Evil Window Dog Blog

A Pixel Perfect Camera for Unity

2016-07-12

Lately, we’ve been working on our upcoming pixel-art 2D game, The Last Priestess. It’s actually an old project that we started building 3 years ago on Cocos 2D. At that time we were targeting iPhone 4/4S which meant that there would be a single resolution on which the game would run. Now, we are using Unity and we are targeting both iOS and Android. This means thousands of possible resolutions. “Why is this a problem?”, you may ask…well, let me introduce you to our little friend!

Texture filtering

In non-pixel art 2D games, a sprite can be rendered in any screen resolution using bilinear filtering. When the sprite is rendered on screen, the screen pixels get their color values by interpolating between the actual texture color values. This produces a smooth result.

If bilinear filtering is used in a pixel-art game, the result gets quite blurry. I will pause here to mention that retro games that used pixel art back in the day were meant to be viewed blurry! The artists took advantage of the gaussian blur that the CRT phosphors offered for free to reduce the ‘blockiness’ of the sprites (take a look here). In order to view those retro games the way they are suppoded to, CRT-shaders have been developed, but this a story for another post. Left: How pixelart games are rendered today Right: How they use to look back in 90s

Nowadays, we want our new pixel-art games to look really sharp and blocky! This is why, nearest neighbor filtering (aka point filtering) is used to render sprites. With this technique, when a texture is sampled, the color value of the nearest texture pixel is returned. Another way to think about that is that each texture pixel gets rendered to multiple screen pixels.

The problem

But how may screen pixels is a texture pixel going to be rendered into? This is where the problem begins to unfold!

Let’s imagine that we have a 4x4 pixels sprite that is being rendered on an 32x32 screen area. Each sprite pixel will render to an 8x8 region. In a less ideal scenario, the screen region could be 38X38, resulting in a 9.5x9.5 screen area (because 38/4 = 9.5). Since we render on non integer pixel lengths, this actually means that the region will sometimes be 9x9 or 10x10. Thus, some texture pixels will appear slightly bigger than others. Even worse, when a sprite moves (translates) the same sprite pixel could change between 10 and 9, creating a shimmering artifact.

The solution

We want the screen resolution to be a multiple of our texture’s size. However, we can’t control the resolution because each device has its own native resolution. What we can do is scale up or down our sprite so that each texture pixel renders to an integer number of screen pixels. Another way to think about this is that we will zoom in or out of our 2D world a bit, in order to match a pixel-perfect ratio.

The perfect candidate to apply this solution in Unity would be the orthographic camera. So, we created a simple script that adjusts the camera’s size in order to achieve a pixel perfect result.

Pixel Perfect Camera script

Using our Pixel Perfect Camera script, you can set the ideal camera width or height in units (Yep, you can set the camera width if you want!). If you enable the pixel perfect mode, the script will set the camera’s size to the closest pixel perfect size to the one you have set.

HTML5 demo

Below you can take a look at a live demo, that makes use of some of our upcoming game’s assets at your browser. In the demo you can toggle the pixel perfect mode of the script and adjust the camera size. When pixel perfect is disabled you can notice the following artifacts:

Shimmering artifacts in the falling word
Distorted geometry of the pixelated grid
Small details in the background, like windows, appear to change size

When pixel perfect mode is enabled, the camera size snaps in specific values. The artifacts disapper in these pixel-perfect sizes.

Get the add-on

Even though some other solutions exist in the Unity Asset store, our approach is simpler and has a few more features that were important for us. This is why we would like to share it with you with no charge!

UPDATE: In order to continue the support and development of Pixel Perfect Camera further, we decided to put a price tag on the addon.

You can download our script from the Unity Asset store. We hope you find it useful!

Linkpack is now available!

2016-01-14

We are really excited to announce that Linkpack is now available on the App Store!

Linkpack helps you save web pages directly from your favorite browser (desktop or mobile) into your Dropbox account, so you can view and categorize them the way you want to. You can easily track your reading progress, listen to your saved articles and share folders of links (called Linkpacks) with the world.

With Linkpack your links are always in sync between the app and your Dropbox account, meaning you can use your Mac or PC to organize them as files and folders. You can also add links using the iOS or the Chrome extensions.

Read your links using Readability view and let Linkpack track your progress, so that you can continue from where you left off. You can even enable narration and have the content read back to you while you are on the move.

Finally, if you want to share a Linkpack with the world, the app will generate a unique URL that displays all the links in a beautiful page!

Here are some sample Linkpacks, generated from the app:

Linkpack is free and available on the App Store now! 😊

Horizon for Android!

2014-09-19

After a lot of months of hard work, Horizon is now available for free on Google Play and the Amazon Appstore!

Horizon for Android is tightly integrated Horizon the Android OS, allowing other apps located in your mobile device to launch Horizon for video capture!

You can learn more about the features of the app in the official Horizon blog.

There is also a new trailer, called ’Inventing Horizon’ that tells a funny and …analog story of the horizontal video issue!

Horizon has now its own social accounts. Be sure to subscribe, follow it on Twitter, Instagram and Google+, like it on Facebook and watch its videos on Youtube or Vine!

If you like Horizon, spread the word. We look forward to your Horizon videos!

Horizon requires an Android 4.3+ device with gyroscope and accelerometer.

Horizon 2.0 launch aftermath

2014-07-18

As you might know, Horizon 2.0 was released four days ago on the App Store. We have yet received numerous emails, tweets and reviews revealing how much you love this update and the new features we have added to the app. We really want to thank you for that!

While we are already working on the 2.0.1 update and we are getting ready for the Android release, we thought to take a moment and share with you three really good news that happened lately!

Horizon 2.0 on the App Store

Horizon update is now featured across the App Store in over 100 countries in various places.

We are really honored to be part of the ’Split Second Video’ App Store collection, among apps like Vine and Instagram!

Horizon 2.0 has been also featured in the ‘Best New Apps’ section in the front-page of the App Store and also with a unique banner in the Photos & Videos category across the world.

We are really excited & humbled by this! Getting showcased by Apple is always a way of knowing that we are doing the right thing, and also that we are providing you with be possible experience out there.

FbStart: Accelerate

The news do not end there though! We are really excited to announce that we have been chosen by Facebook in its FbStart Accelerate track! But what does that mean essentially?

FbStart will give us the opportunity to use a large number of services (from prototyping and design, to testing and customer care), which will allow us to continuously improve our product even faster!

The Summit 2014 @ Dublin

Last but not least, we have one more announcement to make! We will be exhibiting Horizon during ’The Summit’ in November this year at Dublin, Ireland!

’The Summit’ is one of the world’s most influential and international tech events out there, with attendees coming from companies like Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Dropbox.

If you happen to be visiting 'The Summit’, come and join us! We will be more that happy to chat with any of you in person!

Horizon 2.0 is here!

2014-07-14

The 14th of July is here, and this can only mean one thing: Horizon 2.0!

So go ahead and unlock the screen of your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad and open Horizon. You will be greeted by our updated tutorial, which will guide you through the new features of the 2.0 update!

While Photo Mode, 2K and 60 / 120 FPS video recording are the highlighted features of this update, we have made quite a lot of changes almost everywhere!

You can read the full Horizon 2.0 change-log below. We went ahead and highlighted the most important changes for you.

Photo mode! Tap the photo button or swipe anywhere on the screen to switch to photo mode!
You can also take photos while capturing your video!
60 FPS (720p) support for iPhone 5/5S, iPad 2/Mini/Mini Retina/Air users!
2K resolution & 120 FPS / 720p (Slow Motion) support for iPhone 5S devices!
Lossless zoom with the all new ‘Crisp’ resolutions at iPhone 5S.
New Locked mode: Auto. This mode chooses the best locked orientation automagically!
A lot of interface changes that introduce you to the new features!
The leveling modes have been renamed and revamped: Meet Flex, Rotate and Locked mode!
You can now select modes in a much smarter way while capturing.
Toggle flash on/off even while recording.
The library button now takes you directly to your last captured photo or video.
Do you want to massively delete photos and videos from the photo library? Tap the ‘Select’ button, then simply swipe to select your items!
The filters have been updated, now working both on video & photo modes.
The produced photos and videos have correct metadata.
Metadata are now saved correctly with your photos & videos to your photo library
Bug fixes and performance improvements

Oh, and one more thing…

We have a whole new dedicated website just for Horizon on horizon.camera!

You can visit Horizon.camera now, and learn more about Horizon, read User Reviews, the Press coverage and the awards and also play with the interactive demo!

And don’t forget: If you enjoy using Horizon, please take a minute to leave a nice review or rating in the App Store. If you’ve reviewed or rated a previous version of Horizon please resubmit it as ratings are reset with each new update.

Thank you for your support!

Introducing: 60 & 120 FPS, 2K recording and more!

2014-07-09

You might have thought by now that the upcoming Horizon 2.0 is all about the Photo Mode, but this is just the peak of the iceberg as far as new features are concerned!

Beginning with the 2.0 update you will have the option to shoot horizontal videos in 60 & 120 FPS as well as capture your moments in a staggering 2K resolution!

Our goal is to make the selection of these new modes as fast and as streamlined as possible, so with just one tap you will be able to choose between them (as shown in the screenshot below) and get the result you want without messing around in the Settings!

The 60 FPS mode produces videos with more natural movement whereas the 120 FPS gives you the ability to add slow motion your creations!

For the 120 FPS slow motion videos we added an extra functionality in Horizon’s build-in video library: Tap & hold for slow motion playback! You will now have the power to slow time while your video is playing, just by tapping & holding your finger on the screen. Release it and your video goes back to normal playback speed.

As for the 2K option, we now let you capture horizontal videos in 2592x1936 resolution at 30 FPS, which isn’t even available in the default Camera app!

For iPhone5S users we have yet another ace upon our sleeves: Crisp modes! Crisp modes take the full 2592x1936 stream from your camera and use it to produce 720p & 1080p videos, resulting in a much more cleaner, or as we prefer to say crispier, output.

All those new modes are available on Apple devices that can support them hardware-wise. The 120 FPS and 2K recording modes are available only on iPhone5S and 60 FPS recording can be found at iPad Mini, iPad Air, iPad Mini Retina, iPhone 5, iPhone 5C and iPhone 5S.

Start shooting horizontally now!

Introducing: Photo Mode

2014-07-07

With just one week away from the launch of the first huge update of Horizon, let’s start talking about the cool new features.

With the new 2.0 version you can switch between Video and Photo modes just by tapping on the appropriate button or by swiping your finger anywhere on the screen.

Photo mode allows you to shoot beautiful full resolution horizontal photos, but wait; there’s more! You can also capture horizontal photos while shooting your video. Just tap on the photo button while recording!

Photo Mode and photo capturing while recording will be supported by any device that Horizon already runs on, available for the back as well as the front cameras!

Oh, and we also have a Vine video for it:

Last but not least, you might want to pick Horizon now, as we have dropped its price from $1.99 to $0.99 (-50%) in order for you to be among the first to experience the power of the Photo Mode!

Start shooting horizontally now!

Announcing Horizon 2.0 launch date

2014-07-02

We’ve been quite busy the past few months. After the last update back in April, we took a step back and read all of your feature requests since launch. It was quite apparent that most of you wanted cool & powerful new functionality to be added to Horizon, and hey, that was exactly what we wanted too!

So we set out to work on an update that would integrate all those new features and yet more, some of which aren’t even available on the default Camera app! We also had to rewrite most of the ‘backend’ logic of the app to make it faster and more reliable, with tighter integration to the latest iOS libraries.

After two months of hard work, we are finally there. We call this update ‘Horizon 2.0’ due to the extensive list of the new features and we will launch it exactly six months (time does run fast, huh?) after the initial release of Horizon: July 14th, 2014.

This update will be free for all of our existing users as a thank you note for your ongoing support!

In the following days we will introduce you to every single change built in Horizon 2.0, so stay tuned!

Till then, mark the date: 14th of July 2014.

Extreme Horizon experiment: iPhone on Spinning Car Wheel

2014-06-16

As we are getting even closer to the release date of the next major Horizon update, we decided to create a small experiment.

We all know by now that Horizon shoots perfect horizontal videos, even if you rotate your device while shooting! We wanted to stress Horizon’s capabilities by using it under extreme circumstances.

Experiment Setup

We attached an iPhone on the front wheel of a car using duct tape and some wires, placed its front face camera at the center of the wheel and took it for a ride! Car’s top speed reached up to 50 km/h (31 mph).

Also, by making use of AirPlay, we were able to monitor the iPhone camera feed on our Macbook in real time.

Analysis

So, what is the conclusion of this simple yet exciting experiment?

Horizon was able to maintain the orientation of the video, but after a while it had to deal with something called centrifugal force.

This bad fella confused the iPhone’s device motion algorithms into thinking that the gravity vector was constantly changing, so the iPhone couldn’t figure out the real gravity vector.

Moreover, the lines of the resulting video look curved and create a cool wobbling effect.

This is because of the iPhone’s “Rolling shutter” camera: when an iPhone captures a picture, it scans the camera input top to bottom and this takes time. Because the rotation speed of the camera is close to the scanning speed, straight lines turn to curved ones!

Result

We are working on an updated version of the experiment that will probably produce better results under this extreme situation!

Here’s the short clip of our little experiment in Vine and also the video that was recorded by Horizon from the front wheel.

We will be back with more experiments soon! Till then stay tuned for the upcoming Horizon update for iOS!

Horizon, an Amazing Video App

2014-04-11

Horizon is now 50% off as part of the App Store’s “Amazing Photo & Video Apps” promotion, alongside apps like Spark Camera, Waterlogue, LetterGlow and Fragment!

This is a limited time offer, so hurry and get Horizon now!

Automating iTunes Connect metadata management

2014-03-17

While getting ready for the latest version of Horizon that supports seven more languages, we had to update our App Store related assets: app description, screenshots, keywords, “What’s New” section etc. Using iTunes Connect interface slowed down the process considerably and did now allow for an easy way to manage and localize all those assets.

This is why we developed and used itunesfs, short for “iTunes File System”. It is a command line tool, written in Python 3, that lets us work directly on our assets and organize them in a simple file hierarchy. It takes care of generating the final .itmsp package that can be uploaded to iTunes Connect.

This approach makes the task of localizing the assets extremely easy, as every language is located inside a folder containing the corresponding files. The task can be automated even further by incorporating the Transifex command line tools.

If you are overwhelmed by maintaining a localized iOS app, you can download itunefs package from PyPi or install it using pip:

$ pip3 install itunesfs

After organising your files in the asset folder, itunesfs is as simple as running this:

$ itunesfs <path to folder>

This tool can be improved even further by adding support for in app purchases, leaderboards etc. If you feel like contributing, here is the project’s repo on Github.

Spring update!

2014-03-13

March is here at last and this is what is keeping us busy this period!

Horizon 1.2 update

We have just released the 1.2 update in the App Store, so go get it now!

Here are some highlights of the new version:

Multilingual support! Horizon now speaks seven more languages: French, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, Italian, Russian and German!
Tons of bug fixes
A new option for the ‘Disabled’ mode
64 bit support: Do you own an iPhone 5S, iPad Air or iPad Mini with Retina Display? Then this one is for you!
And did I mention that there are a lot of bug fixes? Oh, did I? OK!

Also, during the process of fully localizing our app (we ❤ Transifex), we localized the iTunes metadata as well (Title, Description, Keywords etc) and we developed & open sourced a way to easily organise and update your iTunes metadata from the console. We call our system iTunes File System (or itunesfs for shorts), is written in Python 3 and it’s ready to serve your needs: Github Repo. You can also find itunesfs on pip for an easier installation: sudo pip3 install itunesfs.

That said, we are even more excited for the 1.3 version of Horizon, that will include even more new features!

Android Version in the works

The Android build is going strong! We have already released a teaser image and we hope to have more screenshots, photos and videos from the Android development process really soon!

Till next time, people!

Horizon is FREE!

2014-03-04

We are serious on making Vertical Videos a thing of the past. This is why we set Horizon free for a limited time. Go get it now and spread the word!

Horizon: 1 month later

2014-02-18

What a month! To say that Horizon had a pretty good launch it would really be an understatement. As you may have read throughout the Web, Horizon was a top story in numerous technology websites and still, one month after its launch, we are really excited to read new reviews from major media outlets every day!

Horizon is also featured by Apple in various ways (Best New Apps, Promotional Banner, Twitter account), mentioned by famous technology personas such as John Gruber and Robert Scoble and even appeared in foreign mainstream media such as ABCNews, BBC and Spiegel!

We couldn’t be more excited and more humbled at the same time by this response.

As for our plans, we just released the updated version of Horizon mini-site, which now lists a lot of the quotes we received the past month.

We have also released the 1.1 update to the App Store, which includes a huge number of optimizations and fixes, making the app more stable and producing even smoother videos!

We also plan to release the 1.2 update the following weeks, which will feature even more improvements and we are already working on the Android release as well as the next “2.0” update of the app which will include exciting new features!

Now get out there and shoot horizontal videos!

Horizon's phenomenal launch!

2014-01-16

Horizon already counts two days of life on the App Store and the reception was something we couldn’t even dream of! Horizon took over the App Stores around the world by storm!

All major media outlets throughout the world have covered its launch with raving reviews. Below you can find some of them:

Techcrunch: “I’ve been using the app for a good chunk of the morning, and it’s pretty solid.”

Engadget: “We just wish Apple and Google had bundled this as standard.“

Gizmodo: "Brilliant, Overdue App Forces Your Phone to Take Horizontal Videos”

TUAW: “Love the UI: it’s intuitive and easy”

The Next Web: “Horizon for iOS means no more vertical videos”

AppAdvice: “You owe it to yourself to check out the new Horizon app for iOS.”

After the first reviews came in, the word about Horizon spread on social media like wildfire! We weren’t even able to track all the tweets and posts about our app!

Being at the top spot in a lot of App Stores might feel really good, but at the same time it makes us realise the responsibility we have to every and each one of you to deliver an even better product in every future update!

We have collected your feedback and we have already mapped out some really cool new features for the next update, so stay tuned!

Horizon is here to stay! :)

Horizon is now available!

2014-01-14

That’s it people, after months of development and preparation, our latest app, Horizon is out & about!

You can find Horizon on the App Store for -as a special 50% launch date discount- download it and start recording your horizontal videos now!

You can also check out our launch trailer and the updated website of our app and tell us what do you think on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or in the comments below!

We are really excited about this launch and we must thank every single one of you for your support!

Note: If you can’t find Horizon in your local App Store today (14/1), check back some hours later. Apple releases the app automatically based on your local timezone, so in the first hours the app will appear in some countries and gradually become available globally.

Mark the day: 14 Jan 14!

2014-01-10

Horizon launch is just around the corner! In four days we will release our latest project to the App Store and change the way you shoot videos with your iOS device forever!

We will also unveil our launch trailer, the new Horizon website and lots of info from the development process!

So mark your calendars people, cause you don’t want to miss this launch!

Horizon Website is up & running!

2013-12-20

Time to reveal Horizon website!

If you visit Horizon you will see an interactive demo of our application running inside your browser, where you will be able to directly compare the output video of our upcoming app with that of the default Camera application of iOS.

In the technical side of things, the mini-site makes a heavy use of HTML5 video, canvas and CSS3 3D transforms to make the experience as smooth as it can be.

As for the app itself, we are literally one step before launch & we just started editing the launch trailer!

If you want to follow our progress, enter your email at the Horizon website and you will always stay up to date with the latest scoop!

Shooting the launch trailer

2013-12-15

As we get closer to Horizon launch, we thought it would be really cool to shoot a trailer for the app! But just like all of the other Evil Window Dog aspects, we decided to improve the overall process in order to give Horizon the trailer it deserves!

So we brought Stelios Stefanidis from RedTape Photography, a few friends and occupied a cafe in downtown Thessaloniki (One Sweet Day) for more than three hours!

Although it was our first time & we did a hell of a lot of retakes, we really enjoyed the whole process!

As you can see from the picture above, as well as those on our Facebook Page, we took several scenes that may or may not be used in the final trailer, but they will definitely appear one way or another!

Our next task is probably even trickier: The editing & production of the trailer will be begin right away, so stay tuned for more behind the scenes photos!

And the name is…

2013-12-10

I guess it’s time to share with you what we have been working on the past few months.

We teased you a couple of times on our upcoming app and today we will unveil more information!

First up, its name!

Horizon

Horizon, is essentially a camera application for iOS devices, designed to capture horizontal videos. You won’t have to care on how you hold your Apple device; the resulting video will be just right!

Huh, what do you mean “just right”?

As we have already mentioned, Vertical Videos is a plague of our days.

Horizon, not only makes recording vertical videos practically impossible (really, you can try), it also allows users to record horizontal videos while tilting their device!

I want more!

Hold your horses, lad! We will reveal more really soon, till then the name & a screenshot of the interface will do, won’t they? :)

If you wanna know more about Horizon and be the first to catch the future updates & the upcoming release, sign up for our Horizon newsletter!

Vertical Videos, a Public Service Announcement

2013-11-04

There is no delicate way of saying this: A plague is going around in the past few years and you may already be a victim of it.

If you own a smartphone then you probably suffer from the ’Vertical Videos Syndrome’ (VVS for shorts).

The problem started appearing with the release of iPhone 3GS and it spread like wild fire.

Since then, the majority of smartphone owners shoot videos while holding their phone in portrait mode, thus creating vertical videos, the worst type of video a human being can lay eyes on.

You may have already watched the following PSA which raises awareness for VVS, or even the ‘Turn Your Phone!’ song that was released this summer.

Quite a bit of an issue, huh?

Wait, it gets worse: VVS is only one of the problems caused by holding your phone wrong while shooting videos. What happens when you rotate your phone while shooting? Or shooting in an angle? Your video gets irrevocably destroyed.

As we are already victims of this very plague, we set out to fix the whole mess & we came up with a pretty elegant solution!

We are really excited about our upcoming product and we can’t wait to show you the result of our hard work!

Till then, note this: You shouldn’t have to care on how you hold your phone.

VVS can & will be stopped!

Transmission ended.

The new website is here

2013-10-30

As you can probably see, our updated website is now up & running. We are quite proud of it as it is a lighter, cleaner and overall better looking version of the previous one.

For this project, we decided to use a bunch of new technologies in order to make it easier to maintain & deploy. We have also open sourced the entire website code on Github, just in case you want to use pieces or even the entire backend logic for your own projects!

Our website is pretty small and simple is terms of complexity: six static pages, a Tumblr-powered blog and a couple of forms (Subscription is powered by MailChimp & Contact Form by Wufoo).

In terms of coding this doesn’t look as much, but we decided to take a step further and make it easier for us to change & push code without breaking everything in the process.

Our old process was pretty much what you can imagine: Change the live CSS & HTML files, refresh, see if something breaks up, rise and repeat.

This will might sound OK for a small website but it was quite unacceptable for us so we set out to discover how to create static HTML content the-right-way™.

Enter static website generators

When it comes to static websites, one of the best ways to do it is to use a static website generator. There are a lot of them really, built on languages like Ruby, Python, Node.js or even PHP, so you choose the one you are most familiar with.

The process is pretty much the same: create your website templates using a templating engine, code your CSS/JS natively or by using SASS/LESS & Coffeescript and let the generator do the rest. Some generators are agnostic to the technologies you are going to use, so you can decide whether you want to code your stylesheets in SASS or LESS, install the respective plugin and you are good to go.

We decided to use DocPad, a powerful Node.js based generator, which allowed us to use a number of awesome tools to streamline the creation of our website.

Technologies used

Bootstrap

When it comes to cross-browser compatibility, you don’t want to reinvent the wheel. Bootstrap 3.0 is one of the best front-end frameworks out there, with built-in support for responsive websites, making it the perfect candidate for evilwindowdog.com

Sass & Bourbon

Once you go SASS you can never go back, really. Coding our site in SASS made my past self look stupid. Mixins, variables, operators = love from the first sight (or…site?). Add on top of these the awesome Bourbon.io library which removes the pain of vendor specific prefixes by supporting all those cool CSS3 features and you have the best way to code CSS.

Plus, DocPad supports SASS as a preprocessor, so every time you generate/run your site (or even save your SASS using the Live Reload plugin), DocPad creates the new CSS file from your SASS so you don’t have to.

Coffeescript & Eco

Although we haven’t used Coffeescript extensively, I have to say that I was quite impressed by its clean syntax. Coffeescript logic is also present in Eco (Embedded CoffeeScript templates), which is the default templating language supported by DocPad.

Grunt.js

Grunt.js is like a swiss-army knife of automation, you can use it for almost everything. In our case, Grunt made the whole concatenate, minify & remove process for our CSS & JS a walk in the park. In other words, if you want to automate anything during your web development process, Grunt is the way to go.

Epilogue

And there you have it! Those are the tools used for the creation of this very website. If you are interested & you want to know more about the code check out the Github repository.

Also don’t forget to subscribe to our mailing list on the footer of the page & follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Google+ :)

Progress Report

2013-10-25

Oh the joy of updating your blog after so many months!

Seriously though, when it comes to news & updates I can’t say I am the most reliable person on this planet, I am working on it though!

Lots have happened the past few months and many more will take place in the near future, so sit tightly and enjoy the ride.

There are more or less three projects that are keeping us busy the past few months: Two iOS projects and our updated website.

Ani & the Word Scramblers

Our upcoming iOS game is getting better by the week. The core mechanics of the title are already there and we are now in the process of coding the final gameplay pieces of the game which focus on replay value and player engagement.

We design Ani & the Word Scramblers around a play-reward cycle. Every time you play the game enough to reach the next milestone (which essentially is a boss level), the game will unlock new modes for you to experiment with.

So, after your first successful boss battle you will unlock the Boosts (name pending) interface where you will be able to select a specific item to start your next playthrough with, in order to have a head start. This might include an extra life, a gem multiplier, a powerup or… some other ideas we will discuss in a lalter post. Boosts will give you the opportunity to beat the first levels easier (and sometimes faster) in order to reach the more challenging ones!

This week we are implementing another feature that will add some extra replay value to Ani: Missions! After your second successful boss battle, you will get to unlock the missions interface, from which you can inspect your current mission assigned to you by the Elder Ones. The missions will test your skills and reflexes and will reward you based on their difficulty!

We have lots of ideas for cool new features in store for Ani, but they will have to wait; our focus now is getting the game on your hands as soon as possible!

Expect a more technical & descriptive analysis in the next Ani dev blog post!

New iOS app

As git log informs me, we have been also working for the past nine weeks on a new iOS app which is based on a rather simple idea we had this summer. We are super excited about this project and we can’t wait to show it to you. We will unveil more of our new project on the coming weeks!

New Evil Window Dog website

That’s one of the projects that start small and gradually matures to a much bigger scale.

We knew we wanted an updated frontpage for our website, to showcase who we are, a bit of our projects & news and a touch of a new style, so we begun working on it.

We realized pretty early in the process though that we could overhaul every page of the website, so we begun with the task of redesigning the whole website.

The moment that I write this post the new version is running on a staging Heroku instance and it looks pretty solid, so we will roll the update probably some day in the next week.

That’s all for now peeps, we will keep you up to date more often from now on, so you might want to follow our progress on Twitter, Facebook and Google+!

Indeviews Episode 11: Andrew Sum

2013-07-30

And we are back for another episode! In the eleventh episode of Indeviews we are interviewing Andrew Sum, the indie game developer behind the upcoming game Dungeon Dashers (pre-purchase it here)!

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For those who don’t know you, who are you and what do you do?

Andrew: My name is Andrew Sum, and I’m a game developer from Melbourne, Australia, currently working on Dungeon Dashers.

Which game engines/game making tools do you use for your games? Did you build your own? If you have used different engines/game making tools, which one is your favorite and why?

Andrew: I use Multimedia Fusion 2 for almost all of my games. I’ve been using it for over ten years now so I’m quite familiar with it and it allows me to produce games quickly. I like it for its speed, however it does have a few problems such as portability to other platforms. All of the game’s content and engine is built from scratch in Multimedia Fusion 2. I also built my own level editing tools so that I could create levels and content for the game much faster.

Do you use the same development process for all of your games?

Andrew: Yes! I use Multimedia Fusion 2 for all my game making needs, just because I’m so familiar with it and for its speed. It’s great for gamejams.

What programming language do you prefer developing your games on? Why do you choose it over others?

Andrew: I use Multimedia Fusion 2’s own esoteric language, which is quite different to most other languages. When I’m not using MMF2, I also quite like Python, once again due to the way it enables rapid development.

Do you use third party tools (map editors, sprite managers, animation suites etc) or you build your own?

Andrew: I built my own level editor for Dungeon Dashers, and I used all of MMF2’s in built tools.

What is your computer setup? Do you use Mac or PC? What specs? Do you have a dual monitor setup?

Andrew: I have a Windows 7 PC with dual monitors. It has an i7 920 @ 3.9ghz, a GTX 560ti, 6GB of RAM, and a few TB of HDD space. I’d really like to upgrade my primary harddrive to an SSD next.

Which games inspired you the most? Do you have a favorite developer from the games industry (indie or not)?

Andrew: I think Harvest Moon on Super Nintendo has always been a big point of inspiration for me. I really enjoyed the open exploration nature of it, and the way you could create your own goals.

What’s the single piece of advice that you would always give to someone, and what is something that you will absolutely avoid/never do again?

Andrew: Finish games. It’s important to finish your games, not matter how small they are. You need to get finish a few small projects so that you know the process involved in doing so. Otherwise you’ll have nothing but unfinished prototypes everywhere!

I will (probably) never work by myself again. While I work with a team of artists and a composer on Dungeon Dashers, I am still the sole programmer/designer/developer. It can be hard to motivate myself when nobody else is forcing me to work on the project. When you work in a team with equal investment, it’s easier to help each other out and get motivated to work.

What is your opinion on the rise of free game development “suites” like Unity, UDK, CryEngine etc? Do you feel interested in using them for your next projects?

Andrew: They’re fantastic. I think Unity has played a large part in growing the indie development scene, especially once it went free. I haven’t used Unity heavily yet, but I think I’d like to work with it for some future projects in 3D.

What are your future plans? What games are you working on right now?

Andrew: I’m currently working on Dungeon Dashers, and I occasionally do small games at gamejams, but I’m looking forward to finishing this game and working on some new things as well!

Thanks so much for this interview!

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Check all the previous interviews and stay tuned for the next episode! :)

Note: If you are an indie game developer and wanna be part of the series, just send us an email at info@evilwindowdog.com

Indeviews Episode 10: Tyson Ibele

2013-05-20

Indeviews has reached the 10th episode! In this episode we are interviewing Tyson Ibele, the indie game developer behind the upcoming game Zombox!

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For those who don’t know you, who are you and what do you do?

Tyson: My name is Tyson Ibele and I’m a professional animator who works for MAKE. I’ve also branched out to do indie game development in my spare time. The game I’m currently working on is called Zombox.

Which game engines/game making tools do you use for your games? Did you build your own? If you have used different engines/game making tools, which one is your favorite and why?

Tyson: I’ve only ever used Unity to develop games. I don’t know enough about programming to create my own engine from scratch, and I haven’t tried other out-of-the-box engines like UDK. I jumped into Unity after seeing how cool ’Interstellar Marines’ looks (another game that’s being developed with Unity), and found it so easy to use that I stuck with it. Also, Unity allows for fast and easy multi-platform support, so it is an ideal engine for me in that regard.

Do you use the same development process for all of your games?

Tyson: Well, I’ve only ever developed this one game, so yes!

What programming language do you prefer developing your games on? Why do you choose it over others?

Tyson: I’m currently developing with Unity’s implementation of JavaScript. I find it very simple and easy to use and understand. Most people who use Unity recommend developing in C#, but I chose JavaScript over C# when I started developing because it was a bit easier to learn. I think now if I were to develop another game, I’d start with C# instead because it’s a bit more robust.

Do you use third party tools (map editors, sprite managers, animation suites etc) or you build your own?

Tyson: I use 3d Studio Max for all of the 3d models and animation for Zombox, Photoshop for all of the texture work, and After Effects for some other tasks (batch export of game icons, compositing complex textures, etc).

Which tools and applications you usually use when developing a game (favorite IDE, text editor, do you use static analysis tools, revision control system etc)?

Tyson: I use Notepad++ to edit all of my code, and Unity’s built in profiler to test and optimize functions. I don’t use any project management tools other than a simple backup system that works in conjunction with Dropbox.

Is there any specific library, framework that you always use on your games?

Tyson: I only use built-in Unity frameworks, so no, I haven’t used any external libraries. That being said, once I get closer to release I’ll be implementing some 3rd party systems to integrate things like in-app purchases for iOS.

What is your computer setup? Do you use Mac or PC? What specs? Do you have a dual monitor setup?

Tyson: I use a PC for all of the main development tasks, and a Mac laptop for exporting builds of the game. The Mac is required for building because you cannot build for iOS from a PC without some shady workarounds (you can do it with VMWare but it’s not Apple-sanctioned). The PC has a dual monitor setup and fairly good hardware, while the laptop is just a generic Macbook Pro that’s a few years old. Zombox runs at a very high FPS, even on slow machines (because it’s targeted for mobile devices), so a fast machine is not required to develop it.

Do you have any photos from your working environment & a screenshot of your typical development setup?

Tyson: I don’t, unfortunately! Just imagine a computer desk in a small apartment, haha!

Which games inspired you the most? Do you have a favorite developer from the games industry (indie or not)?

Tyson: Minecraft has probably been the biggest inspiration for the game, as development has progressed. That being said, the initial reasons for developing it came from inspiration taken from games like Left 4 Dead and Project Zomboid.

What’s the single piece of advice that you would always give to someone, and what is something that you will absolutely avoid/never do again?

Tyson: Avoid burning yourself out! Don’t be afraid to step back and take solid breaks from development, in order to recharge your creative batteries. Also, thinking and planning ahead is just as important as actual physical work on a project. I sometimes take days or weeks to plan a feature out in my mind before writing a single line of code. Doing that - instead of rushing to get a prototype into the game - almost always results in me having to do less code re-writing later.

What are your future plans? What games are you working on right now?

Tyson: I’m currently working on Zombox as mentioned. There’s still a lot of things to add to the game, so I haven’t thought far ahead enough to decide what I’ll do once the game is complete!

Thanks so much for this interview!

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Stay tuned for the next episode! :)

Note: If you are an indie game developer and wanna be part of the series, just send us an email at info@evilwindowdog.com

Indeviews Episode 9: Tyler Owen

2013-05-13

Welcome to the ninth episode of Indeviews! In this episode we are interviewing Tyler Owen of Random Seed Games!

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For those who don’t know you, who are you and what do you do?

Tyler: My name is Tyler Owen and I make games. Currently creating a Mars exploration game called Lacuna Passage.

Which game engines/game making tools do you use for your games? Did you build your own? If you have used different engines/game making tools, which one is your favorite and why?

Tyler: I started making terrible, terrible games with Game Maker several years ago. I never really learned any programming in school so I stuck to visual logic-based engines. The first games I created and released I built with Stencyl. If you haven’t heard of it it’s a great tool for creating games and really getting your feet wet with basic programming. I released Iceberg Frenzy on iOS and Protobotic for Flash, both created with Stencyl. During that time I was employed creating and managing game art in Unity, but I didn’t transition to using it for my own projects until I found out about the Playmaker plugin that allows you to do visual scripting very similar to Stencyl or Unreal if you are familiar with their Kismet scripting. Playmaker is much more powerful than most people give it credit for. About 99% of Lacuna Passage is done entirely in Playmaker for Unity and I love it.

Editor’s note: Here’s a list of Unity plugins from Random Seed Games blog.

Do you use the same development process for all of your games?

Tyler: Each game is it’s own beast, but I have a general approach to most of my games, and that usually starts with some intense prototyping. I always get down and dirty making something that moves before even really putting my ideas down on paper. Planning things out too much before that tends to get you too attached to the ideas and not the merits of the gameplay.

What programming language do you prefer developing your games on? Why do you choose it over others?

Tyler: I’ve always been fond of visual scripting programs like Stencyl and Playmaker, but they can have limitations. I’ve run into enough roadblocks during the development of Lacuna Passage that I have started to dabble in C# and Javascript. For indie developers, really whatever gets the job done is the best language for you.

Do you use third party tools (map editors, sprite managers, animation suites etc) or you build your own?

Tyler: My background is primarily in graphic design and 3D art, so I’m very entrenched in the Adobe and Autodesk suite of products. When I’m working it’s not uncommon for me to have Illustrator, Photoshop, 3ds max, Mudbox, and Unity all open at the same time. One new program I’ve adopted specifically while working on Lacuna Passage is World Machine. If you are creating a game that requires any kind of custom terrain then I don’t see why you would bother using anything else.

Which tools and applications you usually use when developing a game (favorite IDE, text editor, do you use static analysis tools, revision control system etc)?

Tyler: I usually keep my production tools pretty lightweight. I do utilize the Unity Asset Server for some simple version control and project sharing functionality. One tool that I do find extremely useful though is Allway Sync for project backups. We have our main project folders and all our working assets automatically synced to several backup harddrives. I just can’t imagine losing any of our hard work because of something as simple as a crashed harddrive.

Is there any specific library, framework that you always use on your games?

Tyler: Nope, I have yet to dive into more complex frameworks for creating games. Whatever is free or cheap and easiest to translate from idea to reality is what I use.

What is your computer setup? Do you use Mac or PC? What specs? Do you have a dual monitor setup?

Tyler: I have a dual monitor PC that is starting to show it’s age. It has a first gen i7 quad core processor with 8 gigs of ram and a mid range NVIDIA card that was swapped a couple years ago. I should really update my rig.

Do you have any photos from your working environment & a screenshot of your typical development setup?

Tyler: I’m too lazy to clean my desk for a good picture, but it’s nothing very exciting. Monitors are mismatched and propped up on books on top of a particle board desk. Only thing you can’t be cheap about is buying a nice chair. I have terrible back problems.

Which games inspired you the most? Do you have a favorite developer from the games industry (indie or not)?

Tyler: I draw inspiration from different sources depending on the game I’m working on. The inception for Lacuna Passage came after playing Dear Esther while being simultaneously enthralled with the landing of the Mars Curiosity rover. Games that inspire me in general are Braid, Portal, Journey, and many others. A developer that I really admire is Andy Schatz. In fact, he is really the person that spurred me to start creating games. I met him back at GDC 2010 when he won the IGF. At the time I was really struggling to decide if I wanted to go make art for some big AAA developer or create my own games and so I asked him for advice. I remember exactly what he said, he said “If you want to make games, then start making games. You don’t have to wait for someone to hire you or give you permission.” I really took that to heart.

What’s the single piece of advice that you would always give to someone, and what is something that you will absolutely avoid/never do again?

Tyler: I like to add on something to what Andy told me and that’s that you can’t be afraid of failure. Start making games and actually show them to people and release them. If they suck then people will let you know and you will learn from the experience. Your next attempt will be better. As far as something that I avoid, I probably try to avoid getting burnt out. Sometimes you will hit a slump with one project and it’s a better use of your time to just pick up something else instead of trying to crash through a brick wall.

What is your opinion on the rise of free game development “suites” like Unity, UDK, CryEngine etc? Given that you already use Unity for Lacuna Passage, is it safe to assume that you will use it for your next project or you will switch back to an in-house engine?

Tyler: I love free and inexpensive tools. Anything that brings game development to a larger group of people I think can only result in better games being created over time. I can’t say for sure if I will continue using Unity for projects beyond Lacuna Passage, but I find it difficult to think of anything that would necessitate a change to another development environment. I’m comfortable with Unity and it’s always evolving and updating.

What are your future plans? What games are you working on right now?

Tyler: As the primary developer for Lacuna Passage I have a lot of work ahead of me, hopefully leading up to a Kickstarter in the next month or so. Crowd funding I think will be a critical component for the success of the project. If we are successful in raising our required funds then we still have a long road ahead of us, but at least we will have enough gas to get us to our destination. People can follow our development on our website at www.randomseedgames.com.

Thanks so much for this interview!

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Stay tuned for the next episode next week! :)

Note: If you are an indie game developer and wanna be part of the series, just send us an email at info@evilwindowdog.com

Indeviews Episode 8: Michael Maulbeck

2013-05-06

Welcome to the eighth episode of Indeviews! In this episode we are joined by indie game developer Michael Maulbeck of Code Avarice, the team behind the upcoming game Paranautical Activity!.

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For those who don’t know you, who are you and what do you do?

Michael: I’m Mike. I do all the programming for Code Avarice. I also do most of the PR stuff as well. I work with Travis, a tattoo artist turned game artist. He’s crazy talented, and tons of fun to work with.

Which game engines/game making tools do you use for your games? Did you build your own? If you have used different engines/game making tools, which one is your favorite and why?

Michael: I wrote several engines using OpenGL and C++ back in the day, before I was really seriously making games. I’ve also played around with lot’s of 3rd party tools. From simple C++ libraries like SDL and Ogre, all the way up to engines like Unity and UDK. I always liked writing low level OpenGL and C++ code. The mystery and sense of discovery I would get implementing new features as almost a game unto it'self.

For Paranautical Activity, we’re using Unity. It was recommended to me by a game developer friend of mine, and I’m really loving it. I’ve been using it for several months now, and it’s got everything I need. It’s a powerful engine that supports rapid development and has a great license. Not much more I can ask for. I kinda miss the excitement and freedom of C++, but it’s hard to argue with the productivity boost.

Do you use the same development process for all of your games?

Michael: I haven’t worked on 2 games the same way yet. Thus far I’ve used a different language, framework, engine, ect for everything I’ve worked on. Mostly just because I was trying to find something I really liked. I think for the foreseeable future I’ll continue to do things how I’m doing them now though. We’ve got an efficient pipeline going with Unity right now, and I can’t think of anything that would make me switch to something else. In terms of the creative side of the development process, that’s been pretty consistent. Either myself or Travis will come up with an idea, we’ll spend some time fleshing it out, then dive into working on it and see how it evolves. Our process tends to be very organic. No matter how much we try to plan out a game, it always ends up really different from what I expect. It’s more like we’re discovering the game than designing it, which is always really fun and exciting.

What programming language do you prefer developing your games on? Why do you choose it over others?

Michael: Right now I’m working with C# in Unity. It’s a fun language to work with, since it’s really simple and hard to mess up. I’d still have to say I prefer writing C++ code. C# is almost too easy to write. It removes all the fun and excitement that comes with writing C++ code.

Do you use third party tools (map editors, sprite managers, animation suites etc) or you build your own?

Michael: Unity provides us with most of that stuff. For asset creation, Travis uses 3DS Max for modeling and animation, and occasionally ZBrush for high poly sculpts depending on what the asset requires.

Which tools and applications you usually use when developing a game (favorite IDE, text editor, do you use static analysis tools, revision control system etc)?

Michael: We use Dropbox to send assets, builds, ect back and forth, and that’s been essential to keep the pipeline really quick and efficient. I keep a backup of all my code in there as well, but other than that I don’t use any version control, even though I know I really should. I’ve used Git in the past, but I’ve never really gotten into a good routine of using it.

We use AIM to keep in contact (since we’re not in the same room, or even same state for that matter). I usually use Skype to chat with press and the musician we’re working with.

I really like Visual Studio as an IDE, and I’ve also really enjoyed my time with Code::Blocks as well. Right now I’m using MonoDevelop, though. Really for no reason other than the fact that it’s the default IDE that Unity links to, and it’s good enough that I haven’t really had a reason to use anything else. My favorite though would probably be Visual Studio, especially when I’m writing C++.

I use Notepad++ as a sort of digital whiteboard to keep my ideas and to-do list in check. I used to use an actual whiteboard for this, but I found that having it all stored on my computer makes making easy changes more efficient, since I don’t have to get out my white board markers and eraser every time I want to jot something down or remove something from my to-do list. Plus, with Notepad++ I don’t have to worry about reading my awful handwriting.

Is there any specific library, framework that you always use on your games?

Michael: Unity. Previously SDL was a favorite of mine for render context creation, 2D asset importing, and keyboard/mouse input. If I ever do go back to writing my own engines, SDL will definitely be a part of it.

What is your computer setup? Do you use Mac or PC? What specs? Do you have a dual monitor setup?

Michael: I use Windows. I dual boot linux, but that’s mostly just to test linux builds. I’m running a GTX660 2GB with 16GB of ram and an Intel i7-3770K clocked at 3.5GHz.

I have one standard monitor on my desk, and a second monitor that is actually just my 42" TV. I usually either keep Youtube videos or Spotify on my second monitor.

Do you have any photos from your working environment & a screenshot of your typical development setup?

Michael: Development setup:

Working environment:

That’s my messy and haphazardly slapped together work environment. Got my standing “desk” on the left, and my TV/second monitor on the right, teetering on a bar stool. I usually have a podcast or a lets play up on the second screen just to have something to listen to and occasionally glance over at so I don’t go crazy staring at code in silence all day.

Which games inspired you the most? Do you have a favorite developer from the games industry (indie or not)?

Michael: For Paranautical Activity, Doom and Binding of Isaac are huge influences. I really love old school FPS, and I’ve been falling in love with a lot of indie roguelikes lately.

If I had to choose a favorite developer, it would definitely be Jon Blow. He’s one of the smartest guys in the industry today. I could listen to him talk all day, and fortunately for me he’s done tons of lectures and interviews. A close second would be Ed McMillen. He’s a really cool guy, and an extremely talented artist/designer.

What’s the single piece of advice that you would always give to someone, and what is something that you will absolutely avoid/never do again?

Michael: I think most people would say “start small” and I would definitely tend to agree. It’s shockingly easy for even a simple project to spiral out of control and end up never finished. Even our last game, Eris had that problem. We should have finished it (or at least reached a public beta) in under 6 months. But we kept getting distracted and adding silly features. The game quickly became too ambitious for our 2 man team to tackle. We may go back to the project in the future, but we’ll need to do some serious trimming of the fat. If you want to make indie games. Start super small, and slowly work your way up.

What is your opinion on the rise of free game development “suites” like Unity, UDK, CryEngine etc? Given that you already use Unity for Paranautical Activity, is it safe to assume that you will use it for your next big project or you will switch to an in-house engine?

Michael: A year ago I would have said that using an engine was a cop out. I was a hardcore “write your own engine or go home” guy. Now that I’ve spent so much time with Unity and similar engines, I definitely see the value in them. There isn’t a single project I can think of where I would rather spend ages writing my own engine when I can use one of the excellent 3rd party engines available. I’m definitely going to continue to use Unity for the foreseeable future.

The only problem they have is that they are almost too easy to use. Tricking young developers into thinking they’re making a great game, when all they’re doing is throwing together a bunch of crummy pre-made assets that come with the engine.

What are your future plans? What games are you working on right now?

Michael: We’re still working on Paranautical Activity. We’re hoping to get the game out of beta in a few months, then we’ll be moving on to our next project. We know what we’re gonna do for our next project, but the concept isn’t quite fleshed out enough for me to be able to describe it easily. It’s a first person game like Paranautical, but it’s gonna have a much bigger focus on 1v1 combat, without guns.

Thanks so much for this interview!

Michael: No problem! :)

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Stay tuned for the next episode next week! :)

Note: If you are an indie game developer and wanna be part of the series, just send us an email at info@evilwindowdog.com

Indeviews Episode 7: E McNeill

2013-04-29

Here’s the seventh episode of Indeviews! In this episode we are joined by indie game developer E McNeill.

Let’s get to it!

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For those who don’t know you, who are you and what do you do?

E: I’m E McNeill, a designer/programmer who went indie in late 2012. My biggest project so far was Auralux, an ultra-minimalistic RTS, but I’ve made a bunch of other games and prototypes which you can check out at my site.

Which game engines/game making tools do you use for your games? Did you build your own? If you have used different engines/game making tools, which one is your favorite and why?

E: For a long time I worked exclusively in XNA, but when I went indie I switched over to Unity, and I’m sooooo glad I did. The community is larger, it’s easier to go to multiple platforms, and the plugins are a godsend.

What programming language do you prefer developing your games on? Why do you choose it over others?

E: I’ve always been partial to C#. It seems to offer the sweet spot in terms of performance vs. ease of programming.

Do you use third party tools (map editors, sprite managers, animation suites etc) or you build your own?

E: I use the 2D Toolkit plugin for Unity, since it’s otherwise very 3D-focused.

Which tools and applications you usually use when developing a game (favorite IDE, text editor, do you use static analysis tools, revision control system, project management etc)?

E: I’m all over the place. I usually have Unity, Visual Studio, Notepad++, GIMP, Audacity, and pen and paper open on any given day.

Which games inspired you the most? Do you have a favorite developer from the games industry (indie or not)?

E: I was a PC gamer growing up, and my early influences were classics like Heroes of Might and Magic, Lords of the Realm, Command and Conquer, Morrowind, and Battlefield 1942. I’m finding inspiration even more often now, thanks to the explosion of the indie scene. I’d call out Proteus, Dear Esther, Flower, Limbo, and Bastion on the narrative side, and Eufloria, Minecraft, Braid, flOw, XCOM, and Dota on the mechanical side. Is that too many?

It would be tough to name a favorite developer, since I tend to idolize so many. Other indies have been hugely inspirational for me on a personal level, but that kind of admiration has been a little problematic for me. I wrote a blog post about that, if you’re curious.

What’s the single piece of advice that you would always give to someone, and what is something that you will absolutely avoid/never do again?

E: Be honest with yourself and go with your gut. I think that’s how you have to evaluate your work, choose your partners, and run your life. My biggest mistake in my game dev career came when I was choosing between two paths and went with the more “logical” one, against my instinct. Those gut feelings are there for a reason, even if you don’t always know what it is. Pay attention to them.

What are your future plans? What games are you working on right now?

E: I’m currently working on finishing Bombball, an OUYA eSport game that I first made for a 10-day game jam. Aside from that, I’m also prototyping a choice-based conversation game, a strategy card game, and a few other abstract touchscreen game mechanics. And once my Oculus Rift dev kit arrives, who knows what I’ll be up to?

Thanks so much for this interview!

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Stay tuned for the next episode next week! :)

Note: If you are an indie game developer and wanna be part of the series, just send us an email at info@evilwindowdog.com

Indeviews Episode 6: Liza Shulyayeva

2013-04-22

Welcome to the sixth episode of Indeviews! In this episode we welcome Liza Shulyayeva.

Liza works as a Build Manager at a AAA studio but she also makes her own games in her spare time. So let’s get to know her better!

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Which game engines/game making tools do you use for your games? Did you build your own? If you have used different engines/game making tools, which one is your favorite and why?

Liza: My engine of choice is ImpactJS. I originally chose it when I was first starting to learn JavaScript for game development and saw that it seemed to have the best documentation and a fairly active forum community.

The only game that I did not use this engine for was KROOG (source @ Github) - it was made as part of a challenge where the final zipped up package size can be no greater than 13kb and ImpactJS would blow this limit out of the water.

I like Impact because it is flexible enough to cater to different types of games. I’ve heard people say that it’s only really great for platformers, but in my opinion this is not the case. Yes, Impact is a wonderful engine for platformers - in part due to its level editor - but it’s certainly not limited to them. The majority of games I’ve used it for so far have not been platformers at all and I haven’t run into any limitations on that front.

I also like that it still requires writing actual code. There are great engines like Construct 2 out there that don’t require any programming, but I actually enjoy that side of things. In addition, you have access to the engine source and can easily modify it to suit your needs if required.

Do you use the same development process for all of your games?

Liza: I’ve found a rough process that works for me, but I’m open to experimentation and change as I learn and find better workflows.

Ideas usually come suddenly and out of nowhere so I jot them down in a notebook. Usually I don’t get started on them right away because I’m finishing another project, but I start planning them out with paper notes that are usually completely illegible to anyone else. By “planning” I mean both the core design concepts and the general code structure.

When the time comes to start the next project I take my boilerplate template (an ImpactJS installation with some generic stuff added that I use in every project) and start coding (with placeholder art).

About halfway through the project I start feeling like I can’t really tie it all together without a proper feel for how it’ll look, so that’s when I take the time to work on art assets and such and fiddling with styling/colors/etc.

This does vary a bit from project to project, though. One of my favorite things about working on my own games is that when I get bored with one task I can move onto something completely different and still have it be useful to the project. If I’m tired of coding, I can go draw some sprites or design a title screen, look for sound effects, work on documentation, etc.

What programming language do you prefer developing your games on? Why do you choose it over others?

Liza: I prefer to build my personal games with JavaScript and HTML5. I chose it over the others because I already had a background in web development and it seemed like the most intuitive step when it came to moving into games. In addition, there is so much activity and new ideas, demos, browser advancements, etc with JavaScript and HTML5 that I just find it an exciting area to be in right now. However, that’s not to say that I’m not interested in other languages as well. JavaScript was a great entry language into game coding for me and I’m advancing further from there.

Do you use third party tools (map editors, sprite managers, animation suites etc) or you build your own?

Liza: The engine I use has a level editor built in and sometimes that comes in useful depending on the kind of game I’m making, but most of the time I stick to the general tools like my code editor and graphics program.

Which tools and applications you usually use when developing a game (favorite IDE, text editor, do you use static analysis tools, revision control system, project management etc)?

Liza:

Code editor: Sublime Text 2
Graphics: Photoshop CS5
Local server: MAMP
Browser: Chrome Canary
Source control: GitHub (with SourceTree as the client)
Project Management: Varies greatly, but recently I’ve been using GitHub issue tracking quite a bit
Sound: Audacity

What is your computer setup? Do you use Mac or PC? What specs? Do you have a dual monitor setup?

Liza: I enjoy being able to work in different locations (cafes, parks, planes…) and use a 2011 MacBook Air running Mountain Lion. I’d normally also do some work on my Windows PC (Core i7 3.4Ghz, GTX580 GPU, 8GB RAM), but that is currently still in a suitcase after my move, waiting to be put back together.

Do you have a screenshot of your typical development setup?

Which games inspired you the most? Do you have a favorite developer from the games industry (indie or not)?

Liza: The games that inspire me the most tend to be simple ideas made fun; the games that make me think: “Why didn’t I think of that?”

I like these kinds of games because they show me that these simple but original ideas are still out there to be discovered. You don’t have to make some convoluted game that is a mixture of five other games that get rehashed over and over, but tries not to look like any of them. Somewhere out there is an idea that is wonderful in its simplicity and perfectly basic at its core. The last game that inspired me this way was Super Hexagon.

What’s the single piece of advice that you would always give to someone, and what is something that you will absolutely avoid/never do again?

Liza: Everyone will find themselves in their own individual circumstances, but based on my own experience my advice would be to learn to code. The one thing that has brought me the most benefit when it comes to game development (both professionally and in a hobby dev environment) is practically holing myself up in my house for a year to learn a scripting language.

The single most “powerful” and self-sufficient role in game development is, in my opinion, programming. Before I started learning to code my own games I would have all these great ideas with no way to implement them - I’d either have to convince or pay a coder to help me. When I went to a Game Jam I’d have this tiny nagging thought in the back of my head about what group I could fit into, if I’d find a programmer to work with, etc. It’s very liberating to not have that worry cross your mind anymore.

One thing that I will never do again is feel helpless or have to rely on someone else to help me build the games I want to make. This will require continuous learning and improvement when it comes to programming. That’s not to say that I reject collaboration (I’ve collaborated with artists, composers, and will likely collaborate with other coders at some stage), more that I don’t need someone else to build my games for me.

What is your opinion on the rise of free game development “suites” like Unity, UDK, CryEngine etc? Do you feel interested in using them for your next projects?

Liza: I think they’re great and it’s great that there are so many options out there for people to develop with. I’d love to start familiarizing myself with Unity when I can find the time.

What are your future plans? What games are you working on right now?

Liza: For the future I just want to keep learning, and keep coding. I want to become more comfortable with C++ and C#. Currently I’m taking part in the One Game a Month challenge, so completing one game each month in 2013 is the goal for the year. The immediate goal is to release my March game, Promiscuous Flea (in what is hopefully a playable state).

Thanks so much for this interview!

Liza: Thanks!

❖

Stay tuned for the next episode in seven days! :)

Note: If you are an indie game developer and wanna be part of the series, just send us an email at info@evilwindowdog.com

Evge 2013 praise for Soundbeam!

2013-04-15

We are really honored & excited to receive our first praise for Soundbeam from Evge 2013 design awards! Thank you guys! :)

Indeviews Episode 5: Johannes Nielsen

2013-04-15

Welcome to the fifth episode of Indeviews! In this episode we are joined by Johannes Nielsen from Tribunal games.

Let’s begin!

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For those who don’t know you, who are you and what do you do?

Johannes: My name is Johannes and I am one of the three people that make up Tribunal Games. We are still working on our first game - a pirate themed open-world game called Freebooter for PC - so there isn’t too much to know about us yet. Since we’re only three people on the team, everyone does a bit of everything so despite being mainly a programmer, I do much of the PR and business side stuff for Tribunal as well.

Which game engines/game making tools do you use for your games? Did you build your own? If you have used different engines/game making tools, which one is your favorite and why?

Johannes: For Freebooter we are using Unity as a game engine and an IDE. Ogre3D was mandatory for the first project I did during a games development course I took at university and Unity was mandatory for the remaining games I worked on during the course. It’s been years since I’ve worked with Ogre3D but back then it was a pretty barebones rendering engine, so if that´s all you need then it’s great. Now, I am more of a gameplay programmer than an engine programmer, so Unity is right up my alley. There are similar engine/IDE combos out there but the more I work with Unity, the happier I am with it, so I never really felt I had cause to look elsewhere. Actually when we were just starting out, I wanted us to make our own engine but Jakob talked me out of it and in hindsight I think it was the better choice for us to capitalize on our familiarity with Unity.

Do you use the same development process for all of your games?

Johannes: We prefer Agile development, in the sense that we do one iteration and then plan for the next - we keep our long term plans pretty vague. Myself and Jakob live in Denmark, while Nissanth works out of London, so we have regular meetings over skype to keep everyone up to date, though since we’re only three it is not too much to manage.

What programming language do you prefer developing your games on? Why do you choose it over others?

Johannes: I did my first programming in C++, so C# was the obvious choice when working in Unity and again being fond of high-level programming, I am quite happy with C#. I haven’t thought about it before but I guess I have an “if it works, don’t fix it” mentality.

Do you use third party tools (map editors, sprite managers, animation suites etc) or you build your own?

Johannes: We use Blender for 3D Modeling and GIMP for the admittedly small amount of texture work (our sound is provided by a hired audio designer).

Jakob has been making Blender Add-ons specifically for the kind of assets we need for Freebooter - so far I believe he has made 2 mesh generators (one for the sea and one for islands), as well as some specialized optimization and UVmapping tools for the type of art we use for Freebooter.

Which tools and applications you usually use when developing a game (favorite IDE, text editor, do you use static analysis tools, revision control system etc)?

Johannes: For C# I use VS2010 and I don’t think I would be nearly as efficient without it. We use TortoiseHG for version control and BitBucket to host the repository. I usually use Google Docs for text documents - I like having a spell checker and being able to access all my documents via my Gmail account.

Is there any specific library, framework that you always use on your games?

Johannes: Nope - Unity comes with most of what we usually use.

What is your computer setup? Do you use Mac or PC? What specs? Do you have a dual monitor setup?

Johannes: I work on a PC with a single monitor - I don’t remember the exact specs but it has a GTX 650 Ti and an i7 CPU.

Which games inspired you the most? Do you have a favorite developer from the games industry (indie or not)?

Johannes: I try to play a good amount of games to see what other people have come up with and how it worked. In terms of inspiration, I would say Magicka, Indigo Prophecy, the Majesty games, Star Ruler, Magic: The Gathering and Morrowind are big ones for me. I know Nissanth who does most of our art is a fan of Dark Souls/Demon Souls, Wind Waker and Morrowind. Jakob doesn’t think much about inspirations - he tends to want to make a version of whatever he is playing at the time.

What’s the single piece of advice that you would always give to someone, and what is something that you will absolutely avoid/never do again?

Johannes: Don’t overthink things - if you’re not sure what will work, implement the simplest solution and go from there. Don’t be afraid of scrapping a lot of work to get past a particular hard problem - sometimes patchwork solutions just won’t cut it. Even if you are horribly behind, be sure to take some time off - you are not a machine, you can’t work non-stop. Try not to let your ego get in the way.

What is your opinion on the rise of free game development “suites” like Unity, UDK, CryEngine etc? Given that you already use Unity for Freebooter, is it safe to assume that you will use it for your next big project or you will switch to an in-house engine?

Johannes: We’re planning to work on Freebooter for another half year minimum, so we’re not thinking about the next game yet. That said we’re most likely sticking with Unity. As I see it, Unity and similar development solutions allow for developers to take more chances and try more interesting ideas for games by cutting down on costs and development time - for a small indie game developer that is not looking to push the envelope in terms of technology, like us, I think such a solution is the obvious choice.

What are your future plans? What games are you working on right now?

Johannes: My future plans are limited to making games and if possible losing some weight. I am only working seriously on Freebooter, though I think every game developer toys a bit in the spare time.

Thanks so much for this interview!

Johannes: Thanks for having me!

❖

Stay tuned for the next episode in seven days! :)

Note: If you are an indie game developer and wanna be part of the series, just send us an email at info@evilwindowdog.com

Indeviews Episode 4: Sam & Seth Coster

2013-04-08

Welcome to the fourth episode of Indeviews! This time we are joined by the brothers Sam and Seth Coster of the indie game studio Butterscotch Shenanigans!

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For those who don’t know you, who are you and what do you do?

Sam & Seth: We’re brothers Seth and Sam Coster. We make ridiculous games about ridiculous things, like enraged 4 legged quadropi or monocles that fire blood-hungry animals. We founded Butterscotch Shenanigans, our indie studio, in St. Louis so we can devote our lives full-time to building absurd things and giving people great gaming experiences on their mobile devices.

Which game engines/game making tools do you use for your games? Did you build your own? If you have used different engines/game making tools, which one is your favorite and why?

Sam & Seth: We have used Game Maker: Studio and Unity3D primarily, though we’re sticking with GM:Studio for the time being. It’s extremely fast, doesn’t require us to use expensive plugins, and has built-in support for all kinds of monetization options like ads and in-app purchases, which will be crucial to our sustainability in the months and years to come. As far as we are concerned, it is the best tool for the job when it comes to 2D game development.

We have built a 2D game in Unity, but it took several hundred dollars worth of plug-ins to get Unity to be almost as capable as Game Maker with things like sprite management, and there was virtually nothing that we did in Unity that couldn’t have been done in Game Maker in one-fourth the time. Unity is great for 3D, but awkward for 2D.

Still, we don’t like to promote the fact that we use Game Maker. We have noticed an industry perception that Game Maker is an ineffective development platform, primarily for amateurs or people who can’t program. This couldn’t be further from the truth. But we realize that if we went out actively announcing that we use Game Maker, people would start to see how amazing of a tool it is, and we would have a lot more competition. So hey…let’s keep this between US.

Do you use the same development process for all of your games?

Sam & Seth: Yes.

We got our game development chops doing 48 hour game jams. Our development process is basically a long-form jam model. Since there are only two of us and we lived together for 20+ years as brothers, we know how to communicate and quarrel constructively. The feedback loop on our games from idea to implementation is both tiny and nearly frictionless.

We start with a core idea/theme and build out the first piece of the game, which is the basis of all the interaction the player will be doing within the gaming world. For example, in our upcoming game Quadropus Rampage, the primary mechanic involves nimbly maneuvering the character and stabbing enemies. Once we have the basic mechanic in place we spiral out from it, only including new mechanics that serve to enhance the original experience in interesting and fun ways. We iterate and iterate until the game is distilled down to only those things which serve the core mechanic, and then deepen the content from there.

Usually a few days/weeks into a game we discover a sort of core mantra for each game we’re working on. For Towelfight 2, this mantra was “One More Room.” Anything we added to the game had to increase that feeling, that need of discovery and challenge and curiosity.

Once all the systems are in and the mantra is thoroughly bolstered we spend a good deal of time juicing the game to make it really feel great to play, and look great, too. That means spending time tweaking menus, moving interface elements about for better thumb-love, or making the explosions more glorious.

Basically all of our design/juicing discussions end with the thought that we should probably add more explosions.

Oh, and then we contact Joe (Joe Fraioli), and he makes amazing music within 12 minutes. Everybody needs a Joe.

What programming language do you prefer developing your games on? Why do you choose it over others?

Sam & Seth: Since we use Game Maker: Studio, we do all of our work in GML (Game Maker Language). The language itself is very easy to use, although the Game Maker IDE isn’t very user-friendly. Still, the team at YoYoGames puts out patches virtually every other week, and it’s getting better all the time.

Do you use third party tools (map editors, sprite managers, animation suites etc) or you build your own?

Sam & Seth: Sam uses Inkscape to do all of the artwork for our games. It’s the open-source equivalent of Adobe Illustrator, and it gives us pretty fantastic results when used in conjunction with Game Maker. The one big downside is that we have to use frame-by-frame animation, since we’re in the 2D world, so it can get tedious when things get more complex.

If we get some downtime between games in the near future, Seth will be putting together a flexible skeleton rigging engine within Game Maker that should be a lot of fun to play around with, but that’s still on the drawing board.

Which tools and applications you usually use when developing a game (favorite IDE, text editor, do you use static analysis tools, revision control system etc)?

Sam & Seth: GameMaker Studio is our dev environment, and Inkscape is our arting tool. Aside from those that form the core of our content creation, we use BFXR for sound effects, as we don’t currently have the space for a sound guy, and git for our revision control system.

All you need is a free Dropbox account, a free Git account, free Inkscape, and a copy of Gamemaker Studio (plus the modules to port to iOS and Android) to be where we are from a tech perspective. Making games is cheaper than going out for a night if you take some time digging for the best value out there.

As far as video production goes, we use Cyberlink PowerDirector 11. It’s one of the cheapest full feature video editors around and has allowed us to make some pretty stellar trailers (Towelfight, Quadropus).

Is there any specific library, framework that you always use on your games?

Sam & Seth: We have a suite of Game Maker scripts that Seth has written over the past year and a half, many of which are generally applicable to most game development. So those scripts tend to drift from project to project as a package, which we guess you could call a library.

What is your computer setup? Do you use Mac or PC? What specs? Do you have a dual monitor setup?

Sam & Seth: We both develop in Windows 7 using dual-monitor setups, though we need to have a Mac handy for making iOS builds and dealing with the iTunes store. As far as specs go, just know that we have more RAM between our two computers than North Korea has within its entire nation.

Sam has the bad habit of making all of the artwork for a game live in the same Inkscape file. This works handily as an anti-theft tool as no other computer on the planet could open his files. Here’s a screencap of Towelfight 2… LITERALLY ALL OF IT.

Do you have any photos from your working environment & a screenshot of your typical development setup?

Sam & Seth: Guess which belongs to the artist and which to the programmer!

Which games inspired you the most? Do you have a favorite developer from the games industry (indie or not)?

Sam & Seth: We take inspiration from a huge number of games, though from a development perspective, just about any successful 2D indie game is inspirational to us. This includes pretty much anything from Team Meat, as well as Braid, Spelunky (which was originally made in Game Maker), and many others.

Any small team that has interesting ideas and can beautifully execute those ideas is a team that we admire.

What’s the single piece of advice that you would always give to someone, and what is something that you will absolutely avoid/never do again?

Sam & Seth: ADVICE: Spend a lot of time talking with other indie developers, potential players, and generally building up your social network. When you release your game, you need to have a large audience of people listening. Because if nobody knows about your game, you would have done just as well if you had never made it. Too many developers focus on the “building” of the game and ignore the “salesmanship” side of things; they hole up in their development cave for a year, crank out something cool, and when they emerge from hibernation, they’re alone in the forest. Whether we like it or not, we have to realize that game development is just as social an undertaking as it is a technical one.

We’ve taken the time to forge relationships with the startling number of devs in St. Louis, helped create a chapter of the IGDA here, and attend every local jam we can manage. In response we’ve gotten help with testing, media coverage, and had a number of insights that never would’ve surfaced if we were truly going it alone. “Independent” is a misnomer. Find and grow your tribe and they’ll do the same for you.

OH CRAP DON’T DO THIS:

Don’t release a paid game until you have a following.

We released Towelfight 2 a few weeks ago. We wanted to avoid IAP, ads, and the lot of it, and saw a lot of shouting about how IAP is evil and roughly the worst thing next to waking up with a horse’s head beside you. So we decided on selling our game as a “premium” title, at with the full game intact and no IAP or anything of the sort.

The thing we didn’t realize was that because we were an unknown developer, no one particularly cared about our paid game. We’ve only made back ¼ of the money TF2 required and have seen our sales figures drop precipitously. This is despite getting featured on Touch Arcade, PocketGamer, Kotaku, IGN, a variety of other news sites and even making the front page of the App Store. The vocal minority, which is the group that prefers to pay-up-front, convinced us to do something that, had we spent more time on our game, would’ve bankrupted our fledgling studio.

It’s important to be aware of your stance in the market before going to market. The latest statistics show that most mobile users simply prefer free-to-play games. As odd as it is, we both recognized after our miscalculated launch that the games we play most are in and of themselves free-to-play titles: Tribes and League of Legends (if you want to play with us give a shout on Twitter!). And we don’t feel violated by them in the slightest.

So we’ve undergone a paradigm shift. We hope that some indie dev about to release their beautiful game at a premium will take a moment to consider this failure of ours and perhaps avoid the same fate.

What is your opinion on the rise of free game development “suites” like Unity, UDK, CryEngine etc? Do you feel interested in using them for your next projects?

Sam & Seth: Without them, we never would have gotten into game development in the first place. They smooth out much of the process and are generally amazing for fledgling developers. Having said that, we are in the midst of a unique age of video game development, where the ease of development has caused supply to begin outstripping demand.

As players, we love that more and more games are being made all the time, because no matter what we enjoy, there’s something for us out there. But as businessmen, it’s a bit more difficult to be excited about the cornucopia of competition we face every day. Considering the hundreds of apps that hit the AppStore daily, having your game stand out amongst them, as well as securing media coverage for your games, becomes a job that very few developers can consistently manage. But at the end of the day, we are up to the challenge and are excited to continue diving face-first into it.

What are your future plans? What games are you working on right now?

Sam & Seth: We’re entering into rapid build mode. When we started Butterscotch Shenanigans we wanted to take our jam methodology and refine it to the point that we were making a quality mobile game every month or two. With Towelfight we got in a little too deep and accidentally picked a mechanic that relied too heavily on content and story in order to work, resulting in a 3-month development cycle.

We’re getting back to the spirit of our company. Our next game, Quadropus Rampage, the product of our 7 Day Roguelike jam, will be done in under a month and released shortly thereafter. We’re experimenting with a free-to-play model with IAP that doesn’t leave players feeling alienated and provides real value, rather than replacing things that should’ve been available in the first place.

Sam & Seth: We’re also looking forward to helping out other St. Louis devs like the Happy Badgers (who are doing a wonderful Kickstarter right now) and Third Party Ninja once we get some financial breathing room under us. Our dream is to provide a scholarship/housing option for new indie devs in the area so they can get the breathing room we’ve managed without having to damn near die of ramen deprivation in the process.

Thanks so much for this interview!

Sam & Seth: NO. Thank you!

Indeviews Episode 3: Chris DeLeon

2013-04-01

Here’s the third episode of Indeviews! In this episode we are joined by the indie game developer Chris DeLeon.

Chris is an experienced game developer with several games under his belt, so his insight is quite important! He has worked with triple-A titles like Medal of Honor, successful iOS games like Topple and numerous awarded indie games with unique game concepts.

Let’s get to know him better!

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Which game engines/game making tools do you use for your games? Did you build your own? If you have used different engines/game making tools, which one is your favorite and why?

Chris: This response varies by which years of my work we’re referring to, and why the work was being done, so in order to answer the question adequately this will be a bit of a project bio.

When I got started in the mid-90’s, I was playing with modding tools for Doom, Command & Conquer, Descent, and Quake. I built levels, retuned gameplay balance, and made/replaced in-game art and audio assets.

When I made the leap a couple of years later to programming games of my own, I had no engine or game making tools. I began by copying assembly and C routines from assorted programming books to set monitor resolution, plot pixels, draw lines and other basic shapes, import custom image and audio (beep bloop, system speaker kind of stuff), and all that mess.

I did that for my first 9 or 10 completed graphical games before I switched over to using the Allegro library with C/C++. Allegro was started by Shawn Hargreaves, who later went on to work on Microsoft’s XNA. Allegro solved issues for me like setting monitor resolution, loading common image file formats, and playing wav sounds or midi music.

I was still writing all of my engines (referring at this stage to level formats, level editors, interface code, sound channel management…) from scratch in C/C++. Each project taught me a lot, and each new game began by stripping down an old game to its bare functionality then mashing in new approaches to organizing my code or streamlining my content process. I stayed with Allegro for the next 6 years, creating and leading a bunch of games with it for the game club I helped establish as an undergrad at Carnegie Mellon: the Game Creation Society. As a senior I began dabbling in OpenGL, via AllegroGL, to take advantage of hardware accelerated graphics and learn about the abstractions involved on OpenGL, and messing around a little with 3D terrain/models.

I helped out on those game club projects in a variety of support roles: artist, level designer, sound person… whenever I wasn’t the lead and programmer. Teams differed in choice of library, engine, and tools. Some games used DirectX, several were built on SDL, a few were made using Java (which, to this day, I wouldn’t really recommend to anyone), one even used Adventure Game Studio. A similar pattern has continued in the game club I started at Georgia Tech in 2010, though instead the common platforms are now Unity, ActionScript 3 with Flixel, plus some uses of Game Maker, XNA, and SFML.

In the Game Creation Society at Carnegie, indie tools weren’t as far along as Unity is today, so we frequently found ways to leverage existing software to tune or develop our game content more efficiently. For example Battleship 88’s levels were tuned from a .csv (commas separated value) file, a simple spreadsheet edited in Excel. One of my favorite clever cases came up for Shotgun Debugger, a game led by Matt Sarnoff, which imported XML files made in Inkscape, a freeware alternative to Adobe Illustrator. The game used the polygonal data and meta tags to set walls, doors, colored lighting, triggers and switches and such when loaded into the game engine. Sarnoff wrote a parser in Python or Perl at the time that translated the XML into a format the latest version of the engine expected. Of course, XML parsing libraries and functionality are so common today that such a result could probably be much more easily achieved. The use of Inkscape was all Sarnoff’s idea and code, but I designed levels for the game, and being able to rely on that existing tool’s abilities to create, transform, modify, tag, group, and otherwise manipulate shapes had a big impact on my ability as a level designer to create spaces that were differentiated not only in functional layout but also in a sense of mood and place.

Unrelated to those game projects: every year my fraternity (anti-stereotype disclaimer: I don’t drink, it was a fairly nontraditional, high GPA/overachievers, no hazing and no pledging fraternity) needed a game project for our spring “Booth.” Booth was/is a temporary structure built along some common theme to hold a plot at the school’s annual fair for students and the public. For those games brothers in electrical and/or mechanical engineering broke apart joysticks, gamepads, running mats, or other input devices to rig their parts for specially crafted controller mechanisms connected to chair swivels, sliding bars, external LEDs, interactive picture frames, and other unusual gizmos. This was an exciting opportunity for me, as I got to design games around custom input hardware. The games were still programmed in C++ with Allegro. The carnival booths also set me up to design for a completely different player context than my usual audience:(people of all ages and gaming abilities, each looking for a short play session, and unlikely to play again due to long lines, So coming up with these games was more like an arcade novelty than a PC or console game, except it had to be kept pretty easy since replay was impractical. I wrote more about that experience here if any reader’s curious for more detail on that, including when I semi-recently remade one of the games in Unity.

For that matter, I wrote a free EBook/PDF summarizing those first ten years of projects, available here with more platform and design details.

In the summers of 2005, 2006, and 5 months in 2007 I worked at Electronic Arts on the Medal of Honor project, switching to Boom Blox for the last few months of that time. MoH involved design and a bit of programming experience in Unreal Engine 3. Boom Blox was made atop a proprietary engine, though I created the isometric level editor that I and a few coworkers used on PC to crank out levels with mouse and keyboard. (The Wii-based editor that shipped in the game wasn’t ready for use until later in development).

In late-2007 when I joined ZipZapPlay to help create PlayCrafter.com, a (now closed) web-based game making tool for teens, I switched to ActionScript 3. I also used AS3/Flash for the 7 months of daily experimental gameplay projects, since I figured if I was going to make tiny things they’d better be playable via URL without requiring download/configuration/uninstall, and ideally cross platform. I never used the Flash animation tool though, I just compiled at command-line with mxmlc, which I’ve written a few tutorials and example code for getting started with.

After a year at ZZP, I left and developed about a dozen iPhone/iPad games and entertainment apps over the next few years with Objective-C and OpenGL - a handful with publisher involvement, and the rest self-published. I got started extremely early in iOS development, shortly after the App Store opened, so this was before Cocos2D was very far along. Or, I suppose if it was ready for prime time by then, I wasn’t aware of it. Either way, I was writing all of my own core graphical and audio functionality by remixing, extending, and troubleshooting Apple’s example code.

When I returned to school in 2010 to work on graduate degrees at Georgia Tech, I switched back to ActionScript 3 for student projects. Besides removing the business-side and platform-specific issues of mobile development, I knew that web games greatly improved our player reach, and more players trying our games could be useful in getting incoming students to take the group seriously. I’ve pivoted along with many of the club members toward more Unity projects, since many students want to work on 3D games and/or games that can be easily ported to play on iOS/Android.

In graduate classes and research I’ve been using ActionScript 3 (for help with the Game-o-Matic rapid microgame generation engine), Unity (for Relativity Runner, an Escher-based minigame I wound up showcasing at the Hammer museum in LA), XNA with Kinect, and PHP/SQL/HTML5/JS for web-based applications including a simple interactive story engine.

In a couple of business arrangements that both got up to playable demo before halting, I also did a bit of design work for a Lua-scripted PlayStation 3 game and C programming for a game on Sifteo cubes.

As for which is my favorite and why, see my later reply to “What programming language do you prefer developing your games on? Why do you choose it over others?”

Do you use the same development process for all of your games?

Chris: As alluded to earlier I’ve done plenty of switching languages, team sizes (about half of my games I made alone, the other half on teams of 3-12), project durations (from 4 hours with Interaction Artist up to 18 months, but typically around 2-4 months), and rethought my process a lot over the years.

My process is generally some variation on:

1) First I need to decide what it is that I’m trying to make. This is an iterative, exploratory process, often digital from almost the very beginning, playable in some form within a week of jotting down initial ideas. I start rapid prototyping, focusing first on player control and world structure, expecting that in the process of doing it, playing it, and rethinking it everything may change. I build as a way to investigate questions I’m uncertain about, to inform the decisions that will shape the next version built as the exploration continues.

1.5) If others are involved with the project, I’ll get everyone involved in step 1 from as early as possible. How early depends on the context it’s being made for, and how team members wound up on the project. In the game clubs, where people volunteer for projects that they’re excited about based on the pitch, they need to hear to hear some fairly clear direction early on to get an idea of what they’re signing up for. On the other hand for a class project, where we get assigned groups, everyone will be helping to decide what kind of thing we’re making, since the choice of which project they’d like to work on wasn’t made available. If I’ll be paying people for assistance on a commercial project, then I’ll need to get the project far enough along that I can give clear requests for what I need done, with high certainty that I know it’s exactly what I’ll need or be able to use, to keep my costs low and to be fair to them in the use of their time and talent.

2) As a next step, just before making the first playable prototype or as a part of that process, I make a mock-up screenshot of how the game might look in action. I include interface elements, player character on-screen, if applicable, some indications of how the level structure might look (with implementation in mind: maybe tile based, or polygons, or built from reusable chunks… not just open-ended concept art). I make the mock-up screenshot at the same resolution/size/proportion of the game, since that influences how I lay things out on the screen, what size I wind up using for characters, font choices for the in-game interface, and so on.

On a team the fake screenshot helps get everyone on the same page about what kind of game we’re going for at first, and while it’s obviously up for discussion/debate it means we’re at least discussing or debating clear, situated ideas based on a concrete case we share an understanding of. Even when working alone I still do this fake screenshot though, as I like that it forces me to be clear about assumptions I’m making about scale, structure, interface, and perspective. It’s amazing how quickly and naturally trying to do a mock-up screenshot brings questions to the forefront that I wouldn’t have thought of as clearly in written or programmed form, and in the process of making the screenshot I don’t just face the questions but I have to form tentative answers to them as I go (“how big is the character on screen?” or “will the game’s level spaces have purely decorative elements? collectibles? doors? ladders?”).

3) I then basically program to bring that mock-up screenshot to a playable state, even borrowing art assets from layers of the mock-up so that I don’t get bogged down by changing gears frequently between programming or generating art assets.

At this point it’s analogous to what the pinball industry refers to as a “white wood” stage in gameplay development, which for pinball refers to the earliest playable form of a table’s layout, yet undecorated, put together based on the initial CAD/drafting thoughts, still rough and intended for rapid iteration between playing with it. In the white wood stage they’ll flip the ball around a bit, reconsider angles or positions of play field parts, drill some new holes, move components around, and so on. I’m the same way with my early rapid digital prototype(s): I don’t care that it’s rough around the edges (no animations, pieces slide/hope around, no particle effects or sounds), in fact that’s better because it makes it easier to move things around, cut parts without losing much work, or change it up. If the game only has 1 enemy type so far and I fundamentally change how enemy code works, that’s easy at this step, but had I filled in a bunch of enemy types it would harder to pivot so freely.

Character sizes may change, the player’s control scheme may change, I may come up with other ideas for features to try in the engine, and so on. If it’s a game with levels or puzzles I’ll begin generating a bunch of variations and attempts to play around in as a way of searching for which patterns come out well, and also to inform how I might improve my tools or iteration and workflow for the project.

4) Once I’ve got one level/area come out OK in a way that I feel happy with, in a form that might eventually wind up in the middle of the game (i.e. I’ll later tackle building up to it with easier challenges, and nor should be end-of-game complexity - it’s just proof for me that it has potential to fit together in a playable way), the project is ready to “go wide.”

Going wide marks the shift from all attention on a central question, what is it that I/we want to make, to the action of making it, which shifts from exploration toward production, and can be made parallel much easier if multiple people want to make levels or animations at the same time, etc. This approach, getting core gameplay working in an isolated but realistic (as opposed to contrived demonstration) test level before committing all attention to full production is a process that Mark Cerny of Marble Madness coined long ago as the “Cerny Method”, though it’s now a fairly common practice that companies and teams have their own names and adapted stages for.

At this point the team meetings, if it’s indeed a team project, become less discussion oriented, which made sense when first feeling out direction on the project, and more task-oriented. Meetings focus at this next stage on coordinating who is working on what, one week at a time, to keep everyone involved, avoid collisions of redundant or conflicting work, and unblock or improve workflow for other developers on the team as soon as possible.

If it’s a solo project, then at this phase I swap out my creative director hat to instead gear up and work more like a software engineer, level designer, or high quantity, consistent-quality artist (I can’t “draw” well at all, but what I can do is churn out dozens of recognizable small images in a night that match - for rapid, small-scale game production that matters more). My todo list changes from a set of questions and options to consider to instead be a prioritized checklist: get this feature working, make the art needed for that item, generate some design guidelines or themes to adhere to and create example levels that abide by them, etc.

It’s time to tentatively accept the answers arrived at earlier in the process for the big questions, like what genre is this game, what does the player control, and what’s it about, to instead zero in on burning through tons of detail questions as I go, like what color are the projectiles, how long does reloading or recovery take between actions, and how is collision handled. This is about trusting decisions made earlier, at least enough to pivot and act on them, since too much rethinking of the foundations after going wide results in a bunch of thrashing and wasted content. Companies that need to think about profit may have a valid reason to do that big shift sometimes, and people’s salaries sort of pay them off to just suck it up and keep working doing as they’re told, but wasted work causes a morale and momentum hit that can be harder for an unpaid freeware/hobby/student team to weather.

5) Tune to wrap it up and tie off loose ends. When the game feels about half to three quarters done in terms of content, or if on a set schedule when we’re somewhere between half and three quarters through our allotted project time, I shift modes of myself or the team from churning out new things to instead properly filling out and fixing what we’ve already got, filling in any glaring gaps. I/we make a list of what needs to be addressed before the game is ready to be played without requiring developer explanation, prompt, or immediate support. This often includes in-game instructions or tutorial, an ending sequence if applicable, save/load functionality if logical for this game type and not yet implemented, main menu screen with logo, all that stuff besides core gameplay or in-game content that needs to come together for the game to look and feel done.

Once that minimum list is identified, the list is only allowed to shrink. No adding to it, no making anything new that would grow the list by increasing player expectation. Watch out for symmetry/pattern - for example if one weapon gets support for an Alt Fire mode players will expect other guns to have an Alt Fire, too. If some loose end implies we would need a bunch more time or work to support a previously planned or started feature at this point it’s generally better to just cut that feature. To continue that previous example: if only one gun had an Alt Fire mode implemented, and you’re running low on time so the energy would be better spent on tasks other than adding Alt Fire to every other weapon, just remove it from that gun that has it.

Unless you were careless with announcements during development (don’t paint yourself into a corner with public promises you may not keep!), players won’t know what you cut. That’s the point of addressing unfinished features in this way of either filling them out or pulling them out. Nothing about the game should appear to have been still partway under construction when released.

When done wisely scope compromises and cuts at this stage in the process can help focus a game on and around what worked best during development, carving away the potential distractions of incomplete or incoherent ideas that weren’t fitting together as well.

6) Depending on the genre and size of the game, ideally some testing for feedback and observation can take place earlier in development. At minimum, this step is when play testing is absolutely critical though. After release to the public, the developer can’t be there watching over people play to help clarify confusion, so that needs to be spotted and patched up ahead of time.

For this step the game gets put in front of someone that hasn’t seen it played before and has not been told how to play. I and/or others that worked on it observe the players and take notes, especially watching for snags or dead ends. Snags are times when the player is confused or annoyed by something distractingly rough, which has their attention on a perceived flaw instead of on the gameplay (even if you disagree that it’s a flaw, at least accept that it’s a distraction, and find a way to change it or set it up so that it won’t be perceived as a flaw). Dead ends refer to what my former coworker Josh Leyshock called “Shelver moments,” meaning someone would by so bothered or stuck as to stop playing, take the disc out, put the game box back on a shelf, and forget it exists. Warning: remember that a browser game or PC game is even easier to “shelf” than a console cartridge or disc, people have a lot of other free web games or already owned PC games competing for their attention and time.

It often helps to have the tester speak out loud what they’re thinking and why they’re doing what they’re doing as they play. This helps surface the gap between how the game has set them up to see things, in contrast to your knowledge as developer of what’s actually going on, and usually that disparity should be repaired or somehow avoided, within the game. Confusion comes up, things that seemed obvious during development turn out to need to be better highlighted or explained, etc. Interpret the feedback after - don’t argue with testers of course, but on the other hand you don’t need to address issues in ways they proposed, since you know the game’s insides and intentions you may have another approach to try that you think is somehow more appropriate or resourceful but can still prevent the complaint from reappearing during the next test.

Address whatever notes arise from that testing, then test with a new, different person to uncover a new and different layer of roughness that was previously buried under the former issues. Repeat until the feedback received is sufficiently minuscule or subjective (“I don’t like helicopters” -not helpful).

7) With the game polished, including some late fixes to art or interface, it’s now ready for video. Here I make a short gameplay trailer focused on conveying what the gameplay is like without getting overly descriptive. Many players Google for a video to see what a game is about before tying it, to decide whether it’s worth getting into, while others who are curious to see the game may not have the time or skill to get deep into it. Don’t let their searches turn up empty, and don’t count on whatever haphazard video some stranger on the web might throw together, even if you get lucky and have some players or reviewers do that, they’re a lot less invested than you are in showcasing the best the game has to offer.

I typically use Fraps in Windows or Screenflow on Mac to capture a full play through of the game, or 20-30 minute of play if it’s multiplayer, capturing sound effects audio with in-game music disabled (to avoid butchering music while video editing, without losing sound effects). I then edit that down to 1.5-3 minutes of footage and find a suitable Creative Commons Attributes song (or one composed for the game, if one of the songs fits) to use with it, ducking the sound effects a bit so that they’re present but not competing with the music. If the music isn’t from the game, I add the credit for the composer to the video, so that if it gets viewed as an embed etc. the credit is still visible.

8) Finally I make the game available to others online, or on the App Store, or whatever channel I’m targeting for release. If it’s a Flash/AS3 game I add a MochiBot to it for stat tracking purposes and upload it to Newgrounds and Kongregate (the MochiBot lets me know how much it gets played on other sites after it inevitably gets lifted and reuploaded elsewhere), If it’s a club project I take screenshots and add a download link to it on our club site. If it’s a personal project I’ll put it on my portfolio site, share links to it via social media, and maybe write a blog entry about it at HobbyGameDev.

What programming language do you prefer developing your games on? Why do you choose it over others?

Chris: I keep returning to ActionScript 3. Flash player is still very widely supported and consistent across browsers and major operating systems, and though tablets and phones don’t run it well or at all these are keyboard and mouse games that don’t translate easily to multitouch anyhow. HTML5 is replacing Flash for dynamic websites, and is also great for writing in-browser menu/turn-based games, but as far as I’ve seen (or at least the last time I checked) for a number of reasons it’s not quite ready to replace Flash for real-time action games of the types that I like to work on.

I have no strong preference in terms of any language’s technical features. I pick up programming languages purely as a matter of what’s going to be able to reliably reach players and give them a relatively smooth, consistent, trouble-free experience playing the game. I look for languages, tools, and frameworks that other finished games have already been made with, that I’m able to play without any special hassle (minimal or no fighting with missing DLL’s, if special libraries are required and not common then the installer needs to detect and address that, etc.), and that perform smoothly enough to feel like a “real” game to be taken seriously.

I used to make Windows games because such a large percentage of computer users had Windows. I’ve since converted to browser games but it’s still important to me that they work in Windows (and Mac, and ideally Linux), since that’s still where so many users are. Microsoft’s security defaults have shifted over the years though to make downloading and running an unofficial .exe file an event woven with scary warnings and admin permissions, to the point that I’m a little wary of even trying to distribute a Windows game on Windows anymore. When people can get to the game via URL, play it, then close the browser and not need to uninstall or clean up, that’s a much smoother experience, and an easier one to be excited about sharing with others.

Do you use third party tools (map editors, sprite managers, animation suites etc) or you build your own?

Chris: The third party tools I use are Photoshop, Maya, and Audacity. For level editors I tend to write my own, though one of the games that I’m currently helping design levels for is using TuDee for tile map editing.

Which tools and applications you usually use when developing a game (favorite IDE, text editor, do you use static analysis tools, revision control system etc)?

Chris: I use TextWrangler on Mac to edit my source files, For version control it varies by project: for tiny solo projects I’ll lazily just periodically zip the project folder and copy the dated zip to Dropbox or FTP. For larger, longer-term, or team projects this semester I’ve been using Assembla/SVN and GitHub.

Is there any specific library, framework that you always use on your games?

Chris: For my old PC freeware games it was Allegro for many years, for a few of my ActionScript 3 projects I’ve used Flixel. For the non-Flixel AS3 games I write my own engine layer atop Flash’s core functionality. Of course when doing Unity projects I lean on the features that come with it.

What is your computer setup? Do you use Mac or PC? What specs? Do you have a dual monitor setup?

Chris: For my first decade or so I developed on a PC desktop, switched to a large PC laptop in college, then when I started developing iOS games in 2008 I changed to a Mac laptop. I have stayed with Mac laptops for Unity and AS3 development, even though I could of course do either in Windows just as well. I fairly recently upgraded from a large MacBook Pro to a MacBook Air, with the high end spec options, to reduce how much weight I’m carrying in my backpack. I occasionally connect it to a second monitor, though more often I’ll just prop the laptop up so the screen is eye level, then plug in a mouse and USB keyboard to save myself from slouching over the screen or bending my wrists oddly while working for long periods of time.

Do you have any photos from your working environment & a screenshot of your typical development setup?

Chris: My working environment changes frequently - I have two work desks set up in my apartment (sometimes a third) that I rotate between, I’ll sometimes work in a Starbucks or library or academic building, and generally I take good advantage of the laptop’s mobility by working in different places as often as possible. No photo at the moment; my usual work desks are currently in disarray while my apartment is temporarily modified for video recording. It’s just an ordinary desk though, with a laptop and office chair, a few piles of books and some spare pinball parts laying around.

Likewise, no screenshot of my development set up seems necessary, if that’s alright. It just amounts to having a few windows of TextEdit open, each with several source files in the workspace, plus a few folders with the assets, recompilation script, and where the swf compiles to. Or it’s just Unity and the assets folder open, probably with Photoshop and/or Maya open as well.

Which games inspired you the most? Do you have a favorite developer from the games industry (indie or not)?

Chris: Bubble Bobble has been my favorite game since a very early age. Over the years allusions to it have crept into a handful of games I’ve worked on, some references being quite overt while others are very subtle. MTJ was the character designer and gameplay designer for Bubble Bobble, though admittedly none of his other work appeals to me so I don’t really think of him as my favorite developer. For favorite developer I’d probably say either Vlambeer, whose work I consistently enjoy, or John Nesky, who I’ve had a number of opportunities to work with over the years, I’ve always been impressed with his versatility and ability.

What’s the single piece of advice that you would always give to someone, and what is something that you will absolutely avoid/never do again?

Chris: My usual piece of advice is something that came up earlier in describing my process: don’t write a big design document, instead keep it 1-2 pages of important notes plus a mock-up screenshot or two, then allow the game to evolve from there by iterating and exploring variations during early implementation.

In case that’s too much like the earlier comments, the other advice I give developers, which I haven’t mentioned here yet, is to practice all aspects of development (programming, game/level design, art, audio, writing, production), both the software tools and the processes or different ways of thinking, to the point of functional fluency. The point of this is to never get stuck waiting for someone else. Being able to unblock yourself by creating or adjusting placeholder assets or functionality is extremely freeing in setting up a developer to bring his or her own gameplay ideas to life, making them testable for iteration, to then refine them to a point to be presented in a compelling way to others.

Something that I will absolutely never do again: allow a business person to talk me into leaving something out of a contract that they insist, based on any kind of verbal assurances, doesn’t need to be there. I’ve had a couple of negative experiences based on differences between what I was told verbally versus what I could get the other party to include in writing - a terribly naive error on my part made when I was just beginning my transition from freeware to doing paid contract work - and now at the first sign of laziness toward contract discussion or sketchy “just trust us” behavior I promptly cut off all business relations before they advance any further.

What is your opinion on the rise of free game development “suites” like Unity, UDK, CryEngine etc? Given that you already use Unity for your latest projects, is it safe to assume that you will use it for your next projects, or you will switch to an in-house engine?

Chris: Unity is outstanding for what it is, in terms of providing a fairly generalizable 3D engine with editor, support for virtually all common asset formats, and a great deal of scripting flexibility. There are certain types of high-end games that it’s probably not the best choice for, but especially on small teams with limited resources it opens up a lot of possibilities that before were out of reach.

UDK, from my experience with it, makes much more sense than Unity for a large commercial team with enough experienced specialists on the team to put all of its power to good use.

I haven’t worked with CryEngine.

Some of the projects that I’m on are being built in Unity, some are being built in AS3/Flash, one is on iOS in Objective-C using Cocos2D - I’m currently involved with more than a half dozen projects, and don’t anticipate settling on any one suite.

Generally I still find it much easier to get people to play my AS3/Flash games (by the hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions) than to play games that I develop with Unity (hovering in the hundreds), potentially owing to the difference in people’s willingness to install the Unity plug-in vs already having the Flash player installed. Although, alternatively, maybe I’m just more experienced in developing the types of 2D games that I continue to make in AS3/Flash, as compared to the dabbling in 3D that I do in Unity, which also reflects the relative bottleneck of populating a 3D game with appropriate art and animation. I tend to try to avoid or minimize that issue through resourceful style choices. At their best many of my games tend to reflect mid-90’s gameplay, which was a time of fairly polished 2D games coexisting with rather rough, primitive 3D games, and that seems like it may be the same growing pain that I and some other small-scale developers are working through.

What are your future plans? What games are you working on right now?

Chris: I’ll still be a PhD student in Digital Media at Georgia Tech until (estimating) around 2016. I anticipate that both the game industry, indie platforms, and academia may shift so much between now and then that I’m currently playing it by ear for what I might do after.

The games I am working on right now:

Ms Vision by Proxy: AS3/Flash, 2D platforming puzzle game. I did the programming and most of the level design. We released this game at the end of last month, and I’m still working on further promoting it and getting it in front of more players.
Black Oak Manor: Unity, 2D overhead networked action horror game. I’m doing a bit of level design and the weapon icon art.
Tibidabo: Unity, 3D Galaga or Starfox-esque game. I made explosion special effects, but otherwise haven’t had much to do with this one.
Num Noms: iPad/Objective-C, a counting game for children. I’m helping with programming and art.
Fragile: Unity, 3D exploratory puzzle world. I’m designing puzzles as part of an open world level, and contributing a little in-game art.
Dreamwalker: Unity, 3D ghost game. I’m with this team to provide programming support, but haven’t been needed much yet. I anticipate being a bit more involved near the end during debugging and polish.
Mesmerize: AS3/Flash, built using the Flixel library, in which a bunch of small humanoid characters swarm and interact on a playing field (core concept TBA). On this project I’m doing much of the engine programming, as well as helping with in-game art and core gameplay design.
Infection: Unity, 2D overhead, virus versus blood cells RTS-lite type of action. Here I’m just helping with sound effects and visual effects.
Unannounced #1: AS3/Flash, a friend is starting work on an overhead sci-fi action game that I may be doing art for.
Unannounced #2: iPhone/Objective-C or HTML5/JS, early design involvement for part of a research project that’s in early concept, I can’t say anything more about this just yet.
Unannounced #3: Unity, 3D navigational space puzzle, something I’m tinkering with on the side that’s on hold until I wrap up some of these other projects.
Unannounced #4: AS3/Flash, for a tiny art game that I’m anonymously designing and programming for an East Coast artist.

Thanks so much for this interview!

Chris: Thank you!

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Stay tuned for the next episode next week! :)

Note: If you are an indie game developer and wanna be part of the series, just send us an email at info@evilwindowdog.com

Indeviews Episode 2: Pascal Bestebroer

2013-03-25

Welcome to the second episode of Indeviews! In this episode we welcome Pascal Bestebroer (Orange Pascal) from Orangepixel games.

Orange Pixel has released numerous games since 2004 focusing on mobile platforms like iOS, Android, Blackberry, Ouya and supporting new technologies like HTML5! Their games are mostly inspired from the 8/16bit era and the least I can say is that they are extremely addictive!

Enough about my introduction though, let’s start the indeview!

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For those who don’t know you, who are you and what do you do?

Pascal: I’m Pascal Bestebroer (@orangepascal on Twitter) and am the main guy behind all Orangepixel games. I work together with my girlfriend who handles most support, social media and business related stuff, and Gavin Harrison who is a talented freelance musician and I recommend him to anyone looking for awesome music ;)

Which game engines/game making tools do you use for your games? Did you build your own? If you have used different engines/game making tools, which one is your favorite and why?

Pascal: I build my own framework/engine/library for various platforms. This makes it easier to port my games to new or different systems without having to depend on a 3rd party. Right now my framework works is done for Android and Blackberry10, iOS, and HTML5. I am currently looking at using LibGDX to bring my games to PC and Mac.

Do you use the same development process for all of your games?

Pascal: Not really. I do use the same framework as base, but game design wise I sometimes start with a clear gameplay idea, but other times I just happen to have a cool sprite in mind and build a game around it.

What programming language do you prefer developing your games on? Why do you choose it over others?

Pascal: I usually build the Android version first, which is in Java, and that’s probably because I’m most familiair with it and also because it’s very simple to try and test stuff on an Android phone or tablet. Once that version is done I usually port it to iOS and other platforms.

For gamejams I usually stick to HTML5 though, since it’s a very nice environment to do quick prototyping or jamming and have cool results that basically everyone can play as long as they have a browser.

Do you use third party tools (map editors, sprite managers, animation suites, etc) or you build your own?

Pascal: I use Gimp for all my (pixel)art work, and I use the excellent Bfxr site to create my sound effects. Both free tools that run on either Windows, Mac or Linux.

Which tools and applications you usually use when developing a game (favorite IDE, text editor, do you use static analysis tools, revision control system etc)?

Pascal: I’m very used to Eclipse, which is also the default Android IDE, so all the Java and HTML5 coding is done in that. For iOS I’m forced to use Xcode…which will always be a love/hate relation ;) As sole developer I don’t need much revision control system, I just often backup my stuff onto a Dropbox account.

Is there any specific library, framework that you always use on your games?

Pascal: As mentioned above : my own framework ;)

What is your computer setup? Do you use Mac or PC? What specs? Do you have a dual monitor setup?

Pascal: I’ve always been a Windows user, but to develop for iOS I had to turn to a Mac. I now use it as main system cause that was the only way I could get used to using it and thus be more productive for iOS development. Before I used a Mac for daily stuff it always felt like a huge hurdle to power it on and open Xcode and would rather stick to a Windows PC, so I forced myself to use it and it’s not a bad experience at all!

Do you have any photos from your workplace?

Pascal: No sorry, I don’t really have a workplace, I just work where ever my laptop is. So that’s all over the house ;)

Which games inspired you the most? Do you have a favorite developer from the games industry (indie or not)?

Pascal: I’m very old school when it comes to game inspiration. So all the old 8 and 16 bit games and the gameplay from those games is what still tickles me. I do play a lot of console games and have most consoles, but for inspiration I really look at the good old days!

What’s the single piece of advice that you would always give to someone, and what is something that you will absolutely avoid/never do again?

Pascal: Don’t try to create the next big hit game, just create the game that you love and want to play. That’s the best way to find succes. I’ve tried to come up with creative new game concepts hoping people would love it, but once I let go of that concept and just started doing what I was good at and loved it all worked out much better.

What is your opinion on the rise of free game development “suites” like Unity, UDK, CryEngine etc? Do you feel interested in using them for your next projects?

Pascal: It’s awesome! I personally don’t use them, but the fact that it is becoming much easier for a bigger audience to create games is great. On the other side tho, I do think a lot of developers are lacking basic skills these days due to depending on such “suites” to take care of the dirty stuff.

There is still a lot of stuff you can learn from creating your own game code from scratch.

What are your future plans? What games are you working on right now?

Pascal: I recently released Gunslugs and am now planning on bringing it to PC and Mac, and also have a Firefox OS version running. I’ve also started work on a “rogue like” which you can read all about on my techblog! So my plans are to complete the unnamed rogue like game, and bring my existing games to new platforms!

Thank you for this interview Pascal!

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Stay tuned for the third episode, next week! :)

Note: If you are an indie game developer and wanna be part of the series, just send us an email at info@evilwindowdog.com

Indeviews Episode 1: Ed Key

2013-03-18

Welcome to the first episode of Indeviews! In the first episode I am honored to host an interview with the creator of Proteus, Ed Key.

Proteus is a unique gaming experience, where through exploration and subtle interaction with your surroundings, you create a new story every time you travel through its procedurally generated islands. Also the ambient sounds and the soundtrack of the game immerse you even more into the game.

So without further ado, let’s get to it!

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Which game engines/game making tools do you use for your games? Did you build your own? If you have used different engines/game making tools, which one is your favorite and why?

Ed: Proteus is written in C# and uses OpenGL and SDL for graphics, SDL for audio and Lua for scripting (just for some initialisation and world definitions). The framework is pretty much made from scratch, by me and my friend Alex May some years ago. I also dabbled a bit with Flixel in the past but haven’t used any integrated Game-making tools like Game Maker. When I worked in commercial games it was all C and C++ any proprietory engines.

What programming language do you prefer developing your games on? Why do you choose it over others?

Ed: At the moment I’m using C#. I find it’s fairly quick and pleasant to work in although I miss some C++ features. People should just whatever they’re most comfortable with for what they want to do.

Do you use third party tools (map editors, sprite managers, animation suites, etc) or you build your own?

Ed: I tend to use existing free software (e.g. Sketchup, Tiled Map Editor) and write my own importers or exporters as needed. I never really have the motivation to write my own tools beyond that.

Which tools and applications you usually use when developing a game (favorite IDE, text editor, do you use static analysis tools, revision control system etc)?

Ed: Visual Studio for C# coding and debugging, Notepad++ for editing Lua, SVN for version control. I briefly used Redgate profiling tools for .NET, which was really impressive.

Is there any specific library, framework that you always use on your games?

Ed: Well, I’ve only released one game, but for all the prototypes I did on the side in that period I used the same framework. I’m going to investigate Unity3D for the next project, as it seems like having all the foundation done for me will be a wise move. I’m also looking forward to being about to put builds online and on iOS without much trouble.

What is your computer setup? Do you use Mac or PC? What specs? Do you have a dual monitor setup?

Ed: PC. Currently a laptop plugged into an external monitor and keyboard. It’s a quad core i5 2.5GHz, 8GB RAM, SSD, Nvidia graphics of some sort. It’s nice to have the flexibility of the laptop but I’m going to ge a desktop PC for future projects just for some smoother performance with Unity.

Do you have any photos from your workplace?

Ed: I couldn’t bring myself to photograph my screen and desk, so here’s a better picture taken from my desk.

Which games inspired you the most? Do you have a favorite developer from the games industry (indie or not)?

Ed: Michael Brough’s VESPER5 is one that has sparked off a lot of thoughts in my head recently. I also loved Julian Gollop’s strategy games, from Chaos to XCOM/UFO, so I’m looking forward to his new version of Chaos that he’s currently working on. I like a ton of other developers too, too many to mention. I don’t have a favourite in that sense.

What’s the single piece of advice that you would always give to someone, and what is something that you will absolutely avoid/never do again?

Ed: A thing I learnt about playtesting when working on Proteus: Once your game is in a workable state, test it on real people who haven’t played an previous versions and have no information about it. Do it in person, at home, in a cafe, whereever. Do not speak or help them whilst they play! If they get stuck, you have to absorb that frustration yourself and go back to your game and figure out what you should do with that. I think if you do this kind of testing properly and honestly it can make a huge difference to how your game is understood and recieved by people once it is released for real. If you don’t have people to test with locally, you could perhaps try twitch.tv or Skype screen-sharing.

What is your opinion on the rise of free game development “suites” like Unity, UDK, CryEngine etc? Do you feel interested in using them for your next projects?

Ed: They’re great. I haven’t used them much so far as it’s such a habit for me to just use code and a folder full of assets, but people make great stuff with them. I’ve got no time for people who are snobs about technology when it comes to game-making. I’m planning on investigating Unity3D for future, as I said above. Apparently there are some patterns to using it which are more “coder-ish” so I’m looking forward to exploring it.

What are your future plans? What games are you working on right now?

Ed: Still working on some post-launch stuff for Proteus, but after that I’ve got another idea for an exploration game that I want to play with. I made lots of little prototypes during Proteus and had ideas that weren’t a good fit for that project, so this is a companion piece in some ways.

Thank you for this interview Ed! That was a really interesting insight!

❖

Stay tuned for the second episode, next week! :)

Note: If you are an indie game developer and wanna be part of the series, just send us an email at info@evilwindowdog.com

Indeviews, your indie developers intereviewed

2013-03-18

Hey all! Time to unveil a mini project, Indeviews!

I have always been intrigued by the innerworks of every game out there. Who did it? What tools did they use? How does their workplace look like?

Those questions matured into a single idea about a month ago: Indeviews (= indie + dev + interviews).

Indeviews will be a collection of interviews from well-known indie game developers, asking questions that may help & inspire you and also shed some light on how they develop their masterpieces.

I have already compiled a list of questions that span from tools used in the creation of their games, to favorite programming languages/frameworks and took some really interesting ~~interviews~~ indeviews from well-known developers!

So let’s get to it: Our first interview is with Ed Key of Proteus.

On Unity

2013-02-13

It is always good to explore alternatives & new technologies, even amidst an ongoing project. The technology that really caught my eye this time was Unity, so I spend chunks of my spare time these days, learning and taming this beautiful beast.

Unity is good. It is really good. I won’t say more, just take a look at the features:

Really consistent flow of updates
Amazing documentation and support of 3 languages (C#, Javascript, Boo)
Vast resources of tutorials, samples, guides (more on that below)
An asset store that extends the capabilities of the engine
An awesome and huge community
1 button deploy to: iOS, Android, PC, Mac, Linux, PS3, Wii, Xbox, Flash, NaCL!

Additionally, the interface is really easy to use and once you get the hang of it you can really create what you can think of!

Obviously the free version of Unity comes with some technical limitations that get unlocked on Unity Pro () such as real time shadows, HDR, GI, light probes, advanced IK animations and so on, but even with this scope of tools, there is no excuse but to start creating.

Moreover, a really amazing feat for a so commonly used engine like Unity, is the diversity of games that have been created using this technology.

Here are some examples:

The Room

Pid

Rochard

Thomas Was Alone

Kentucky Route Zero

Bad Piggies

Temple Run 2

Endless Space

…and so many others

You could never thought that all those games were created using the same piece of software, right? How often can you say something like that for an engine?

Those past few days I have been ~~collecting~~ hoarding so many links about Unity that I have already compiled 3 separate lists:

Games built on Unity, so you can see what others can do with the engine and get inspired
Unity for 2D Games, which is essentially a list of resources and guides for everyone who is willing to start developing his own 2D game on Unity (give Futile a look by the way, it rocks) and
Unity Resources & Tutorials that is a generic list with guides, video tutorials and links that you might find useful

I will be updating those lists daily with new content, so stay tuned!

Oh, did I mention that the next Evil Window Dog project will definitely be in Unity? :)

Ani & the Word Scramblers: Devblog #3

2013-01-20

Here’s another update for the progress of our upcoming iOS game, Ani & the Word Scramblers!

The following image will be shown in the main menu of the title! We have already implemented the scene on the alpha builds and we are pretty happy with the end result. Thing is that there’s yet one more feature/surprise of this animation that the .gif cannot show, so you will have to be patient for the final build!

Also, here’s a concept piece of art from our awesome designer, concerning the intro of the game.

We have already decided on a back story and we think it’s a pretty good one, so I really believe that the introduction of the game won’t be something that you will want to skip the moment you see it ;)

Till the next update!

Happy 1 year anniversary Evil Window Dog + free apps!

2013-01-19

Oh my, that was fast! On this day, exactly one year ago, we were releasing the first version of Soundbeam, building this way the foundations of our humble indie studio, Evil Window Dog.

We didn’t stop there though: We were constantly updating Soundbeam with lots of new stuff, released a new application, Anagramma and we are now on the final track for our first game, The Last Priestess. What a year!

We want to thank each & every one of you who showed your support by downloading or even buying our applications! We ♥ you guys!

To celebrate our 1 year of existence and show you our appreciation, we made our apps free for this day only, so go get them now: Soundbeam, Anagramma Pro!

“So what’s in store for 2013?” you might ask. Well, a lot. We are planning of releasing even more apps, in a tighter schedule as we will focus only with our studio (yep, we will do it for a living!) We have lots of ideas we would like to experiment with so we can’t wait!

Till the announcement of our future projects, you can follow our progress here to keep in tabs with the development of our upcoming game, The Last Priestess!

General Indie Game Press Guidelines

2013-01-10

Photo by Official GDC Flickr account

During the process of laying out the marketing strategy for our upcoming iOS game The Last Priestess, I thought it would be nice to share with you the following rules I have gathered the past few months.

I have compiled a short list of things to build or follow when you are trying to promote your games. Each key point has some links from reference sites or other indie studios that are doing it right.

Feel free to comment and add anything that has been left out!

By the way, I have to thank the awesome Reddit community for the majority of the following resources, much appreciated guys!

Also, a word of caution: As you may have already figured out, we haven’t tried the majority of the following steps yet, but we definitely will.

So without further ado, let’s get to it!

Be creative with your blog posts, create news & give info about your dev process

Have a nice & intriguing website for your game/company

Create a newsletter for updates, announcements and general project progress!

Pixebits newsletter subscription form (check sidebar)

Do writeups on big sites

Be active on communities such as Reddit

Take part on events, gamejams (Ludum Dare, 7dFPS)

Bonus: Create your internal game jam competition, create games, release them in a bundle

Double Fine: Amnesia Fortnight

Create & give away swag (contests)

Maintain a devlog on Tumblr, TIGSource, IndieDB, Reddit, create & engage communities

Hold an IAmA!

Have a press kit

Create Awesome trailers

Release content & updates often

Awesomenauts site & blog

Have a Youtube channel & update it constantly with new content

Be social with other developers & studios! Feature something from their game!

Minecraft tribute in Torchlight 2

Have a nice (or at least descent) page to invite testers to your game

Beta signup for Loqheart indie game

Get in contact with Youtube personas

General Gaming Youtube channels

iPhone gaming Youtube channels

IGN - 2.2m subs
Vsauce3 - 373k subs
AppVee - 33k subs
App Judgement - 45k subs
AppleInsider.ru - 31k subs
AppSpy.com - 30k subs
TouchGameplay - 25k subs
iPhone Ninja - 16k subs
Crazy Mike’s apps - 13k subs
iGamesView - 8k subs
AppFind - 7.4k subs
PocketGamerUK - 1.5k subs
AppAnswers - 1.2k subs
AppQuest - 1.1k subs
Alex iOS reviews - 422 subs
Plump Runner - 330 subBe easy to reach through social media (Twitter, Facebook, Email, Website, IRC, Youtube)

Be easy to reach through social media (Twitter, Facebook, Email, Website, IRC, Youtube)

Contact big gaming sites (English & foreign)

Get in contact with other devs & create a free bundle mini-site

Get into free bundles yourself & support charity

Release the soundtrack of your game

Get some advice on how to contact the press…by the press!

Bonus: Embrace Piracy!

Yep, you better embrace it than fight it, and hey you will probably have way more people playing your game that will eventually generate press coverage! Check out the examples below:

Build a multiplatform title & support new platforms!

What’s better than to be on the lineup of a new console launch?

Nearly 500 games confirmed for an Ouya release

Learn from the masters!

References & Big Thanks

Ani & the Word Scramblers: Devblog #2

2012-11-10

Yep, that’s right! We have a name!

Our upcoming game’s full title is going to be “Ani & the Word Scramblers”!

As you can see, we have nearly finished the game over screen!

Next thing on the list is the main menu!

263k+ downloads!

2012-11-08

Woah! This is huge! We reduced the price of Soundbeam from to well…free and the results were just astonishing!

The app was featured both on App of the Day and Apps Gone Free, had more than a quarter of a million downloads in just one day and was #1 in the Free Apps category on more than 20 countries! Thanks so much people!

To celebrate this, we released version 1.5 of Soundbeam today which includes a brand new feature: record and share up to 15 seconds of your audioclips!

The app is still free for some hours so go grab it!

Here are some mentions from yesterday:

Game project: Devblog #1

2012-10-24

Hey again! Here’s the first official devlog entry for our upcoming game!

First things first, here is a short pre-alpha gameplay video just to get an idea of how the game feels:

As you can see the game has an 8bit feel which might remind you of those old school shmups!

Let us know what do you think of it! Remember: this is an early alpha prototype but the core gameplay will be exactly like this: you will have to swipe your finger to the right if you believe that a word couple is an anagram and left otherwise! Leave a comment below or on Reddit thread with your thoughts!

Let’s see what’s the roadmap like now:

The gameplay elements are in a pretty good state, we constantly make balance changes to the gameplay in order for the game to be challenging but not too hard for the player. It’s a pretty easy thing to say but not always easy to achieve!
This week we will integrate all of the art and assets in the game and keep you up to date with the changes in code/gameplay & art!

Some dev friendly info

As you might have already guessed, we are using Cocos2D engine for our game. On top of that we also use some really handy external tools:

Texture Packer for sprite sheets
Glyph Designer for our custom bitmap fonts
Testflight for beta testing deploying
And Git, because you know, Git rocks.

New game project!

2012-10-20

I think it’s about time to reveal our latest project that is keeping us busy the past few months!

Our upcoming project is an iOS word game that revolves around a simple concept: classify which of the falling word couples are anagrams and which of them are not!

The game uses the swipe gesture and asks the player to swipe left when a couple contains two words that are not anagrams and right when the couple contains an anagram.

On top of that mechanic we introduce more elements, which we will discuss in later posts.

For this title we are really proud to be working with Christina-Antoinette Neofotistou for the graphics, who’s doing a terrific job!

As we are still in alpha, we can only release specific content and note that everything can be changed in later builds!

Here are some shots. Enjoy!

The Last Priestess

Soundbeam users all over the world

2012-10-11

When we develop an application, we have some specific usage scenarios in mind. We were thrilled to find out that Soundbeam is being used in ways we didn’t think of.

For example, a user connected his iPhone with an engineer’s stethoscope and used Soundbeam for analyzing mechanical vibration in heating pumps.

On the other side of the globe, a user is planning on teaching soundwaves in the classroom using a tuning fork and Soundbeam (watch video).

What is also amazing is that our app offered inspiration to artists. Peter Fabok used Soudnbeam’s visualization for the cover of the upcoming Tangram’s album “Layers”. Take a sneak peak of the first 10 minutes here.

Another Soundbeam user who writes music in his free time used the app’s interface for the cover of his next LP. Here’s the result:

We couldn’t help but notice that you like to share your experiences with Soundbeam. So, in the next update we will take saving & sharing capabilities to the next level, to help you really show the world “what your hear”.

The new Soundbeam feature is almost ready!

2012-08-25

Long time no see! We are really busy working on the next Soundbeam update as well as a brand new project, so here’s a quick update: The above video is the first in-app video capture rendering of the next Soundbeam feature: video share!

p>P.S. You may have noticed that the blog has changed theme and it’s now integrated with the rest of the site, yay for consistence!

Soundbeam mentions throughout the world

2012-06-25

We have seen quite a large amount of reviews, posts and mentions about Soundbeam those past few weeks, so we would like to say a big “Thank you!”.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to mention and review our app, and also a big thanks to anyone who installed Soundbeam app!

Here’s a short list of mentions around the web!

iAppsReviews: Soundbeam για iPhone (Greek)
Synthtopia: Free App Turns iPhone Into An Oscilloscope
iPad Loops: Free Sound Analyzer for iPhone
Midi.Blog.hu: Ingyenes oszcilloszkóp iPhone-ra (Hungarian)
TepiJournal: Hogyan készült a LAYERS borítója? (Hungarian)
digilog.tw: Soundbeam 讓行動裝置變成一台免費的示波器！(Taiwanese)
iAppsHellas: Soundbeam: Κλασσικός παλμογράφος στο iOS! (Greek)

We are already working on some exciting features for the next big update of Soundbeam so stay tuned!

Give something back

2012-06-17

While developing Soundbeam I had to create some functions that helped me draw the beam. More or less, I had to calculate the outline of a path and the control points of a bezier curve. Since this is something that would interest many developers, I decided to make the functions publicly available and wrote a small documentation on how to use them.

I have created a demo that makes crystal clear what these function actually produce. You can view it as a video here. To download the code, visit my github repo. A more detailed post can be found in my blog.

And download Soundbeam app, if you haven’t done so already..

Anagramma version 1.3 is now available!

2012-06-04

We are pleased to inform you that the latest and greatest update of Anagramma is now available on the App Store!

Version 1.3 includes several updates and new features such as:

Spanish dictionary
Spanish localization
Ability to switch among the available dictionaries (English, Spanish, Greek) by cycling through the languages of your keyboard or tapping the appropriate button
A random button to get some random anagrams when you feel like it!

Plus, we are already working on a new and exciting feature for version 1.4!

Soundbeam v1.3 featuring an awesome Help Screen!

2012-04-29

Soundbeam version 1.3 is out and about! In this version we decided to include a simple and cute tutorial on how to use the app and here’s what we came up with! You can experience the full interactive Help Screen just by downloading the application! In case you forgot some of the tips you can go through it again from the ‘Show Help’ button of the rear view!

Soundbeam - Interface History

2012-03-29

With all those drafts, mockups and old screenshots lying around on our folders, we decided to make a video out of them! Here’s the design iterations for Soundbeam in an animated form!

Featured in Beautiful Pixels!

2012-03-29

We were thrilled that Soundbeam was mentioned by the pretty well-known and highly respected site, Beautiful Pixels! Thanks guys!

Anagramma is now available!

2012-03-21

Our second iOS app is now ready to be downloaded! Anagramma is an app that helps you find anagrams of Greek words! Simple huh? Yet really helpful! ;)

Today's Google Doodle is a...soundbeam!

2012-02-22

Celebrating the 155th anniversary from the birth of Heinrich Hertz, Google changed today its homepage logo to an animated sound wave!

Here’s our little celebration screen:

Soundbeam official trailer

2012-02-20

The official trailer of Soundbeam is now available on Youtube! The video highlights a lot of key features of the application and was shot entirely on an iPhone 4S! The music used for the video was the track ‘I take u high’ by Etostone Ft. Tama Ray.

Soundbeam trailer is coming

2012-02-16

We were pretty quiet this week…for a reason! We are baking the first trailer of Soundbeam and it’s going to be awesome! Just wait a few more days!

2000+ downloads for Soundbeam, plus press coverage!

2012-02-12

We are totally thrilled! As you can see from the chart above we scored 2000+ downloads in less than a month and the numbers keep rising! We want to thank you all for your support!

We would also like to thank Greek iPhone/Mac blogs that spotlighted our app. So if you speak Greek and want to read what other people say about Soundbeam, follow the links below:

Soundbeam 1.1 is now available!

2012-02-06

Update or download the new version now and share your soundbeams with your friends!

New version of Soundbeam (1.1) submitted

2012-01-31

As you can see above we uploaded the 1.1 version of Soundbeam in the App Store yesterday and we are waiting for it to be reviewed! The update will add sharing functionality and will no longer block sound from background applications. Here’s the actual changelog:

★ New feature: Sharing!

Share your soundbeams with your friends via Twitter and email or just save it in your photo library.

★ Audio from background applications is no longer stopped.

Our wallpaper

2012-01-28

Do you want to place Evil Window Dog in your screen? Then do it by using our wallpaper!

Version 1.1 is on the way!

2012-01-28

The new update of Soundbeam is going to be submitted soon to the App Store, featuring some minor bug fixes and a brand new feature: sharing! You will now be able to share a screenshot of the beam from inside the app to your friends!

Wow, thanks guys!

2012-01-21

That totally blew us away: 161 downloads of Soundbeam the first day from more than 10 different countries! Thanks guys, you rock!

If you haven’t downloaded Soundbeam yet, now is the time! It’s free and available on iTunes App Store.

Soundbeam is now available on the App Store!

2012-01-20

We just can’t contain our excitement! Our first app, Soundbeam, is now available on iTunes App Store free of charge!

But what’s Soundbeam exactly? Soundbeam is an iPhone app that helps you see what everyday sounds look like and visualizes sounds you can’t even hear. It features an old-school oscilloscope interface and lets you control and manipulate the beam not only with the on-screen controls but also with your fingers using multitouch (pan, pinch)!

The next update is already in the works, as we have some pretty exciting features in store for the future.

Stay tuned on our blog for updates, thoughts and behind the scenes info!

The collection of EWD logos

2012-01-15

The collection of EWD logos before deciding upon the final one! Quite a trip huh?