyn Chapel and find the great treasure the Templar Knights fought and died for?

Advance look at the Rosslyn Diary

StuC — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 22:25:57 +0000

Advance look at the Rosslyn Diary

We are giving you the chance to grab an advance copy of the Rosslyn Adventure Diary, which you will use to solve the 50 or so puzzles in the forthcoming “Rosslyn Adventure”

Grab a pdf version here

Or view an online version HERE

The mini site is active but the final download is not yet complete.

http://rosslyn.ovine.net

Ipad2

StuC — Fri, 27 May 2011 20:56:29 +0000

Random ramblings

Ok so got me an ipad2, sitting watching the telly typing away as there is nothing on!

2 of my iPhone games are currently stalled whilst I’m waiting fir graphics to be done. The problem with coding is that if you rush ahead then the graphics come along and you have to redo code (grrr a pet hate of mine)

It will be interesting to see what kind of speeds I can get out of games on the iPad using the monkey language (which is my current weapon of choice) It’s amazing how low powered the apple devices really are and even more amazing is how some of the current AAA iPhone titles run so smooth.

Coming Soon……

StuC — Wed, 25 May 2011 14:59:33 +0000

Coming soon to an Iphone/Android/PC/iMac soon!

Its going to be an exciting year for Ovine this year. Ovine are set to release retro styled games for the mobile marketplace with all of our efforts going into gameplay , gameplay and gameplay.

We currently have 4 iphone/android games in development and 1 PC only games and another PC/MAC adventure.

Cant say too much about the iphone games as we dont want people stealing our thunder and releasing something similar now do we ?

For the PC we are immanently close to a release of THE ROSLYN ADVENTURE with it now going into final testing.

We should follow that with a release of the HAWKSMILL ADVENTURE available on the PC and MAC.