Friendly Airstrike – Tank ‘Em Up!

Friendly Airstrike – Tank ‘Em Up!

| By

Wanted to add this new feature as a dedication to my Grandpa.
He bid farewell to this world in 2010, we miss him a lot and I owe a lot of my ‘logical thinking, view about life, even my love for technology, and a ton of stuff‘ to him; Today “May 1″ is his birthday.
One of his careers was as an air-force pilot .. I thought this would be a nice feature to relate to. :)

Lo and Behold!,  Friendly Airstrike: Now you can summon/request a friendly airstrike in “Tank ‘Em Up!”  to take down huge number of enemies in a tight/difficult situation.  In my eyes, it’s more like he’s gonna be flying and taking down targets ;)
How and when? You’ll know when you play the game :)
Signed up for private alpha release yet?  - http://toonheart.com/demo/

 

Summon Ship – Early doodle :)

 

P.S:  Did you know, once I wished him on his birthday and touched his feet as symbol of respect (Indian traditional Pranama), and he said “Krishna, I don’t believe in these norms. If you want to show respect to me, study well, grow up to be a good person and settle down in life. That’d be a gift and respect I’d like.”
I never wished him since then. That’s ~13 years ago. I didn’t understand what the hell he meant back then; I did however 4 years later… and “it is a precious value added to my life”.

P.S:  The first game I ever played was also on his computer. It was called “MineSweeper” :) .. Did you know? It had a cheat code key combination that reveals which cells have mines’ :P ;)

“You are, A Shadow” and post Ludum Dare

“You are, A Shadow” and post Ludum Dare

| By

As mentioned in http://blog.toonheart.com/redbulls-dark-chocolates-and-ld48/, we participated in one of the biggest online game development competitions in the world! :)

2343 submissions and we’re one of them :D

So here it is, announcing the playable prototype release of our #LD48 entry
“You are, A Shadow“, is a brain teasing psychology game written during Ludum Dare #26 or LD48 competition, themed “minimalism”.
You are supposed to make “choices”, which sometimes are difficult than a “RedPill vs BluePill” question in real life!

What you look like in the game :)

Here’s a complete devlog; if you’re interested to know what I was going through in 48hrs :)
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2013/04/26/had-to-meditate-but-got-an-awesome-idea/

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2013/04/28/youre-a-shadow-updates/

and here’s a mini post mortem on it.. since the game seemed to really achieve what I made it for.
To brainfuck people ;) – http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2013/04/30/mini-postmortem-of-you-are-a-shadow/

And most importantly,

CLICK HERE TO PLAY

P.S: And now, there is a facebook page that you can like – https://www.facebook.com/YouAreAShadow
which means, that I am considering “expanding” this game and moving it into development phase :)

RedBulls, Dark Chocolates and #LD48

RedBulls, Dark Chocolates and #LD48

| By

Alrighty, we have ~5hrs left to start the Ludum Dare #26 or #LD48 competition.
This is my first time on Ludum Dare and I’m keeping my mind blank on this…. will need to spontaneously think of a game based on voted theme when the competition starts.

For those who are wondering what an LD48 is … It is a 48 hr nonstop game development competition.
Simple Rules – Everything (art, code, sounds, assets) has to be created in those 48 hrs. No cheating.

Which type of game/genre?
Well, there’s the fun part. You don’t know the final theme yet.. not before the competition starts :)
This also helps confuse people who want to cheat by creating stuff before-hand.. now you don’t know what type of game to create for ;)

My prep for LD48 looks like this(pic below) and I now have less than 5hrs to take rest so that I can stay awake for the next 48.

Life of Indie Game Developer – Redbulls, dark chocolates and his machines. :)

We’re going to stream live here – http://www.twitch.tv/toonheartgames
Although my streaming software is broken (no time to fix) .. I’ll probably try to stream via laptop and work on desktop.

Let the Fun Begin! .. Oh wait.. first 5hrs of sleep please :P

We’re going to Casual Connect :) Yippie Yahoo!

We’re going to Casual Connect :) Yippie Yahoo!

| By

What an incredible way to step into Friday evening!
This is really a TGIF news :)

“Tank ‘Em Up!” has been selected for Indie Showcase at CasualConnect Asia, Singapore!!!

/me does the happy dance and Jiraiya kabuki pose.

Meet us in Singapore!
21-23 May, 2013

We will be showing our game there. It will be exclusive!!!
Hoping to pack some real surprises for everyone who plays my game at CasualConnect.

Can’t wait to meet all the incredible gamers! :)

Tank ‘Em Up! – First Public Showcase

Tank ‘Em Up! – First Public Showcase

| By

First, I was a bit hesitant. It takes some balls to do this.
Then I thought, “There is no point in doing a start-up if I cannot grow big balls.”

So, I went around shopping malls and parkings requesting random strangers to play the pre-alpha build of my game. :)
Tank ‘Em Up! – https://www.facebook.com/pages/Tank-Em-Up/169490389875547?ref=hl
A friend helped shoot the video while I was going around and he decided not to do it again, because it was too embarrassing for him :D

Some gracefully agreed and some ran due to surprise ;)
Some asked us for “contracts”, “agreements” and “money” too.
Why? Probably because this is first time in India that an Indie developer was going out and asking public to play their games :D
Oh well, they’ll get used to it :)

I took great deal of feedback, we also came across 2 employees of EA who played the game.
Good to know that they do love casual games and not just AAA titles. ;)

What would you do if someone asked you to try out their games?

Introducing ‘Crashpad’ for “Tank ‘Em Up!”

Introducing ‘Crashpad’ for “Tank ‘Em Up!”

| By

No more D-Pad or 8-direction on ‘Tank ‘Em Up!’

That’s right :)

Why?
Because we’ve been taking feedback from the private list of people who willingly testplayed our brokenish alpha and we noticed.

1. People are definitely discomfortable with d-pad
2. 8 direction is too much on tablet
3. Swipe to move is kinda confusing people (from feedbacks on other existing tank games)

So we took up this problem and did quite some designs on both UI and programming front to see how we can get this easier.
And WOAH! We have a new on-screen controller .. AND its called “CrashPad”, reason is pretty evident I guess :)

The Crashpad.. and no its not a crack on the screen :)
Also, CrackPad wouldn’t have been a nice name :|

Some Interesting facts about CrashPad:
1. You can hold it ergonomically to not stress your wrist while playing for long time.
2. It works great even if you can’t let go of old habit of holding straight onto on-screen controller pads :)
3. It’s not a crack on your screen.
4. It loves both left and right handedness.
5. No, I will not name it ‘Crack’Pad because I don’t like the sound of it :D

Excited to try out the Crashpad?
Soon fellas, soon.. :)

First new office out of home :)

First new office out of home :)

| By

As promised in my last post, here’s the update about our first office.

I used to believe that one person startup doesn’t really need an “office” and can work from home… and in fact I had been doing that for quite some time now.

Slowly I noticed that unproductive things creep up and take you into its clutches with time, which include

    - the crave to lie down and work.. and gradually fall asleep, (also the reason for my wrist pain issues – using wrong posture for work) :(
    - sometimes its the power outages in India that screws around
    - annoying door bell
    - almost every alternate day someone’s carpenter is banging something and letting us all hear it
    - neighbors who need super loud sound on their daily tv soaps :)
    - random sense of lazyness
    - going easy on time deliverable and then hurrying up work at the end of the day.
    - staring at walls and empty house, with no one else to talk to..feeling lonesome
    - work seems to take longer time than usual.

These are just few things that drive you insane when you live alone and have to go through the pressure of startup.

Something wasn’t right, It also felt that I had done this earlier too… Oh! yes.. my first failed startup (consulting/support for linux services), way back in 2008.

That struck it… I was doing the ‘Frog in boiling water‘ with myself.
“I am not going to repeat the same mistake”, I said to myself.

But offices are costly, especially for a one man, self-funded/bootstrapped startup.
So I had to search and search and search and narrow down my requirements to 3 essential things –

    Ergonomic Workstation
    No interruption of power or internet
    Easily accessible food (15 mins for lunch or eat at workstation)

The concept of leasing out a workstation at business center seemed the best option; also that I can use multiple locations when on travel. So I signed the documents last week and moved into our first Office! Hurray! :)
After one week of using the office, the advantages are evident

    Feels less solitary than empty home.
    Gets you out of house everyday.
    Separates work and personal-life
    Structures your day.
    Increases productivity.
    Brings discipline to work.
    Avoid using same desk for days together.. I can change from sofa lounge to desk to thinkpod :)
    Reduced my wrist pain a bit.

And you can always work from home, a day or two in a month to mix things up.
Not sure why many people on the internet criticized Marissa Mayer‘s/Yahoo’s new ‘No work from home’ policy.
The company has clearly been in trouble for long time now and I hoped that the employees would give up a bit of “extra” comfort they have been enjoying all the time(just for a while atleast) and step up to help their employer gain back awesomeness. It was sad to see that not all yahoo employees share that passion for the company anymore.

Moreover if Marissa’s made that policy, she is herself following it (except a few weeks following the birth of her first child.).
Now, that’s called being responsible.

Anyway,.. wanna see how our office looks like?
Here goes..

Can work from lounge, or in those thinkpods or at the couch which I am sitting at while snapping this pic :) Cool eh? :D

More Bumps in Startup Paradise, but Good News!

More Bumps in Startup Paradise, but Good News!

| By

Wrist pain had got worse/serious and I had to consider visiting a specialist doc for the first time in last decade.
Long story short, professional reasons –
- Bad posture while working at a desk (more like lyingdown postures with wushu poses with laptop on belly)
- Bad ergonomic set up of workstation (shorter chair than table, coupled with short guy) ;)
- Lack of rest breaks ( I had some breaks .. it’s called facebook time) :P

Personal reasons and longer story with free unnecessary advises will be on my personal blog soon; if and when I find time.

Pictorial: It went from the blue wrap to bigger yellow wrap to almost immobilize my hand in matter of few days.
Doc wrote “Severe dorsal pain + tender radio scapho something”… can’t read doc’s handwriting :P
Says I probably tore ligaments or have an hairline fracture in the 8 set of bones at wrist.
Do keep an eye on my personal blog to know how! :)

Wrist Immobilization.


Almost elbow immobilzation.

Doc has asked me to get an MRI arthogram (and not just the plain MRI) done, scribbled some specs on ref notes sheet and depending on results I might need surgery!

So you can imagine it is difficult to even type with those fingers that shoot out piercing pain upwards.

Oh well, enough of cry baby stuff.. startup needs tough soul… and I will punch through these difficulties even with this hand.

No substitute for hard work.

Now, that brings us to our Good news part!
“Toonheart’s got a new office now :) .. infact our first non-home office :D ” .. Yaabaa Daabaa Do!! ;)

New Office, First Office… Yayayayaya !


We signed up for this last week and moved in on Monday .. and honestly although I wanted to blog about it sooner.. I just couldn’t find enough time.

I’ll put up some snaps and write about it tomorrow (hopefully) ;)

Stay Tuned!

Long Pending update & Hard Disk crash!

Long Pending update & Hard Disk crash!

| By

All right guys, I know its been so long that I updated the devlog.
Honestly, not much work was going on, got a bit diverted into other stuff and other prototypes too.

Work was a bit slow, but was going on.. and then 2+ weeks ago the Desktop harddisk went Kaput! :(
A bit of progress on game was lost (uncommitted code and artwork) and had to be redone via my laptop.

Last week, I took some private feedback on UI and figured that people weren’t so fond of the HUD we had for Ammo and Health. Redid that to look a bit neater.
Also, I decided to throw away the dedicated pause button (so the person jamming your doorbell needs wait longer, call needs to be attended later and sandwich can make itself). ;)

New HUD style – Tank ‘em Up!

Other feedbacks included request for making tank movement smoother(will be working on it this week), and a suggestion that I should make game like ‘Temple Run 2′ and not tank stuff(which I choose to ignore) :P

I wasn’t attending the local Indie GameDev chat sessions too(for couple of weeks in a row), so made it a point to do that this week.

Now only if that harddisk can be RMA’d faster…. and I need a new battery(horrible charge hold time of ~40mins only) for my laptop, because Summer’s coming and Power is scare in summer over here!

Ideal Game Level Length?

Ideal Game Level Length?

| By

So what is an ideal length of a game level?

Really depends. Not every game requires a player to move around (angry birds / Where’s my water / Cut the Rope)?
In such cases, the length of a game level is the average time user spends to finish the level.

Stage Ended so Quickly? WTF?

In most cases of tablet/mobile gaming, a shorter game level does the job; giving quick sense of achievement to the player and keeping him/her interested to go on to next levels.
These were times when mobile gaming was quite young… most players would be casual/seasonal gamers.

Now, with the improvement on hardware and hence serious graphic games flooding into the mobile market.. we find an increase in number of regular gamers using the platform.

For regular/experienced gamers, smaller or shorter stages make the game look boring / too easy for their caliber.
And too long stages kill interest of all players alike (unless you have a mind bending puzzle solving game – like Portal/Portal2.. I’ve myself spent tons of hours with someone, pulling our hair to solve puzzles in portal2; was fun)

Sigh!

So depending on your game, you’ll need to pick which audience to appeal to and hence the level length/time.

I faced this challenge while designing levels for my upcoming game “Tank-them-Up” (Work in Progress)
How did I solve it?
1. Emulate Gamer in Hurry and not interested in Game Rewards:
Play the game level without collecting achievables/completing mission objective a.k.a just run/drive through the level without killing any enemy units or collecting powerups. Just reach end of level. Record the time.

2. Emulate Gamer who likes Rewards
Play the same level collecting every achievable and killing every enemy unit, completing every mission objective. Record the time.

Check the difference between (1) and (2).
Your ideal game level length would be a sweet spot in between that time.
Trick is to find that sweet spot ;)

And of course, don’t forget to take feedback from having it privately tested by other gamers. :)

Good News for everyone waiting for “Tank ‘em Up!” – I’ve decided to increase the current level length a bit, so you’ll enjoy a bit more blowing up stuff with every level :)

Here’s a little sneak preview of what you can expect to see :D (still work in progress)

Tank ‘em Up! – sneak preview of BloodBeetle driving through levels :)