Twilight Haven alpha available to play on itch.io

Posted on by drmop

Its been a long time since I started work on Twilight Haven, well over a year ago and I feel like I’m finally half way there. However, I’ve been developing this game in a bubble, I have no clue as to how the game plays for others. I’m aware of every aspect of the game so to me it all feels natural. I’m sure many will disagree which is why I am releasing an early pre alpha demo. To collect good and bad feedback. I want this project to be a success so I need to find and iron out all the issues.

Please note that there is no installer, just unzip the archive and run TwilightHaven.exe and have fun. A web version has also been uploaded.

The game can be played on Windows PC at the moment, more platforms will appear when I get round to testing on them https://mrmop44.itch.io/twilight-haven

Interested in this game then add it to your Wishlist on Steam https://store.steampowered.com/app/4200350/Twilight_Haven/

Also on Discord – https://discord.gg/nTYycq9TRS

Twilight Haven

Posted on by drmop

The above image is an example show from a new RPG I am working on, just showing a simple test quest. Why do I show this? Well I got bored with chasing Instant Games, Hyercasuals, Arcade Idle and so on and decided to finally do what I have been wanting to whilst wasting my time on all that other rubbish. I want to create my own RPG game / modable engine. I made a start on a game around 6+ months ago and I have most of the major systems in and working including:

  • Huge open world
  • Character and combat system include
  • Backpack, farm and home storage systems
  • Day / night cycle that affect game play, for example baddies can spawn at night and various areas of the world change function
  • Farming (3 types of farm)
  • Farm helpers
  • Animal rearing
  • Pets
  • Resource gathering
  • Extensive questing across many quest lines and over 50 unique NPC’s
  • Crafting and recipes / blueprints
  • Fishing
  • Transmuting
  • Gear upgrades and repair
  • Cosmetic armour, weapons and shields
  • Mining
  • Lumberjacking
  • Foraging
  • Upgradable spells
  • Dungeons and fighting
  • Mob drops
  • Unlockable treasure chests
  • Artefacts (these need to give powers yet)
  • Friend / reputation / gifting / birthday system
  • Shops
  • Potions and other tools
  • NPC’s
  • Books system with game related stories, lore, hints and tips
  • Unlockable areas
  • Modding with JSON and Lua

Main systems left to implement include:

  • Cooking / baking
  • Postal system
  • Home decoration and expansion
  • Competitions
  • Events and celebrations
  • Buffs and curses
  • Calendar / maps
  • Arcade mini games
  • Sleep cycle
  • Add more environment and character
  • Add all quest lines

I will post my progress over the coming months.

I am currently blogging about the game on itch.io at https://mrmop44.itch.io/twilight-haven. I will post those blogs here soon.

Roblox here I come

Posted on by drmop

Been a long time since I posted, I’ve been very busy working full time and after the Facebook games nightmare I had pretty much given up all hope on Indie dev. I am well and truly done wtih all things Meta related.

My kids have been pushing me to get into Roblox for as long as I can remember so being fed up with all things Unity I took the plunge and started learning how to use Roblox Studio. Whilst it all feels a bit clunky and counter intuitive I’m learning the ins and outs and the really really outs. I may start posting some tutorials and links to my creations over the coming months to amuse everyone so keep your eyes peeled.

The IGX SDK can help save us all (I hope)

Posted on by drmop

Hello fellow IG devs. With the introduction of the new minimum performance standards rule that is now in place on Facebook Instant Games, many of us (most of us actually) will see our games removed from the platform very quickly. This is a sad day but probably what is needed for the platform to evolve into something better for everyone.

Some time ago I realised that IG was a platform that was incredibly difficult to crack so I wrote a direct replacement of the FBInstant class called IGX SDK. I started this endeavour to enable myself (and others) to deploy our games to web without having to change our code bases. However I took IGX a few steps further and started turning IGX into a common API for the many web portals out there. Using the same IG code you can use IGX to deploy your games to portals such as Kongregate, Crazy Games, Poki and Game Distribution (more coming soon) and use other services such as Google Analytics, PayPal, Xtralife and AdsInPlay. You can even deploy your web games to Android and iOS app stores using the supplied Unity plugin.

The IGX SDK is free and open source and available on Github. The IGX SDK also has an extensive wiki

Want to start getting your games onto web game portals right now? Here are the direct links to the developer portals for all currently supported web game portals:

Good luck everyone and may you live long and prosper.

Support for Poki and localisation added to IGX SDK

Posted on by drmop

Support for the Poki web game portal SDK has been added to the IGX SDK, so you can now deploy your games to Poki using the latest release on Github.

I have also deployed a number of my Facebook Instant games to Crazy Games using the IGX SDK:

Support for collecting the users language has also been added so FBInstant.getLocale() should now return the users browser language.

IGX SDK now provides On Device Debug Console Logging

Posted on by drmop

Deploying HTML5 games that utilise the IGX SDK to mobile feature will now give you access to a debug logging console that you can log text strings to and display on-device. This is great for debugging awkward issues across different devices. The Debugging service is automatically created for you when you create the Unity vendor via default service creation:

[sourcecode language=”js”]
if (FBInstant.ext !== undefined) // Make sure that IGX is available
{
FBInstant.createDefaultServices("unity");
}
[/sourcecode]

You can now access the debugging services via FBInstant.ext.debug. The following functions are available:

  • FBInstant.ext.debug.clear() – Clears the debug log
  • FBInstant.ext.debug.log(string) – Sends a string to the debug log
  • FBInstant.ext.debug.show(show) – Shows / hides the debug log overlay, show is a boolean that specifies the visible state

IGX – Cross portal and cross platform SDK for web game and instant game developers

IGX stands for Instant Games Extension, it is basically a replacement object for the Facebook Instant Games FBInstant object which enables developers to:

  • Deploy games created that use the Facebook Instant Games API to the web and mobile with little to no code changes
  • Deploy HTML5 web games to mobile
  • Provide a common API across web portals
  • Build instant game features into existing games before deploying to the Instant Games platform, saving valuable time and money
  • Bolster the existing Instant Games platform with new features via FBInstant.ext, such as real time user to user communication

IGX SDK for mobile is now available

Posted on by drmop

Web to mobile

Today I pushed the latest version of the IGX SDK to Github which provides support for deploying IGX SDK compatible games, including Facebook Instant Games and general web games to Android and iOS.

Games are hosted in a web view within Unity 3D. A new library has been provided which plugs into the IGX SDK and communicates between the web view and Unity which provides access to native features such as in-app purchasing and adverts.

Supported features include:

  • Adverts via Unity Ads (Admob is work in progress)
  • In-app purchasing
  • Social login via Game Centre and Google Play Games
  • Leaerboards via Game Centre and Google Play Games
  • Native sharing
  • Analytics via Unity
  • Open external URL’s
  • File uploads
  • Localisation support

The IGX SDK wiki has been updated providing instructions on how to set up a Unity project to host your game and content.

Below is an example of a deployed Facebook Instant Game which has been deployed to Android and iOS stores:

Who is the IGX SDK for?

The IGX SDK is for web and and Facebook Instant Game developers that would like an easy route to take their products from web to mobile platforms such as Android and iOS. IGX provides an alternative solution to the likes of Cordova, PhoneGap and CocoonJS.

Facebook Instant Games hits Personality Quizzes with the Ban Hammer

Posted on by drmop

As of yesterday apps defined as personality quizzes on Facebook Instant Games have been limited to prevent their virality, which is basically the death knell for these self gratification apps. If you have written one of these apps (like me) then how will the changes affect your app? You will no longer have access to the users profile photo, their connected friends or the ability to switch to any of your other apps. As these apps rely heavily on the users profile picture being heavily featured to personalise the content it makes these apps even more useless than they were previously.

Its sad news, but developers have been enraged by these personality quiz apps appearing on Instant Games and polluting the very idea behind Instant Games. That said, there should be a place for personality quiz apps because there is huge demand for them, so please Facebook, create an Instant Apps :).

One major positive that has come out of this is that the many developers filling their personality quiz apps with unlicensed imagery will finally stop profiting off the back of other peoples work! For that reason alone it also time for celebration.

Whilst the title says “ban hammer”, I was being being a little creative. These apps are not currently banned, however Facebook are updating their policies to get rid of them, so they will be banned in due course.

Facebook Instant Game Tutorials Live

Posted on by drmop

Spent some spare time over the last few weeks noting down information that I do not want to forget regarding Facebook Instant Games development. I’ve been away from it for a bit and plan to spend more time away from it so want a nice easy reference for when I return.

I decided to turn my notes into a bunch of Facebook Instant Game tutorials to help other budding game developers out there.

You can read the tutorials here.

The individual links to each are:

I will cover more topics when I return.