Hi

Have just entered the October competition with my game Tower Block Builder and now I will have to finish this project I thought would take about five weeks. That was about 6 months ago and I am still not finished so I though I would blog about some of my problems and pains ( at one point I abandon the whole idea).

But I want to inspire and help people create games and so I will also detail some solutions and help I found and explain the shear joy of people playing the game you have created.

So to recap. I have created a game in HTML5 using pure Javascript with a little help from JQuery and Box2D. I have always liked the ‘real world physics’ of Angry Birds and wanted to develop a game with similar ‘physics’. While testing and playing with Box2D I came upon the idea of a simple game I called Tower Block Builder. This was to be a simple stacking game and (I thought) would be a quick test game to get to know the code of Box2D.

At this point I am happy with the game engine and graphics and have created 5 of the 20 levels. Easy huh? No. When I started creating levels I realised how the game could be played in different ways. For instance – when staking blocks you could lean on the walls and build more and so score higher. This meant the scores needed for 2 and 3 spanner awards neede to be adjusted. My advice is always get someone to test the game and play it from scratch without any advice from yourself.

This means, although I only have to create 15 more levels, I have to take into account the pass scores and different ways of playing. Hence, I may not make the end of October.

Will give more advice next blog.

Coderfap

In the beginning…

When I first started coding ‘Tower Block Builder’ I set about building up the game engine first. This was to check that I could code the game and to see if it was playable, so no graphics were created and the whole thing was wireframe using the basic drawing tools of Box2D (see attached pic).

First problem was compatibility for tablets and touch screens. Most of the clicks worked for both but ‘dragging’ shapes proved more difficult. Searching out problems on Google is always advisable, but you have to trawl around a bit to find the answer you need. Sometimes the answer isn’t out there and it gives you an idea how to solve the problem another way.

Because of the differences in tablet dragging with a finger and using a mouse I had to allow for both and created two sets of control techniques. Luckily Chrome has a simulation mode for tablets that meant it could be tested as I went – but final testing must be done on an actual tablet and I was lucky enough to have access to an Ipad and Android tablet.

A working game engine was completed and a playable level created. That proved the game could work but then I realised the full game would need a start screen and level select screen which needed the game engine embedded into rather than a freestanding ‘one level game’. This meant building a ‘game shell’ from scratch containing various game screens (start, info, passed, failed, level select) and would have saved time if allowed for from the start.

It was when I began to create the graphics and look of all these screens that the enormous task of creating a game hit me. Don’t forget that EVERYTHING that appears on the screen has to be coded in and created from the ‘Start button’ to the ‘Level failed message’.

With this in mind I began to look for a style for the game. More about that in my next blog.

The Graphics.

As a graphic designer and front-end developer, the graphics was a part of the game building process I was looking forward to. I’m no stranger to Photoshop and Illustrator or hand-drawing but I had never really designed game sprites before.

I wanted a retro style eighties look to my game and found various references on the internet. There are lots of game graphics sites but nothing really had the specific items I needed. Then I found the website of illustrator Chris Hildenbrand (find him at http://2dgameartforprogrammers.blogspot.co.uk/). Not only did he have the exact look of a cityscape that I wanted but he also had tutorials describing how he creates game elements. I bought the cityscape background tutorial and my look for the game was created.

Several game elements were drawn up before I was happy but they then had to be redrawn at the correct scale for the coded sizes of the game elements.

To add a bit of movement I used animated gifs but ran into problems trying to intergrate them into Box2D which didn’t seem to like them, so I had to solve this by positioning them on a layer over the top of the Box2D elements.

Then I came to do the instruction page and realised I needed to write the copy – not only for this – but also for the small preview pages for the Chrome store pages.

Then two major problems turned up that I didn’t expect. More in the next blog.

Well its now Oct 29th an only 2 days to go. I now know my Game will not be complete for the October deadline but it doesn’t matter. I was going to wait for the demo to get over 30 users but this competition inspired me to start before that and now I realise how long its taking I’m gratefull I started early.

A big time delay – as mentioned earlier – is testing. Once the levels are finished they will need extensive testing to calculate the scores needed for Spanner awards and progress to next level. More importantly was getting other people to test it without any prompting from me. One tester found it impossible to get off level one because they didnt realise blocks could lean on walls. This meant a rehash of the instructions and background. Another tester reported the loud crashing noise of the building collapse was too loud (it was!) – so that was toned down.

I also keep coming up with new ideas for level obstacles, one of which requires me to research Box2D a little bit more.I would rather the game was late than not as good as it could be.

So I dont think it will be finished until December but I’m hopefull it will be good enough to sell a few units. I hope my blogs have not put anyone off making a game but have given them a small idea about what’s involved and how long it can take.

Please have a look at the Tower Block Builder demo on Chrome Web Store – any feedback is welcome.

The full version will be out soon.