Bumper Kart Hockey… and more!
Bumper Kart Hockey has been submitted to the App Store! I’ve really enjoyed working on this game these past few months, and I’m looking forward to seeing it go live! While the app waits for Apple’s approval, I thought it would be interesting to share the roundabout way that this game came to be, and also give a preview of what’s coming in the future.
This all started because I saw a lack of fun kart-style battle games on iOS. There were plenty of racing games, but I wanted something with more direct interaction between players, like the classic Mario Kart Battle Mode. I wanted something casual but competitive that anyone could pick up and immediately enjoy playing. I had an idea for a “king of the hill” type of game where the primary interaction between players would be bumping their cars into each other. Each car would be disc shaped and the physics would be extremely dynamic, akin to driving around inside a pinball machine. Players would zip around the arena, bumping into obstacles and trying to knock each other out of the “hill”, designated by a small circle on the floor which moved every 30 seconds. It quickly dawned on me that I could create lots of different game types based around the same bumper car free-for-all concept, and that it would be a fun way to do a casual kart game! Bumper Karts!
“King of the Hill”
After lots of work (and several helpful tutorials on box2d physics and peer-to-peer networking), I had a prototype of my bumper car idea, with “king of the hill” plus four additional game modes. One of the game modes I implemented was “hockey”. Trying to create a 4 player free-for-all hockey game was… interesting. In my version, players earned a point by being the last to touch the puck before it went in an opponent’s goal, and they lost a point for knocking the puck into their own goal. After playtesting with friends, it was clear that my hockey mode didn’t really cut it as a 4 player game. But, with only 2 players, it worked beautifully!
That’s when a new product strategy clicked. I knew that my biggest risk was that I could spend a considerable amount of time building a large multiplayer game, and then not attract enough players to reach the critical mass necessary for online play. I decided, then, to build a smaller game first, focusing on one game type (hockey), optimized for 2 player matches. And, I would ensure that this game would be fun to play offline by including computer (AI) opponents. I would later add timed “challenge” modes, with leaderboards that allowed for asynchronous competition.
Finishing Bumper Kart Hockey took longer than expected, as it almost always does, but I’m really proud of the result. I was able to integrate some great features, including MFi game controller support, and video replays via Everyplay. Below is a replay of one of my matches against the “Hard” AI. You can watch more clips that my friends and I have already shared by going here.
My long term plan is to develop a Bumper Kart “brand” by releasing more Bumper Kart apps featuring other game types. Until I have a large enough player base, I plan to stick with game types that don’t require more than two players to be fun. I haven’t decided for sure what game I’ll do next. I’m leaning toward a Bumper Kart racing game, where the races are short sprints, on narrow tracks full of crazy obstacles. I’m excited to start working on it, and I expect development to go much faster this time around. For now, though, I’ll be focusing on a successful launch of Bumper Kart Hockey, vanguard of the Bumper Kart franchise!
Announcing: Bumper Kart Hockey!
Air hockey + bumper cars = crazy fun competition action, and it’s coming soon to the App Store!
Today, I’m excited to announce my upcoming release, Bumper Kart Hockey! I’ve shifted gears a bit with this game. Instead of turn-based multiplayer, this one has live, real-time action. It has intuitive tilt controls for steering, and gameplay is fast, exciting, and unpredictable!
I’ll be putting the final touches on Bumper Kart Hockey in the next few days, and I expect it to be available for download by early August! For now, here are a couple of screenshots –
Rotex now available on the App Store
Just a quick update to announce that Rotex, my new abstract strategy game, is live on the iOS App Store! Check out the Rotex game page for more info, or jump straight over to the app store and download it now! Did I mention that it’s free?
Coming Soon: Rotex
Yesterday, I put the finishing touches on my newest creation, Rotex, a two-player board game that is simple yet challenging. If you enjoy the game Pentago, you’ll like this one too. The rules are similar: the goal is to connect five in a row, and each turn you will place a tile on the board and rotate one of the sub-boards. But, unlike Pentago, the board is hexagonal, the sub-boards overlap each other, and you are only allowed to rotate one direction: clockwise. This leads to some interesting and surprising strategies. I’m excited to see how people like this game. I expect to release it in about one week, as long as I don’t run into any snags during the App Store approval process.
Five-O Deluxe for the Mac is live!
Get Five-O Deluxe for Mac OS X
The Mac version of Five-O is now available on the Mac App Store! If you’ve played the iPad version, the Mac version will look very familiar. It has all the same features, including Game Center support for online multiplayer. Game Center is cross-compatible between iOS and the Mac, so you can play against anyone, and, if you have both versions, your own online matches will be synced across all your devices!
Five-O Deluxe will run on just about any Mac running Lion (10.7) or later. Online matches require Mountain Lion (10.8) or later.
A look back and a look forward
Last week marked the third anniversary of the release of Five-O on the App Store! The game has come a long way in three years. It started out as an iPad-only app, with no online multiplayer, and only one (way too difficult) computer opponent. With support and feedback from all the fans of Five-O, I’ve been able to develop the game into a what it is today, and I’m thrilled to see that the latest update has a solid 5 star rating with over 100 reviews.
Here are some more of my favorite metrics:
- Five-O has been downloaded over 110,000 times since its release
- Over 200,000 online matches have been completed
- Over 3.4 MILLION matches versus the computer have been completed
So… what’s next?
My next project is bringing Five-O to the Mac App Store. Since Game Center now supports cross-platform online matches between Mac OS X and iOS, I can finally bring all the features from the iOS version to the Mac with relative ease. What’s the advantage of playing on a Mac instead of your smartphone or tablet? None really, but I’m hoping to reach another audience, and maybe find some popularity in an App Store that has far less competition. I’ve already made a lot of progress on the Mac version of Five-O, and I hope to have it in the Mac App Store by Christmas.
While I’m happy to keep developing and supporting Five-O, three years is a long time to go without designing something entirely new. Realizing that, I decided to challenge myself to develop a new game too! My constraints were that it had to be a two-player, competitive, turn-based game. Staying within these constraints would allow me to leverage a lot of the code I’ve written for Five-O, using it as a solid foundation for things like online multiplayer. So far, I’m still in the early design stage, but I have one prototype that looks very promising. It’s an abstract strategy game that is similar to Pentago. I don’t have a release date for this one yet, but I will keep you posted!
Five-O is now Universal!
I recently released an update to Five-O which adds support for playing on the iPhone and iPod Touch. The new pocket sized version has a redesigned interface that lets you use pinch gestures to zoom in and out on the game board. All the same game types are supported, including online multiplayer. So, if you know any board game lovers who have iPhones, now’s your chance to challenge them to an online match of Five-O!
Five-O now has Online Multiplayer!
The most requested feature for Five-O over the last year, and the one I was most excited about adding, was the ability to play online. I wanted to make sure it was done right, and that there would be enough people playing to make it easy to find an opponent. Well, I’m happy to announce that, as of last Wednesday, online multiplayer for Five-O is here! It uses the brand new turn-based multiplayer capabilities in Game Center. This is one of the new features of iOS 5 that didn’t get a lot of publicity. Turn-based gaming has already been extremely popular in mobile games like Words with Friends and Carcassonne, because it’s such a convenient way to play board games and other games with asynchronous competitive gameplay. By adding support for it to Game Center, Apple made it easier than ever for developers to add this feature to their games. It’s easy for the players too, since all it requires is an internet connection and a Game Center account which most people already have.
The nice thing about turn-based multiplayer is that not all players need to be present in a game at the same time. That makes it ideal for multi-taskers. After finishing your turn, you can leave the game to do something else, and the match will go on without you. When it’s your turn again, you will receive a notification to come back and play your turn. This also allows you to play in lots of different matches at the same time.
To try out online multiplayer in Five-O, you’ll need to be running iOS 5 on your iPad. As some people have recently discovered, if you’re not running iOS 5, and you try to download this version of Five-O, you’ll get an error saying the app is incompatible with your device. If you see that, don’t worry. It just means you need to update your iPad through iTunes on your computer.
I am looking forward to many challenging matches against you guys. Watch for my username, “CodeVandal”. So far only two people have managed to beat me. 🙂
Announcing the CodeVandal Development Blog
Here you’ll be able to read about my current projects and get sneak peaks at upcoming features and new games. I’ll start by sharing my experiences developing the games I’ve already released.