SWIFTuser Studios

A small game development studio that works on sciency application too

Behavior Trees

August 31
by anegri 31. August 2012 05:53

I have been working on implementing a behavior tree for driving the story in a scripted manner and have been following what has been done by Joost, Dustin Watson, Christian Werler and Alex Champandard for a project in my full time job.  It has been a rough week, but I finally finished a basic prototype using SDL and C++!  There is still a lot more to do, but I am hoping it all works out. 

X-Plane Plugin

August 02
by anegri 2. August 2012 17:58

Last six months have been very busy working at my real job developing a plug-in for X-Plane.  I have been working on creating a training scenario that borrows a lot of elements from game development, it has been great since I am back on C++ development!  I am incorporating second generation behavior trees for the training scenarios and have a great sate maching to load different parts of the training (from the splash screen to menus and pilot training).  I also just finished incorporating a speech API similar to dragon naturally speaking to incorporate dialog trees within the application... so far so good on this.

Also I have stopped using haXe/NME for mobile development... I grew very frustrated with the compiling tools for the WEB OS devices not supporting version 1.4.5, the textures would not load and it was very hard to find a working stable version.  I liked the simplicity of the language, testing in Flash was great too! It seemed that I was wasting too much time trying to get things to work, so I dropped the languange and the dev environment.  I did switched to WP7 and have been loving using the XNA platform on it and will be focusing on that platform, I also tried developing on android as well (hated the emulator and the fragmented versions/hardware)... I really wished a new phone came out with WebOS, but that is probably not going to happen.

Quick Status Update

April 28
by anegri 28. April 2011 20:52

I have been experimenting more with haXe and have created a couple of small games based on it working on the palm-pre.  I have not posted much in a while, sales on Missile Defender were a lot lower than I expected.  However I did get good suggestions for the next update of the game thanks to my feedback option.  The lag on Missile Defender seem to discourage some players, at this point I am sure I will re-write it on haXe for the next release and port it over to Android and iOS. 

Missile Defender Released & Published!

February 27
by anegri 27. February 2011 20:33

After two months of tweaking, optimizing and re-doing some of the graphics the final beta the full game has been finally released!  It plays great, it looks great and it feels like a great game for the WebOS App Catalog... I will be publishing a Lite version of the game soon and based on player feedback I will update the game if issues are found.  This is my first app published and it has taken a lot of effort to get it to where it is today, I am very exited about it and I think the work has paid off!

 

Eye Candy of Missile Defender

 

 

 

haXe

December 30
by anegri 30. December 2010 17:32

Last night I decided to take a plunge and try out haXe, I used to do AS a while back and have used it on e-learning side projects here and there.  Action Script, if you are a programmer, is really easy use and haXe is based on it.  I create a blank screen project that printed "Hello World", but I was able to compile two versions one for the flash player and another one for the palm pre!  I am planning on making a simple game to try it out and maybe port it to both the android and the iphone platforms.  I will post more on this once I have a plan!

Tags:

Games | Research | haXe

Missile Defender Final Final Beta

December 28
by anegri 28. December 2010 18:58

I just released last night/this pas morning the final beta for missile defender on the beta catalog for the palm store!  I had to address some bugs along with a set of features that seemed to be almost requirements by all the reviews/feedback I received.  I am one step away from actually charging for the game!  I am however pending on updated reviews from my loyal beta users... did I mentioned I have currently about 10K downloads on the beta?  This last release added the following:

  1. Level selection Shank style!
  2. Hardcore game mode (from level one to the end of the game).
  3. User name setup screen.
  4. New control mode, lots of complains on the drag to fire so I added the tap to fire based on a selected SAM.
  5. Updated graphics (I am trying to evolve the theme of the game as much as I can).

 

Last Beta before final release

September 24
by anegri 24. September 2010 20:48

 

This is the last Beta before the final release of Missile Defender for the Palm Pre and Pixi.  The progress has been very slow on polishing the game and some features were tweaked as well as the controls were redone for the last beta.  The accelerometer did not seem to suit most of the game play so I changed it to dragging gestures as opposed to tapping the screen.  The global hidh scores are up and working.

The final release will include the following:

  • 24 Total levels.
  • 2 more types of missiles.
  • 2 more types of enemies.
  • Missing graphics for the explosions.
  • Redone graphics for levels.

New Missile Defender Instructions!

September 17
by anegri 17. September 2010 18:35

Set of new instructions for the game based on the new control interface... here is a look:

 

This includes new enemies, such as the J6 fighter and the cluster ICBM.

Missile Defender Update, Profile and such

September 07
by anegri 7. September 2010 18:32

For score tracking I have now added a profile screen, this will keep the player name stored and it will be displayed only the first time the game is launched.  The player will be able to post its score automatically without a the dialog during the game and the results of daily position will be tracked as well as the all time score.  Other updates are new instructions for the new firing mechanism and game interaction,  change in options section to allow player name change, new type of airplane, new type of enemy ICBM.  These updates are not completed yet, but are soon to be released on the last beta.

A level bug has been fixed as well, and the accelerometer feature might be removed... I have not been using the accelerometer since the new firing mechanism seems better and more interactive.

Missile Defender fixes and additions

September 02
by anegri 2. September 2010 20:20

Now I have two types of explosions, land and air explosions, and some of the issues with regards to missile targeting has been resolved.  Last fix before the last beta release will be the shape/form of the score submission... still working on the details.  I had it as a dialog, but I am still working the design details... might change that to use a profile like system.  Screen shot comming soon...