iTD Update Comment
We’ve been trying to get an update out to our first iPhone game, iTD, for awhile now. We added a few new levels, sound effects, some bug fixes and also high res iPad support. The problem we are having is the name. You see, iTD is a tower defense game(One of the first on the iPhone). iTD originally stood for “iPhone Tower Defense” but Apple made us remove “iPhone” from the name awhile ago, so we made it “iTowerDefense.” Now a company is claiming they have a trademark on “Tower Defense.” I know a few other companies have run into them and had some problems, but what can you really do? Tower Defense games have been around for a LONG time… it boggles my mind that they could get such a trademark through.
Now we have to change the name, or spend way too much money and time on a bunch of lawyers. The whole iPhone app store is a huge mess when it comes to copyright and trademark infringement. Every developer I’ve talked to has some story about being threatened or being copied, the whole system is just so ridiculous. So, we are going to change the name… it just isn’t worth it to fight this, but it really does piss me off!
Anyways, I’ll leave you with an iPad screenshot of one of the new levels. I hope we can get it out soon.
New iTD Level 'Yin-Yang'
Bounce On 2: Drallo’s Demise Wallpapers! Comment
Hi everybody!
Got some Bounce On 2 wallpapers for you!
Bounce On 2: Worth the Wait Comment
Ever since Bounce On 2 was announced during E3 2009, we’ve received hundreds of e-mails, tweets and various forum messages asking when to expect the game’s release. Here at Team Phobic, we’re as excited about it as you are. We can’t wait to get it out the door, but we want to make sure the final product meets our standards and your expectations. We’re committed to making the kind of games we want to play, so if we see something that could be improved, we’re going to fix it. When will Bounce On 2 come out? When it’s done, simple as that, but it will be worth the wait! Let’s take a look at some of the cool things we’re working on for Bounce on 2!
One of the biggest change between gameplay in Bounce On and the sequel is the level design. In Bounce On you would try to get to the end of the level, if you collected all the gems you get a silver medal, and if you collect all the gems in a fast enough time you get a gold. Now, in Bounce On 2, when you enter a level you can choose between multiple objectives, and with each objective you see a different version of the level.
We use Tiled (http://mapeditor.org/) to make our levels. We have made a few changes and tweaks to the open source editor to help us out, and have committed them back to the open source community.
Thanks to your feedback on the overworld in Bounce On, we’ve made some dramatic changes to how level selection works. The overworlds are levels filled with doors. Bounce can roll and jump around them, navigating like he would within an actual level, while he chooses which door to use leading to a new level. Each level requires a different number of keys you get by beating level objectives, and once you get enough you can fight the world boss and get to the next world.
Bounce On 2 uses a combination of 2d and 3d elements. This door is an animated 3d model that opens and closes.
One of my favorite features in Bounce On 2 is the new lighting and shadow system. We are lucky enough to have some incredibly talented programmers here who have really pushed these devices to their maximum potential. I really wanted to show this off so I have a screenshot, but it’s hard to it justice with a still image.
Here's an example of the lighting in World 2. Bounce On 2 will have 3 worlds: Floating Ruins, Orbital Platform and Drallo's Fortress.
We had a lot of fun making new powerups. We didn’t want to just repeat the ones in Bounce On so we came up with some new ideas. We also add some new objects in the level that affect the player. There are boosters that can send you flying, gravity fields that rotate the whole world and all sorts of things you can interact with.
The Fire Ball in World 3 lets you swipe your finger to burst into any direction and destroy enemies. The extra distance you get from the burst also let us design some interesting level challenges.
Josh ‘T3KL3R‘ Cutler has gone all out with the music and sound effects for Bounce On 2. Currently, there are over 20 unique tracks made. If you like the music in our earlier games, it just keeps getting better and better. I got Josh to let me post up one of the World 1 songs, so go check it out:
All these features are just a subset of everything Bounce On 2 has to offer. I could go on for pages talking about all we’ve been working on, but it would ruin the surprises we’ve added. We will be at Macworld2010 with a booth in the Mobile Applications Showcase for anyone wanting a hands on demo of Bounce On 2. We are also free for meetings during the event, so please contact me if you are interested @ jonas at teamphobic dot com to schedule.
the standard first post 14 Comments
Alright, starting the blog up again… not really sure what it’s going to be. The number one problem I have with running a blog is I just don’t update it enough. This may be because I’m not too great of a writer, haha… I tend to get ahead of myself. Anyways, I’ll keep this first post short because most likely no one is going to read it. I still have a few changes to make to it, but I’m pretty happy with all the plugins for wordpress. You can log in with facebook/twitter/google/openid and a few others to leave comments which is pretty neat. I tried to get avatars showing up correctly but that didn’t seem to work so maybe I’ll try again later.
