Back to Management

I have another update in the management side of things for ThrillWorld or any other RTS style game.

Below I have attached some pictures so you can see.  So far you can create the shops / rides and employees and place them on the map.  I have also started on the stats screen so you can see how much money or other currency the shop / ride has made.

They can actually earn other currencies because of the RTS backend, the bank just has a list of currencies and you just add what you need to the specific item in the bank i.e. coins, wood, gems, etc...

You can now get to the stats screen either by clicking on the stats button in the management screen or double clicking on the item in the map view.

Tools

I have been writing an application for Tin Planet in the background for a while now, it's called alpaqa because it is supposed to take the workload from the artists and developers.  At the moment it is still in an evaluation stage, but hopefully we will get a download up soon.

It has been used in various products now to help speed up the process of processing the graphics.

Below is a list of the main things that it is capable of doing (This is just a small list of what is possible)

- Stripping PSD layers out into a folder structure (just by dragging a PSD in and pressing a button, PSD has to have the layer effects flattened for it to work)
- Building contact / sprite / atlas sheets from a folder or PSD file (it can produce multiple sheets not just one)
   . rotation of sprites for best fit
   . creation out data file in XML, JSON or CSS (or all of them)
- Bitmap font creation from system fonts or a folder
- Image conversion single or folder including subfolders (convert from type to type and also various image manipulation)
- Ability to run from settings file so you can use in a build system.

Here is the splash screen to keep you interested :)

RNG - Random Number Generator

Hey, just for the hell of it I wrote a new mobile app, took me all of 2-3 days including doing all the graphics.
It's just a simple random number generator, it picks numbers either from 0-49 or 0-99, great for picking lottery or bingo numbers.

Android Link
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ebs.rng

Here are some screen shots:

Management Update

As discussed previously I have started on the management style classes that could be plugged into the 'ThrillWorld" game.

All game items are done via the XML file, it states if they can have tasks and links to other things. i.e. You create the employee and a shop, then you click on the button (one with a plus followed by a person) and it links the employee to the shop so the shop can open.  Or you can give the employee tasks todo, i.e. go mow the grass, go fix things.

Below is a screen shot of it working, landscape and background is now all in 2D while I get the classes working.  These are not the final graphics, the graphics are just so I can get it working and somebody else can use it.

Management

I've started to put the classes together for the management side of things in games, so yes they could be put into the Roller Coaster Tycoon game I'm slowly working on.

So far I have Assets you can buy and tasks you can assign to them, so a shop you could a assign a person to work in the shop and they would has a task to serve customers if they stopped at the entrance to the shop.

Each Asset has a cost and it has levels so yes you could actually level up your shops if you wanted so they could sell more things if they leveled up (but this is going away from the tycoon style games and is more an RTS)

If you had mechanics you could assign a task to fix things, entertainers would have tasks to mingle around customers.

So yes The Tycoon game is still being worked on in the background.

And as for Facebook that is up and working in my other games as a separate class so again if I wanted to I could implement that into this game.

Anyway thought I would post this... :)

HTML5 / Javascript

On top of everything else I've been teaching my self HTML5 and Javascript programming.  It's coming along nicely.

I have got so far, graphics / animations for the sprites and audio all working.  Not that much different to C# just got to learn the little differences.

Sorry got know screenshots, just my tinkering.

Still Alive

Yes I am still here.... :)

Just thought I would post again just to let you know what I've been up to.  To start with I released a quick game on Android / Facebook and just for the hell of it I added the Kongregate API stuff in to.

Facebook (Facebook and android will allow you to play against your friends)
https://apps.facebook.com/bubblus_evolve/?fb_source=search&ref=ts&fref=ts

Android you will have to search the AppStore for, sorry :(

Kongregate (this version will allow you to play against everybody else)
http://www.kongregate.com/games/Kahfra/bubblus

Here are some screenshots:

Parse Integration

Hey I'm still here,

I've now got Facebook playing nice with my apps, I can get and save user data. And various other bits of information.

Still haven't looked at Payments and Achievements but I will when I need to.

I've started to look at the Parse SDK (www.parse.com) now, so I can save data to a database and bring it back within the app.

So far I've got it logging in and adding things to the database, I've got multiple users adding records into the table and the records being updated as you are playing the game.  This is usefull if you want to store level specific scores and data.

Facebook Integration

Hey, I hav'nt forgotten about this project, it's just I've got side tracked doing Facebook integration in Unity3D (Saves me buying the plugins)

I've been using the Facebook SDK which can be downloaded directly from Facebook developer website (It's free) and I've started to integrate into my projects.  So far I've got the following working:

- Initializing Facebook
- Logging In
- Getting the Facebook profile pictures so they can be displayed where I want them
- Sending Messages (This includes invites and gifts)
- Scores (posting and receiving)

Achievements I'm putting on hold for the moment, or until I need them.

Update

As I said on my previous post I would have more stuff to show you, well here it is.
But before the nice pictures I will list what has been updated / modified or added.

- Add the ability to delete the last piece of track as well as deleting all of the track while building the coaster
- Added ability to load/save roller coaster tracks
- Added ability to click on any part of the coaster to bring item panel up
- VFX has been added into objects (You have to put a point in the FBX file so it can be found)
  (example: PSystem_TourchFlames, would use the TouchFlames particle system that is within the library)
- Fix, if park closed then do not allow anybody in
- There are various coaster bits that can be used from curves, hills, chains and brakes.

Well here are the images showing the coaster and VFX additions.

Coasters

Don't worry hav'nt forgotten, I'm still working on the coaster stuff and getting it to work nice.

I also have other bits done as well, but I will do a big update here once I'm happy with it.

Videos

Hey,

If you don't want to test the webplayer version of Thrill World, I have created some videos so you can see it in action.

Here they are, they are simple videos for the moment.  I will add more later.

http://youtu.be/LPgsCsEl5xY

http://youtu.be/jo7CiN8ypj8

Coasters!

Hey,

It's been a week or 2 since my last post.  I am still working on it, below there is a list of things that have been done.

- Working on Coaster (Adding bits and gfx / models)
- Code tidy up and minor code fixes
- Fixed double sided shader (Changed it to cutout rather than alpha blending)
- Animated water added (This actually gives us the ability to animate uv's depending on material)
- Fixed bug (when characters want to leave the park and there is no way to get to the entrance they would just dissappear)
- Added ability to read objects in but not add to UI list
- Added ability for the characters to throw rubbish on the floor after eating
- Updated rounded paths, made them work across boundaries
- Gate system (Loading and Saving), also it destroys the gate if the underlying path is deleted.
- Modified time and characters types that enter the park at certain times
- Added the ability for characters to carry things from the merchandise shop, i.e. balloons
- Merchandise Shops

And here is a screenshot that shows the curved paths and a bit of roller coaster

Curved Paths and Other Stuff

Hey, it's been a week since last post, lots to see and I've even got a new screenshot :)

Well updates over the last week are:

- Lots of bug fixes and code tidy ups
- Added entrance fees (Basically it's built off a baseride class but with certain bits turned off)
- Most of the curved path code and images have been done
- Loading and Saving has had lots of bits added into the files (Rides, Shops, Characters, etc...)
- Added max people in queue (This is part of the queue system going in)

And here is the new screenshot, it's just an image showing the curved paths.

Ride Settings and other bits

Hi, here is another quick update.  I have not supplied images recently because nothing has changed on that front.  I've started to put the user content pipeline in, so user can add there own graphics.

This one has the following updates and changes.

- Added ability to open up data specific variables within each object (i.e. pirate ship has max angle), this then gets shown in the dialog that gets shown when you double click on item.
- Added ability to load external paths and landscape graphics in (It checks on start to see if the folder exists if not it creates one, it also checks for the correct XML data files).  If everything is correct it loads the graphics in and allows you to draw with them (All textures for the moment have to be 128x128, but it can be PNG or JPG, plus it only works on standalone or webplayer run locally)
- Fixed VBO issue, was not deleting the mesh from the landscape when you edited it

Also Webplayer has been updated to correspond with these changes.