Thank you for believing in this project! I can’t wait to see you all on the leaderboards!
Tappy Lander is now available on the App Store for free!
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Tag Archives: ios
Tappy Lander Dev Diary #7: Achievements and Collectibles
As the developer, I wanted to add something a little mysterious to flesh out the atmosphere of Tappy Lander and I have always enjoyed collecting things and striving for 100% completion in games.
As such, I have added collectables and achievements
Collectables
In the world of Tappy Lander you may find floppy disks floating around in space. These disks are numbered and contain data that can be read-if you know where to look. We don’t know who wrote these tidbits of information and they can be random. From time to time however, they can provide hints, tips and even insights into the Tappy Lander backstory.
This disk idea started as simple tips that would appear on the title screen to teach you how to play-but evolved into a full blown collectable. This means no in-your-face tutorials. I want to preserve the sense of discovery in this game and I think you will enjoy figuring it out on your own.
Collecting all the disks is one of the 14 achievements.
Achievements
There are 14 achievements in Tappy Lander. I don’t want to give them away, but I will say that some are easy and some are very difficult. It will take some practice to master the skills necessary to get them all. Skill and a little luck that is-you’ll definitely need the universe to throw you bone for some of them.
That’s the short and sweet story behind collectables and achievements. I’m writing this before the game is released and I don’t want to spoil the fun of discovering things on your own.
I’m not sure what the next entry will be. The game is coming very soon and I’m so excited to see you on the leaderboards.
Thanks for reading and be sure to like and follow Tappy Lander on Facebook and Twitter for daily updates.
Tappy Lander Dev Diary #4: Control
I love the mechanics of lander games and the fun, to me, is maneuvering your rocket through a series of subtle movements into a good position and a soft landing. It’s difficult but rewarding.
Traditionally these types of games had a variety of buttons: rotate, left, rotate right, thrust, etc.
However, on the target devices I have one button, the touch screen; and I refuse to clutter the screen with complex controls just so it plays exactly like the originals (see my last post about UI.)
In order to simplify, I ask my favorite question: “What makes it fun?” and my cat looks at me like “Who are you talking to?!”
What I came up with…
- Gravity – yes, still fun after all these years!
- Rotating – a little frustrating to manage and even time consuming
- Thrusting – absolutely, compensating for a force like gravity or your last thrust, in order to change direction, is fun.
- Managing fuel – no way, maybe its just me, but I don’t like time limits. I don’t want to tell a player “You know this fun little playground I made?, well you can only play here for THIS long.”
- Avoiding an obstacle or flying to collect an object – yes! an opportunity to test your flying skill.
- Landing – yes, slow down and center yourself over the target for a soft, safe landing.
The Redesign
I immediately wanted to remove the fuel consumption issue. This is in essence, a time limit. It makes sense for quarter munching coin-ops, but doesn’t in a free mobile game. The gameplay is not made more fun by adding a time limit and removing it allows you to focus on manuvering even if you need to take your time.
Most classic gravity and lander games allow you to rotate your ship so that you can thrust in any direction. Again, this is something that I felt I could remove. With a simple up, left or right control scheme, I can move in any direction by timing my taps (except down, and gravity takes care of that.)
A Prototype
The prototype allowed me full control over my ship and maintained the fun of using your skill and instinct to manage the physics of flying through space. It was fun but simple; easier for general audiences to pick up and play but very challenging at the same time.
…and so I moved ahead with development! The next post will be about game physics.
Thanks for reading and be sure to like and follow Tappy Lander on Facebook and Twitter for daily updates.
Tappy Lander Dev Diary #3: UI
Because I had worked out the controls before putting pencil to paper, the gameplay UI has not changed much throughout production.
Tap left, up or right to thrust left, up or right
Sketch vs. final
The center circular button has been replaced with a thumb-shaped button because the controls need to bleed off the bottom of the screen to accommodate lots of different screen sizes. Also, there is no space between or around the buttons that allow you to see the background. Although the sketch suggests this, I felt it would be distracting. The control panel must feel like it is separated from the game completely. In fact, the top of the control panel acts like the bottom of the game screen. Other than that, the final is nearly identical to the sketch.
80s arcade control panels = good touchscreen design
Like a classic coin-op arcade game, the control panel was to be at the bottom with the viewscreen above them. Vision-obscuring on-screen controls for touch interface games is a pet peeve of mine and this layout would ensure that no thumbs or fingers ever get in the way of the action.
Don’t look down
The touch area for the three buttons extend all the way to the top of the screen and they are as wide as possible. The width and position of the buttons mean that you can control the game without looking at the buttons, removing the no-tactile-button problem which is a common stumbling block when making traditional games for touchscreen interfaces. The center button is skinnier than the others because you use the left and right buttons more frequently than the up thrust.
That’s all for the gameplay UI. Next time we’ll probably discuss the actual gameplay control experience.
Thanks for reading and be sure to like and follow Tappy Lander on Facebook and Twitter for daily updates.
Tappy Lander Dev Diary #2: Influences
I played Lunar Lander (1979, Atari coin-op) for the first time just a few years ago. It made a big impression on me and ever since, I have wanted to make a game like this.
In Lunar Lander, you try to safely land on a craggy planet before running out of fuel by rotating your ship and thrusting in the desired direction.
Gravitar (1982 Atari coin-op)
Gravitar focuses on flying through caverns and shooting at targets while saving prisoners. It’s very difficult and even has a level where you fly around a planet with gravity pulling you toward the center of the screen.
Sky Diver (1978, Atari VCS)
Time your jump out of a moving plane and pull the ripcord before hitting the target in Sky Diver. Points are scored based on the accuracy of your landing. You have limited steering ability once your parachute is open and must take wind speed into account.
Sub-Terrania (1993, Sega Genesis)
I love Sub-Terrania! Fly around a map using lander-style controls, shoot enemies and save prisoners-but with a snazzy soundtrack and nice presentation.
What does Tappy Lander borrow from these games?
- The gameplay mechanics. Gravity pulls you down toward the target and you control your ship by thrusting in different directions.
- You must not hit the landing pad too hard and more points are rewarded for accurate landings.
- Get bonus points for rescuing floating vegetables, stranded in space.
- Lots of dodging and maneuvering around traps and obstacles.
What does Tappy Lander do differently?
- There is no fuel to worry about. Fly forever!
- Controls are simplified: You can only thrust up, left or right.
- No shooting. It’s all about precision flying.
- In addition to touching items for points, there are items you must collect to complete a set.
- More stuff that I’ll talk about in a future post!
The next post will probably address controlling the game and UI. See you then!
Thanks for reading and be sure to like and follow Tappy Lander on Facebook and Twitter for daily updates.
Future Stuff
I just wanted to share a photo I snapped this morning on my iPad. This is the current top grossing app iPad app on the App Store. It costs $8.99.
iOS 7 is a 3D operating system and the latest iOS chips are 64-bit. I believe that Apple is positioning their tablets, phones and future items as a true replacement for many gaming consoles and PCs used for work and play.
Look at the quality of some of the 3D titles available on the App Store. Playing them on your television with a controller is just an update away. From there, maybe it won’t be long before I can start working with Photoshop or Illustrator powered by a tablet or Apple TV.
As hard as it is to imagine, PCs could be replaced in the next decade and hopefully, it will be with something better–something we haven’t thought of yet.
App Machine
I had a fellow developer ask me how we had put out so many apps in such a short time and thought I would share my particular experience in creating our pipeline.
Make engines, not apps
We started this with our third app, Coloring Farm Touch To Color. The engine allowed us to change artwork in an image folder and content of an xml file to create a brand new app. We created a farm, safari and princess coloring app with this engine that are very popular. The original code took a few months to create and we added little features as we released new titles. We followed the same process for our puzzle apps, Puzzle Farm, Princess Fairy Tale and Animal World.
Reuse everything
We have accumulated a great library of sounds that we reuse frequently and try to reuse code for animations, particle effects, etc. Coloring Farm, Puzzle Farm and Animal World all used the same artwork and they were delivered to us from the artist in vector format with everything separated in easy to manage layers. This allowed us to take parts and rearrange, resize, etc. to build new landscapes, game assets and games.
Delegate
You have to delegate tasks to free yourself up for new responsibilities. Look for talent and start building relationships with people you can trust to carry on the work you’ve started. We owe our recent successes to Amanda Linn and Matthew Taylor, a brilliant developer and sound designer respectively. We are currently looking for more talented developers who can maintain our standards and vision.
I will continue this series when I am inspired to do so. That’s it for now. I have to get back to work.
The Games We Want To Play
Recently Netflix revealed that it looks at torrent services to see what movie and TV shows are in demand in a given area. When I look at the indie game scene I wonder if “big” publishers look to steam, mobile and the crannies of the internet for similar insight.
Apples and Oranges? You may be thinking that torrents reflect consumer needs while indies represent content creators.
What’s the difference? The average twenty-something indie developer has disposable income in his future, and we know he LOVES games. As many indie developers as there are, isn’t that very community a big enough slice of “core” gamers to measure consumer desires?
The very definition of an indie developer is an individual or small team making the games they want to play.
The Little Times 