#gamedesignanddevelopment

[bestmobileappdeveloper]

Best Game App Development Company in UK, USA, UAE, Australia & India

[sail0r-tea]

Making a game with my home boy @josh.s_games for our final assessment for Rapid Prototyping this semester! #unistudent #uni #jmc #jmcaccademy #jmcgamedesign #gameenvironment #gamescene #gamedesignanddevelopment #jt #jtgames #unity #unity5 #coding #csharp #scripting #lowpoly

[bwratliff-blog]

Finishing Touches

Today I am adding a credits or "Meet the devs" scene to Trojan.  I am also going to attempt to create a short looping animation for the player character.  Once these small additions are done, Trojan will be finished and ready to hand in.  It's been a fantastic semester, and all three of us have found where some of our strengths and weaknesses lie.  If I could change one thing about our development process, I would have sought out better art assets.  We worked as a three-man team of only programmers on this team - we did not have any artists working alongside us.  As a result, the art in Trojan is minimal.

Of course, perhaps that could be a summer project.  Perhaps we'll find assets - or someone to make them - and publish the game.  Perhaps that's already the plan.  Perhaps we have a target release date already.

And perhaps the low-quality art we currently have will be enough to score a first.

Either way, we have enjoyed this semester and are eagerly looking forward to what third year will bring us.

[alexjone47]

The ins and outs of Outsourcing Web Development company

Check AISTechnolabs blog for information and updates of out sourcing web design & development company india, mobile apps development, dotnet, application development,unity3d game development,business ready solutions and web based services:http://blog.aistechnolabs.com/the-ins-and-outs-of-outsourcing-web-development/

[hirededicateddevelopers]

Why should you choose a professional web development company?

Since the world today is moving towards a greater level of development, we find that there is a greater demand for anything that tends to add water to development. Internet and Smartphone are the new paths through which many fields are seeking development in large numbers. The business world these days are in dire need for better methods of marketing and the latest method of marketing is through mobiles and its apps.

Many businesses have started outsourcing to web development companies for getting the perfect and high quality web development solutions. Quality web development at affordable rates is what most businesses prefer the most, and this is possible only while choosing a web development company from India. Since the country has a lot many web development companies with good experience, many businesses from all round the globe prefer to hire dedicated developers India. Experienced and skilled developers can help you in boosting up your business to better levels.

The benefits of choosing web development companies of the country are:

Quality output:

The web development companies in the country offer better services, as they make use of better and tested methodologies to provide error free solutions.

Better customer service:

The web development companies in India provide better services to their clients and make sure that their business reaches the perfect goals. They will also make it a point to help the clients gain good profit within a short span of time.

Faster communication:

Since the businesses require responding to their clients quickly, majority of the web companies provide faster communications through chat, mail or through phone as supportive services.

Affordability:

If you are looking out for quality service that fits into your budget, then choosing a web development company from India would be the best choice. Quality is not compromised at any cost when you do so.

While choosing a professional web development company India, one must make sure that the company has a good experience in the field of web development. Most of the companies provide services like Web site development, web development, mobile app development and even game design and development for an array of industries. Thus better service and quality solutions for your business can be opted while choosing a web development company from India. You will be assured of getting quality solutions without getting a hole into your pockets.

[bwratliff-blog]

Hell Hole Prototype C

Here we are, folks:  The final prototype before we start working on what will be the final product.

It’s a darn shame it’s corrupt.

Yep, you read that right.  I cannot open the project on my personal laptop.  I cannot open the project on any of the three uni computers I tried.  I cannot even attempt to open it without being greeted by an “Access to folder is denied” error.

We have restored an older version of the prototype which will be presented to Gary and Dominic, our lecturers, tomorrow morning.  We are now starting to work on the vertical slice, which will be the final version of the project and the one with the longest development period at 6 weeks.

This post isn’t about the vertical slice, though.  And it isn’t about my troubles with file management.  It’s about Prototype C, whatever little it is.

My roles for this prototype were Lead Programmer (primary) and Art Coordinator (secondary).  My primary responsibilities in these roles were as follows:

Lead Programmer:  1. Set up the movement script for the tunnel movement. 2. Create and perfect the object pooling script. 3. Set up the UI and menu functionality.

Art Coordinator:   1. Find/ Create suitable artwork for the main menus 2. Re-develop logo in Photoshop.

At the time of corruption, I had completed all of my responsibilities as lead programmer and task two for art coordinator (the logo will be online in its own post tomorrow).  Kain, who was acting as Lead Designer for this prototype, supported me heavily in creating the UI and main menu.  He also completed task one for the Art Coordinator role while I was side-tracked with my Programmer tasks.

Unfortunately the pooling script I created was lost when the newest version of the prototype was lost.  I took this as an opportunity to improve on it, though, and made a dramatically more functional and dynamic version of the same task for the vertical slice.  But I’ll save that for another post.

[bwratliff-blog]

End of Semester Presentations

This semester has been a rollercoaster for all three members of our little development team.  From file corruptions to earth-shaking breakthroughs, and everything in-between, we have had an interesting experience in creating Trojan.exe.  On Friday the 29th of April, we presented our final product to our classmates and lecturers.  Despite some nervousness, we pushed through and ultimately gave what I consider a stellar presentation.

Twenty minutes later, I had a new email in my inbox from Gary Bunn, one of our lecturers for the course.  The email was an invitation to be one of four groups to present to professional game developers on Thursday the 4th of May.  This is an opportunity we simply couldn't pass on.  Since then we have been improving our presentation in hopes that we will be able to deliver the best possible product for this unmarked portion of our module.

[bwratliff-blog]

Frustrations in Unity Collab

Unity Collab is a fantastic, marvelous, wonderful thing.  It’s almost the entire reason our game exists - at least, it would have been significantly more difficult if we hadn’t used it.  That said, its state in Unity 5.5.0 (the version used for Trojan) is anything but fantastic.  Trojan was put through the wringer and suffered no fewer than four corruptions this semester.  Why not simply upgrade to a different version of Unity?  5.5.0 is the version on our university’s computers, meaning we were unable to reasonably use any other version.  Unfortunately this set us back, but not majorly - each corruption delayed us by about a day while we reverted to old versions and redid (and improved) previous work.

We saw this as an opportunity to improve on our work rather than to simply catch back up.  Ever written a script and then thought there may be a better way to do it, but you just didn’t want to as it was functional and you had other tasks at hand?  When that script is the victim of a dramatic file corruption, you have the opportunity to attempt any other method you want.  This blessing in disguise is ultimately the reason for most of the changes in the game; our files were universally corrupted, so we tried something different.

[bwratliff-blog]

End-Game Summary

Sorry for the delay, I was playing games.  Not just any games, though; the best game.  I was playing Trojan.  Below are screenshots from my session with an explanation of our game over screen.

When the player collides with an obstacle, they lose immediately.  That’s right, there are no lives in this game.  If antivirus catches you or a firewall blocks you, you are immediately deleted.  You will then be prompted with a screen informing you of your defeat and allowing a path to the summary screen.

This is the summary screen.  Here you see your score, the high score (and who scored it), and how many email, social media, and bank accounts you’ve compromised as well as your government database count.

At the beginning of the game, you are also prompted to name your virus.  The game will store your name and score if you are the high scorer, and if you play later with the same name, your score is irrelevant - you will be notified that you are the best at this game.

If you have a different name, however, you will see who scored and what they scored - and you will be encouraged to restart and defeat them.

I’m proud to say that this score, 176448, scored by yours truly, is currently the highest score ever made on Trojan.exe, impressing even my teammates at Inept Code Monkeys.  When the game is live, I encourage you to download it and put me to shame.

[bwratliff-blog]

HUD

It’s time you learn more about the HUD, and what each aspect of the display means.

First we will tackle the score.  The score is mostly based on time, but that is not the only factor.  As part of my role as Lead Programmer, I have created a script which measures a number of different values in order to determine your score.

The player truly has two scores, though they only see one.  This is their modified score.  Their original score, based solely on time, runs in the background.  This is their unmodified score.  The score is modified based on their current multiplier as well as the difficulty they chose at start-up.

Multiplier:  The multiplier is based on progress in the game.  Whenever the player compromises a social media or email account, their multiplier rises by 1.  When they compromise a bank account, it rises by 2.5.  When they compromise a government database, it rises by 5.  (The concept of compromising these services will be explained at the end of this post.)  This forces the multiplier to rise fairly quickly, allowing the player to score high numbered scores quickly, thus raising the satisfaction of playing the game even for a short time.

Difficulty:  The difference here is very simple.  On start-up the player must choose a difficulty before they may play.  If they select easy, their score multiplier initializes at 1.  If they choose hard, it starts at 2.5, but the game will speed up sooner and reach a slightly higher top speed.

Now for the high score.  This is based on individual machine, whether it be a desktop or phone.  The high scorer’s score is stored within PlayerPrefs and saved to be displayed to all other players on that machine.  Should the player beat this score, they will of course replace the value shown here.

Finally on to the account-compromising mechanic I promised.  The player will compromise services automatically based on their unmodified score - the timer that runs in the background.  Every time this value reaches a number divisible by 500, the player compromises a government database.  150 scores the player a bank account, and 50 seizes a social media or email account (chosen randomly).  As mentioned before, a government database raises the multiplier by 5, a bank account by 2.5, and social media or email accounts by 1.  In this way, the player’s time progress in the game lends to their multiplier, and thus, their final score.

Stay tuned for the next post, coming in about ten minutes, which will elaborate on the end-game summary screen.

[bwratliff-blog]

Growth in Perspective

As mentioned in my post yesterday, 1st of May, the perspective of our game has changed dramatically.  Below is a greyscale version of the first functional build of Hellhole.  The player ship in the middle must dodge and evade the spherical asteroids rotating around the arena.  The HUD is very minimal, giving hints to current lives and score.

Next we moved on to the tubular arena which Trojan is still based in.  Here you can see where we toyed with the idea of a first-person perspective.  This eventually proved too disorienting, so we opted to move back to a third-person camera.

Finally, below you may see the current state of our game.  The player takes the role of the green “ship” at the bottom of the screen.  They may rotate around the inside edges of the tubular arena in order to avoid the obstacles.

Red and brown obstacles in the game are firewalls.  They are static obstacles that attempt to block you but do not actively seek you out.  They are simply blockades.

Yellow and orange obstacles are antivirus.  These constantly rotate, at a random speed, actively attempting to block your path, seek you out and delete you.

The HUD along the bottom of the screen will be explained in a later post.  That’s all for now; thanks for reading!

[bwratliff-blog]

Changes are made

Hellhole is no more.  Hellhole is gone.  Hellhole will never exist.

Make no mistake, I do not mean that Inept Code Monkeys are cancelling our latest project.  No, that would be a terrible idea as our marks count on our continuing effort.  No, we are merely changing everything about our game.

The Name:  Hellhole will henceforth be known as Trojan.exe or Trojan - it will go by both names.

The Theme:  In Hellhole, the player took the role of a spaceship pilot whose craft has been sucked into a wormhole.  They would be tasked with escaping the wormhole, dodging obstacles along the way as they fight to score the highest travel possible.  Now, in Trojan.exe, the player becomes a Trojan virus downloaded by an oblivious computer user.  They must fight to pass through firewalls and below the radar of antivirus whilst compromising the user’s desktop.

The Mechanics:  It previously was true that the player would move in a circular arena; the arena would spin much in the way a planet does, and the player would “orbit” around it, dodging asteroids and debris.  Now, the player travels down a long tube/pipe structure, around which they may rotate on the inside edge.  The obstacles, which were once asteroids, are now large disc-like structures.

This summarises the beginning of what will undoubtedly be many changes to the game.  We’re travelling in a new direction and are all very excited to see where it leads us.

[bwratliff-blog]

Hell Hole Prototype B

Welcome back to the exciting second installment of my blog on Hell Hole: the infinite runner made by Blake Ratliff (me), Tony Fraser and Kain Foottit for our Game Design and Development module.

In this post I will outline a portion of my contribution to the second prototype, for which I took on the roles of Lead Designer and Art Coordinator.  Further development will be outlined in another post at a later date.

My primary role in the construction of this prototype so far has been the user interface.  In my construction of this, I have created a main menu, a controls menu and an options menu.  The following paragraphs detail their composition and functionality.

Main Menu:  The main menu or title screen is composed of the game’s title centred in the screen with two buttons above it - “Play” and “Controls” - and two below - “Options” and “Quit.”  These buttons are fairly self-explanatory.  Play launches the game itself, Quit will quit the game (NB due to Unity limitations this does not work in the editor but does work in application after built), and Controls and Options launch the appropriate menu screens.

Controls Menu:  The controls menu features several text objects laid on a canvas.  This text details the controls for both single-player and two-player game modes.  What’s that, you ask?  Two-player game mode?  That’s right.  Two-player game mode.  This is not functional yet, but we do have a plan to organise it in the most efficient way possible for two players sharing a keyboard.

Options Menu:  The options menu includes three sliders: “Music Volume,” “Effects Volume” and “Brightness.”  These will do exactly what you would expect them to do, but as of now they do nothing.  The sliders are only included at this point to demonstrate our intent to include these options as well as to complete the structure of the UI before fully integrating its functions.

Both the Controls and the Options Menus also feature a “Back” button.  As may be expected, this button will return you to the previous menu.  Pressing Esc on the keyboard at any time will also return you to the main menu - even during gameplay.  Doing so when on the Main Menu will quit the game, just as if the player had clicked the “Quit” button.

Again, look out in the future for my update on my contribution to this project.  For now, this is Blake signing off.

[bwratliff-blog]

Hell Hole (Tentative Name) Prototype A

Greetings and salutations to my hundreds and hundreds of followers.

(Translation:  “Hello to my lecturers and/or group mates.”)

This post will begin my next adventure in game development - or more specifically, Game Design and Development, a module offered in year two, semester two of my course at university.  This module tasks me with working in a group of three to create an infinite runner game.  My group mates for this endeavour are my dear friends Kain Foottit and Tony Fraser.  The exact layout for this task states that the three of us must come up with three prototype games to present in weeks two, four and six of the semester.  A concept pitch will be given in week three, and the final product will be presented in week twelve.

The concept for our game is thus:  Whilst travelling through space, your ship is sucked into a wormhole.  In your quest to escape said wormhole, you must dodge, destroy or otherwise avoid obstacles such as asteroids, the husks of ships whose crews have failed before you, and even a few rare easter egg obstacles (can you say Tardis?).  Tony wanted to name this game Hellscape, I wanted to call it Wormhole, and Kain was flexible on the name.  And thus, the compromisingly-named “Hell Hole” was born.

For Prototype A, I took on the role of Project Manager.  In this I created our Trello board and helped Tony in setting up our Unity Collab project space.  I also offered an old script of mine that fit the bill for what we need, which Kain - the Lead Programmer for this prototype - and I worked together to adjust appropriately.  This script was the obstacle generator.  It worked by instantiating an obstacle prefab at the location of an empty, then launching the obstacle in the player’s direction on one axis - in this case the X axis.  After existing for ten seconds, each obstacle would delete itself.  In addition to offering this script, I created very basic models of our ship and an asteroid.

This is the outline of my contribution to the first prototype of Hell Hole.  Look out for my contribution to the second prototype - this post should be live in the next five to ten minutes as I’ve put off posting for a while too long.

[alexjone47]

AIS Technolabs - Web and mobile apps development company in India offers game design and development. Hire dedicated developers for Unity 3D, wordpress, Joomla,