Gavs Blog

Small Update

2010-03-16T03:49:00.000-07:00

Well,

After playing around a bit more with the Apple Game Kit I seem to have bluetooth connections established between an IPod and IPhone and they are both talking nicely to each other which is cool.

I have a basic random start process going on wherein each phone picks a random number and who ever has highest value is player one. I do need to add something to check if they both have the same number now else the game just hangs.

Once this is working I will finish up work on the graphics and game mechanics and then finish up AI play and Bluetooth play. All things considered it is progressing nicely.

Next Project

2010-03-12T05:01:00.000-08:00

Ok,

So with my first game out of the way and submitted to the App Store, I have started work on the next. It is going to be a Wild West Themed card game. The plans and initial graphical work are done and the main concepts are being developed but it is progressing very well. I hope to get this one wrapped up in a max of 2 weeks ready for testing which should be achievable as long as no major issues arise.

I will post some screen shots and more details when they become available.

Thanks

Happy Times

2010-03-09T00:41:00.000-08:00

Hi again.

Just a quick post to say that Tic Tac Glow finally went live on ITunes today which is very exciting. I am not expecting big sales as there are so many quality products on ITunes and Tic Tac Glow is such a small product, But heres hoping.

Gav

First Post

2010-03-06T12:20:00.000-08:00

I guess in the tradition as a developer this post could be classed as my 'Hello World' application we all tend to make when trying a new language.

I started this blog to chart my development adventures, document my new applications and vent my general thoughts.

First IPhone project

For the past few weeks outside of work I have slowly been working towards completion of my first IPhone application. It has finally been titled Tic Tac Glow, it has been through several name changes, multiple graphical changes and a whole host of code tweaks.

I settled on the final name after completing the now final art set (See below image) and thought it matched the game quiet well. The game is essentially a take on classic Tic Tac Toe, but with a larger grid and with the ability to shake the board in an effort to knock your opponents pieces off.

My first hurdle came from the fact that until recently I had not used a Mac before and was now reliant on one for development, and secondly I had never used Objective-C before.

After purchasing a Mac (not solely for creation of this small project I hasten to add) I soon fell in love and haven't been back to windows since. After playing with ObjC for a while I realised it had issues but was still a fantastic language.

For the graphic side I looked at iTGB and Cocos2D. I own several of Torques game engines, so this was high on the list, but after looking at Cocos2D and considering the price difference, I went with Cocos2D which as it turns out was a great decision.

One of my biggest challenges was the glow effect on the pieces, which turns out had the simplest of solutions. When one pieces is placed a slightly larger blurred version is placed on top of it which has its OpenGL blending options changed to give the glow effect. It took a lot of attempts to get everything running the way I wanted and it seems to have had no effect on performance which was an added bonus.

Although the game is complete as far as my original vision goes, I have some post submission additions I will start on, the first being bluetooth support for multiplayer. One other feature I will be quiet keen to add in future is selectable themes to change the look of the game, but we shall have to see if time permits.

The game has now been submitted to Apple for review, and should hopefully be on the Appstore soon….. fingers crossed.