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iOS Project Log 3

iOS Project Log 3

Published by Stacie on February 17, 2016

Last week the local superhero and I met with some of the designers to pitch our personal projects and explain the group project some more. The placid dinosaur was on a business trip, as dinos do, but checked in via our team Slack.

Notes from that meeting:

  • The personal projects put the devs in the unique position of being both client and collaborator. I think this is a new concept for some of our group.
  • Communicating visually, with links to apps or screenshots or in person demonstrations will help the process.
  • Not everyone is comfortable with Slack as a communication tool, not everyone is familiar with InVision as a prototyping tool. We are all learning.
  • Clear requests/requirements and examples will be the best bet.
  • No designers are currently assigned, waiting on them to talk amongst themselves, then we will divide and conquer!

 

Sound Maze Progress

I am about a 25% of the way through the Cartoon Smart Maze Games tutorial. I can place SKNodes on the canvas, recognize gestures and have created a player/hero class. I have a working hero atlas which is animating through several frames.

I like the teaching audio and progression quite a bit, but all videos of programming/typing need closer focus on the active pane. Please don’t waste my smaller screen with sidebars and whitespace from a larger screen.

Additionally, if you are recording a presentation of ‘live’ coding, please increase the font size. I’ve been zooming in on the hd video to see what’s going on, but that makes it more difficult to pause and rewind.

Some takeaways:

  • CGPointZero is a shortcut for (0.0,0.0)
  • Every SKSpriteNode can have a parent. you can move/animate everything on the screen at once by moving/animating just that parent node.  (this reminds me of my ancient Flash developing days)
  • I keep getting this error, but it doesn’t seem to stop me from successfully building/running my code. It may be a remnant of an earlier version of Xcode. I’m ignoring it for now.

CUICatalog: Invalid Request: requesting subtype without specifying idiom

  • Spent some time discussing the error and some other ideas about the game with the local superhero (who is also planning a game for a personal project). He had this suggestion regarding animation atlases: 

You should consider using reverseAction() for the last part of the array.  This will help with longer animations.  Animate 1-3 then reverse it.

Other game thoughts:

  • Use a Triad for sound feedback – Three note chords consisting of a root, third, and fifth. Perhaps each sound detail be a valid direction choice?
  • Use Tollways… gates between areas that require a Bell sound mini-game or have some other puzzle element.
  • I poked around some assets I bought over the holidays looking for some basic graphics/sounds to prototype with.
  • Things I learn for this game keep inspiring me for another one I started last semester. I keep tucking away those ideas for later pondering.
iOS Project Log 2

iOS Project Log 2

Published by Stacie on February 8, 2016

Group Progress:

Our group project team has grown with the addition of a local super hero, and 5 designers. Most of us will meet on Thursday to get a feel for each other and start to figure out how we’ll work on the group projects and solo projects too.

My Progress:

I looked a bit at some iOS game books I purchased from the Packt.com ebook sale at the end of last year. I started a post about those books in the post titled: Currently reading – iOS

Then I researched a little on OpenAL,which may be overkill, time will tell.

Started looking at a Mazes + Swift tutorial at Cartoon Smart. I hope to get a good base understanding of tiles, and level design, and some basic boundary and control management, and then build from there.

I did a little more brainstorming on how I might want to use sound.

Ideas:

  • Perhaps play a chord, with each tone relating to an open direction?
  • Add some audio mini games like Simon games, where you listen and repeat?
  • Use music to control the hero?

Previously:

iOS Project Log 1

iOS Project Log 1Screencap of a tiny bit of AppDelegate, generated by Xcode

iOS Project Log 1

Published by Stacie on January 28, 2016

This semester, Spring 2016, I am taking my 3rd class in iOS/Swift programming. We are required to work on 2 major projects.

The first is a group project, which I am working on with an awesome placid dinosaur, and the second is a personal project. I may post about the group project in the future, but I primarily want to document my journey/process/random flailing for the personal project.

Both projects will  match us with students from the Design Portfolio class. That frees me to focus on making function and mechanics, leaving theme, branding and graphic asset in their capable hands.

Curious about the class offered at MadisonCollege.edu, you can check out the instructor’s twitter here: EjKnapp@twitter.

Disclaimer: This is my personal website, all opinions here are my own and not of my employer. Enjoy!

 

Sound Maze

I am going to create a maze or roguelike game with SpriteKit, and want to explore sound and accessibility.

Week 1

  • No official title, am using Sound Maze as a placeholder.
  • Have researched some audio only games. Not a lot to choose from, have only found one really well polished. Papa Sangre II is an audio driven adventure game with minimal UI, and uses 3d binaural sound. I think a full 3d sound design is out of scope for the semester, so will be looking for something simpler.
  • Exploring some Audio libraries like:
    •  OpenAl https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/samplecode/oalTouch/Introduction/Intro.html
    • Papa Sangre has an 3d sound engine, but does not appear to be available.
  • Trying to come up with core concepts for the game design. I know I want sound involved, should I work with echoes, reflections, redshifts?
  •  I’ll need to create a solvable maze maker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maze_generation_algorithm is a good place to start.
  • By the same token, I may want to create a test ‘solver‘ to test that things are indeed solvable and test the sound design as well. (Could this become an antagonist racing the player?) http://www.astrolog.org/labyrnth/algrithm.htm#perfect
  • I’m thinking, topdown, grid, 2d, but this may change based on design input. I anticipate most of the mechanics will operate the same tho.
  • At this point I think finding your way through a maze with audio cues might be enough of a challenge, so am not currently planning monsters but may include some traps or obstacles.