New HUD Layout

As you are about to see, I changed the layout of the HUD around, there were several reasons for it, I'm not saying this new one is perfect, but it definitely has some advantages.

Let me explain the different sections:

1) Timer placement

As you may notice, the timer is now on the bottom part of the screen, right below the bear, the reason for this is that the other timer was out of the field of view of the player. It use to take too much time to try and look at the corner, so much that I never even looked at it. Remember that the function of the HUD is to provide information to the player, so if it is not doing it's job then it is wrong.

For this reason I made sure the player would not have to add any extra effort to try and look at the timer, now when you play it is really simple to look how much time you have left.

2) Box size and placement

The old version seemed too clustered to me, there was literately no space for anything else, that is why I decided to reduce the size of it. When I did, I noticed that the game was too unbalanced, some boxes where too far to the right and it made the gameplay uncomfortable, that is why I decided to move two of the boxes to the other side, There is still a weird unbalance but I am not sure what to do about it. But this new placement definitely helps the quickness of the game, now it is much easier to play (is that a good thing?).

3) Money?
I Decided that a good incentive to playing the game is money, so now at the end of every level you will get money for the completed toys. I am thinking about not only using that as points, but maybe giving the user an option to buy something. How about being able to buy longer times? or maybe already completed toys? Or more Thumbs? I think that could work!

4) Thumbs?
The three thumbs on the top left are your "lives" every time you lose on a stage you lose one of these, once you lose the three thumbs then you get fired. I didn't want to use hearts as the symbol for lives because it kind of gives out a wrong message, it would be basically saying that if you do your job wrong they are going to beat you up, and that is not exactly what I want to communicate with this game.

So close, yet so far......

This is a crucial point in Game Development, it is the moment that separates good games from bad ones.

One could get the idea that I am almost done with the project, all the components are in, and the player can clearly lose or win, with a title screen that should be all.....

well.... not exactly, the truth is that this is probably closer to the midpoint of the project, even though the gameplay is there, now it is important to wrap it around a great User Interface.

In this moment I like to think about when ever I start a new game, I am completely clueless on what to do, a good design will lead me through it nicely, without me having to get too frustrated, this is why it is important to think how to present this idea to the user, it needs to be quick and effective.

Here is a current task list:
1) Make a results screen.
2) Make and Play 2 different levels that use a system to get created.
3) Work on the HUD so that all the information is understandable
4) How to play screens....
5) Menus
6) Loading Screen
7) Testing levels
8) Adding details.

Gameplay Done

Basic gameplay is finished, at this point you have a fixed timer that when it runs out it takes the toy away, if you have the toy complete then it gives you the good mark (shown on the bears at the top), if you don't have it complete then the bear will look red.

Starting to take shape

You can now start to see the game being born, the main elements are in, the timer, the picking, the placing and the check for good build, here is the current swf:




As for now the next step is the part were there has to be a fix number of toys to build and then every time the timer ends it gets checked and tallied. Also I need to think of a way to make the levels, at the moment the values are fixed (although they are set up so that I can easily apply a system).

The Timer

The next part is the timer, this is going to count down and when it is over it will take the toy away.

For timers I have always liked circles, but if you think about it, it is weird to make it on flash, Bars are pretty simple because you create two frames, one with no color and one with color and then with the shape tween the program puts all the frames in between. The image below only has 10 frames, the actual one has 100, but this is for demonstration.

The problem here is that it is a circular growing object, so tweening doesn't work. So the only option is to create frame by frame the different sections of the circle, or is it?

I have designed a much more efficient method, it requires 4 halves and it enables the use of tweening by flash, below you can see the layers on how they are distributed.

Let me explain it for a second, as you may know, the higher the layer the more it is visible, so in this case, The Right Front will cover all the other halves. Now to animate what we do is rotate the Top right first (clockwise for 180 degrees), at that point it will be completely on top of the Left Front, because they are the same color we can't actually notice they are one on top of the other. then at that point we take that half out, and we start rotating the Left Front, this half will seem like shrinking because it will be behind the Right Back layer.

Placement Test

The next component developed was the placement. for this part I added 5 points where the objects can be placed. You can see the points represented by the green dots.

In Code these points will check for collision with the mouse, and if they collided then it would check to see if the part was already there, if it wasn't then it changes to the frame that has it and makes the game check for collision, it also gets rid of the object from the hand so that it seems like it placed it. Remember that there is not a separate object to remove from the hand, it simply changes to the frame that doesn't have any objects.

here is the code for that part:

if(this.placed == false && mainStage.cursor.objectName == this.name)
{
mainStage.cursor.gotoAndStop("hand");
this.gotoAndStop(1);
mainStage.CheckWin();
}

This is the swf file.

Picking up Objects

As mentioned before, the first step was to make the objects selectable from the boxes, in order to do this there is the image of the 5 different choices the player has, and there is also a collision box for each of them.


In code , the way this is going to work is as follows:
1) Check collision with boxes
2) if collided then each box changes the hand movie clip to one that has itself in it. each box contains a variable called objectName, and this variable is the one that has the different options.
3) the mouse changes frame and it gives the illusion that it picked up an object from the box.





This is the swf file.

Coding the game

Thinking of the game, there are several modules that need to be developed.

here is a list I am thinking of right now:

1. Picking objects up and placing them.
2. Building the toy and getting the computer to realize it.
3. Timer for releasing the toy
4. animations for the toy getting in and out
5. Counting good/bad toys.
6. results screens
7. ramping up difficulty.

My idea now is to create small apps to help me develop these parts and then I can put them together.

First things first

Before actually just jumping into the game, I need to sit down and think all the things I need to do. At the moment I already have the idea of the game, it is going to be a place where you need to build toys (I am thinking of using the company Bear).

I can make this a time challenged game, were you only have a few amount of seconds to actually complete the toy. When the timer is done, the toy will be shipped out to a kid.

Right now I'm thinking of Taco Joe, one of the best online games ever! (not really, but it brings back great memories). In that game you where a taco maker employer. you would have to put all the ingredients and send it to a costumer.


at the end of each stage you needed to have a certain percentage of good tacos in order to move on. And that is what I'm thinking for the game, lets say that during the first stage you get 10 toys and you need to complete at least 7.

And as you move through stages the timer for the toys gets lower (so you need to complete the toys quicker) and the amount of toys you can get wrong decreses. If you fail to complete the challenge you get one strike, after 3 strikes, you lose the game.

Project Toy Studio

Today I got an e-mail from a company called Toy Studio, located in Chicago. This company works on social games, currently they have a game called Killer Toon, and a new game called Pet Rescue.



You must be wondering why I am sharing this with you, the reason for it is that I have decided to make a game about this Toy Studio.

Everything started when I read this line of text from the Job Posting "If you're passionate about your work, want to innovate, and work in an exciting and unique environment look no further." This sentence just clicked with me, for some reason I felt like this company is a cool place to work at. I love making games, and there is nothing better about making games than working with people that love making games.

So after reading the Job Post I decided to give it a try, but for some reason I kept going back to that sentence, how can I show them that I am a passionate innovative developer? well after giving it a lot of thought I decided to make a game, and while I am at it, I will blog about it.

Thanks, and I hope you like the game.