No story is complete without its origins. We love to share with you the very first white-box environment of XnO!
XnO began its origins from the name "Ice Breakers", the way the cylindrical blocks were breaking. We had 3 walls couple of boxes from unity asset packages. And began the journey. We wanted to take a simple idea and implement in it all the possible depths.
When we began majority of the games were 2D or side scrollers, that never gave the player full satisfaction of real life interaction with physics of the objects. So we chose a 3D engine, as to why "unity" - the amount of tutorials, community support and ease of start was a key factor in choosing that engine.
To be a team you would need atleast 3 components to begin with - programmer, 2D/3D artist and level designer. Not to say one person can handle more than one aspect. As a team we were all on the same page, we want to make a physics based game with focus on gameplay first.
We followed the following steps:
i) Create first level - We used very basic components - rectangle, sphere, cylinder to create a game play scenario.
ii) Create a flow through of the game - Main Menu, Options and Level Select Screens. Once this was done adding new levels was very easy.
iii) In Game HUD - To enter and exit from any level
iv) Uploaded a web version for our friends/family to play.
Once we had all the pieces then we focussed on exploring all the possible depths and variations in the gameplay that can be achieved to make the game engaging and fun. In our case - target variations, introducing obstacles, power-ups, use of accelerometer to enhance gameplay. Once we had built the key features in, we explored on how to increase difficulty of the levels as the game progressed. At this stage we made some of our models, used some from unity and still used royalty free music.
Once we had good 20 levels working with all the above, we started showing it to people who either played a lot of games or were in gaming. This gave us a good insight on how improve.
As an indie developer it was so much easier for us to do the white-box the way we did because we focussed on Gameplay and Game Design, not so much on the art in the beginning. So when we got the feedback to change, it was so much easier to do it. We were never set in stone.
XnO is our attempt at making a 3D game with as close as possible to real physics without sacrificing the gameplay and memory footprint of the game. XnO is now available on Google Play and Amazon App Store.
Related
Hi everybody out there with a good hand for nice looking graphics ;-)
I started a little (now, its a bit more complex) tower defense game at least 6 months ago. Now, as it's getting colder out, i have a little bit more time (after my family) to start working further on it.
A lot of ground programming is done, as pathfinding, building, upgrading towers, with zooming in and out. Framerate is configurable. Enemies are also configurable to attack towers. Towers range, health, firepower and behaviour [shoot nearest, weakest etc. pp] is configurable (programmatically at the moment).
So, i used some tiles from other programmers (asking them before) but im not lucky with the graphics at all (and as you know, a game is getting better with it's graphics ^^). The graphics itself is 2D and i'm in need for all graphic related things, as splash screen, menu layout, playfields and of course, towers and enemies (mostly of course animated) - where tilesize should be 64 or 32.
AND of course, it's not ready made yet. It needs a lot of overhaul at the end (as game balancing, level design, difficulty level ...).
So, if anyone is interested in such a game (yeah, i know, there are a lot out there ... but maybe there are some nice ideas - improvements?) - send me a pm or reply in this thread
Id be interested in lending a hand, though it depends on exactly how much work you need. But I'd certainly be interested in hearing some more info about the style / theme you were going for, and I might be able to help out ~
splinter82 said:
Id be interested in lending a hand, though it depends on exactly how much work you need. But I'd certainly be interested in hearing some more info about the style / theme you were going for, and I might be able to help out ~
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i need all graphics to be done. i've "borrowed" some graphics from other sites, asking the developers first, but the tilesets are not enough and i'm not really familar with graphics design (also simplest graphics )
what i need (and your imagination may have no limits) are:
- tilesets for towers
- tilesets for enemies
- playfields or "rooms"
- explosions
- projectiles
- maybe a well designed icon
format of tilesets (or single tiles) may be discussed, i prefer 32x32 or 64x64 tiles.
the style is not choosen yet. currently, style is medieval. but i really don't like it much and graphics looking not that good. style itself should not depend on implementation. as i wrote already, most of the implementation is done, graphics are changeable. so, if you're really interested, i may give you some short shots to get a picture of what's done so far.
and yes, graphics work is mostly 50% of the work ... the more eye candy an app is, the more successful.
Just decided to share - legendary 5-in-a-row Jumba from Windows Mobile, one of the best and beautiful games for WM is now on Android for free!
Jumba is an exciting puzzle game. Its gameplay is easy to learn but hard to master which makes it extremely addictive.
The game features high resolution graphics and a relaxing soundtrack. You can also share your highscores with thousands of other players in a world wide challenge. Of course without registration.
The idea of the game:
Your goal is to create lines of 5 balls or more to make them vanish. By creating multple lines without wasting a move in between you can increase your score. Bonus items like jokers and multiplier-boxes will help you to achieve even greater highscores.
Grab it here:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/...251bGwsMSwxLDEsImRlLmZ1bjRtb2JpbGUuanVtYmEiXQ
What's your opinion on the game? In my opinion there should be some additional modes like classic lines or time attack mode... I could not end a single game - seems to be rather easy.
But still very relaxing and beautiful
Digital Eclairs went to Pinewood's after school program called AppLab, focused on getting kids more hands on on new electronics coming up.
We presented our project XnO, with multiple handled devices to kids (age group 8-12). After the first 15 mins of hands on experience, they were really enjoying the gameplay, comparing it to different games titles and how it was better, why they liked 3D, asking questions on when the app would be released, and they were very interested in knowing about the process of how it was created.
It showed us that 3D environments were a welcome change, kids respond well to warm colors we used. We set each kid on a different level and they seemed comfortable playing and getting familiar with the app. Some kids responded very well with the higher levels and some not so well because we had not ramped them through the initial gameplay, but after a few tries they started to get the hang of the game and when they were able to win they were really happy. In retrospect we realized that this was a bit of a difficult learning curve for someone new coming to this game, but with the release upon us we had to move forward with what he had. In order to give people a taste of the game on the iOS we released with a showcase of 5 levels, which looking back on it now, care is needed when choosing the level of difficulty to the casual gamer.
The Accelerometer presented an interesting challenge to the kids, once they figured out they could lift the device and tilt it left and right to move the character they were able to pick up on it quick and continue with how they had been completing the levels previously. We were short few devices and a few kids had to share the same device. The ones who were collaborating did very well on higher levels taking turns and really engaging in the game and helping each other and were faster in adapting to the game. This helped us understand that putting out a physics puzzled based game would definitely require a walkthrough to help the community through some of those tough levels.
As a developer with our first game a week away from release, it was an exhilarating experience to see our product being enjoyed by these kids. Their eagerness to explore all the game features gave us so much satisfaction and all the pain and efforts in building this game were totally worth it. The kids were very interested in knowing the process of how the game was made and when they were asked for feedback they all jumped in saying: They loved double headed turtle and wanted a three headed turtle, in-game currency that they can use to buy in things in game like weapons, wallpaper, and many more suggestions.
To anyone who want to make their own game, arrange group play tests ahead of time once you have a working build. You will get wonderful insight into your game. We had initially done a lot a individual testing from industry people, which is very useful and should not be ignored but for a complete overview on a game and end user perspective go for group tests, as individual test can sometimes be misleading. And do it as soon and as often as possible.
Digital Eclairs, is an independent game development studio. XnO - 3D Adventure Game is launch on iTunes and Google Play.
Maybe you have played to this classic game on your childhood at school or have heard about it through a friend and/or relatives.
It's an easy and fun game for two to four players. You can play against other people or against (CPU) machine. Further it includes several modes of play: online, against machine and offline (to play with your friends while you're with them).
Each game consists of a board with a set of dots. Each player must join two straight points to form a line, by turns, so that they have to try to form a square before opponents. When a square is created, it is filled with the color of the player who has formed it. In this way, the objective of the game is to try to fill more squares than the other players to win.
This game includes outstanding features such as:
- The existence of a series of rankings (points, wins, balance) so that each player can see his/her progress in the game.
- The existence of a series of ranges/awards obtained within each classification to be rewarding positive developments in each player.
- The viewing of the top 10 players for each ranking from Square League and the comparative of the player regarding these (if he/she is not within these 10 players) So if you want to have a good time playing and entertain yourself, either with friends or alone, this is your game.
Available for all Android devices.
Enjoy the game!
Hi everyone,
Wanted to let the community know that we've created a game modding driver called MantaMod, which works directly at the OpenGL ES stream by intercepting it before passing on to the actual Android device gpu driver. Since it works at the driver layer, control or modding of Android games can be done without needing to change the original game APK package.
We are a small team and haven't had a chance to try it out ourselves on the Ouya device though, so it'll be great if someone could give it a shot. Any feedback or 'wishlist' for desired features / supported games is much appreciated! Do drop us a note at [email protected], we'll be glad to hear from you.
Some background: Things that can be done with MantaMod include:
- Texture Replacement: run-time dynamic insertion of custom textures into games allowing you to change the game graphics without needing to modify the original APK.
- Unlocked view camera: via run-time gpu shader replacement, you can unlock the game view camera and freely move it around anywhere in the 3D game scene without moving your player character
See some screenshots of the free-camera feature in the DeadTrigger zombie shooter game, as well as screenshots of various graphics mods done in Clash of Clans, SubwaySurf, AngryBirds Star Wars, etc on our website www_mantamod_com or our twitter / facebook pages
Cheers
The MantaMod Team
sounds interesting. Especially the texture replacement feature would be amazing to make HD texture packs for some games.
Also, is there any way to squeeze some more performance out of the Tegra 3 like lowering the resolution ?
Yep we actually already have the resolution change as one of the internal features, we can expose that via the web control UI for end-users if you're interested.
Let us know if there's a specific game you're interested to try this out with, we'll be glad to do up an interceptor driver for that game.
Cheers
nex86 said:
sounds interesting. Especially the texture replacement feature would be amazing to make HD texture packs for some games.
Also, is there any way to squeeze some more performance out of the Tegra 3 like lowering the resolution ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse