The night gives good advises and I prefer this interface:
Once skinned it will be more intuitive even if it requires a little bit more effort from the player.
Put your finger on an anchor (gray discs) and make the thing spin. The board follow your finger and the movement is validated when your release your finger.
The system accept fast movements and incomplete rotations to reduce finger strain :)
Between tapas and family excursions, I had the time to test accelerometer control, pan control, swipe control and of course rotate control.
It was a really interesting exercise which opened my eyes on many interface possibilities which cannot exists on our old keyboards/mouses.
Tactile tablets and phones are new extensions to the human body. Learning how to intelligently use them will takes some time…
According to my tests, for the little game, the optimal comfort position seems to be:
The beer position also works:
Please node the little curve with the disc. They let the player do a little curved movement with the finder. The player put its finger on the round and follow the curve up or down. It helps the brain associate the movement with the desired board rotation.
It is fun to play with and this prototype really give me the will to finish the little game both on the tablet and the web :)
haxe to generate an SWF, adobe flex sdk and air sdk to generate an IPA file, iTunes to put this file on the iPad -which was previously configured in develop mode.
I met a few simpler development processes. If only the iTunes step could be automated (to check).
Well… it works and it allows me to play with the accelerometer and thus create a new prototype -in haxe this time- to know if it is fun or not to turn the iPad in every directions to make blocks fall before exploding them with a finger.
After spending many weeks without coding any game, always be careful of potential strains. Take the time to warm up before starting serious things.
To exercise, I am going to code a little block game you will have to explode. It’s stupid but always fun. I’ll try to give a little bit of GamePlay freshness giving gravity control to the player. And may be one or two options will later spice things up.
A little bit of prototyping using Processing to check that the game’s core is fun enough before spending more time on the game itself.
The little prototype without score, nor options, nor bling-bling is playable there.
If it’s not too rotten after a few more prototypes, I may create a full game from it.
I’d like to adapt it to tablets so you will have to rotate your tablet to rotate the board but I’m afraid it wouldn’t really be practical for the player :)
To test.
Moving from Bordeaux to Barcelona wasn’t that easy with a never sleeping baby and a learning how to pee 2.5 years old child. But we done it!
I am really glad to be there. This is a marvelous place to live in with so many things to see and learn that I don’t know if two years will be enough.
Now we have to find a new rythm of life and I have to get back to work quickly!
As expected I do not have a lot of time to code.
Still, I have something to show: DIE-MIDS is on github.
If you ever wanted to get rid of a middlemen and sell your downloadable game straight to your players DIE-MIDS is here to help.
It is still the beginning and DIE-MIDS has to improve a lot to be really easy to use and complete.
However I think that showing the code in its current form is already a good thing which can help programmers build their own solution.
Tell me if it helped you and if you earn a lot of money thanks to DIE-MIDS do not hesitate to donate a few bucks to pay the beer!
The good news of the Week-End! The validation process took 4 weeks. It’s long for someone as impatient as me! But it was smooth and transparent so it’s quite OK. The developer interface of the center is the simplest and cleanest we saw up to now.
The Ubuntu Software Center’s share is also the most “honest” and transparent around the bloc: 20%.
Let’s hope Ubuntu users will enjoy the game as much as we had fun creating it :)
If you did not tried the latest version with the improved gameplay and new levels, get the demo here!
During all these years, I developed a kind of hatred against intermediates. Administration, commercials, distributors, etc.
Each time you rely on an intermediate you lose time, energy, joy, and money.
Intermediates are enemies of independence.
You know it, creators are fighting to recover their due and their liberty (and they immediately misled themselves in new closed platforms but that’s another fight).
Because organizing my move to Spain takes a lot of time and since creating my next game will requires even more time, I decided to dedicate my few free time slices to change the numeric distribution world a little.
I chose some recent thing I encountered and didn’t like. I am currently fighting it with code and brain power. And I will soon propose an open, efficient, secure, lowcost and easy to use solution which will make an intermediate irrelevant to most programmers.
For now I name this creation “Deliver It Enthusiastic! My Indie Delivery System.” (DIE MIDS)
I hope that many independent downloadable games developers will use it as well as others downloadable numeric goods creators. Anyway, the project in its “primary” form should be on GitHub within two or three weeks and you will do what you want with it :)
Program or be programmed like they said.
The final version of MindLabyrinth is available! Huray!
We changed the no-headset gameplay to make it a fast and fun arcade-puzzle game.
We reworked 90% of the levels to make them more challenging and stressful :)
The levels of the demo has been modified too! Don’t forget to test them!
The game is available in English and in french for Mac OSX, Windows and Linux!
For Ubuntu users, the game will soon be available on the Ubuntu store!
The demo is free and the complete version without DRM only cost 3.99€!
The complete version contain both modes: with and without headset.
An android/iPhone/iPod/iPad version may be created in the future depending on troops’ motivation :)
//And now it’s time to work on my move to Barcelona. Deadline 20 april. “incoming!”//
We spent a few days creating a version of MindLabyrinth with an alternative gameplay which doesn’t requires a MindWave(tm) headset.
We are not sure yet about this version’s gameplay. A demonstration containing the first chapter can be downloaded for Mac, Linux and Windows.
