Small Steps Towards Awesomeness (The Design Process)

New concepts, new ideas.

Did you all had a great weekend? I bet you did! As of myself, I had a really productive weekend. Never underestimate the power of the designing process! That was a lesson I learned during my IBM years. 

Last weekend, I set aside time to discuss the key elements that we needed to modify for the port of Paper Wings to the OUYA. We talked about the new problems the game would present if we just leave it as it currently is. As you expected, we have quite a few issues at hand; the one being most obvious is the touch/controller change, since we are not in a touch screen device anymore. 

The controller dilemma.

You probably don't know this, but the OUYA touchpad behaves much like a regular trackpad from a common laptop. You even have a mouse cursor running on the screen as it captures your finger movements and interactions. We can certainly have the player move around the mouse cursor and click on the different menus and ... No way! Having a controller to play Paper Wings is probably the most exciting aspect of the whole transition. 

You can expect the game to behave as a console game rather than just a simple port. This point came over and over during the discussion: "If we have a console now, how could we modify the game so that it feels more like a console game and less like a mobile entertaining app?" The possibilities are endless. The actions in the game will be executed with the controller's buttons. The menus are fully navigable with the DPad and Joysticks. We even talked about changing the flow of the gameplay so that it didn't feel like just a mobile game. 

Let the game begin!

We decided to redesign the flow of the gameplay. Instead of focusing on In-App purchases, we are offering the game as a whole package. Focusing on microtransactions is certainly effective for the mobile and social networks environments; however, it is not what you would expect from a well designed console videogame. Instead we modified the concept of the game and will be offering the characters as rewards from completing levels.

The difficulty of each level will also increase as you progress in the game. As well as the challenges that one would have to complete in order to proceed to the new level. This gives a better feeling of advancement and introduces subtle changes on each level experience. 

Are we ready for the fun part?

As developers, the fun part of developing a game is, well ... that ... developing the game. The development process is a cycle in which we design, produce, test, discuss changes, and repeat the cycle until the product is ready for deployment into the market. Yes, we are ready to start working on the basic changes. Keep in mind that the game is already developed for another platform, iPhone. This means that the core of the game is already complete. These new adaptations, thought, could post some problems in the near future as we continue the porting of Paper Wings to the OUYA. 

How can you help us?

Yes, you can certainly help us a lot. After all, our main purpose is to make the game you would like to play. As I post our ideas and design thought processes, you could share your comments and opinions. So, by all means, share your thoughts with us. I invite you to be part of the development of Paper Wings for the OUYA.

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Thank you for reading.

Progress Has Been Made

A tale of an OUYA game

When I was working as a programmer for IBM our team lead used to say in every meeting, "progress has been made". It sounded funny and awkward at the time 3 years ago. However,  I can finally understand what he meant in each and every meeting. It doesn't matter how small or big is a step in development, if it is a step forward, progress has been made. That being said, we have made some progress in our port of Paper Wings from iPhone to OUYA. 

It took some time during the day yesterday, but I finally had the OUYA Unity example running and working in the OUYA console. 

No pain no gain

What would you expect as results from following a tutorial? I would say you expect to have the same results as the ones in the lessons itself. Well, I though so, but after I had one of the examples running, the controller example, it simply didn't work. What would you do in such case? Some times we tend to blame others, and other times we start doubting ourselves. In this specific instance, I didn't know what to think. I follow the instructions that everyone followed before me, but for some reason, I was not getting the results I wanted. The example was running, but the input from the controllers where not registered. 

Well, if you have been in the programming field for sometime, this should not be weird at all. Many times you try something, but special conditions on your system prevents your code to work properly. Therefore, as any good programmer out there, I decided to thoroughly search the forums for an answer. But,  ... the answer was never there.

Life is full of first times

Yesterday, I encounter, for the first time, the reality of being the first person on the internet to have a problem related to something. When was the last time you didn't find an answer in the internet? It could be difficult, but if you search enough, the answer is always there. Well, this time, I had to ask the first question. I could not believe it. The documentation said, that I might have controllers that were not recognized by the development kit (The programming libraries that helps me communicate with the OUYA) and I should post in the forum requesting help if that was the case. Well, I was the first to encounter such problem, and I had to post the question in the forums. 

Thankfully, the people at the OUYA team were quick to answer and provided a solution as soon as I posted the question. The issue at hand was that I needed a new update for the Unity Package. I guess this is supposed to happen more often when you are working for a product that is not ready yet for mass production. After I installed the new package, everything worked like a charm.

What progress has been made?

Paper Wings and OUYA Together

The controllers are working now, but the real news is that Paper Wings is already running on OUYA. The game is far away from being ready; however, the fact that it runs smoothly is extremely good news. Though, there is still plenty to work on.

For example, we need to modify the screen format. notice the 2 blue bars at the sides of the screen, that is because the game was designed for a smaller proportion screen size. Also, the touch features are not necessary anymore. Which makes the menus inoperable at the moment. 

Next Steps

Today, I will be discussing the changes that we need to make with my team. We will cover topics from screen format to gameplay additions. We will be scheduling our coming work so we can start doing the fun part ... development. 

How exciting is the OUYA for development?

One OUYA to rule them all!

OUYA Developer's Edition

If you are like most gamers, you probably get excited about the release and announcements of a new video game console. Yes, I feel you. The OUYA is out in the hands of developers all over the world and you are ready to play and try all the games! But how does it feels for developers to receive a brand new - not yet released product?

The developer's side

I have been developing for iPhone for over 2 years as the main lead programmer of Tokkao and I can tell you that the feeling of working for a proven device is not remotely the same. We started development for the iPhone when it was already well established in the market. We knew the product, and we created games for the device.

Do you remember all the fuss about the OUYA during the summer of 2012? As developers we also grew excited about the OUYA during its Kickstarter days and we backed the product. Now, we have a transparent OUYA device set in our desks ready to be filled with our hopes and dreams (So to speak). However, the real excitement comes from a simple fact. This little console has not been released yet. Imagine getting your hands on something that has not been released to the public! You can't help it but feel somehow special.

Developing for OUYA

Once you have established a good Android workflow, the OUYA process is mostly straight forward. Android? you say, Weren't you guys developing for iPhone? Well yes, that is true, but we have been using the Unity Game Engine to develop our games, and the transfer was just as easy. Just follow some simple steps, watch a couple of tutorials, and we were ready to deploy our games to the OUYA.

Purpose of this blog

As we proceed with the development of our games, I will be posting our progress on this blog. The current plan is to redesign our most successful game, Paper Wings, to be suitable for console gaming. This means, we have to move away from the touch screen into a more traditional way of gaming, the controller. 

As a gamer, I can't overstate how excited I am about this new little device. As an independent developer, my excitement grows to epic proportions. This is definitely a great opportunity for, small development teams to bring, for the first time, a game to the television set.