iOS game in store

I decided to release an app to the iTunes store(it's something I've been meaning to do since...well, since I became a developer a few years ago).  It's a matching game I made to try out the iOS SpriteKit.  Previously I had just used core animation and GLkit(or did it in Unity), I had set up a library that let me do most of the same things, but it's nice to have a fully functional native option for 2D games.

That being said, if anyone has a toddler it would be a great for them. 

The code for a basic version of the game is available on my bitbucket and github accounts.



https://github.com/milam/IOSGameSample

And the actual game is available at:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pet-rescue-adoption-center/id888264230?mt=8

I really need to figure out a better name =/.  And I need to find decent open source animal sounds.

Codemancer

Here's a kickstarter I noticed for a great game that is geared toward teaching coding skills in an abstract way:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bobbylox/codemancer-a-fantasy-game-that-teaches-the-magic-o?ref=home_spotlight

CSS

After doing some work on a webpage of mine, I browsed around to find some more esoteric properties of CSS.  During that search I came across this nice list:

http://www.webcredible.com/blog-reports/css/css-tricks.shtml

I already knew some of it, but the ones I didn't were pretty nifty

SleepyDEV

SleepyDev, a company I'm doing work for finally launched a site over at sleepydev.net.

They are a unity shop that does prototypes for Kickstarter projects, and also work on some minor full game projects as well meant for licensing and rebranding.  If anyone needs a service like that, you should check them out.

Just a quick note

 Procedural platformer levels seem to be a thing in some circles.  I came across this decent rundown for creating the AI and I'll probably be putting together some code for a simple one soon. 

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/170049/how_to_make_insane_procedural_.php?print=1

A game released last year that made use of it to a challenging level is Cloudberry Kingdom.

Interesting kickstarter

 I browse around kickstarter occasionally looking for potential useful tools.  Recently I discovered this typefacing program in development, Prototypo:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/599698621/prototypo-streamlining-font-creation?ref=discovery

I think this could be a pretty amazing tool for UI design work, and I'll be keeping an eye on it.  It's definitely got 12 pounds from me.

Parallax Scrolling class.

 In my pursuit for getting all my errant scripts in to proper classes I went to some of the basic operations.  In this one, it was the parallax scrolling standard for 2D platformers and fighting games.  The class takes two background objects and scrolls their texture material depending on the players movement.  It requires a velocity property from the character, and the class method should be called from the player class, or some other attached script that has a regularly updated reference to the players actual velocity.

For anyone new to parallax scrolling in unity, all you do is setup two game objects such as cubes or quads away from your main scene, separate them by one on the Z axis, set their shaders to unlit transparent, and then place a camera of the same aspect ratio as your main camera, and then set the camera the same distance from the cubes as the distance from you main camera to main scene.Then, set up public game object properties, drag the game objects to the reference in the UI, then in the main script take those game objects and pass them to the ParallaxCamera's ParallaxScroll method along with the player velocity.


using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections;

public class ParallaxCamera{
    private float moveParallax = 0;
    private float speed = 0;


    void setScrollSpeed(float setSpeed)
    {
        speed = setSpeed;
    }


    void ParallaxScroll(GameObject firstBackground, GameObject secondBackground, float velocitySpeed)
    {

        if(velocitySpeed != 0)
        {
            if(Input.GetAxis("Horizontal")>0){
                firstBackground.renderer.material.mainTextureOffset = new Vector2((moveParallax * speed)%1, 0f);

                secondBackground.renderer.material.mainTextureOffset = new Vector2((moveParallax * (speed/5.0f))%1, 0f);
                moveParallax+=.0005f;

            }else if(Input.GetAxis("Horizontal")<0 p="">            {
               firstBackground.renderer.material.mainTextureOffset = new Vector2(((speed*moveParallax)%1), 0f);

                secondBackground.renderer.material.mainTextureOffset = new Vector2((moveParallax * (speed/5.0f))%1, 0f);
                moveParallax-=.0005f;
               
            }else{
                return;
            }
            }
    }
    }
}

Again if anyone needs the working script opposed to this reference, there's one in my bitbucket repo, as usual.