Time To Talk Bout Project Beam Gates

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ProjectBeamGate-Banner

It doesn’t take much to see that I’ve been neglecting my blog for quite some time, with the last post made back in April (and not game development related to boot). Unlike social media sites like Twitter or Facebook where you can easily popped in a quick thought or screenshot without spending too much time, making a blog post does take a bit more effort.

Today, I decided to gather any remaining strength I have from coding and talk about a new game I’m developing for iOS and Android codenamed Project Beam Gates (I haven’t finalize the game name yet). Before we get to the details, I would like to point out that the previous game I was working on (Project Wings) is currently on hold, at least until Project Beam Gate is completed. I didn’t like the way how the game is progressing and to be honest, the overall result would have been mediocre at best. Having said that, I did come out with some new interesting game mechanics for Project Wings. We shall see.

So what is Project Beam Gates? PBG is a game where you have to defend a secret arms lab from enemy invasion, using beam gates that somewhat look like a light saber. Successfully defend the lab for 5 days (stages) and you win.

Latest build of #ProjectBeamGate
Latest build of #ProjectBeamGate

If you think that this is a really simple game, I would have to say that you are absolutely …. RIGHT! The original plan was to create a single stage and then release it on the Appstore / Google Store within 2 weeks. As development progresses, I came to the decision to spread it out to 5 stages and include a simple background story explaining as to why the secret lab is being invaded. The main protagonist is a young woman called Erika, a character I’ve created during Project Wings development.

Sketches of Erika's character
Sketches of Erika’s character

At the time of posting, the game is about 80% complete. Gameplay mechanics still needed some tweaks and there are still game graphics to finish. By right Project Beam Gates should be out by end of May. I have taken measures to ensure that I don’t repeat the mistakes I made with Project Wings.

If you wish to keep up to date on my game devs, be sure to follow me on Twitter or like my Facebook page. I’m definitely a lot more active on Twitter.

Using Hori Zero Air Pitahari Filter

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NOTE: This post contains affiliate links which means I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you if you purchase through that link. This helps to keep my blog going. Thanks for your support!

Over the years of owning portable game consoles (from DS / PSP to 3DS / Vita), Hori will always be my first choice when it comes to accessories. While I do admit that their products are a little high on the price side, their quality outweighs it. Just make sure that the Hori products you get are authentic ones. There are a lot of fakes out there.

For my New 3DS (n3DS for short), I went ahead and purchase the Zero Air Pitahari Filter. The difference between this and other Hori screen protectors is that small dirt particles doesn’t cause air bubbles to appear. Having said that, you would probably presume the price would be higher compared to regular protectors due to its ‘tech’. Surprisingly, Zero Air is actually cheaper compared to Hori’s Standard Film screen protector. Go figure.

I really have to give credit to Hori for coming out with ingenious ways to apply screen protectors. Just take a look at the video below and you will see what I mean.

*Sigh* if only such methods were available during the DS / PSP days. I remember going through 3 screen protectors while applying them on my PSP. Either it was misaligned or there are dust particles beneath it.

Overall, I’m satisfied with the Zero Air Pitahari Filter. It was easy to apply, there’s no loss in screen quality and there are no ‘rainbow’ effects from all viewing angles. The only negative point I can think of is that, once it’s applied onto your screen, it is pretty much ‘glued’ onto it. I personally had trouble peeling the bottom screen portion off to get rid of dust particles. To avoid this problem, just make sure the screen is dust free before applying the protector.

If you are looking for more Hori accessories, do check out Play-Asia.com. It’s one of the few places I know that sells authentic Hori products. Been buying from them since 2008.

Changes and Updates On My Mobile Game

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I have to admit. I’ve started tons of blogs in the past but none really lasted long except for NoCommand. Lack of motivation and the process of coming out with the ‘Perfect’ blog post are the two main factors as to why most of them never pulled through. Heck, my last post on this site was over 6 months ago. That goes to show how ‘committed’ I was in keeping things alive.

Then a couple of days ago, I came across a blog post from Dale Rodgers titled “Bloggers, You Don’t Need To Get It Right, You Just Need To Get It Going..”. I will put a link at the end but long story short, reading what Rodgers wrote made me realised that I need to stop thinking too much and just get on putting contents on this site. It doesn’t have to be perfect nor does it have to be 10 pages long. The key point is to be consistent. And that is the first thing I’m going to change, my own attitude.

The next thing I’ve added is webcomics. I will be putting in some effort in making webcomics related to games and indie game developments (base on my own experiences). Yes, I do realise that there are plenty of game related webcomics on the internet but this is more for my own personal gain which is to improve my drawing skills.

Back in May 2015 I made a post about Project Wings and pre-maturely declared that the game will be out by June of the same year. At the time, I was pretty satisfied with what I have done. However as development progresses on, I realised that the game isn’t ‘fun’. It was just a simple endless top-down shooter with enemy planes coming in from the top or from the sides. There was no variation to the enemies movements, no cool boss fights, no interesting enemy projectiles. Stale would be the best word to describe it.

Since then, a lot of has changed on Project Wings. Codes have been optimized, there are more enemy variations, and I have added boss fights. Unfortunately due to time constraints there will only be one stage at the time of release. I will talk about it on a later post.

Well I guess that’s about it for now. As promised, below is the link for the blog post I mentioned earlier. Bloggers who are just starting out, you should definitely give it a read.

Bloggers, You Don’t Need To Get It Right, You Just Need To Get It Going…

 

The Logitech G700s Is A Good Wireless Gaming Mouse

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logitechg700s

It started off as a small issue. My 3 year old Razer Mamba’s (2012 edition) internal battery died. It wouldn’t charge regardless of what I plugged it into. Seeing that the mouse was pretty old and my warranty has long expired, I’ve decided to just continue using it as a wired mouse. It was all nice and good until one fine day the mouse decided to totally break down. So much for that.

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How I Started Off With Project Wings

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I have to admit though, Project Wings (not the final name, I haven’t figure out one for it yet) wasn’t the game I had in mind when I started out my game development. It was actually the result of a chain reaction of me failing to follow through all my previous ideas. Originally, I wanted to create  a simple “shoot to defend” game, where the player will tap on screen to destroy objects while making sure the damsel in distress is safe from harm.

From a coding and graphics point of view, it was the perfect game idea to start off with, at least at the time. I didn’t have to create objects that requires a lot of animation and no complex coding to deal with. It was just simply “spawn object from top, make them fall. Player ‘fires’ on object, object get destroyed. If the damsel in distress gets hit by an object, reduce reduce score by X amount”. Sounds easy no?

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