Scratch Tickets for iOS and Android!

I am happy to announce that my latest projects, Scratch Tickets, has been released for iOS and Android devices! It is a simple scratch-off ticket app with many tickets to unlock.

Click the buttons below to navigate to the online mobile iOS and Android app stores. There was very little play-testing, but the conversion rate of downloads to purchases is strong enough to convince me that everything should be in working order.

Scratch Off Tickets

Recently I received an email that my Corona membership will soon expire. Corona is the technology I used to develop my mobile games: The King's Path and Pigs Will Fly, for iOS and Android. Earlier this year, I chose not to develop mobile apps anymore, but I did have one idea that I have always wanted to try out. Better now than later!

It is a scratch off ticket app! The final touches are being made for iPhone, iPad, and Android devices. Then, it's back to Flash games, probably from now until the end of 2013. I change my mind so frequently, so no promises on that notion :)

To be honest, I really did come up with this idea while playing Slotomania, so I was disheartened upon discovering that it that it has already been done before. However, an important difference compared to the other apps is that the prize areas are revealed uniformly and there is no "Redeem" button. It is obvious when a prize is won, because the scratched area reveals a simple icon while yellow star tokens pop out and fly to the top left corner. Consequently, this feels much more interactive.

There are also instant-scratch tokens that do as the name suggests. Simply click the button to use one, and the current ticket instantly gets scratched to reveal any prizes.

The star tokens to buy tickets are redeemed for free every few hours, or can be purchased immediately through micro transactions. There are 10 tickets, where 8 need to be unlocked by scratching tickets to fill the "New Ticket" progress bar repeatedly.

The game will be released within a couple weeks.

Hotel management

It is moments like this, I wonder why I did not pursue games in the simulation and tycoon genre earlier. Perhaps seeing the success of Zombie Situation has given me the audacity to try something new and interesting. Or maybe I just got burnt out of action oriented defense games, where I noticed myself going into autopilot mode during development of Bunny Tactics. Either way, I have taken a very strong liking to this kind of design...

 

There is definitely a lot of temporary placeholder art being used (some borrowed from the Internet), so try to see through all that. The hotel guests can path-find to a room, or simply wander around for something interesting to buy. I am using the A* algorithm for path-finding and amazingly it works without any problems.

The overall objective is build a hotel and satisfy guests to reach a five star rating. Stars unlock additional shops and services, but also attracts guests with picky tastes and high expectations. There will be plenty of surprises along the way to break up the repetition.

Each room can be upgraded to support up to four amenities, purchased with the secondary heart currency. The quality of a room gives a greater chance to receive a heart, while popularity increases the chance that a guest will enter the room to spend money. Rooms are more pleasant if they have a good cleanliness ratio, so maids and janitors need to be hired. Also, building rooms beside one another can create beneficial combos, such as a vending machine room beside a lost-cost bedroom, or a hot tub room beside an expensive suite.

Isometric vector art

Lately I have had a burning desire to seek out new technology and art styles. Bunny Tactics hit alpha, and I really cannot see myself making another defense game for a long time.

It all started with a quick dip into multiplayer land using Player.IO for Flash..

The API comes with many examples and I was amazed at how easy it is to work with! Basically you write the server side code in C#, save it as a DLL, and then upload it to the server. Meanwhile, the Flash version (the client) sends and receives messages to the server. Despite how easy the API is to work with, I began to see how complicated a simple action oriented game could be, due to sync issues that can riddle a game with bugs.

I also realized of course that throwing more technology at my work is not necessarily going to improve the end experience. My real focus is now on the simulation genre that can easily support tremendous depth, without necessarily adding complexity if executed correctly.

I started with prototyping a SimTower inspired game that focuses on micromanagement. In the prototype you can build condos, where the owners buy goods from nearby shops to furnish their rooms. For example, you can see two televisions in the apartment that were purchased elsewhere in the tower. Something about it just did not click; it all felt a bit gimmicky without any clear focus. With that said, I was not sold on this idea.

Afterwards I tried out isometric art using some online tutorials. I actually am amazed at how easy it is to create simple shapes and buildings in a program like Paint, but scaling is difficult at the pixel level so I returned to vector art in Flash. I created some basic furniture using reference pictures and figured out an optimal way to draw rooms similar to The Sims.

The programming is fairly straight forward. I am using the "diamond method", which intuitively allows me to work in a grid coordinate system and then transform everything into isometric space later. Moving people around in the world is a cinch.

It is likely I will create some hotel management game featuring many types of rooms and amenities, like arcades, laundry rooms, swimming pools, etc. The guest rooms can be visually upgraded with things like TVs, desks, framed pictures, refrigerators, and so on. The real challenge will be in programming decent AI and balancing the never-ending list of game variables. If I continue with this idea, it will be a fresh new experience on all aspects of development.

Bunny tactics

Progress on the unnamed bunny tactics game has been going very well. At this rate, things may be wrapped up within the next couple weeks. It features melee weapons used by clicking the mouse, and range weapons used by charging up a small meter. Typical WASD is for movement. The hats give some kind of perk or attribute bonus.

This defense game is not progressive - there are no days or rounds that get incrementally more difficult. Instead, there is one long battle that requires multiple retries. Money and gear (seen above) is randomly obtained over time. The player's score in general is determined by how few retries it took to defeat all 100 enemies. This whole setup makes it so much easier to balance on my end.

Unfortunately the game does not make a whole lot of sense. For starters, why are orcs and the undead attacking this bunny? And what is with the goofy hats? I admire good story lines and strong character development, but it was just not my focus this time. Actually, I am attempting to make use of a lot of art that got shelved last year, so the overall theme of this game was not very selective.

As usual, I am always excited about future plans and ideas. Basically, I am feeling confident to pursue multiplayer Flash games next on my agenda. It may sound outrageous, but apparently is very feasible with modern APIs and tools, like Player.IO and SmartFoxServer. It does cost money, but seems very affordable.

Additionally, I want to find a simple way to host player-made content on a server, and have the core feature of the game be some kind of level editor. One of my own dot com domains offers unlimited hosting and bandwidth. A naively insecure approach to host player-made content is to send the data to a PHP page with parameters that save data entries into some SQL database.

Zombie Situation released!

I am happy to announce that Zombie Situation has been sponsored and released by Mad.com (also known as MoFunZone.com). The viral version for the hundreds of other portals will be released within a week.

Resource credits:

Royalty-free Music: Pond5.com, Audio: FreeSound.org, Overlay Textures: Mayang.com

Orcs! Oh my!

What is the best thing of being self-employed? Is it the ability to take time off spontaneously without suffering consequences of even subtle office politics? What about the creative freedom to pursue any idea basically for any platform? How about taking a laptop and working anywhere at any given time? To me, it is all those things, but at what cost?

Well, it's not the financial trade-off anymore, because I am now earning more than my old Firaxis salary. I have carefully calculated this based on the average statistics of all my Flash games - time invested, overall vacation time, and the income received from all sponsorship deals. The auction for Zombie Situation is basically over and the primary license is going for almost exactly what I predicted.

It seems to me that Flash has become a stable path for me to pursue as an indie game developer. There are so few technical problems, and play-testing has less overhead compared to mobile development. Perhaps in six months to a year I'll feel the need to gamble in the mobile space again, but for now I am satisfied.

Anyways, I have been working on my current unnamed project. I took the mechanics from the tooth prototype shown earlier, and changed the theme to make use of the art assets I already have. This is turning out to be the best option for me.

Actually, I have more than half a dozen prototypes of other genres before I came complete circle back to the run and jump shooter idea. One was a gold grabber that was inspired by many sources...