First Review!

The first review of Polarity has been released. You can find it below.

http://android-apps.com/articles/reviews/android-apps-reviews-polarity-android-game/

Halo: Reach succeeded where Fable failed

And no, I'm not talking about the awful attempt at multiplayer in Fable 2.

What I'm talking about is making me feel.

Two notes before I continue. First, spoiler alert if you haven't played either of these games. Second, I love the Fable series. I want to make that clear. Some of my favorite games.
I am also a Peter Molyneux apologist. I think he's a brilliant game designer who tries to push the boundaries of what games are. Most people forget that the man basically made the idea of morality in games a common theme, rather than something that would be cool to do, someday, in the future, in a Star Trek holodeck. He did it. He added choice. He gave the player the ability to change the story. There are a ton of games that do that now, but he was the one who really pushed it and made it part of everyday gameplay.
I think he's still trying to push the boundaries, and I think he gets a lot of flack for it. Which is sad. Yes, he promises a lot that usually doesn't get delivered, but at least he's trying. He used to get people excited about games and the possibilities he offered. Now he just stays quiet about them, cause if he says something that doesn't end up in the final product, everyone jumps up and down yelling how they've been Molyneuxed again. (Yes, I really saw someone say that.)
But, like him or not, the man is inspiring. I think it's really sad that he doesn't let himself open up about what he wants to do with his games. It was always exciting to hear him talk about the possibilities, even if they stayed possibilities. It made me want to make games that turned the possibilities into realities. Someday, I will, and it's because of Peter Molyneux.

Anyway, this is already getting long, and I haven't even gotten to my point. Which is that, even though I liked Fable 2, and am enjoying Fable 3, although I haven't gotten too far into it, I think it failed in the goal of getting me to feel.
On the other hand, while playing Halo: Reach, I did feel.
It probably wasn't where you think. When my team was killed, one by one, it was kinda meh. I didn't really feel a loss or anything. There was one point, though, where you're being evacuated out of a city, and you're riding in the gunner seat as you fly out. You have control, but it's basically a long cutscene showing military and civilians alike being mowed down by the Covenant. I felt. I felt helpless. I felt angry. I really wanted to make a difference. I wanted to find a way to get the chopper to go down and set me down so I could take out to covenant. Time after time I sent a spray of bullets into covenant forces, knowing I was going to fast to do any real good, but hoping I could cut them down a little bit. I felt this, knowing that it was just AI, and they wouldn't exist anymore once they passed out of my vision, UNSC, civilian, or Covenant. This was all a computer construct. There was nothing real to it, except that I felt. That was real.
That is why Halo: Reach is, by far, my game of the year.

Bugs fixed, ads added.

I should probably note that the ads are only added to the free lite version of the game, not the paid full version.

Found that if you had multiball when you beat a level, then the ball went off the screen after that, it would never know that you lost the ball and would just sit there.
Eek. Pretty bad bug.
This is why you really shouldn't make games by yourself. I test them when I can, but sometimes I just don't have time to go through all the scenarios.

I'm already well on my way to getting the next game done. Well... sort of a game. Actually, I guess it's more of just an app. I'm not really sure what to call it.
It makes fireworks appear on the screen. Fully rendered with 3D particle effects. No, not the glasses kind of 3D.
They're pretty good looking fireworks, if I do say so myself. I mean... really good looking. It's pretty amazing looking, actually. That post a few posts back about not having time to play around with Unity. This is the result. I took some time to play around with Unity's particles and they're pretty cool. I still haven't totally figured it all out, and there is some tweaking left to do, but I'm pretty impressed with myself so far.
But here's the thing, it doesn't do anything. You push the screen and then it's pretty. It serves no other function. That's why I don't know how to classify it. There's no gameplay. There's no application. Just oohs and aahs.
Still fun to make and play around with. Hopefully everyone out there in Android land likes it too. I'll go back to making real games after this one.

And there's already an update

Version 1.0.1 of Polarity is updated. Just made a few changes. Updated the speeds on the different levels. I think it was a little too easy before. Also a few UI updates and fixed a bug in exiting with the escape button.

Polarity is out

I released the game to the wild on Saturday. This is a little late. Sorry.

Feeling really nervous about the idea of releasing the game. I think the most difficult part of the process was coming to a point where I said "Okay, this is it. This is what I'm going to release". Honestly, I would have loved to have another couple weeks to polish things up. The simple fact is, I was never going to have all the time I wanted. Not with going to school full time, working full time, and trying to have a family. I decided that I would get the game to a fully playable state, and not worry about some of the extras I could have thrown in. Later, if I have the time, I can update the game to add things in, but the game itself is complete. I don't need an online scoreboard. There's a high score built into the game itself. Things like that. The game works. It looks pretty good. As good as a non-artist like myself could hope to make it. I'm pretty sure there aren't any game breaking bugs. Obviously more testing will help determine that, and I'll keep playing and testing and looking for any. But the game is done. It's out there. It's available. It's $1.99, you should go pick it up now.

Unity is awesome

... wish I had more time to play around with all the stuff they have in it.

I think the biggest problem with running this company completely on the side of working all day, along with going to full time school and having a family, is seeing all the potential and possibilities out there, and not really being able to take advantage of them.

My first game, as I mentioned, is nearing completion. It's fun. It really is. For what it is.
But that's just it. It's a simple game. I don't want to make simple games. I need a team. You can't get a team without money. You can't get money without a good portfolio of games. And so, I'm back to making simple, but fun, games by myself for a while.


Anyone have $100,000 to spare? I could make an amazing game with it. I pinky swear.

Almost to beta!!!

Wooohoooo! Little Buddy Entertainment's first beta is coming this week.

As long as I get a few more things done. Mostly UI stuff. Couple bugs I already know about. Not too big of a deal. I think I will finally hit my release date of the by the end of the month, which has been my release date for the last three months. I'm gonna claim I never said which month.

Just for the heck of it, here's a pic of my car all dressed up for Halloween. We did a trunk or treat with our church. There is a little pulley setup that you can't really see that lets someone stand beside the car pulling a rope from behind them to open and close the lid. Scared lots of little kids who had to reach into the mouth to grab their candy. It was great.

Sorry about the website

Okay, so there may be a few people coming here to look at this whole website/blog things. I wanted you to know that I know that the website looks like crap. I just did the free hosting that came with buying my domain, and never bothered with it other than to put the redirect in for the blog and give the site a link here. I'll make more effort on the website later, but it just hasn't been worth my time before now.

Yes, it's ugly. Yes, it looks unprofessional. I know. Ignore it.

Game Design Class

If you're looking for more information about the game class I'm teaching, please email me at ben@littlebuddyent.info. I'll post more here when I have everything finalized, but it is happening, and soon.

3 posts in and I'm already slacking on the blog...

The title brings up an interesting question. If you start a sentence with a number, you don't have to capitalize the first actual word, right? Should you even be using a number to start a sentence? Is that bad? I'll look it up later.

Anyway, it's been a couple weeks with no posts. I need to rectify that.

Update on the game: I'm done!
Okay, well, not done done.
Actually there's a long way to go, but the main functionality is done. I'm pretty excited about that.

So what does that mean? Well, the powerups are all in and work. You get scores. You can lose. You can win. You can play the game, because it is actually a game, basically.

What isn't done? A couple things.

Lots of tweaks to controls, speed, scores, various gameplay elements.
No sounds at all yet.
Graphics need to be added and/or tweaked in a lot of places.
Menu system needs to be made final.
Instructions need to be added.
Game over and next level screens need to be made pretty. "Made pretty" is a technical term, by the way.
Oh, and there is one level that is basically some bricks I threw on the screen for testing. Need a few more of those.

So still a lot to do. I'm shooting for a November launch. Using the "When I have the time" method of making games is not good for deadlines. It's always hard to work for 15 minutes here, an hour there. It's especially hard to think that, if I could work full time and had a programmer and an artist, I could be pumping out games on a monthly basis. Frustrating, but those are some big ifs to deal with.

Getting there...

So here's the format that I'm planning for this blog thingy, that I will probably immediately break. The plan is that there will be at least one update each week that is just random game design type stuff, or my opinions on it, at least, and then another one near the end of the week that is an update on what work I've done. This last one may slip to less often, depending on how busy I am with other things going on in my life. Like living it.

So, this week I worked on Polarity. Got quite a bit done, for once. It's hard to work on the side and expect to make regular progress, but I feel like it's actually coming along. I'm almost at the point of making a version I can send out to people for early playtesting. That is exciting. It's at the point where it's actually fun. I love that point in making a game. Where you actually can play it and want to keep playing, just for the sake of playing and not for testing.
So what have I done so far, and what do I have left to do? I like to work off of a to-do list style design, at least when I'm doing it all myself. It helps keep things organized, while not having to write out a full design doc. Since it's all coming out of my head, I don't really have to wonder what I meant by "Make it move like the one in that other game", cause I know what I meant by "it" and "that other game". No need for anything more. So, that's what you're going to see here. Actually, it's going to be even worse than that. Just a brief breakdown of the overall goals of the project. Here's what I have so far, with the completed things crossed off.


Make two paddles on the screen that move with the keyboard.
Make them move by tilting phone. 
Make a ball start in a random direction from just above the bottom paddle.
Make the ball bounce off walls, bricks and paddle.
When the ball bounces off paddle, the direction is determined by where it hits the paddle.
Bricks should break when the ball hits them.
Bricks should sometimes drop items that move in the direction (up or down) that the ball came from.
Paddles are different color, representing different charge (positive or negative).
Items will also have different charge.
Make items have easy way to see different charge, but more interesting than just changing color.
Make paddles look more interesting than just different color bars.
Items:
Electron/Positron - If it hits the opposite color, paddles switch polarity. If it hits same, lose points.
Length - Makes paddle longer or shorter.
Multiball - Makes extra or lose balls. Only lose if enough left. Doesn't kill you.
Extra life - Gives life or kills you.
Can't remember the rest right now.
UI:
Reset button in level (only for testing)
Play menu.
Pause Menu.
End of level screen
Game over screen
Use phone's buttons in menus correctly.

That's it for now. There's more that I'll add later, but I need to go. This should give a pretty good idea of what I've done and how much more there is. Obviously some of these lines involve more than others.
About half of that crossed out stuff was this week. Also got some work done developing a curriculum for a class I'm going to start teaching soon. That will be fun. Can't wait to get it started.

Storytelling vs. Mobile Gaming

So I got into games because I love the idea of interactive storytelling. I've been saying that to people for years now. Now I'm making mobile games. With no story. At all. I feel like I have to address that.

First, let's discuss why mobile games don't have much story, if any. There are, as usual for situations like this, many reasons, but it really breaks down to two. First, it's simpler, quicker, and cheaper for the devs. Second, and most important, players don't want it.
That's right. You, the player, do not want a story in a mobile game. Okay, so maybe you think you want story in a mobile game, but you really don't. Not all of them anyway. Oh, and by mobile game, we're talking iPhone/Android/Cell Phone, not PSP or DS.
So why don't I think you want story? Well, when was the last time you played a mobile game for long periods of time? You might do it every now and then, but, usually, most most people tend to play for short periods of time on their phones, whether it's iPhone, Android, Nokia, whatever. 5-15 minutes, are the numbers I've seen. Obviously, this is an average. Not everyone does this. Some people play for a long time. They're weird, and should be doing better things with their time, like playing the Xbox. (Please note, because my wife will get mad at me if I don't include this, I'm meaning this humorously. I don't actually think you're weird, even if you are.) The point is, people don't want to have to wait through four minutes of story to get one minute of gameplay before their dentist appointment. They want five minutes of pure gameplay. Same goes with tutorials. If the tutorial isn't made out of fun gameplay itself, you'd be better off making a simpler game with less complicated controls, because most people won't take the time to learn your controls.
On iPhone this isn't too big of a deal. If they bought your game, they bought it. It just means they'll probably think twice before buying another game from your company. On Android, you have to be more careful. There is a 24 hour grace period. If they decide they don't want to keep the app or game within that time, they can get a refund. It makes things tough for small developers, like myself. We have to be really careful to simplify, but keep things fun. That's why you end up with a lot of games with barely there stories and simple mechanics like Abduction! or Angry Birds.

First Post!

Hey everyone. Welcome to Little Buddy Entertainment. Sorry about the lack of an actual website. I'll get around to doing something with that one of these days, when I have something to do with it.
For now, I just want to talk a little about Little Buddy Entertainment and what the plans are around here.

So, Little Buddy Entertainment is founded and owned by Ben Higginbotham. And run. And... everything right now. It's a bit of a one man show, but hopefully that will change in the future. At this point, the company is in the process of making games for the Android platform, with the hope of extending that to iPhone and other platforms in the future. The plan is to use Unity for all development, so games can easily be made for multiple systems when the time is right. For now, the games will all be Android, basically until I break down my anti-Apple bigotry and finally buy a Mac, since you have to have on to develop for iPhone. Ugh.

Anyway, about the games. There are two in current development.
The first is Space Race 3000. The basic concept is a slalom race in spaceships. Try to make it through the flag gates to score the best time. It's fun, simple, and has pretty graphics. Which I like.
The second is Polarity, a Breakout style game with a few twists. First, there are two paddles, one at the bottom of the screen, and one at the top. Each paddle is either positive or negative, and will switch at certain times in the game. The power-ups are also positive or negative. Opposites attract right? Don't forget that, because in this game if you match the right polarity power-up with the right polarity paddle, you get a good effect, but do it wrong and you get the opposite effect.

I don't really like talking about my games, so that's all you're getting right now. I feel like I have to try to slip in "marketing speak", which just isn't me. I'll talk about them more as they get closer to being finished. That way I can include pictures and videos and those kinds of things. Be a little more exciting.