GPSM and new beginnings in monkey

I made another small game to get to know monkey and see if it's right for GPSM (my Formula 1 management Game), and I really like it, it's certainly helped my code to be more organised and more modular based.

so, now I'm back to making GPSM,
One change is that I've separated the garage screen into two, so as seen in the screenshot below, there is a garage screen , where you will be able to see the condition of each of your cars, make repairs and decide whether to use a different engine or gear box.

The R&D will be for the pure development of this and next years car.

Screenshot (please excuse the terrible font and the location of the 'continue' button, I'm still not sure where to put it)

2012: Review of the Year Part 1: My Android Games

This year I finished my first games and published them on the Google Play Store for android mobiles.  Although, I don't actually rate any of them as being any good (except for hangman for educational purposes), they have given me a useful introduction into the commercial side of game making and have allowed me to feel more confident for the future (as before 2012, I had NEVER finished a game).  They've also allowed me to pay the rent and buy a few beers.

Below, I have given the games that are available in the Android store my personal rating and then I'll show their total downloads for 2012.

My Scores
Hangman 6/10
Zombie Hell 4/10
Pixeloids   3/10
Zombie Infection Defender  2/10
PixelStrip 2/10
Don't Cry Ronaldo 1/10
Abramovich's Job 1/10
Stop Santa 1/10

The Penalty of Ramos  0/10
The Penalty of Messi 0/10


Free Downloads  (Total = 484,632)
The Penalty of Ramos:    238,965  :  (Released May 2012)

The Penalty of Messi 85,252  :  (Released May 2012)

Don't Cry Ronaldo:    59,980  :  (Released June 2012)

Zombie Infection Defender:    31,186  :  (Released March 2012)

Hangman:    27,636 :   (Released February 2012)

PixelStrip:    21,105  :  (Released February 2012)

Zombie Hell:    13,214 :  :  (Released May 2012)
Abramovich's Job:    3,804  :  (Released May 2012)
Stop Santa:    1,863  :  (Released December 2012)
Pixeloids:    1,627  :  (Released March 2012)

Obviously from the free downloads stats, you could probably imagine that the ones at the top made the most money from adverts and the ones at the bottom made only a little. Also, Santa was released on the 7th of December and was downloaded more times in December than Pixeloids was in 9 months, which shows that if your game doesn't look attractive, get any exposure or isn't relevant to any current subject it will probably die.



Total Downloads (Each Month of 2012)
February.  Downloads = 11,251
March.  Downloads = 19,889
April.  Downloads = 28,599
May.  Downloads = 225,884
June.   Downloads = 118,233
July.  Downloads = 60,420
August.  Downloads = 14,416
September.  Downloads = 15083
October.  Downloads = 14,350
November.  Downloads = 12,501
December.  Downloads = 23,745

Conclusion
From these stats, we can see that my worst apps made the most money by far.  So, even if you (like me with The Penalty of Ramos) make the worst game imaginable and only spend an hour on it, if you aim it at the right audience (in this case Spain) or target a popular subject at the right time, you can be relatively successful for a short period of time, such as The two 'Penalty of..' games where very successful for two months, and they quietened down.

Rocket Croc - There are Piranhas! (and giant squid!)

I've nearly finished Rocket Croc, here are some images of the new animals I added today, as well as the current Level Select Screen.

Rocket Croc - Casual Game

As mentioned before, I've decided to switch over to using the Monkey programming language, and to get used to it. So, before I continue to work on Grand Prix Super Manager in Monkey, I've decided to make a small casual mobile game.

That game is Rocket Croc.  

It's taken me two afternoons and is nearly finished.  The idea is that you control a rocket propelled Crocodile in its search to eat.    Their are many technologically improved animals flying, such as fish, turtles and whales, and not all of them are good for the crocodile to eat.

Hopefully, (although I haven't bought the full version of monkey yet) the game will be available for Android, Flash and Windows.

An image of my F1 management game coming in 2013

Grand Prix Super Manager, my ultimate goal as a bedroom coder to create an F1 management game.  Hopefully, I can finish it in the before March and want to set myself a visible deadline.

So I've made this image of my Formula one game, which I've set as my desktop to motivate myself:

I created the whole image myself (well except for the Windows, Linux and Android logos)

Grand Prix Super Manager: Transfering to Monkey Language

 I've decided to continue experimenting this week using the Monkey programming language in making GPSM (Grand Prix Super Manager) so I'm trying to transfer all the progress I had made in Processing to Monkey.

If the transfer is a success, Monkey will hopefull allow it to be easier to include more graphics in the game, such as flags and images of the cars and their parts.  It will also allow me to hopefully port the game to more systems (I'm currently aiming for Android / Windows / Linux and maybe flash).

I'm also changing the style of the buttons and interface, while they are still created programmatically, I prefer them over the older buttons

New v Old

Inspirational Indie Success

I've been inspired by the amount of money Grey Alien Games has made, being an indie developer, $145,000 from 3 games in 6 months.  You can read about the success here:

http://greyaliengames.com/blog/143000-from-3-casual-download-games-made-in-6-months/

I find very interesting that most of the money is from the downloadable casual PC and mac games market as opposed to the mobile market.  Which as improved my belief of trying to target both pc and mobile targets with my game.

I'm currently trying out monkey, which is a nice games programming language from the inventors of blitz3D and blitzmax which I love. It makes porting the game to different targets, such as (windows, mac, mobile targets) very easy.
So, I'll be testing it out in the next few days and consider whether to continue the development of GPSM (Grand Prix Super Manager) in that or to stick with Processing.

Now, I've got a lot of free time, so will really get back into developing GPSM and hopefully try and finish it in the next couple of months. Fingers Crossed and Start your engines....

Twitter or blog for tiny Updates?

I'm not sure whether I should continue to post on my blog for tiny updates to the Grand Prix Super Manager game or just on my twitter account:

https://twitter.com/sionco

My theory is that in a time like this, when I haven't had time to do major work on the game, I'd still like to keep the blog looking active, as this helps to attract new people and also to show anyone who is kind enough to follow the blog that I am still continuing the game.  However, I don't want to release too many blog posts which only reveal a tiny update.  Any opinions are welcome...

Anyway, I've only had 2 hours to work on the game, so I've fixed a couple of small issues today, and also added a value for the teams public reputation (as shown by the green bar on the team select screen below):

This statistic will affect things such as which sponsors and drivers are willing to talk to your team.    Your teams reputation rating will be affected by things such as your race results and championship position, breaking contracts, sponsor and marketing days, the drivers you sign and any fines. 

In the future I'd also like to introduce a media/journalism section, where the player can release stories to the press about the team, drivers, other teams, which could affect the teams reputation either way.

small update: Season results

As mentioned before, I'm still busy with my real life job, so I'm only able to work on the game for a little time each week until Christmas.  But, even though development has slowed for the mean time, it does allow me to work on and complete the little parts of the game.

Today, I've added a basic season race-by-race table to the stats screen:

One thing I need to do, is to sort the drivers who haven't scored points by the results and also add the points to this screen.

Small Update. 8 Engines

Just a small update, to show that I'm still working on this in my free time.

And also, I'm trying to plan how the race works properly and better than my previous plan which would have only given a Grand Prix weekend experience.

I'm trying to incorporate different factors in my game depending on things such as the budget and F1 rules, to give the player more decisions to make.  This time I've added the maximum 8 engines that can be used during a season, the player can see the condition of each engine and select which one to use before the next Grand Prix.

I'm not to happy with the layout, but I'll come back to that.
In the future I'll also add other rules such as for gearboxes.

GP Super Manager home screen update

I've been playing with many different ideas for the home screen, some displaying a lot of data from the game and some more simple.  Anyway, for the time being I've decided to use the following style for the Android version (whether I'll also use this for the Windows and Linux PC version is still undecided).  The colours and theme could change in the future, but for now I'm happy with the layout.

One step back, two steps forward (hopefully)

I've was working in my real job last week, so I didn't have anytime to update the game.

But this week I'm back to work.

I've completely changed how the different screens or sections (such as drivers screen, R&D screen) are setup by making the code more modular and this has also saved a nice of bit of memory when the game runs.

The theme of the game is now easily editable so I can easily change the colours or GUI in the future, if I think they need improving.

Also, I'm now started to redo the R&D in the game. Changes and Ideas:

• There are now 9 different parts that can be improved.
• You will be able to set how much of the budget is for this years car and how much for next years.
• For both this years parts and next years, you can set how conservative or radical you want to be with design.  A conservative approach means steady progress depending on the budget and team size.  A radical approach means a bit more of a gamble, in that the new part/car may turn out to be a massive improvement or simply may just not work.
• an improvement in reliability comes with either going to test sessions or taking part in each session in a Grand Prix weekend.  So there will be more failures at the start of a season.   (I'm also considering small improvements in reliability depending on the technical facilities a team has, but this is only a maybe).

I'm still considering how to show all this data, but the current R&D screen is here (but as always, it'll probably change sometime before I 'hopefully' finish this project)

Grand Prix Super Manager

Due to the fact that it was pointed out to me that there's another game in development with similar initials to mine, I've decided to change the games name.

It will no be called Grand Prix Super Manager

In development news, I've been mostly fixing bugs and reducing the memory footprint of the game.

GP Race Manager: Lots of updates.

Wow, it's been just over a month since I restarted this, so, I thought that I'd write some a post with what has been updated since version 0.2, which was released for testing.

Hopefully, I'll have version 0.3 ready any day soon to test, once I have added the championship tables and give points at the end of each race (even though the race result, is currently decided by the total rating of the car and driver).

Major:
*GAME: Can progress through all races.
*RACE: Started the race weekend engine with temporary screen framework for setup,racing and results of each session, which can be navigated through.
*RACE: before FP/Quali the drivers best possible lap is worked out.
*EDITOR: can edit/delete/create drivers, engines.
*EDITOR: can edit teams names,engines and who're their drivers.
*GAME: Added option of 13th team to the game,not used if not selected.
*GAME: Created the start of the season database, which will store each season.

Minor:
*GUI: on team's drivers screen, now there's only 1 button (options) which brings up an options screen for that driver
*GUI: now drivers market screen displays 2 columns of drivers
*DRIVERS: Added driver potential, but a better formula could be made
*DATA: added description of variables in each data file for drivers, teams,engines,circuits.
*DATA: Upto 200 drivers.

Fixed:
*UPDATING: problem with drivers not being released when their contracts ran out.
*UPDATING: teams and drivers and contracts not being updated on a race weekend.
*GUI: Fixed problem of last driver not being displayed on driver's market.
*GUI: Fixed problem of drivers market screen not wrapping around
*GUI: backgrounds now display properly on all resolutions.
*GUI: many resolution fixes for text, graphics.


And some screenshots

Beginning of the race weekend (and yes , I know that secs and milliseconds less than 10 are being displayed as .9 instead of .09, it's on my list of minor fixes).

The current home screen:

Two columns for drivers market screen:

GP Race Manager. Small Update

I've added a new feature where you can choose to start the game as a brand new 13th team, who (as the screenshot of the team select screen shows) have no drivers.  They can be edited with the editor, but I may allow the user to change the name and colours from the team select screen.  If you don't choose to play as them, they aren't included in the game.

  I've also started to work on parts of the race weekend engine.   I think the first version won't be a totally involved experience, but will give results based on the drivers, teams and tyres, and then I'll add features to it at a later date.

GP Race Manager Editor

I've been away for a week working.  But today I've returned.  While I need another days rest before I get back into working on GP Race Manager, I have started making a basic editor for myself, to quickly edit the games data.

here is the current progress:

GP Race Manager Update: Potential and Fixes:

To the screen that shows the list of drivers, I've added a bar which shows their overall rating in red, as well as their potential ability. The potential ability is only worked out by their age motivation and ambition at this moment (that's why drivers over 32 don't have any!).

Before, saying "driver A isn't that good!" please remember that I've entered mostly random numbers for each drivers statistics.

and the team select screen, now with 3 drivers, their rating and potential:

Other Fixes:
*Can add upto 200 drivers to the drivers.txt file.
*Each data file now has a description of what each attribute means (if anybody wants to make an editor in the future )
*Added an engine data file, upto 15 engines.
*Fixed a couple of problems (3rd driver on team select screen, some drivers not being released from the team at the end of their contract,
*I've also started a bit on setting up arrays and things for the big task of the race weekend engine

GP Race Manager Update: Driver contracts and updating

Today, I've made progress in two areas of my F1 manager game.

Firstly, the main screen now has a continue button, that advances a week if their is no Grand Prix that weekend.  This updates the drivers contracts (if it's the end of their contract they leave, if they have a contract with another team they join that team), and sets the designers to work on parts of the car that have been selected to be worked on, and updates the car part with any progress made.

Also, it's now possible to sign drivers from other teams or the free driver market, and they either join immediately or for next year, depending on contracts.

I will go back to this and add contract negotiation and add different factors such as a big driver not wanting to join a small team.

The ability to sign a driver:

This screen shows who the drivers are for next year, shown after the word 'Next':

New Forum for F1 management games

I've created a forum to discuss F1 games (more specicifally F1 management games):

www.sionco.com/forum

The forum has been created for two reasons:

1.  To discuss Grand Prix Manager 2
2. For people who create F1 games (management or arcade) to come together and discuss their projects, share resources, etc..


Please come, sign-up, and help grow the community!

GP Race Manager. Slowly getting to where I was previously.

As mentioned before, my full attention isn't currently on my F1 management game, so I'm only working on it a couple of hours a week, and only doing small things.

But, I'm slowly getting to the stage of development where I was the previous time I attempted to make a Formula 1 management game.  But, it's a lot easier going this time, because I still remember freshly how I did things in the previous project, so for the moment, while I haven't started programming the actual race day engine, I don't have to think HOW I'm going to program a certain feature. Also, again as mentioned before, I'm only using one programming language to program the game for Android and PC (Windows and Linux) called processing, although I do miss programming in BlitzMax, which is great for making PC games.

Anyway, today, I have implemented some buttons that allow you to resign your drivers for next year or sack him (although, they will be improved in the future).
Also, I've added the third or test driver to each team, these updates can be seen in the screenshot below, which shows the game running on an Android mobile.

Finally, I've found a couple (not many) images of Ferrari and Toyota F1 cars which are royalty free.  One is shown in the screenshot of the game running on a linux PC below:

mission: infiltrate. Motivation and finally fixing that problem.

Sometimes, if your stuck on a particularly piece of code in a project, it's good to leave it and have a rest from it for a few days (as long as you make yourself come back to it).  For me, when I have a problem that I can't solve, either, by myself or via the Internet, it really affects my motivation, and that has been the reason that I've never finished a game that's more than hangman or a 5 minute diversion.

I've just had one of those problems for more than a week.  I'd been having problems with the enemies 'line of sight' and stopping him seeing the player through walls and solid objects, depending on the angle he was looking.

 If my past habits where to go by, mission: infiltrate would be dead.   I didn't want to touch the problem or even go near the game for ten days.  But, today, I forced myself to sit-down and try and fix the problem.  Well, what I actually did this time was remove ALL of the code that I was having problems with and tried to rewrite the function from scratch (although, it did take me 3 times to get it right).

The feeling I got when I could see and knew that I only had to change one more line of code to get the whole thing to work was fantastic.  "Great, the project is back on!" I said to myself.

What did I do different?
In the past, when I was in a situation like this, I would have just switched off the development environment and not opened it at all this would eventually lead to the death of the project.  

This time, I turned my attention of setting up the basics of my next project after mission: infiltrate, GP Race Manager(as posted about in this blog), that kept me in the programming frame of mind.  Also, I didn't leave the mission: infiltrate project completely closed.  Every day, I'd open it just to remember where I am, and also I've worked on some other areas of the game, that aren't really related to the game-play, such as menu's or adding new objects to the game.


As well as fixing the line of sight problem, I've also added that the screen starts to go red, little by little, when you are hit by bullets.  Also, for the PC version, the right mouse button is now the shoot button, as the shoot button at the bottom of the screen is designed for android touch-screens.  Screenshot:

GP Race Manager. Garage Screen

Today, in my restarted project GP Race Manager, I started to do the R&D
screen.

As shown in the screenshots below, currently you can:

• Set the budget of how much money goes into R&D
• View the quality of each part.
• Click the parts to get the designers to start trying to improve that area of the car.

Eventually I'd like to improve this screen, maybe have a graphical representation for each part and also be able to set how much resources go onto next years.


Current screen on an Android mobile phone:

Current screen on a PC running Linux:

GP Race Manager. Drivers market

Just a small update on the GP Race Manager (Android/linux/windows) F1 style management game.  Today I've added the ability to browse and see all the drivers in the game. This will eventually be the way that new drivers can be signed.

I'll probably change the look in the final version, such as having two columns and nice graphics behind each box. But, for now the most important thing is getting the basics working.  I've also set the screens to show the players teams colours, these are stored in the data files.

The screenshots below show:

1. The driver browser on a mobile screen
2. The driver browser on a PC screen.
3. The current driver details screen that appears when a driver is selected.

mission:infiltrate. More small updates..

What's new?

The mission select screen has been slightly improved, showing which missions are available.  I'm still not sure what I'm going to put in the boxes though.

A green health bar has been added at the bottom (it's graphic needs improving though).  Also, a health pack has been added.

When the player, the mission failed screen appears. A mission successful screen also appears if the player completes the objects.

Also, on a minor note, bullets now pass over low height objects such as tables.

Mission: Infiltrate update

Today, for my 2D topdown shooter 'Mission: Infiltrate' I've added the start of a pre-mission briefing screen where the player will find out there objects. Obviously I'll try and make it look better at another daye.

 Also, I've made some progress on the enemies line of sight, with them not seeing through walls, but it still needs a lot of improvement and I'd like to come back to it.

GP Race Manager: Resolutions

The following images show the how I'm designing the GUI/layout of the screens relative to the size of the screen and resolution of the device.  Because a PC screen is completely different to an Android mobile phone.

It does add more work to each screen, to make sure buttons and text appear in the right place on different size screens, but it will be worth the effort.

Yes, it needs a lot of work in all aspects such as better looking buttons/graphics, but I'll leave that until the end of the project.

800x600 window

320x480 resolution

480x320 resolution

As you can see, while I'm not working on this project 100% yet, my focus is on getting all the screens to display the correct data.  Although, the OK and left and right buttons work, I'll only start working on functionality and the race engine after I've completed mission: infiltrate.


Any suggestions welcome...

Finally, if anyone wants to become part of the development testing team, where I send you the PC version of the game after every development update, please leave a message (although initial versions wont have any real functionality).

GP Race Manager: The Rebirth

In March/April I started making a F1 management game for Android , Linux and Windows systems (called GP Race Manager - here and here ).  But, I was using two seperate programming languages, Basic4Android for the android version and blitzMax for the PC version.  But, this was too much as they are completely different development tools (As well my opinion that b4a, not being up to the task of a management game) and I was writing two different versions of the same code.   The game was put on hold and I started other projects.

But now, I've restarted the game.  I'm using one language to make the game (processing) and the Linux/Windows PC version will be identical to the Android version, except for the screen layout.   This is because I think the buttons for a touchscreen Android device (mobile phones, tablets)  need to be different to a mouse driven device such as a PC or laptop.

My main focus will be to try and finish the other game (mission: infiltrate) as talked about on this blog, but occasionally when need a break from mission: infiltrate, I will do a little work on GP Race Manager.  And when I've finished mission: infiltrate I'll turn my full attention to GP Race Manager.



Progress: Version 0.1
Basic navigation system setup(buttons, different 'screens').
Loads data about teams, drivers and engines.
Can select a team.

Screenshots:

mission: infiltrate. Slow progress this wek.

This week I haven't made a lot of progress on my 2D topdown shooter game, Mission: Infiltrate because I've been busy in my personal life.  But I'm still determined to try and finish this game.

Not much to report on progress, but, since last time, the enemies now start to move towards the player if they see him and stop when they reach a solid object.  Also, I've added reloading to the enemies weapons and have added some new objects to the game, such as first aid kit, and cupboards (where ammo and things could be found).

I've also started to put screenshots of all games in development here:
http://sionco.imgur.com

mission: infiltrate. minor update

Just a minor update.

Today, I've given nearly every object/enemy a health level, so when shot the level will go down until it reaches 0 and is destroyed.

I've also been trying to improve the game performance for lower powered android phones, by removing unnecessary loops and checks in the code.  The device I'm testing the Android version on is a Samsung Galaxy Ace, which is a low-mid range phone and it's running quite well on it.

mission infiltrate: One Room or lots of little rooms?

The screenshot below shows a new map being made in the level editor. (I'm going to add more objects to the game in the future to make is look less 'bare').

But one thing I'm still thinking about is whether to make one room levels like the one above (as this is turning more into an arcade shooter at the moment) or to have a level made up from lots of little rooms, which could mean very big levels overall while not using up as much resources/processing power on the phones.

However having a mission compromising of lots of little connected rooms would add a lot more time onto the development of the project because I'd have to change  both the level editor and the game.  Currently as said it's very easy to make a level like the one above (if anyone wants to make a level, please contact me below). 

mission: infiltrate - enemies cone of sight

Here it is, the beginning of a working cone of sight, obviously from the screenshot, a future fix will to make it that the guards can't see through walls.

If the player does walk into their cone of sight (or their view/sight range), they are set to the alert mode 'kill' as discussed before.

Still hoping to finish this action/stealth game for Android phones/tablets by the end of this month, but it will be tight.  And then I'll try and optimize it for Linux and Windows PC's because the current basic control system works best on a touch screen, so for PC's I'm thinking of introducing keyboard control.

After this game, my plans continue to be to restart my Android F1 management game and also make a small space shooter game.

mission: infiltrate. The Start of enemies.

Today, I've started the difficult part of the game, the enemies.

Right now I've got the enemies being set to 'kill' if the player walks near them.
Currently, when an enemy is set to kill, he just turns to look at the player and shoots at him.  This has been implemented today (as shown in the screenshot below):

Eventually, the guards will follow the player, and will only be set to alert or 'kill' mode if the player enters their line/cone of sight.

I've also fixed some bugs such as an incompatibility between the editor and the game that messed up the players starting position and the initial screen 'offset'.

Finally, I fixed a problem with the size of the 'level select screen' where the mission boxes/buttons weren't adjusting properly to the different screen sizes.  This can be seen in the two screenshots below, which show two different resolutions (one for PC and another which is a typical android screen size).  Obviously, it needs more work to make it look more visually appealing, such as images for the different levels.  But that will be left for the end of the development stage.

mission infiltrate: Video Update.

I've made a lot of progress in terms of what makes the actual game today.

As shown in the video below, the game is now playable and the level is winnable, in that completing the objectives (in this case finding secret documents and secret plans)  let's you finish the level when you reach the escape/exit point.

Also, the computers now turn off the alarm for the lasers, and you need to get the correct security key card to be able to go through certain doors.
Also, messages are now shown to the player in terms of what's happened at each 'action' point.

 I've also added a temporary title screen and basic level/mission select screen. Although I still need to improve these and add mission briefing/debriefing screens.

shooter game: a possible title?

I've been thinking of a title for my game and currently like:

mission: infiltrate

I've been creating a menu system that I can use in all of my games for the future and have a basic setup working for the game, which allows you to select the level or 'mission'.

Here's the current title screen, (it may well change in the future):

Tell me what you think.

Overhead shooter game. Today's Progress

As shown in the screenshot below. I've made some progress in the the game-play area of the game.   Now, in the editor the objectives can be setup, for example:
1: go to computer to turn off laser.
2: pick up security pass.
Currently the objectives are marked with a small red square as shown in the screenshot below, but I'll probably remove this for more difficulty.  Also, I've started to define all the different objects, such as the laser sets off the alarm (and will later alert the guards).

I've also made a list on a piece of A4 paper of all the tasks I need to do, divided into appropriate headings, such as 'Enemies' and 'Game Play' and then tasks that need to be done and are important to the game, and in a different colour other tasks that I'd like to add once the important tasks have been finished.  

Hopefully, this will allow me to concentrate on the core gameplay tasks that need to be done first.  And then I can think about adding cool features, such as lines/cones of sight for the guards.

I still don't have a name for this game.  any ideas?

Concept Picture

No, I haven't stopped and canceled another game mid-development.  I just had an idea for a type of game I'd like to make for mobiles, and drew a rough concept image to help me visualize it.  I'm not sure whether I'll make this game and not sure whether it would be a small strategy or action game.

I'll finally have time to get back to work on my games and my overhead shooter.
I've decided that it will be more action orientated (although I'd like to make a 2D Metal Gear Solid style game in the future).