FULL VERSION of Demolitious is now FREE!
That’s right Demolitious is now free and of course no ads! Imagine that? So what’s the catch? The only thing we ask is if you enjoy the game please take the time to rate it and share it with your friends. Check it out here:
Demolitious for iPhone/iPad
Demolitious for Android
Enjoy!
Posted in *News* by .
Dec 11
24
News: Unity3D v3.5 beta RELEASED!
Since the Unite 2011 conference we’ve been anticipating the next Unity installment. Earlier speculations were December 2011 and here it is!!! Well it’s beta but still!!
- Built-in Pathfinding <—- OMG!!!
- BRAND NEW particle system: Shuriken Particle System
- Export to Flash!
- Brand new multi-threaded renderer! Support for Linear Space Lighting & HDR!
- Google Chrome Native Client Deployment
- Occlusion Culling & LOD improvements
- And much more!
Check out Unity3D v3.5 beta now!!!
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Here’s a rough version of the framework so far. I have it working with a game now but there’s still more code design that needs to be completed before release. From the screenshot you can see I tossed in some textures just to hold things into place. The textures are easily swappable; in fact the entire GUI style can be replaced completely. I’ve been using a console interface to unit test the functionality of the framework. Currently there are a few ideas on the design of the core part of the framework in the works, to allow extensibility for new commands & features.
Stay tuned!
Posted in Game Developing by .
Oct 11
25
Game Developing: What’s next?
Sadly Unite is over… but the next big update for Unity is just around the corner, so what’s next? Research for the next project continues! Currently we’re very fond of having a multiplayer game so I’ve been studying up on Unity’s networking API and their networking tutorials. Ideally we’d like to create a framework where every game that is made from now on has the option to be multiplayer. One my favorite features of the Torque Engine was all the games made with it were automatically multiplayer. In fact you had to make a very small code change (comment one line of code out) to make single player games. Back in the day, Torque’s network code was legendary (and in some ways still is) and was capable of making 64-player games such as Tribes 1 & 2 possible.
So far things are looking really good and I can’t wait to share more!!
Stay tuned!
Posted in Game Developing by .
Sep 11
29
News: Unite 2011 Day 1!!
Today’s Keynote was so amazing it’s hard to put into words. The video should be posted on Unity’s site soon but until then here are some of the major features announced for the upcoming Unity 3.5:
- Pathfinding <— OMG FINALLY!!!
- crowd simulation (extremely advanced techniques (inspired by aigamedev.com)
- agents will different paths if one path is too crowded
- can be connect with gaps (agents will jump over), ladders, etc
- is baked in the editor, very minimal overhead (however the immediately release will not support dynamic pathfinding; so if something falls in the way of the path it will not recalculate a path but you can manually do it!)
- baking a navmesh is done very quickly less than a minute or 2 depending on your machine
- Scaling Projects
- builtin UI for Perforce & SVN
- multiple users can edit the same scene
- cache server greatly increases asset import process (in some case 10 hour import process was reduced to minutes!!)
- New Occlusion System
- re-programmed to greatly increase accuracy & speed when baking (before 5 minute bakes can now be done in seconds!!!)
- portals are introduced; portals will allow you to have areas such as corridors that will allow you to look down using occlusion
- Social API (this may get pushed back to 3.5.x)
- Facebook support
- iOS GameCenter support
- Analytics (this may get pushed back to 3.5.x)
- Zero day analytic results
- heat maps (this is amazing, the heat map will illustrate where players are dying in your level for example, quit your game, etc)
- integrated into editor
- hosted by Unity (yes the analytics server WILL BE HOSTED BY UNITY FOR FREE!!!!)
- In-App purchases
- will be cross-platform
- accessible in editor
- integrated with Social API & Analytics
- Acquired Animation Company
- Multi-Threaded Renderer
- GPU Optimizer; down to the individual object
- New Particle System: Shuriken
- LOD added to Editor
- editor is smooth with large environments
- demo’d 20,000 buildings / 70 million polygons & editor was still extremely fast!!
- Webcam & Microphone Support
- Misc. Optimization
- expect 2x-3x performance increase!
So when is Unity 3.5 coming out? Great question! That was definitely what everyone was talking about today. Hopefully more information will come out in the next couple of days.
Stay tuned!
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Mind Map software is great for brainstorming or as a great alternative to just writing down notes in a text file!
I wanted to share some experiences in regards to mobile development details using Unity3D that I learned while developing Demolitious.
Art Assets & Descriptions:
- be sure to have some cool screenshots ready; iPhone & android both have specific resolution and format requirements
- have you thought about the description of how cool your game is in a couple of paragraphs? How about a tagline?
GUI Optimization:
- Get started on this early; especially if you’re going to have a lot of buttons!!!
- Using Unity3D GUI classes will severely affect framerate in your game, so avoid at all costs!
- Some people will suggest GUITexture as a substitution for the GUI classes (particularly buttons), however I realized later that you’ll want to use a Mesh instead. By using a 2D Mesh (scale to zero on one of the axis) as a button for example, you can share the mesh across multiple buttons using different materials for the button text resulting in a huge reduction in draw calls!!!
iPhone Development:
- Expensive fees: $99/year (I have yet to discover a limit of the number of apps you can submit)
- Complex submission: seriously compared to the Android this really sucks but here goes a few items to know about
- you’ll need an Apple computer to compile and develop games (or you can run OSX using VMWare or VirtualBox (free!) on Windows; this works really well!)
- you’ll need to create a Private Key & some certificates
- make a backup of the Private Key; if you LOSE IT (OS crash, etc) you are COMPLETELY SOL! You will no longer be able to UPDATE THE APP!
- Backing up your Private Key is simple but like many of Apple’s docs the process of importing it into another machine or the same machine is incorrect (you’ll need to drag & drop it in Key Access->Keys; double clicking will “sometimes” result in an error
- submission: the submission process takes between 3-5 business days from what I’ve experienced. This is a problem if you need to make quick updates; I’ve heard speculation that this review process amongst other reasons is to ensure you thoroughly test your app so your updates are less frequent. If it’s an emergency (I think there’s a limit) you can submit a request to expedite a review.
- submission docs are in my opinion at times heavily convoluted & inaccurate
Android Development:
- It’s free to develop for Android but if you want to sell through the Android Marketplace it’s a one time fee of $25 (again I didn’t see a limit of the number of apps you can submit)
- Creating a Private key is trivial (back this up too); there is no review time (server will update in about 3 hours after receiving your app; including updates to your app).
- Due to the huge number of different Android models (Unity3D supports 384+ devices as of the time of this writing), you’ll be inundated with emails regarding resolution issues; I have yet to find a way to force a resolution or anything so you’ll need to be careful with everything from GUI stuff to camera position (especially in 2D games!)
- User interface (buttons, sliders, and all other GUI objects) if not coded carefully will result in different sizes & position across several Android models due to different resolutions; again you’ll be inundated with emails!
- This also causes problems with new phones that come out with undocumented APIs (yea I’m looking at you EVO 3D!) so you might have the joy of manually omitting them the supported device list provided by the Android Marketplace
These were some of the larger pitfalls I’ve faced; I’ll try to add more as I run into or recall them. If you would like to add some pitfalls I missed please send me an email (click the About button at the top of this page). Perhaps I’ll add this to a page in the Wiki…
Stay tuned!
Posted in Game Developing by .
Adding a slide out control panel helped performance & functionality!
What’s really cool about this version of Demolitious is that we introduced several new features. Arguably the most significant change is the introduction of Rapid Fire & Team Work!
- Rapid Fire: Now you NO longer have to wait between shots; just swipe and fire another shot!!!
- Team work: PROJECTILES ARE NOW EFFECTED BY EXPLOSIONS!! In some situations it may be helpful to combine shots. For example, shooting a yellow cannonball followed by an explosive one will essentially turn the yellow cannonball into a VERY powerful piece of shrapnel. Try different combinations AND in different orders to create unique results!!
Oh did I mention some more optimizations? How about 40% optimization from GUI.Repaint by switching from Unity’s internal GUI components to textures & scripts:
Hey kids, don’t use Unity’s internal GUI components for mobile games!
Here some other cool features:
- jump to levels and check out global scores during gameplay!
- changed color of cannon
- switch screens during "Game Over" (Tip: something might occur if the enemies die at the "Game Over" screen)
- sound can now be disabled (listen to your music while playing)
- each shot has a different color trajectory marker
- projectile trails now have different colors
- "Anti-Achievements" implemented
“Awesome so when is Demolitious v3.0 available?”
As the title of this post “hints” at, it’s available now right here on the site & in the Android Marketplace. I’ve just submitted it to Apple’s Appstore so expect it in about a week due to their lengthy approval process.
UPDATE: Demolitious & Demolitious Lite are now available in Apple’s Appstore!
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Hey everyone I wanted to let everyone know that Demolitious is NOW available on the iPhone!! We recommend using an iPhone 4, 4th Generation iPod, or an iPad (1 or 2) to receive the best experience. Demolitious comes in two flavors; free and paid. There are absolutely NO ads in the free version and the paid version which has many more levels and several more types of ammo you can use is only $0.99 cents! If you’re not familiar with Demolitious; Demolitious is a trajectory based game similar to Scorched Earth, Angry Birds, and Worms. You can play the full version through your web browser for FREE!
Aug 11
15
News: What’s next?
Map of Maniac Mansion
After releasing another version of Demolitious, I’ve decided to start the research phase of a new game. Developing for mobile platforms offers a unique challenge; particularly with memory and CPU utilization. One of the benefits I’ve enjoyed from developing for mobile platforms is the amount of people you can reach in a relatively short time and with very low cost.
I really like some of the older games from yesteryear however many of the genres have issues running on touch based devices. One major challenge is of course the controls, in addition to your fingers, must be on the screen while playing which inadvertently inhibits the view of the game. We’ll see what the research turns up! Enjoy Demolitious!
Stay tuned!
Posted in *News* by .
Jul 11
29
News: Demolitious & Unity3D
Demolitious playing in the iPhone Simulator
The first steps for deploying Demolitious to iOS has begun! If you have never developed for iOS before… Surprise!! There are several hoops you have to jump through to get your billion dollar idea out the door and into the hands of millions. Although it’s not nearly as simple or as fast as deploying to the Android Marketplace, once you do it a few times, the process becomes faster (the deploying part, not necessarily the Apple approval part). After I submit Demolitious and it’s approved (fingers-crossed) I’ll post the steps I took to do it. Information on the subject is a tad lacking in my opinion.
New version of Demolitious was released yesterday for web only; here are the new features:
- enemies now die if under debris
- angle & power labels restored (values are still omitted)
- increased time before ammo dies
- adjusted several level’s difficulty to make it easier to win with plain cannonballs
- testing new ammo type: one eyed-eye patch wearing-dolphin-smoking an exploding cigar ammo (level 21+)
More exciting news, Unity 3.4 was released!!! As I reported earlier Allegorithmic Substance has been integrated and a huge amount of features and fixes have been added (Android building hangs, errors, etc have been fixed!).
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