New Work In Progress - Million Words: Multiplayer Crossword Game for Parents and Kids that Grades on a Curve

Although I do iOS Contracting to pay my bills (at least to date), I hope one day to earn a living from my own apps, and, although it’s not ready for release, the time has come to unveil my new project.

Million Words is a turn-based crossword game where you’re scored not by what letters you managed to get into your word, but by the grade level of your word, relative to your age. This way my six-year-old daughter could play “HELLO” and I could play “HELICOPTER” and we would get the same number of points (more or less).

Color Mixing with Multitouch

OK, It’s more fun and more challenging now, although I’m not sure anyone would buy it, even if I polished it.

It was way too easy, so I took a cue from @ OwenGoss’s Dapple and put in a color mixing element.

So now there are 6 colors of spaceships and 6 colors of shields but still only 3 buttons:

So if you want to block the green aliens, you have to hit the Blue and Yellow buttons at the same time while the green spacecraft enters the atmosphere.

It's a Game! (Not sure if it's any fun, yet, though)

Movie code starts !

Movie code ends !

So it actually kind of looks like a game now. I need scoring, I guess, and some consequences, but the idea is there.

From The List:

1. Get a cocos2d hello world screen showing the big blue ball royalty-free NASA supplied image

2. Get a quick sprite to be the bad guy on the screen.

3. Cover the world in an opaque block when screen is touched and restore it when touches end

   Published at November 10, 2010 ·  1 min read

My plan for world (and self) deprecation

While I’m waiting of my wife and 4 year old to meet me for dinner, thought I’d jot down a quick list (it doesn’t count as starting until I open XCode, right)?

1. Get a cocos2d hello world screen showing the big blue ball royalty-free NASA supplied image

2. Get a quick sprite to be the bad guy on the screen.

3. Cover the world in an opaque block when screen is touched and restore it when touches end

   Published at November 10, 2010 ·  1 min read

Quick concept art

Threw this together in DrawIt (scaled down to save bandwidth):

Status Update: Primary-Colored World

Movie code starts !

Movie code ends !

Really remedial, but something is actually happening. Only took 4 and a half hours to get colors to show up.

But, as for my list:

1. Get a cocos2d hello world screen showing the big blue ball royalty-free NASA supplied image

2. Get a quick sprite to be the bad guy on the screen.

3. Cover the world in an opaque block when screen is touched and restore it when touches end

   Published at November 10, 2010 ·  1 min read

Talking to Myself

I’m going to keep writing updates to RapidWeaver locally - Although I have no idea when I’ll have enough bandwidth to actually publish them.

Kinda takes the fun out of it.

In any case, I have the ship moving (until it hits the bottom of the screen). It’s at least looking more like a game now.

Next up: Conveyor Belt

The Sky is falling!

Movie code starts !

Movie code ends !

Or at least the aliens are.

1. Get a cocos2d hello world screen showing the big blue ball royalty-free NASA supplied image

2. Get a quick sprite to be the bad guy on the screen.

3. Cover the world in an opaque block when screen is touched and restore it when touches end

4. Make the alien move.

5. Make the alien able to collide with the block.

6. Make the game over popup if the alien collides with the world while the block isn’t up.

   Published at November 10, 2010 ·  1 min read

Confessions of an Inept Game Designer: 360iDev Game Jam Post 1

I’ve written one game my entire life, and I think I was 11 at the time, and it involved PRINT@ statements on the TRS-80 Model 1, so I don’t exactly consider myself a game designer.

That said, I’m attending the 360iDev conference, and they have an all-night game-design session they call the Game Jam, and it sounds like too educational an opportunity to pass up. And if I’m going to remember much after staying up all night, I’m going to have to write it down, and I figure there are worse places than my blog, so here goes:

What Makes for an Uncivilized iPhone Game - One Gamer’s Opinion

With the imminent release of Civilization V, I thought I would wax nostalgic about one of my favorite games ever, and why it’s unlikely to ever be that fun again.

When I got my iPhone (3G), I loved it, and one of the things I loved about it was the ability to play games on it. There were a few games I enjoyed, but I really longed for the inevitable influx of classic games ported to the new platform. I thought back into the distant past, and thought about the games that I used to love when the computers I owned were less powerful and had less screen resolution than what I now had in my pocket. Thinking of the candidates, one clear winner stood out:

Halo Reach - This Is the Halo Game I've Been Waiting For (very minor spoilers)

I completed Halo: Reach (on normal).  For once, it didn’t disappoint.  No giant monkey hammer reverse Donkey Kong boss battle this time.  A real, satisfying ending that wasn’t just a rehash of the now-iconinc race to get away from the self destruct from thehe first Halo.I only remember two escort missions, but they were very short.  One wasn’t so much an escort mission as a “kill the big boss to allow someone to get away from it” and the single “follow this NPC and protect him” mission involved my favorite thing about Halo: ODST, so I was grinning instead of cursing during that brief section.I really like the commendation system which, while having been done before in previous titles, is well thought out and gives the player feedback and statistics that are interesting and give the player targets to try to hit.  Oddly, it reminds me of one of my favorite D&D modules, in which the players were “scored” based on how well they did, and after the game was over, you could go and look and see how you did relative to other people, and what you could have done differently.  It and the modules like it made for extra fun, and helped us to improve our playing skills.Now that I’ve finished playing on normal to get through the story, it’s time to start slogging my way through Legendary.  It’s often frustrating, and it will take me a long time, but the satisfaction to beat a level on solo Legendary (at least in the first one, and I expect on this one, too) is worth it.Wish me luck…

Sometimes it's good to be wrong. I'm really enjoying Halo: Reach

I had said that I wasn’t going to buy it, but, after being disappointed with the game I expected to be playing now, and being stressed out recently, and since my wife and daughter are out of town, I decided I needed something to do for fun.  So I caved in and bought Halo: Reach.

I’m really enjoying it.

I’ve gotten through Mission 6 at this point, and I’ve enjoyed it so far.  One mission reminded me of the Truth and Consequences level of Halo 1 (the night time creeping around sniping one), which I really enjoyed (both in Halo 1 and Reach).  The Space Combat mission was surprisingly fun (although I lost my bearings several times - I expected more from the HUD), but easier than I expected.

Hence the Name - Escort Missions - the Bane of my Gaming Existence

Ah, Escort Missions - I haven’t had a good rant about Escort Missions in a while. Our contestant tonight is Dead Rising 2: Case Zero (spoilers ahead).

Fasten your seat belts.  After all, I wouldn’t want you to get a boo-boo - ‘cause then I’d have to start the whole rant over from the beginning (or at least my last save point).

The first Escort Mission I remember was, I think, X-Wing circa 1993.  At least that’s the first time I ever remember failing to make progress in a game because some stupid computer-controlled moron paying no attention to the obvious fact that he was in a combat zone that I had no influence over had done something idiotic and gotten his dipshit Freighter-flying ass blown to tiny little bloody pieces, sparkling forever as the drifted through the cold vacuum of space.

Halo: Reach - Are we going here again?

I loved the first Halo game. It quickly became my favorite first person shooter at the time (a title that had previously been held by the first Half-Life).  I’ve played all the way through it by myself at least six times, and in co-op at least three (I do have to admit, though, the Library, solo, on Legendary is the one level I’ve never been able to beat.  Damn grenade chain reactions…Grrr…).It wasn’t just that the game was very polished, although it was.  It wasn’t just that it had one of the most memorable ending sequences ever, although it did. I remember thinking: “What, a driving level? with a countdown? This is going to Suck.”  But it didn’t.  Somehow, it kept me riveted.My favorite thing was that I was obviously playing as a BadAss Hero.I still remember the first time I played the second level.  Master Chief was approaching a temple-structure where there were a lot of Marines.  They were moaning about how much trouble they were in.  They were channeling  Bill Paxton from Aliens.  I could hear “I need some back up now,” “I can’t fight this thing alone,” and “Taking heavy fire!”  And then one of them noticed Master Chief walking up.  Suddenly it was " Wow! There he is!" and “The Cavalry has arrived!“I had no real idea about the character I was playing - he never spoke, I never saw his face, but I knew he - I was a BadAss Hero.  And it was a pleasure living up to that.I remember the first teaser for Halo 2. The Earth was under bombardment.  Master Chief, in high orbit, grabs a single rifle from an arms locker and hurls himself out of an airlock towards a Covenant ship below. The “I will figure out something on the way down” attitude was so obvious, I could read it through an opaque face-shield.  I couldn’t wait.I wish I had.Master Chief wasn’t a BadAss anymore.  He wasn’t even very important.  He was constantly having to be saved by an Elite that the first Halo’s Master Chief would have used as a broom, and worse: he got bitch-slapped by  Audrey 2 from Little Shop of Horrors.And then the ending: the “hero” - I had been reduced to playing Mario from Donkey Kong, complete with the platforming, only this time the monkey had the hammer and the “hero” had to be protected by Sgt. Johnson.The multiplayer, I’m told, got better. But the singe player campaign sure suffered, and by the time I finished the final boss fight, I was too pissed to care.I swore I wouldn’t buy Halo 3.  The trailer made Master Chief look so insignificant, cowering under a Covenant mothership. But I wanted to recapture that magic on my shiny new 360 console, so I caved in.  I finished the campaign, but I regretted it.I did buy Halo:ODST.  As a game, it was lame.  The hero was a complete wimp. It me hours to beat one pair of Hunters.  However, I’m actually glad I bought it, because as a partial Firefly cast reunion piece, it was a lot of fun.Which brings us to Halo: Reach.  Bungie says (again) that they’ve done a lot of work on the single player campaign, and (again) that it will be better.  I wonder if it buying it would make me feel like a BadAss again… or more like a tool…