TappyRun - infinite runner with cute voxel graphics!

I decided to spend November revisiting Unity3D, and this time I wanted to give it a proper shot. The aim was to publish a game in the first week of December... and I made it! TappyRun was released on the 4th December :)

TappyRun is a simple but fun infinite scrolling endless runner. Super simple gameplay with one tap controls, tap the left side of the screen to move left, tap the right side of the screen to move right. Avoid crashing head on into stuff or you land in the drink, at which point it's game over man, game over! It's fun to play, infuriating when you make a mistake and splash into the river, and awesome when you beat your friends highscores and share the screenshot on social media to rub their noses in it :) The closest comparisons that come to mind are subway surfers style gameplay - running in lanes collecting coins and avoiding obstacles, with a minecraft or crossy road graphical style - blocky voxel graphics, and flappy bird esque replayability and social friend baiting - quite short game sessions with the constant temptation to have "one more game" to try beating a highscore.

I intend to keep coming back to this game for the purposes of mini tutorials in the future. One month was barely enough time to scratch the surface of what Unity3D has to offer, but on the other hand it was enough to get a complete game published, so there's bound to be a handy tip or trick or two lodged in my brain worth sharing with the wider world. Interesting tutorial worthy features of this game include unlockable characters, in game currency (not purchased using real money, totally free to play), rewarded video ads, achievements, global social leaderboards, cloud saving and loading, tiles that link to my other apps formed from json retrieved from the internet, social screenshot sharing, level styling seasonal cycles, and so on. Plenty to talk about. I reckon a youtube video or two on creating cute voxel characters could be fun too! If you install TappyRun and find there's a particular feature you'd like to learn about, give me a shout in the comments and I'll see what I can do :)

Alongside creating this game I spent some time in November making a small web app with a public API that serves up useful information relating to my games and apps. Currently it just offers up information on my apps (http://www.theinvader360.com/api/v1/apps) and web presences (http://www.theinvader360.com/api/v1/presences). The plan is for all my games and applications to retrieve this information over the intertubes rather than have it hardcoded in each app, meaning all my apps should always be up to date. I like the idea of extending this further to help cross promote new apps to existing players, but am taking care not to rush this as it must not be annoying. I guess this isn't particularly exciting if you're just interested in playing games, but quite interesting if you're into making your own! Also, while I was at it, I couldn't resist giving the webapp a slightly prettier face than application/json text, so if you visit http://www.theinvader360.com you should now see my fully responsive self promotional website :)

As for Unity3D vs LibGDX, well, that's a whole blog post of it's own just waiting to happen... Suffice to say they both have their pros and cons, and I will most likely be using both in future, it seems it's all about using the right tool for the job at hand.

In the meantime, what are you waiting for? Go and grab TappyRun for free from Google Play, and let me know what you think in the comments (or on facebook or twitter)!

Count 1 to 10

Wow... Nearly two years have passed since my last blog post! I've been busy in that time, just not publishing. Time to fix that!

My last blog post introduced sensory, a very simple cause and effect light show app. I created it for TheInvaderOne (my now two and a half year old daughter), and decided to share it with the world. It's not some groundbreaking app, it's a simple "fireworks display" that reacts to touch input - something to entertain young children and those with certain special needs (particularly children with autism). I expected maybe a couple of hundred installs and a low star rating, it was a pleasant surprise to see it at 37,000+ installs and an average rating of 4.1 out of 5!

As TheInvaderOne grows, her taste in apps becomes a little more demanding. A couple of months ago I created a simple "Count 1 to 10" app for us to play together. Last weekend I cleaned it up a little, added a few extra languages (we concentrate on English and Welsh, but I figured a few other languages like French, German, Spanish, Italian, Chinese and Japanese could be of interest to other users, and to us a little later on) and finally got round to publishing it!

The app has been kept as simple as possible so that a child can play without accidentally exiting too easily or getting bogged down in menus. It is a simple app that uses android immersive mode, and has no menu or options screens - just start the app and you're straight in. Along the bottom of the screen you'll find the number buttons 1 to 10, tap a number button to display that amount of items in the middle of the screen, hear the number spoken aloud in the chosen language, and see the number symbol overlay the item table in a large clear font. Top left is the language select button, tap to cycle through the available languages. Top centre is a volume control slider, slide left to reduce/mute the sound, and right to increase volume (note you need your device volume to be on too!). Top right is a small close button, tap this to exit the app. All settings are saved, so the next time you open the count from one to ten app your preferred language and volume settings will be set automatically.

Count 1 to 10 is a very simple app designed for young children, the main aim being to help teach early years numeracy - linking together numeric symbols, the spoken word for that number in the chosen language, and the quantity of items represented by that number. The way we use it, it also helps teach various first words relating to colours, animals, fruits, and vegetables. I don't start the app and hand the device over to TheInvaderOne to entertain herself, we sit together, tap a number button, then when a randomly generated scene matching that number appears we discuss what we see. So, say we tap "3", and as a result the word "three" is spoken aloud by the app, and three red tomatoes are displayed on screen, we'll both repeat the word "three" aloud, and she might shout out "three tomatoes!", I'd then congratulate her on getting the number and item correct, and ask for more information - what colour are the tomatoes? Does she like tomatoes? In this case the answer would be along the lines of "Mmmmmm! Three big red tomatoes! I like tomatoes! Yummy!". At this point we might go off on a tangent and talk about what we might eat with tomatoes, or maybe I'd pose a simple math question along the lines of how many tomatoes would there be if I took one away, or maybe we'd just hit another number button and start discussing the two big brown horseys, or the four little white ducks, or the eight orange carrots... This all boils down to the app being better used as a jumping off point for collaborative play/learning than a standalone toy for the child to play with on their own, though that is another valid use case for it.

I've made this app available for free on google play. Hopefully some of you out there will find it of value and leave a nice rating and review :)

I hope to be back soon with news of some more games!

Sensory - a cause and effect light show app

While testing my latest game (Jewel Match Blitz) it became apparent that TheInvaderOne (my 9 month old daughter) was very interested in what was going on. She has always been interested in the laptop, but the phones and tablets with their sounds and bright coloured lights and tappable screens took it to another level! Testing Jewel Match Blitz soon became quite a challenge! :) I'd hand her the device to play a little, and she had great fun until it was game over - at 9 months old she was never going to be particularly great at playing a strategic action puzzle game so the game overs came thick and fast!



The experience got me thinking about what kind of app would be suitable for a baby. TheInvaderOne loves touching the screen and seeing something happen, and feedback in the form of sound effects and bright lights never fail to raise a smile. I created a very small demo app for her using the particle effect already used in Jewel Match Blitz. When you touch the screen a particle effect is triggered at that position, keep touching and more particles are triggered. The app is multitouch enabled so up to 10 points can spawn particles in assorted colours simultaneously. She absolutely loves it!



I soon realised that other babies, and potentially SEN children and adults with various learning difficulties, special education needs, and/or disabilities could also benefit from the Sensory app, so I decided to package it up and make available on the google play app store. It is 100% free and is not monetized in any way, ads in an app targeted at users with limited understanding where the aim is to randomly tap the screen would be extremely bad karma! You can find the app here - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.theinvader360.sensory.app.free.android

I also figured that there are a few interesting principles involved in this tiny app that might mean it's of interest to other developers, especially those getting started with LibGdx. The app touches on particle effects, object pooling, multitouch, screen transitions, scene 2d ui, the asset manager, etc. The excellent Simple Game example touches on most of the main areas involved when making a basic game (assets, game loop, input, draw, sound). I think the Sensory app builds on that foundation to illustrate simply and clearly how to handle some of the more intermediate LibGdx features. You can find the open source project on github, hopefully it will be of interest to fellow developers interested in making games with LibGdx - https://github.com/TheInvader360/sensory

I'd be over the moon to hear that the little "side effect" offshoot of Jewel Match Blitz ended up helping you in some way, so please leave a 5* review of the app if you can (and maybe leave something in the comments here too!)

Jewel Match Blitz - Match 3 Remix!

Apologies for such a long absence, I've been neglecting my indie Android games recently. Time to put that right with a new release - Jewel Match Blitz :)

Jewel Match Blitz sees me dipping my toe in a new genre, the strategic action puzzler. From the screenshots you'd be forgiven for thinking it's yet another Bejeweled or Candy Crush Saga copycat game... But you would be wrong! :p

I grew up in a time where action puzzlers like Tetris, Columns, and Dr Mario were all the rage. Jewel Match Blitz plays more like one of those old classics than a "swap the jewel/candy/whatever positions to match 3 or more" that has seemingly been done to death in recent years. If I were to liken Jewel Match Blitz to any existing game I think Columns would be the closest match, but it's still quite a different game mechanic. In Columns the jewels fall from the top of the screen (similar to both Dr Mario and Tetris), and it's up to you to arrange them such that groups of three or more are formed and then disappear. In Jewel Match Blitz the jewels push up from the bottom of the screen, and you need to identify and tap groups of three or more adjacent matching jewels to make them explode (Match 3). You can also tap the occasional flashing blitz jewels for a blitz bonus. Your aim is to stop the jewels from reaching the top of the screen, or it is game over.

The game is available for free on the google play android market (as are all my other games) and has a global google play game services leaderboard. Download it now, sign in, get a highscore, then challenge your friends to try and beat you! It gets real addictive, real fast :D

As always, I hope you have fun!

LibGDX Google Play Game Services Tutorial

Google Play Game Services offers cross platform social leaderboards, achievements, and much more (realtime multiplayer, cloud saves, anti-piracy...). I've started implementing google play game services leaderboards and achievements in my LibGDX Android Games, and the purpose of this blog article is to walk through the process so you can do the same!

• I've published an example project on Google Play check it out!
• The example project is freely available on GitHub check that out too!
• You can also get the complete (free) version of Super Jump a Doodle here!

Continue reading after the jump to find out how to add these features to your own games!

Fruit Run FREE Slot Machine - featuring google play game services!

One million installs!

1,066,345+ users have installed my LibGDX Android games :)

Due to reporting lag that number is a few days out of date, and it doesn't include installs from third party scraper style stores, so the real number will be a little higher, but I can safely say I have over a million installs in total. Awesome :)

So, how do the various markets stack up?

Street Race Swipe LibGDX Scene2D Tutorial

I have been meaning to write a LibGDX Scene2D tutorial for some time now (ever since my Quack Attack FREE Duck Hunt Game got ridiculously popular). The problem has been finding the time, instead of writing blog entries I've been making games!

I had a great idea for a multitasking game, play four independent games at one time to train your brain and test your ability to multitask. The result was my 4 Games 1 Screen FREE Brain Training Game. I built this game as four separate games from the outset, with the intention of possibly building further on each minigame and releasing as standalone apps. The first of these standalone apps is Street Race Swipe Racing Game, which brings us neatly to the point of this article...

Street Race Swipe Racing Game is such a simple game at its heart that it seems like an excellent candidate for a tutorial article :) I remember being massively impressed by the example SimpleApp on the LibGDX wiki when first starting out, there was so little to it but it touched on all the basics of what is needed to make a game. I'm hoping this mini project will be almost as simple and just as helpful to others!

4 Games 1 Screen - Musings on mobile game control

So often I hear that players hate onscreen controls on touch devices. No physical button means no tactile feedback to let you know you are 'touching but not pressing' a button. This fundamentally different interface means the traditional joystick / d-pad control scheme can no longer be the de facto standard for gaming controls across all platforms - replicating "up down left right a b start" on a phone or tablet is far from ideal (but an ouya or gamestick is another matter entirely ;)).

In my latest game, 4 Games 1 Screen, I try to make the most of a tricky situation. I've embraced the android mobile platform and the control options it offers. Our phones and tablets have accelerometers and touchscreens, the old nintendo and sega machines did not, it's time to think outside the box and make the most of these features.

4 Games 1 Screen is a challenging brain training game, the aim is to multitask by playing four games at one time, and avoid making too many mistakes. Make too many mistakes and it's game over. Each game is kept relatively simple for two reasons - first the game has to have a single objective and control method, second you have to be able to play four of these things at once so too much complexity would be too distracting for the player.

The mini games are:

• Asteroid Attack - Tilt to steer your ship, asteroid collisions damage the shields, and when the shields are gone - gameover man, gameover!
• Tap Jump Cowboy - Classic infinite scroll platform game (like canabalt, and gemserk's excellent vampire runner) tap the screen to jump, save the cowboy from running into the campfires!
• Speedy Sums Math Master - Fully engage the left side of the brain, evaluate the math problem and mark it as correct or incorrect... You not only lose a life when you get it wrong, but also when you run out of time - so think fast!
• Street Race Swipe - Swipe up or down to change lanes in this fast and furious racing game, avoid crashing into the other sports cars, too many bumps and your car will explode!

Each game can be played independently (full screen) in practice mode, but the real aim of the game is to play them all at once - the game is called "4 Games 1 Screen" afterall :) I find it fun, addictive, frustrating and challenging. The frustration is what makes it so addictive haha, I see gameover and immediately try again to "do it right this time" :)

No onscreen controls, and a game that would not really be possible on traditional gaming platforms, this is truly a mobile game designed for mobile devices. I hope you go on to check it out (it's FREE, so why not!) and if you also like making your own mobile games that you might consider some of the thought behind the concept - don't lament the lack of physical controls, instead make the most of what is available!



Finally, does this mean that I won't ever release a mobile game with onscreen controls? No. Definitely not. A future project will be a traditional platformer, with android enabled consoles like the ouya and gamestick firmly in mind. I will no doubt make a mobile version of this game with onscreen controls (it would be silly not to). I'm not against onscreen controls, I'm against not thinking up interesting ways to make the most of what the mobile platform offers. I believe a platformer will only work well with traditional controls, but we don't always have to make traditional games :)

Happy gaming boys and girls!

Scene2D Investigation... Result: Quack Attack Free Duck Hunt Game!

I started looking into LibGDX Scene2D recently. No real reason, other than it looked like it could be something interesting to learn, so why not! :) Best way for me to learn is to just get stuck in, so I got to work on a Duck Hunt tribute, and learned as I went along...

It's clear that Scene2D UI is the way to go for menus and the like, so much cleaner than my past approach. Scene2D UI combined with table-layout makes setting up menus and HUDs a breeze. Even better, tweaking layouts becomes pain free, a real bonus! I'll certainly be using it again in future games.

As for making use of Scene2D in the game itself (over and above the HUD), it was tricky to start with... All the tutorials I've read so far have advocated the MVC approach, and it seems that MVC is not really possible when using Scene2D (the model and view are tightly coupled). Still, I've not been doing this long enough to be stuck in my ways, so I figured I could just ignore some of what I'd learned in my earlier projects and just go with the Scene2D flow.

I was surprised that there aren't more tutorials available on the subject to be honest, but I muddled through with various bits and pieces I could find. The most valuable resource when getting started was the LibGDX suite of tests, they are always a good starting point when looking at something new. The official wiki was helpful too. It's a bit presumptuous to think that I'm in a position to write tutorials on the subject (due to me being a newbie myself), but I think I'll post a few code snippets in the coming weeks to share some getting started tips, maybe even an open source step-by-step mini game "how to" if I have the time.

I like how Scene2D lets you encapsulate Actor behaviour in its own act() method, it's pretty cool just instantiating an Actor and then just leaving it to its own devices. My first Scene2D game (Quack Attack) has the game logic class spawn a Duck object at various intervals, the Duck class itself keeps track of how it should behave (overridden act() method sets various actions for the duck to perform dependent on its current state), and it also takes care of drawing itself via the overridden draw() method. It's really nice to be able to look at that single Duck class and immediately "get" exactly what a duck will do in the game, without having to look at various other classes. I guess this is one of the main Scene2D strengths, but on the flipside it's what makes MVC impossible...

I'm sure the coupled view and controller will make things difficult on larger more complex games, but for simpler games I don't think it's a big problem. I guess if I were ever to try porting a Scene2D heavy game to a different platform it'd be a problem too, I am pretty sure porting Racing Game or Evil Monkey Touch Defense or Zombie Game to XNA would be pretty straightforward (if we ignore the tilt/touch control issue), but porting Quack Attack to a library without a similar scene graph implementation would not be so straightforward (would probably have to port the whole of Scene2D too!). Again I don't really care about that right now as I'm focusing on Android only, so I think it's quite likely that I'll be using in-game Scene2D in the future.

I've just published my first Scene2D game on Google Play, it's totally free (ad supported), so feel free to install and check it out. If you like it, I always appreciate a nice rating/review :) Check it out here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.theinvader360.duckhunt.quackattackfree

I think it turned out quite well, and am pleased with what was achieved in a relatively short amount of time. Keep an eye out for future blog posts featuring mini Scene2D tutorials if you're interested in that kind of thing :)

Until next time - happy gaming, and happy game developing!

Monkey Magic!

UPDATE - As a result of a request from Fox, this game has been removed from the Google Play market. I may create a new version at some point using all original graphics (i.e. not the Family Guy monkey), but in the meantime why not check out one of my other games?

I released a new free game recently - Evil Monkey Touch Defence. You control a "good" Evil Monkey / King Kong type character, his job is to try and protect the tower from incoming missiles!

This was an experiment in creating the simplest possible control scheme for a casual game, while still making a game that's good fun to play. When you touch the screen the monkey starts dropping his aim, when you release the screen he fires. No buttons, no tilt, no nothing, just touch and release anywhere on the screen to control the game - it couldn't get any simpler! The longer you survive the faster the missiles get, and the more missiles you destroy the higher your score, simple and addictive fun...

You can check out Evil Monkey Touch Defence here. I'd love it if you would leave a nice rating or review if you like the game :)


On the subject of free monkey based casual games for android... A friend of mine recently released his first game, you can check out his Monkey Game here - it's a fun casual physics game that uses Box2D behind the scenes. There's nothing in the least bit evil about this monkey, he just wants to eat his fruit (and not get eaten by a croc!)

Kicking off a new project - Tower Defence!

I've started working on a new game... Yayness!

Zombie Survival - now available free on google play!

The question was - Can I make a game in a weekend? The answer was no. Or yes. Or, well... maybe. Kinda. I don't know...

Last Friday I started work on a totally new game - Zombie Survival. By the end of the day Saturday, I did have a playable "game". Or more accurately I had a working game mechanic. There was a good guy, zombies, an objective, and it was fun to play, it even looked pretty good. I guess that could be called a game. Except, it can't. Not really.

A game is more than just the mechanic and the graphics. The mechanic is what really matters at the end of the day, but there's a lot of additional stuff that you have to pack into your game no matter how simple/casual the market - this stuff isn't really optional anymore.

It took an additional four evenings and nearly a whole Saturday morning and early afternoon of effort before Zombie Game was ready for the marketplace. In that time I added screens for highscores, help, gameover, paused, etc, saved/read settings and highscores to/from persistent memory, improved the look and feel throughout, implemented sound and music, did some refactoring (I'm learning as I go, so tend to clean up / rework as and when I have a lightbulb moment), playtested and tweaked difficulty to get things just right (the fine line between challenging and frustrating is where the fun is found!), carried out lots of testing on multiple devices, and did a little bug fixing.

All in I reckon it took about 45-50 hours effort spread over 8 days to go from nothing to published, and I'm really pleased with that. But 48-ish hours effort is not the same as 48 hours elapsed time (lots of problems solved themselves in my head overnight, the subconscious mind is a wonderful thing!), I guess Ludum Dare will have to wait.

I'm sure my girlfriend will be glad to know that I'll be giving it a rest for at least a week or two now... A full time job plus putting in full time hours on an android game resulted in this being quite the antisocial week! Anyway, the game is up on google play, and it's a free download, so why not give it a go? Cute zombie fun just in time for halloween :)