Lip Fuzz Linked to Development Progress

by Tim on November 26, 2012 at 1:34 pm
Posted In: General

Growing a moustache has managed to take up a surprising amount of time over the last few weeks (go sponsor me at http://mobro.co/beardytim). However, as my tache has got longer, so too has progress on the game improved. This indicates that moustache length is directly and officially linked to game development productivity and progress. Obviously…

A large chunk of the in-game graphics are now finished and the rest will hopefully get sorted out this week. The user interface has been cut back and simplified so that it’s easier to make pretty again once the in-game graphics are sorted too. A few new animations and effects have gone in as well which, while only small changes, make a nice difference to the overall gameplay.

On the software side of things the game is pretty much done. I even managed to review all of the code and tidy things up, as a sort of pre-release cleanup, and re-run the analytics and profiling tools to check things are ticking over nicely. Apparently the only memory leaks left are due to problems in IOS 6, which is nice to know, and it still runs fine on my old IPhone 3GS despite the new features, so it looks like performance won’t be a problem :D

So what’s next? Graphics, user interface and graphics, mostly. And little things like IPhone 5 support and tidying up the credits screen (found in the hidden options area of the game) and generally play testing as much as possible (it’s a hard life). The idea now is to fix up anything that doesn’t look right or that looks like it needs a bit of polish.

Whatever state the user interface is in I’m planning to release the app early in December so it has a chance to make it onto the app store before Christmas. I don’t know much about marketing and selling, but I instinctively think having the game available over the Christmas holidays can only be a good thing :)

For now, though, it’s back to considering my Mo and figuring out how to make a dragon breath fire.

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Movember Monies

by Tim on November 23, 2012 at 12:07 pm
Posted In: General

If you’ve enjoyed my random comic efforts, or actually enjoyed seeing the progress of my Mo for a month, then go sponsor me at: http://mobro.co/beardytim

Cheers!

I Learned Something Today

by Tim on November 5, 2012 at 9:02 am
Posted In: General

I now know two things that I didn’t know last week. Well, actually I know a lot of things I didn’t know last week like “My Moustache hair doesn’t grow as fast as my chin hair seems to grow” and that sparring in Tae Kwon Do is pretty fun, but those aren’t what I’m aiming at.

Firstly, drawing penguins and ninja stickmen along with planning their battle is really good fun.

Secondly, drawing penguins and ninja stickmen along with planning their battle takes longer than I thought.

(Reading between the lines there, you might realise that progress on my game was slow last week. Maybe. Of course, you’re just guessing and I’m not saying)

So the plan for this week is more drawing, more interface re-designs, getting more graphics sorted and generally pushing the game another few steps towards completion. And Assassins Creed III. Hopefully next week I’ll be able to say I did all those things, and not just the Assassins Creed bit :)

Movember Begins

by Tim on November 1, 2012 at 10:00 am
Posted In: General

Movember begins, raising awareness (and maybe even some money) for men’s health. Men aren’t very healthy, so we need all the help we can get! After seeing other people do it last year I thought I’d give it a go and see how silly I look with a moustache. If you’re interested in finding out more about it, or fancy sponsoring me, then here’s my Mo Space page. I’d like to go for the mexican, but not sure a month will be enough :{)

This week I decided that instead of taking a couple of photo’s throughout the month to document my progress I’d try taking one each day. From there it was only a short jump to having something changing behind me in each photo. I eventually settled on resurrecting my old badly drawn penguin comic. This is a work in progress so hopefully it’ll get tweaked as the month goes on and I’ll keep on top of the daily updates. Just don’t expect my drawing to improve!

Enjoy! Hopefully there’ll be another one tomorrow.

Ready for Movember?

by Tim on October 29, 2012 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: General

Two weeks ago I met Syd to talk about some new graphics. He suggested that when things hit the trees we’d just added they should shed some leaves. Obvious, right? Yep! Which means I’ve spent the last week adding leaf scattering on impact and, I’ve got to admit, it looks amazing. Thanks Syd! :)

Last week was also pretty exciting as it’s involved a lot of Tae Kwon Do training, practice and learning theory ready for grading. I went for the Green Tag belt on Thursday and found out Sunday that I’ve passed :D Time to start learning everything for the next belt now.

This week is going to be an interesting one for several reasons. Firstly, I’m redesigning all the game screens. The game play is pretty much sorted now so it’s time to show the user interface some love and tidy things up in preperation for release. Currently the screens are functional but they’re not great, so I’m going to be playing with different layouts and colours until I find something that really fits the style of the game. I’ll post a few screenshots at some point so you can see what I’m talking about.

Secondly, Movember starts this week. While I often turn to the beardy side, I haven’t done the whole lip-slug look before, mainly because I thought I’d look silly. Now, I don’t mind looking or being silly but if I’m going to do it then it better be for a damn good reason (like making people laugh or for free drinks). I figure promoting men’s health is a good enough reason :)

Click the link, read the rules and join in.