Cartoon Artwork

I got to the point developing hobby games where I was fed up of using programmer art work so I decided to learn how to create a little art work, so I got a hold of a copy of DrawPlus (vector art work software) and started to learn how to draw various things using vectors,. Whilst the quality is not FAB or anything near what a proper game artist produces, I have fun doing it and it looks passable. I’ve started to create some bits for my next game (it has no title yet) but its a large collection of mini-games. Here are a few bits:

Grumpies Characters
Grumpies Characters
Cartoon Buildings
Cartoon Buildings
Cartoon Tree
Cartoon Tree
Cartoon Fence
Cartoon Fence
Cartoon Cloud
Cartoon Cloud
Cartoon Bubble Character
Cartoon Bubble Character
Cartoon Pipes
Cartoon Pipes

Feel free to use any of the images on this page (with exception to the characters) in your own games.

Hiding UI elements in Unity!

Ok, so recently I tried to find a way to hide UI elements in Unity 5, looked far and wide and apparently its not possible to do something like element.visble = false. So, the easiest solution I found was to set the game objects localScale to 0, e.g:

transform.localScale = new Vector3(0, 0, 0);

And to make visible again use

transform.localScale = new Vector3(1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f);    // Or whatever original scale the object had

 

Marmalade 8 is out now – New Hub, Analytics, Android Native Debugging, Asset Store

You can download the Marmalade SDK for free from the Marmalade SDK website

Looks like Marmalade have been busy beavers working on their latest release of the Marmalade SDK. There are a lot of changes, but I’m just going to focus on the highlights:

New Marmalade Hub

The Marmalade Hub has had a complete revamp. Its got a new look and feel and now feels like a proper integrated Hub including features such as:

  • Open, create and build projects for all platforms. Creation of new projects also includes a very handy and easy to use integrations section ghat allows you to easily add integrations such as analytics, game services etc.. very easily and intuitively. The project templates are also very handy, especially for new developers.
  • Handy recent projects and examples lists
  • Multiple projects can now be opened simultaneously and access to home is always available without backing out of a project
  • Centralised and direct access to asset store, documentation, community answers, blog and tools (one of my favourite new additions)
  • Platform settings are now better categorised and more easily accessible
  • Project libraries list which shows a list of all libraries used by the project
  • Proper import of different deployment configurations
  • Update from MKB feature

All in all, the new Hub is a massive improvement.

Marmalade Analytics

Marmalade Analytics for C++ and Lua, is a great new addition for developers that really want to drill down into the behaviour of their game players to help increase user retention and hopefully increase monetisation. Marmalade Analytics is powered by industry leader GameAnalytics. Marmalade Analytics is incredibly easy to use out of the box as can be seen in this IwAnalytics example.

Android Native Debugging

I’ve been waiting for this feature for a bit, its been in beta for a while, but its now officially released. To debug an Android app in Visual Studio simply open it in the hub then click the “Open in IDE for debugging” button. Note that the first time you do this Visual Studio 2015 will prompt you to install Android support for C++, go ahead and install that (this may take a while so go for a coffee or take a nap :)).. Once your app has launched in visual studio click the green start triangle to start debugging.

Asset Store

Marmalade now have their very own asset store, which includes all kinds of assets from audio and bitmaps to extensions and full game engines. Submitting assets to the store is very simple, take a look here for details.

Goji Editor 1.4 is now available – Corona support added

The newest shiny version of Goji Editor the game IDE is now available for download, now with support for Corona, Gideros, Marmalade Quick and AppEasy.

Changes include:

  • Export and test support for Corona added
  • New property added called Object that enables you to specify the tag or object type that is exported for Gideros and AppEasy
  • Gideros and Quick now export shapes and geometries as tables
  • Named joints are now exported if a name is specified
  • Added collision events to Gideros export
  • Fixed Gideros “Show” action
  • Fixed SVG import crash
  • Fixed docking issue
  • AppEasy circle shape radius was double what it should have been
  • XOML files with XML extension are now recognised as XOML files when imported
  • Fixed various issues with goji lua engine

More info and tutorials etc can be found at http://www.gojieditor.com/

IwGameAds has been updated

IwGameAds the open source cross platform ad mediation system for Marmalade SDK users has been updated to use the very latest Marmalade SDK as well as additional features such as user agent detection for iOS and Android, which should improve ad delivery. It is now also available under the MIT license, To get the latest you should now download it from Github

Goji Editor v1.3 is out with support for Gideros

Gideros export and testing support has been added to the Goji game IDE. Features include:

  • Create and organise game levels / maps and app layouts into scenes and actors
  • Complete game and app creators integrated development environment (IDE)/li>
  • Export to many different game and app engine / programming language formats, including AppEasy / IwGame Engine, Marmalade Quick and Gideros/li>
  • Export in multi-resolution friendly format, allowing exported data to be used on any sized display/li>
  • Assisted layout editing, including tools to enable easy layout / layout management, bookmarking, edge / vertex snapping, directional cloning and so on/li>
  • Full drag and drop support, drop entire folders of resources onto Goji and Goji automatically sorts them all for you/li>
  • Support for import of SVG, Texture Packer, audio and other formats/li>
  • Support for physics including shapes, fixtures, joints and the ability to test physics/li>
  • Support for Meshes via Geometries/li>
  • Definition of gaming logic and play using events and actions lists/li>
  • Support for Lua / Javascript and other language editing, includes syntax highlighting, code folding and search / replace/li>
  • Interactive play mode that launches the game using the built in engine or other engines, also shows coloured debug output/li>
  • Goji engine which extends Gideros adding functionality such as depth sprites for parallaxing, touch panning, camera follow target, draggable sprites etc../li>
  • Create complete working / runnable projects/li>
  • Support for user properties and whole bunch of other stuff/li>

More info and tutorials etc can be found at http://www.gojieditor.com/

AppEasy Core SDK is now open source!

If I remember correctly I promised a while back that I was going to open up the source to the AppEasy Core SDK. if you don’t know what that is then its a FREE open source cross platform game and app engine for mobiles and desktop that can be re targeted to work on anything you like as long as you implement the platform abstraction layer. At the moment, a Marmalade SDK layer is implemented so you can use it right out of the box. You will however need a Marmalade license to use it, although having a Marmalade license will give you deployment access to a vast range of platforms so its well worth it. if not then simply implement the platform layer for whatever platform(s) you desire. If you dont fancy any of that and just want to use Lua and XOML then you can always give the AppEasy service a try, which lets you deploy apps to iOS / Android and Windows desktop without the need to compile and re-write code etc..

AppEasy Core SDK is basically the big professional and powerful child of the old IwGame Engine. The IwGame Engine started as a tutorial project that I started a few years ago that was meant to teach developers how to use the Marmalade SDK. However, Marmalade has no out of the box game engine so IwGame evolved into a fully fledged game / app engine to fill that gap, although it was hastily developed and built directly on the Marmalade platform. I’m very much a recycler, so that’s not how I generally like to write an engine, I like to have a clear separation between engine and platform so it can be re-targeted at different platforms quite easily. I also wanted to get rid of the obscenely long names and add some proper structure / documentation to make the whole thing more easily understandable.

Well I think I accomplished all that and more, I also added many new features and fixed a mass of bugs along the way. When I get the time I will be replacing the old IwGame Engine page with an AppEasy Core SDK page, for me IwGame needs to be buried now I think.

I also developed a game / app editor called Goji Editor that lets you develop full on games and apps within the editor and export to AppEasy, Marmalade Quick and other engines coming soon, including HTML 5.

AppEasy Core SDK has the following core features:

General Features
– FREE and open source! (MIT)
– Can directly use data exported from the Goji Editor (http://www.gojieditor.com)
– Can be targeted at any development system / SDK by implementing the platform layer
– Marmalade SDK platform already implemented, giving you access to many platforms out of the box
– Develop using XML, Lua and / or C++
– Easy to learn mark-up driven language called XOML that enables rapid development
– Support for Lua scripting
– Styles and Templates
– Local and web based assets
– Proportional sizing and positioning
– Auto screen sizing and device orientation lock
– Local storage access
– Multi-touch input
– Accelerometer and compass support
– Smooth sub-pixel rendering and batch rendering for speed
– Touch panning and pinch zoom
– Persistent data
– HTTP POST / GET defined declaratively
– Access to video camera streaming
– Define actions that can be carried out when events occur

Game Features
– Polygonal based sprites and sprite depth
– texture atlases and batching
– Support for Scenes (game world / app canvas) and Actors (game / app objects)
– Images, fonts, compressed WAV sound effects and and MP3 music
– Animation
– Box2D Physics (fixtures, shapes, materials, collisions and joints)
– Video Playback

App Features
– Create simple or complex user interfaces
– Full support for simple and complex data bindings
– Data definition and organisation
– Access to local and remote data
– Support for SQLite

User Interface Features
– Text input boxes
– Buttons / Check boxes
– Labels
– Icons
– Sliders
– Panels (StackPanel, WrapPanel, Canvas)
– Grids
– Image / Text View – Support for pinch zoom and pan
– Web View (display web content)
– Tab Bars
– Video Overlays
– Sliders
– XML data bindings
– Multi-touch based user interface (up to 5 simultaneous touches)

Monetisation Features
– Ad integration
– In-app purchases

Advanced Features
– XOML Variables
– Modifiers
– XOML Programs and commands
– Inline scripts

Social Features
– Facebook API support

API documentation
API documentation is located at http://www.appeasymobile.com/appeasy-api/

The AppEasy Core SDK comes complete with:
– PDF documentation located in the Docs sub folder
– Extensive doxygen code documentation
– An example app that contains 70 examples demonstrating many parts of the SDK
– An example game
– XML schema for XOML

Whilst free support is not provided, a community support forum is available at AppEasy Community

You can download AppEasy Core SDk from Github

Goji Game and App Editor beta is now available

The Goji Editor has finally entered beta and is now available for download from www.gojieditor.com.

What is the Goji Editor?

One of the more difficult processes involved in developing applications and games is how to create and organise the content. By organising content we refer to managing all of the elements that make up the game or app, such as images, sounds, brushes, physics materials, level layouts, user interface layouts, scripts and so on. The Goji Editor primarily helps you to quickly create and test game levels / app layouts and organise the lifetime of resources as well as test in real-time across different screen resolutions.

Goji’s secondary function is to enable full game and app production using available game and app development systems such as AppEasy / IwGame Engine, Marmalade Quick, Corona, GiderOS, HTML5 etc,.,. Goji aims to be as platform and development system agnostic as possible to ensure that exported data can be used by any development system and on any platform.

What does the Goji Editor look like?

Goji Editor Screenshot

Who is the Goji Editor for?

Goji has been designed primarily for designers and developers that create apps and games for mobile and desktop systems. However, Goji is flexible, supporting a huge canvas area and could be used in any capacity that involves organising and laying out graphical information spatially. Goji is also a great learning tool for students that are interested in learning the process of putting together apps and games in an environment where they can make changes and see the results of those changes very quickly.

What are Goji’s features? 

  • Create and organise game level levels and app layouts into scenes and actors

  • Export to many different game and app engine / programming language formats, including AppEasy / IwGame Engine, Marmalade Quick, JSON, XML (HTML5, Corona and GiderOS coming soon)

  • Export in multi-resolution friendly format, allowing exported data to be used on any sized display

  • Assisted layout editing, including tools to enable easy layout / layout management, bookmarking, edge / vertex snapping, directional cloning and so on

  • Full drag and drop support, drop entire folders of resources onto Goji and Goji automatically sorts them all for you

  • Support for import of SVG, Texture Packer and other formats

  • Support for physics including fixtures, joints and the ability to test physics

  • Definition of gaming logic and play using events and actions lists

  • Support for Lua / Javascript and other language editing, includes syntax highlighting, code folding and search / replace

  • Interactive play mode that launches the game using the built in engine or other engines, also shows coloured debug output

  • Create complete working / runnable projects

  • Support for user properties

Notes:

  • TexturePacker is a tool that is used to combine many images into a single image, usually referred to as a sprite / texture atlas. Packing images into a single image improves rendering performance.

  • SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) format is an XML based format that is used to represent two dimensional vector art work. Goji imports the following tags svg (scene), g (layer), image (actor), rect (shape) and path (shape or geometry). SVG is used by packages such as Inkscape and Adobe illustrator

Future features

Features that are currently in development or will be available in the near future include:

  • Export for Corona, GiderOS and HTMl5

  • Complex actions lists

  • Support for animation creation using timelines

  • Deployment to iOS and Android devices

  • Support for audio, video, web views, in-app purchase, ads and many more additional services

How do I download the Goji Editor?

At the moment the Goji Editor is in open beta and is free to use, however the Goji Editor will eventually become a paid product in the future. To download the Goji Editor please register and sign in then click the download menu to be taken to the download area where you can download a beta copy of the Goji Editor.

 

The Activision Decathlon now out on iOS and Android

And the second game that I wanted to cover today from Marmalade Play is a new sports title called “The Activision Decathlon”. You can download for Android on Google Play and iOS on iTunes.

I don’t know how many of you are old enough to remember the good old “Daley Thompson’s Decathlon” back on the Spectrum / Commodore (if you are then you probably have trouble reading the text on this page :)), but I was addicted to that 8 bit classic, so I have a bit of a soft spot for decathlon style games. Here’s more info on Marmalade Play’s latest and greatest:

And here’s a little video to whet your appetite:

Relive the glory days again with this revamped version of the ultimate sports game. The Activision Decathlon features all of its legendary events including the long jump, hurdles, javelin, and the all time classic…100 meters! Put your athlete through their paces in single player or go head to head against friends to unlock skills and abilities and reach the top of the podium.

CAN YOU BE AN ATHLETICS CHAMELEON?
Prove your worth in 10 events! The 100m, 400m, 1500m, 110m Hurdles, Long Jump, High Jump, Pole Vault, Javelin, Shot Put and Discus.

TRAIN TO REACH THE STARS
As any athlete will tell you, it’s all in the training. Earn stars, coins and skill points from great performance in practise events to level up and progress through the game.

SHOP ‘TIL YOU DROP
Who said money can’t buy a bit of success? Use your winnings to customise your athlete with more than 30 performance enhancing pieces of gear, training packs and energy supplements.

Features:

  • UPDATED CONTROLS, GRAPHICS AND GAMEPLAY
  • 8 DECATHLON LEAGUES TO UNLOCK
  • GO HEAD TO HEAD WITH YOUR FRIENDS IN REAL-TIME MULTIPLAYER COMPETITION
  • 10 ICONIC TRACK AND FIELD EVENTS TO COMPETE IN


AppEasy 1.4.9 Now Available – Polygonal sprites, multiple fixtures, sqlite and SVG, TexturePacker tools

AppEasy Version 1.4.9 is Now Available

AppEasy the cross platform mobile game and app development system for iPhone, iPad, Android and Windows that is aimed at all levels of experience releases latest update

AppEasy version 1.4.9 is now available for download from here.

Please upgrade to the latest version. Note that before updating, close down your current version of AppEasy, rename c:\AppEasy to c:\AppEasy2, install and run AppEasy 1.4.9 then copy any changes / certificates from c:\AppEasy2 to c:\AppEasy. Note that if you install the update before renaming c:\AppEasy then simply exit the AppEasy project manager, rename the folder and run AppEasy again.

New Tools:

  • New tool added that converts Texture Packer and SVG data to XOML

Core Engine Changes:

  • Timeline has new property called AutoDelete which if set to true will auto delete the timeline when its finished. Be careful not to delete timelines that are shared across multiple objects
  • Animation has new property called AutoDelete which if set to true will auto delete the animation when its finished being played by a timeline. Be careful not to delete animations that are shared across multiple timelines
  • Actors now support multiple physics shapes (fixtures) using the new Fixtures inner tag
  • Actor Shape property is now write only. Setting a shape will remove all previous shapes
  • Support for new Geometry type which enables creation of actors that are built from collections of triangles, quads or a polygon
  • Actor has new attribute called Geometry which defines a geometry that the actor will use to render itself
  • New example (Tes68) added that shows how to use Geometries
  • Removed Video OnStopped event as its no longer needed
  • Support for sqlite added
  • Added Test69 which shows a sqlite test
  • BUG FIX: Fixed VideoOverlay OnEnd and OnStart events

Polygonal Sprites

One of the most exciting changes we have brought to 1.4.9 is the ability to step outside of the rectangular sprite based actors system using our new versatile geometry system. Using the new geometry system you can create any shape you like. Actors can now be built from polygons, triangle lists and quad lists. You can also specify your own UV texture coordinates as well as per vertex RGBA information. AppEasy will handle taps and intersection of this new type of geometry including disconnected geometry. Here are a few examples of geometries:

[sourcecode language=”xml”]
<!–Create a single triangle–>
<Geometry Name="Geoms1" Vertices="-200,-200,200,200,-200,200" UV="0,0,1,1,0,1" Type="TriList" />
<!–Create two triangles–>
<Geometry Name="Geoms2" Vertices="-200,-200,200,200,-200,200,-400,-400,-200,-400,-200,0" Type="TriList" />
<!–Create a house shape –>
<Geometry Name="Geoms3" Vertices="-200,-200,0,-300,200,-200,200,200,-200,200" Indices="0,1,2,3,4" Colours="255,0,0,255,0,255,0,255,0,0,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255" Type="Poly"/></pre>
[/sourcecode]

Once you attach any of the above geometries to an actor the actor will take on the new geometric shape:

[sourcecode language=”xml”]
<Icon Name="Sprite1" Position="200,0" Background="bg1" Geometry="Geoms1" />
[/sourcecode]

Physics Now Supports Multiple Fixtures

Actors now supports the new Fixtures inner tag that enables you to specify multiple shapes and materials etc that are attached to a single actor, e.g:

[sourcecode language=”xml”]
<Icon Position="0,0" Background="Land" Box2dMaterial="FixedHeavy">
<Fixtures>
<Fixture Shape="LandScapeBase" Box2dMaterial="FixedHeavy" CollisionFlags="1,1,1" COM="0,0"/>
<Fixture Shape="LandScapePeak" Box2dMaterial="FixedHeavy" CollisionFlags="1,1,1" COM="0,0"/>
</Fixtures>
</Icon>
[/sourcecode]

SQLite Added

Due to popular request we have added lsqlite3 to 1.4.9 which enables SQL interaction via Lua.

Asset Conversion Tool

A new tool has been added that facilitates conversion of Texture Packer and SVG data to XOML. In particular the tool enables you to use SVG editors such as Inkscape to layout game levels and app layouts as well as create complex geometries easily.