8-17-09 posted a new video: [hqyoutube]UiRwkqcod4c[/hqyoutube] We've been working on some contract projects lately in order to pay the bills (fun stuff like implementing portals for a 3D webgame), but have had a bit of downtime over the last week to work on some of our own projects. Having started this project from scratch only a week ago I'm very excited by the progress! We figured out a couple of nifty tricks that allow us to put a lot of dynamic shadow casting lights into the scene without killing the framerate. Even with all the physics objects on the screen as well, we were able to cram 5 lights onto the screen and still get over 55fps on a 1st gen iPod Touch! edit: We finally picked out a name for the game, Gravity Golf. The game will take place in the shadowy interior of the gravity temple as you try to bring light to its deepest and darkest recesses. It will feature a number of physics and gravity puzzles, but should also have sufficient action to keep the game interesting. Overall it should play like a mini golf game turned on it's side with cooler obstacles. I'll post more to this thread as we make updates about the game's development. Stay tuned. I'll also throw in a short shameless plug for our other iPhone game, Crayon Ball. video A great physics based puzzler. It was featured for some time as a staff favorite.
OMG THE CRAYON BALL DEV!! One of my first games, and out of my 14 pages of apps, crayon ball is still on the first page And pardon my language, but holy shit, that looks amazing
I've been developing it on a 1st gen Touch, and haven't gotten less than 55fps when profiling so far. The video was recorded as a screen capture of the simulator however. Recording the actual device takes a lot more setup work and the video isn't as high quality.
I was thinking we could render higher resolution shadows on the 3GS, but otherwise I don't think we can afford the time to add 3GS specific graphical features.
YAY! This is another step closer to the advancement of iphone gaming graphics! Most of what makes games today look as good as they do is lighting and reflection.
Apart from the cool shadows, the gameplay looks great as well. Add a lot of levels and you have yourself a winner
Check out the OP for more information on the game. We've finally decided on a name: Gravity Golf. We also posted a new blog post about our level creation process. Hopefully it's an interesting inside peek. http://howlingmoonsoftware.com/wordpress/?p=166 Also posting up some new sneak peak images showing off some of the levels and lighting. We are working with a real artist now, so hopefully they should be able to help us clean up some of our programmer art so the game is more pleasing on the eyes. Mysterious blue glowing crystals. Spinning repulser shields. Sticky goo balls. (You can see the debug drawing for the springs they attach to the ball) I'm working on cutting together a real gameplay video, stay tuned for that as well!
Would be cool to see this game go in a metroid/knytt stories direction with massive levels and a power up system. Mentioning Knytt Stories, it really reminds me of Within a Deep Forest, a game everyone should play.
We don't really have a release date set yet, but we are hoping to wrap up development on it in the next few weeks. We have a short lull between some contract projects we are working on and are hoping to have this finished before the next contract starts. I did really love Knytt stories. Despite (or perhaps because of) it's simplicity, that game was fantastic. I do really want to make a platformer or sidescroller of some sort. That was one of the original reasons I wanted to make a good 2D physics engine. 3 years later, I have one of the best open source 2D physics engines, and a handful of unfinished platformer prototypes.
Made a new video previewing more of the gameplay, and more of the levels. [hqyoutube]UiRwkqcod4c[/hqyoutube] As you can see in the video, we've finally gotten rid of all of the debug rendering stuff with the red and green lines. We actually draw ropes and chains and such now. We also changed it so that the path the ball will take always previews itself, which is a neat touch on the gravity heavy levels. You can see the path bending and following around the different gravity orbs instead of the split second while you are aiming. Also made a new blog post about the physics based sound system that we started working on a couple days ago for the game: http://howlingmoonsoftware.com/wordpress/?p=181 Enjoy.
