All posts filed under: Game Development

How to build a game like Flappy Bird with Xcode and SpriteKit

Published by Matthias Gall

When I heard about Flappy Bird for the first time, the hype was already in its final phase: developer Dong Nguyen had decided to pull the app from the stores in “22 hours from now“. Apart from overreacting users and an allegedly daily advertising revenue of up to 50,000 US$, the simple game mechanics were something that caught my attention. The concept of clicking/tapping to keep the player on track wasn’t really an innovation in itself, but given the hype it caused, it was certainly worth a closer look. As a Sunday evening challenge, I tried to reproduce the game mechanics and ended up with less than 200 lines of code. Update Feb. 20th: I added the score counting part and included suggestions by readers Sascha and Nico. Updated code is pushed to GitHub. Update Feb. 27th: Fixed a small glitch in the tutorial that DylanYasen pointed out, thanks! (No code change.) Update Apr. 9th: Sorry, I currently don’t have time to update the tutorial. In the meantime, take a look what reader Daniel Bocksteger …

Android Game Development (Day 6)

Published by Matthias Gall

It took some time until I finally could get back to my little Android game and I must admit that this wasn’t really a “day” I worked on it. Instead, it were multiple, scattered and short sessions where I worked on the collision testing and response code, some effects and UI stuff. It’s simply too hot currently… so bear with me that there’s no cool video this time. Keep reading below if you’re interested in the recent progress. Comments are welcome! In case you missed it, also don’t forget to read the earlier reports on my steps in Android game development: Steps 1-3, Step 4, Step 5.

Android Game Development (Day 5)

Published by Matthias Gall

Day #5, Sunday, June 27th. Here’s the rough concept for timed events I already mentioned in my last posting. It’s working for now, but I’ll do some more tweaks to abstract this even further and make it more flexible. Keep reading below if you’re interested in today’s progress. Comments are welcome! In case you missed it, also don’t forget to read the reports on my steps in Android game development: Steps 1-3 and Step 4.

Android Game Development

Published by Matthias Gall

I’m building rather boring enterprise applications at work and I love creating more appealing things in my spare time, so I do a bit of game development whenever I can. The main problem for a programmer is to get some graphics, but fortunately I have some nice renderings from my old Project E tutorial and the even older Project D game by sechsta sinn on my harddisk that I could put into use (all done by my friend and favorite artist Martin Ernst, btw.). This is what I managed to do in three after work sessions so far, if you’re interested in the details, continue reading after the video.

Sculptris

Published by Matthias Gall

There are a very few people who are genius, disciplined and focussed at the same time and thus can put their productivity to a maximum. One of the most talented guys in the Indie gamedev scene I’ve seen so far in that regard is Tomas “DrPetter” Pettersson. Late 2007 he already came up with a really useful little tool called SFXR (not to mention the even more impressive Musagi) and now it got even better. Within only six months he produced an amazing 3D mesh sculpting tool called Sculptris, now available as version 1.0. Check out his trailer and see for yourself. Isn’t that great?

Don't ever say it's almost done.

Published by Matthias Gall

Chris Pruett at Google I/O on Android Game Development. Besides that quote I used as the post caption he shows some very interesting ideas how he analyzed the behavior of his users in order to improve their game experience. I love that hotspot idea, probably something useful for my friends working on Glow as well. And for the record, also watch the excellent day 2 keynote. I had a good laugh at all the Apple taunting. For example, Android 2.2 features tethering and portable hotspot mode and guess what they’re showcasing? They’re using a Nexus One as an AP for “… another device that doesn’t have connectivity. What about that iPad?” Apple, Google, whatever… they all have their downsides. But they bring so much innovation that I’m eagerly looking forward to seeing more cool things becoming reality in the next years and building cool things with them myself.