My current project: Soc-car

witnessmenow

eugh, that demo has a bug in it! The AI will reverse after a set amount of time.

I created and uploaded a new one, but dropbox is blocked in work so I cant link to it, I'll throw it up later.

I also got another game mode created last night bringing up to 7

Kilgore__Trout

This is an outrage! : )

Nice - have only played 2 so far. Give us a link to the new version when it's live.

witnessmenow

Yeah, probably should not have fired my Mam as head of QA!

Here is the new link

Kilgore__Trout

Is there a new version available? Give us a link if so : )

witnessmenow

So I'm in a confusing place at the moment.

I started working on "Soc-Car" again, as I want to get an updated build done before the world cup.

There are some screenshots of it here

I will upload a demo of this and "Car-ni-val" this evening and post it here.

witnessmenow

I didn't do what I said and for that im sorry!

I stayed up late last night working on "Soc-car cup" mode where you can play through a world cup. Delighted to get it working though! Needs a tweak or two but pretty happy with it!

witnessmenow

So I released a version of this to the Android Market last night

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ladinc.soccar2.android

I noticed a small bug in this morning so I will be updating it tonight

Having some issues with the Ouya deployment though. I never signed the first apk I uploaded last year(so it used a debug key), and now they don't match! So it will not let me release the new version! I've gotten onto Ouya support so hopefully they can help me with this.

Kilgore__Trout

Congratulations, must feel nice to get it released! Will give it a try later on.

witnessmenow

I put Soc-Car up on indiedb.com and uploaded the jar file for the PC version

I cant link to it as its blocked in work, but just search for soc-car and it should be there!

I think it should be this:
www.moddb.com/games/soc-car/downloads/soc-car-v20

Kilgore__Trout

DL doesn't seem to be available right now. Are you getting many downloads on goggle play with the world cup on the horizon?

witnessmenow

Kilgore__Trout wrote: »

DL doesn't seem to be available right now. Are you getting many downloads on goggle play with the world cup on the horizon?

Hey,

Was in Cuba for a couple of weeks so was not able to keep tabs on things with limited internet access.

Its doing pretty good on the Ouya, with around 500 downloads, 70+ reviews and an average of 4 stars.

On the play store its not doing as well, with 37 downloads, but only 16 keeping it installed.

PC has about 20 downloads.

I got a kindle Fire TV brought back from the US by one of my friends, im going to try port it over to that this week. Hopefully there is not too much work involved.

I'm going to try do a bit of work on improving the menus this week too.

witnessmenow

Will be pushing an update later, tonight hopefully.

Main changes are the menus





I've also added the option for a random pitch and to modify the ball speed.

Kindle Fire TV Version is hopefully ready to go too, so hopefully I can push it to that this evening as well. It should work on the Kindle Fire Tablets as well, so I will try push it to them too.

I'm also going to try push a change to LibGDX, they having a mapping file for the Ouya, and I was going to add one for the FireTV. It's only something small, but hopefully someone finds it useful

Mr. CooL ICE

I downloaded this on my stock S3 for a try. A couple of points in order that I found them:

1) Some "back" button or way of pausing the game is needed. Too often I have hit the return button on the phone and exited the game, having to start again.
2) Typo for confirm button in Ready To Start dialog
3) Personally, I would prefer to have the options in an option section rather than between the team selection and the actual game. It's a better UX to have as few button taps between starting the app and playing.
4) I managed to play a game with no cars on the pitch. I selected 0 bots, so I'm left with a pitch with a countdown timer and nothing happening. Then Golden Goal. Then nothing.
5) After hitting the return button and inadvertently leaving the game, it crashed when I tried to open it again. This happened a few times.
6) Not sure how I did it, but I got to a situation where the "back" button in the team selection doesn't initially do anything. I hit "confirm" and it confirmed the 1st team, and I was able to un-confirm it by hitting "back" but then nothing happened after that. So i got stuck where I had to kill the app and start again.
7) I actually couldn't figure out how to play a game. All I could manage was to let two teams of bots go at it while I sat and watched. This was in both the exhibition and cup modes.

I don't mean to sound harsh, but from about 15 mins of playing about, it still needs a ton of work. The menu system IMO needs a complete reworking as I managed to 'break' it a few times without trying. I can't comment on the gameplay as I didn't even get to experience that aspect of it. It might be my phone specifically, but I'm not using anything unusual.

Let me know if you want me to elaborate on any points above.

witnessmenow

LordChessington wrote: »

I downloaded this on my stock S3 for a try. A couple of points in order that I found them:

1) Some "back" button or way of pausing the game is needed. Too often I have hit the return button on the phone and exited the game, having to start again.
2) Typo for confirm button in Ready To Start dialog
3) Personally, I would prefer to have the options in an option section rather than between the team selection and the actual game. It's a better UX to have as few button taps between starting the app and playing.
4) I managed to play a game with no cars on the pitch. I selected 0 bots, so I'm left with a pitch with a countdown timer and nothing happening. Then Golden Goal. Then nothing.
5) After hitting the return button and inadvertently leaving the game, it crashed when I tried to open it again. This happened a few times.
6) Not sure how I did it, but I got to a situation where the "back" button in the team selection doesn't initially do anything. I hit "confirm" and it confirmed the 1st team, and I was able to un-confirm it by hitting "back" but then nothing happened after that. So i got stuck where I had to kill the app and start again.
7) I actually couldn't figure out how to play a game. All I could manage was to let two teams of bots go at it while I sat and watched. This was in both the exhibition and cup modes.

I don't mean to sound harsh, but from about 15 mins of playing about, it still needs a ton of work. The menu system IMO needs a complete reworking as I managed to 'break' it a few times without trying. I can't comment on the gameplay as I didn't even get to experience that aspect of it. It might be my phone specifically, but I'm not using anything unusual.

Let me know if you want me to elaborate on any points above.

Hey, thanks for taking the time play but more importantly to reply! Very useful information. So I guess lets get into it:

1) Yup agreed, will add in the next version.
2) Eugh, I can not type or spell, fixed. Will be in the next version.
3) I agree starting the game should be as few taps as possible, but you do not need to change any options? You can just start the game as soon as you get to that page.
4) Eugh, a bad one. Will fix in the next build.
5) Will look into this
6) Will try reproduce this and look into it
7) This is obviously the one that concerns me the most but i'm not sure how to improve it. At the team select screen (the one with the 8 white cars), To join a team you have to drive into one of the coloured areas at the side. But you would have been presented with this screen:



I would have thought it was fairly clear from the message what the player needs to do, but obviously its not. Can you remember how you interpreted that message or did you not see it? (I'm not trying to sound mean, I'm trying to understand what I can do to improve it). I could not allow the user to start a game without joining a team, but I wanted to leave the option open of simulating matches (betting tips for the world cup anyone?!). I guess I can put in a warning on the AI adding screen that there is no human players maybe. Any suggestions?

Mr. CooL ICE

Just got that and played around for a few minutes. Feckin Chile beat me 6-1. Actual gameplay is difficult but good fun.

Regarding the team picking, it wasn't immediately obvious, but then again I was just skimming through the menus and not reading them 100% thoroughly. I think I briefly interpreted that screen as being another tutorial-type screen that was telling me about controls. I think I assumed I would be picking my team later on and it was telling me how to do that. I would recommend changing that screen to something as simple as "choose left or right".

For mobile games, you have to remember that the majority of people will be playing when they whip their phone out on the bus, on the toilet or in a waiting room. Although you don't have to change any options and can just tap Start or Confirm, you still have to make more taps than most other pick-up-and-play games. Take Flappy Bird (!!!) for example; after opening the app, it's Start -> Tap When Ready. Two taps to begin. Temple Run; from the first menu, you hit Play and that's it. One tap. Soc-car is obviously not as simple as these, but it IMO would be played by the same demographic, which is why I suggested changing the menu system.

I'm in work, but will try to make some suggestions later on.

witnessmenow

LordChessington wrote: »

Just got that and played around for a few minutes. Feckin Chile beat me 6-1. Actual gameplay is difficult but good fun.

Regarding the team picking, it wasn't immediately obvious, but then again I was just skimming through the menus and not reading them 100% thoroughly. I think I briefly interpreted that screen as being another tutorial-type screen that was telling me about controls. I think I assumed I would be picking my team later on and it was telling me how to do that. I would recommend changing that screen to something as simple as "choose left or right".

For mobile games, you have to remember that the majority of people will be playing when they whip their phone out on the bus, on the toilet or in a waiting room. Although you don't have to change any options and can just tap Start or Confirm, you still have to make more taps than most other pick-up-and-play games. Take Flappy Bird (!!!) for example; after opening the app, it's Start -> Tap When Ready. Two taps to begin. Temple Run; from the first menu, you hit Play and that's it. One tap. Soc-car is obviously not as simple as these, but it IMO would be played by the same demographic, which is why I suggested changing the menu system.

I'm in work, but will try to make some suggestions later on.

Chile are a top top side :P

So one thing that makes the development a little more complicated is realistically this started out as a console game. After I added bots I said I'd throw together a really rough touch screen controls so I could show people the game on my phone. And it ended up it was pretty fun on the phone too so I kept it as a target.

So the game and flow needs to work with both controllers and touch screens. Now I have the ability to send touch devices to one screen and controllers to another for menus, but I would prefer to keep the flow relatively common.

While the Android store is obviously a much larger potential target audience than the Ouya store or the FireTV, the game is best played multi player, something that without networking isn't going to happen on the phone (kinda, it still supports controllers on phones).

Yeah good point about the quickness, I do want to keep the flexibility for normal matches, but a "Quick Start" option might be useful: 1v1, Random countries, default options.

This screen has been a small bit of a disaster ever since I started, the though process behind rather than doing something like Fifa is:

• People would need to have a general idea of how to control the car before they started the game
• Its not a set amount of players per team (although the fifa thing would work)
• Something different

I think I can make it work, and it would be something a little more unique, but I haven't gotten in there yet anyways.

Yeah maybe a tutorial screen with a "check here to not show again" option with a few pictures of a car driving into the area would probably help. Or maybe even put a comic strip up the top showing a car driving into the area, with the text would work.

Cheers for the advice!

In other news I made a trailer last night

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFS9oL_oJfQ

I spelt "divided" wrong, so need to fix that. But I'm actually reasonably happy with it considering I had never made a video before!

witnessmenow

Did some work on the game over the weekend, set about addressing these issues.

LordChessington wrote: »

1) Some "back" button or way of pausing the game is needed. Too often I have hit the return button on the phone and exited the game, having to start again.

Back button is now caught and behaves like an action by the user (soccer screen it will pause it, menu screens it will act like a cancel press etc)

LordChessington wrote: »

2) Typo for confirm button in Ready To Start dialog

Fixed

LordChessington wrote: »

3) Personally, I would prefer to have the options in an option section rather than between the team selection and the actual game. It's a better UX to have as few button taps between starting the app and playing.

Have not changed anything yet, its still on my todo list. Going to add an advanced options button to hide some of the less used ones. Still want to add a Quick Start option on main menu.

LordChessington wrote: »

4) I managed to play a game with no cars on the pitch. I selected 0 bots, so I'm left with a pitch with a countdown timer and nothing happening. Then Golden Goal. Then nothing.

It is now not possible to start a game with no players on both teams. You will get a warning if there are players only on one team.

LordChessington wrote: »

5) After hitting the return button and inadvertently leaving the game, it crashed when I tried to open it again. This happened a few times.

As above the back button is handled, but I also have a try catch block around the code that was crashing before, so even in the same scenario it doesnt crash now.

LordChessington wrote: »

6) Not sure how I did it, but I got to a situation where the "back" button in the team selection doesn't initially do anything. I hit "confirm" and it confirmed the 1st team, and I was able to un-confirm it by hitting "back" but then nothing happened after that. So i got stuck where I had to kill the app and start again.

Have done some work on this screen, need to do some more testing of scenarios later

LordChessington wrote: »

7) I actually couldn't figure out how to play a game. All I could manage was to let two teams of bots go at it while I sat and watched. This was in both the exhibition and cup modes.

Changed the team select screen to be more like a Fifa. You will get a warning if you try start a game without human players.

Will do some more testing on everything this evening and hopefully push to the store.

witnessmenow

Pushed the updated version to Play Store, Ouya and Amazon last night.

Play Store version is live now.

Expect the Ouya version to probably come later today/tomorrow

Amazon around 3 days I think. (if it gets approved!)


This update mainly deals with the issues LordChessington reported and some other bug fixes:

• Replaced the side selection screen with something simpler (so hopefully easier to use). New way of choosing sides, new validation of how many playing, new way of refering to AI players.
• The back button on phones is now handled as a button press in the game, so if you accidentally press it wont get out of the game
• Flukely as a result of the above fix, pressing the home button and returning to the game doesnt restart the game. You will be brought back to where you left off
• You can now go back to previous menu screens without restarting the game.
• Fixed a bug where controllers would only work if they were turned on while the game was started

I would really love some feedback on the new team select screen. Bug fixes I can test, but something where I am trying to make it easier for users I can't really. Is it more intuitive than it was before?

witnessmenow

So im looking to make some more changes to that screen!

So currently you move a car left and right, it seems to be a little confusing so I am now going to use a controller icon. And there is only going to be controller icons for detected controllers (so if only one controller there will only be one icon)





When you press A or start (confirm on touch screens) you will see this screen. The controllers will now be cars with the same identifier beneath them and additional cars added will be displayed also




I have also stripped all non essential game options to an advanced options screen so the new options screen looks like this:



While the advanced screen now looks like this:




Any comments or suggestions on them?

Call Me Jimmy

Just saw this man I'll check it out later this evening and give feedback. Exciting stuff!

The UI graphics look very good, did you do them yourself?

witnessmenow

Call Me Jimmy wrote: »

Just saw this man I'll check it out later this evening and give feedback. Exciting stuff!

The UI graphics look very good, did you do them yourself?

Nope, thankfully I do very little when it comes to creation of graphics, as I really suck at it!

(I can't link to anything as sites are blocked in work)

The button images are by kenney.nl, they are also available at opengameart.org. I think they look really nice, the menus look so much better since I started using them.

The controller Icon is from opengameart.org too, not sure who though.

Cars, backgrounds, pitches (other than the grey one, that's my handy work) and basically everything else is by the game's artist Andy. To be honest I'm very fortunate with the arrangement we have. He is a brother of a friend from work. We met at the first game craft when he was working with his brother's team and have been working on bits and pieces since. Andy, like myself, is doing it for the hobby of it so it's a massive advantage to have really decent looking art without having to worry about licenses, payment etc. When I work on art myself it takes away from programming time and I would never be able to create anything on par with his work so its great to have him on board!

Mr. CooL ICE

Sorry, been busy lately and haven't played it much, but just got the new version there. The menu systems are much better and straight forward and the pause function works perfectly. Haven't been able to break the menu system (yet!). Two things though:

1) Hitting the home button mid game minimises the game and opening the game again returns you immediately to the match. However, IMO it would be better if it would return you to the game in a game paused state rather than in the middle of the game. Most other games do this.
2) Hitting the screen lock button mid-game loses the game. When you unlock the screen, you are returned to the main menu. IMO, behaviour should be the same as 1) above.