Launch image and retina thingys

In preparation for releasing ZombieSquash on iPhone 3GS, 4/4S and 5 i have been making the different launch icons. This isnt really an interesting blog post (lets be honest, none of them are!!) but i thought i should at least document when i started to work with the retina display stuff and i created the launch screen, i do like the logo :) (check out my good friend Sam Canvin, the brilliant man who made this logo for more of his work).

Thats all for now!

ZS Dev Log: 25/05/2013

As i do, i continued an hour of work here or there on ZS.

I added this simple main menu (art 100% not final!) just to make the game a little easier to play and such. You'll see all the other buttons, but they dont do anything as of yet (and yes, the game will have ads, but only on the menu and pause screen, the app will be free and it will not interfere with gameplay).

Back to our main in game screen, i added a pause button (the buttons look is a bit bugged) which will bring you to a pause screen and pause the game.

This is a simple pause screen/game over screen i quickly designed, trying to keep to a similar style as the menu. If the game is over, the resume button is not available.

I still have a lot to do, but its moving along :)

TODO:
Add enemy death animations (code is there, just needs to be implemented)

Fix bugs (mostly the transparent buttons bug) and continue to optimise
Do not forget to continue to think about leaderboards

ZS Dev Log: 19/05/2013

Two days in a row!? Honestly im having just fun making the game so i just kept working.

Here is a screenshot of a game in its early stages. We see multiple zombies going down the screen all at the same pace. I added small health bar indicators to the enemies to show how many taps are required until the enemy is defeated.

This screen shows enemies of different health (and different speeds, but i cant really show that from a screenshot) all moving down towards the goal. The longer the game is played the more variation (and the more difficult) enemy spawning will be.


With the basics of the game at an ok level, i feel i should make at least some sort of menu.
TODO:
Make a simple menu with an image background and correct size buttons.
Try to optimise code for speed where possible (it runs great already, but i feel its always good to optimise as you go)
Think about leader board stuff, and a pause screen for the game.

ZS Dev Log: 18/05/2013

In my spare hours, ive been working on ZS! Woop.

At the moment, the game spawns enemies periodically while the animated enemies walk down the screen. You can tap the enemies to defeat them, and it can also be set how many taps are required to defeat each enemy. When an enemy is defeated the score increases.

If enemies manage to reach the bottom of the screen, your amount of lives will go down by one. Currently enemies walk down at the same pace and at the same time.

If all the lives have been lost, the game will currently boot you back to the menu screen. And you can start a new game if you wish.


TODO:
Add some variation in enemies
Add an increasing difficulty (maybe increased speed in enemies)
Add different enemies spawning styles.

ZS Dev Log: 08/05/2013

I had a spare couple of hours today, and i thought id do a bit of work on Zombie Squash! The screen shot shows basically something you could do in 2 mins, but the zombies and such have some functionality and code behind them (+ i thought it would be nice to upload early images, and when its finished, i can look back and laugh at myself)

Here we can see some zombies and the background. Currently the zombies are animated (i made it so every image can be animated, as all image views are added programmatically) and if tapped will die. I know, its AMAZINGLY basic, but i promise im doing something! The functions to move zombies as well as spawn them anywhere are all in place, and i should stress this is not the final artwork. There is also a menu screen, but all it has is a button to the game.

Next on my TODO list:
Fix any "basics" bugs (so basic functionality, such as movement and spawning)
Continue to play around with the taps to kill (currently there is a how many taps kill to zombie variable)

Make sure everything works fine!( So fix bugs again )
Maybe start on displaying the score on screen

Bézier and B-Spline implementations (in 3D!)

I thought i would upload a few screenshots of my work with creating patches/surfaces in 3D using both a Bézier and B-Spline solution.

Above is an overview of a simple 3D environment. The blue objects are created using a Bézier based implementation while the other objects use a B-Spline based solution. The lines in yellow represent my control points that are used to create the curves.

The Bézier based implementation is a cubic and also deals with normal values, which you can see in the shading on the image above. These are obtained by doing a standard method of finding the tangents in both directions  and then getting the cross product of those two vectors. Higher "t" and "s" values would make the shading look more realistic.

The two B-Spline shapes do not have shading, but as you can see create quads on the patches correctly. The capsule model (in green) was drawing by entering control points myself, showing that any shape could really be drawn with ease as a quick demo of B-Spline curves and its C2 continuity.

I have done much more work in 3D graphics programming (particularly in OpenGL 3) which is more involved in the shading and lighting side of things. Maybe ill share more on some other projects i have done.